International News

  Bloomberg South Africa delayed plans to build nuclear power plants as economic growth stalls, easing spending concerns as the country faces the risk of being cut to junk by credit-rating companies. The rand strengthened the most of major currencies against the dollar. The new timeline sees the first additional nuclear power plant coming on stream in 2037, compared with ...

  Bloomberg Edcon Holdings Ltd. returned to profit in the second quarter after debt repayment costs eased following the exit of US private equity firm Bain Capital, while South Africa’s biggest clothing retailer cleared unwanted stock to boost sales during the busy festive period. Net income for the three months through September was 163 million rand ($11.5 million), the Johannesburg-based ...

  New Delhi / AFP Ratings agency Fitch said Tuesday it would revise down its India growth forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2016 after the country’s shock move to pull most of its currency out of circulation. Fitch Ratings said the move, aimed at forcing Indians to declare their untaxed money, had created a cash crunch that “seems to ...

  Bloomberg A small Japanese company that specializes in rubber masks has been unable to deal with a sudden surge in demand for Donald Trump masks since his surprise victory in the US. presidential election on November 8. “We can’t keep up with demand—it will take us until mid-December to catch up with the orders we have now,” Takahiro Yagihara, ...

  Beijing / AFP German auto giant Daimler said on Tuesday it removed a top executive of its China trucks and buses unit, after his allegedly racist remarks in a parking row became national news. Rainer Gaertner, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks & Buses China, got into an argument with a local driver after seizing the parking spot he ...

  London / AFP Facebook on Monday became the latest US tech giant to announce new investment in Britain with hundreds of extra jobs but hinted its success depended on skilled migration after Britain leaves the European Union. The premier social network underlined London’s status as a global technology hub at a British company bosses’ summit where Prime Minister Theresa ...

  Bloomberg Hungary’s plan to cut its corporate tax rate to the lowest in the European Union from next year may spark a “race to the bottom” as its ex-communist peers look for ways to compensate investors for rising wages, according to BMI Research, a unit of Fitch Group. Wage pressures are set to intensify next year as central Europe ...

  PARIS / AFP Home sharing site Airbnb aims to extend its network of tax agreements to 700 cities by the end of next year, Monday’s Financial Times has quoted its chief executive as saying. The company has already clinched 200 tax agreements that allow it to collect and remit hotel taxes to local authorities, Brian Chesky told the newspaper. ...

  London / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May promised Monday to boost research investment as she sought to reassure business leaders nervous about the “cliff-edge scenario” of Britain leaving the European Union. May told a Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference that her government would invest an extra £2 billion a year ($2.5 billion, 2.3 billion euros) in science research ...

  London / AFP The British government announced fresh investment in research and development on Monday, ahead of the first post-Brexit budget which is expected to signal a move away from the previous administration’s rigid fiscal targets. The government will increase research and development spending worth £2 billion ($2.5 billion, 2.3 billion euros) annually until 2020, Prime Minister Theresa May’s ...