International News

  Bloomberg Manhattan rents decreased in September, marking only the second time since February 2014 that median rents for the borough fell from a year earlier. That’s great if you’re single and earning $100,000 a year, or part of a household that spends $100,000 a year on rent. For everybody else in New York, the new rental market data, published ...

  Bloomberg Rebiotix Inc., a closely held biotechnology company, said its drug that restores beneficial gut bacteria was better than a placebo at keeping life-threatening intestinal infections from recurring in a human trial. Recurrences of infections with Clostridium difficile, a potentially deadly microbe that often attacks sick, hospitalized patients, were prevented in 63.9 percent of people who took the drug, ...

  Frankfurt / AFP There will still be more books than you could ever read, but visitors to this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair will also be invited to don virtual reality goggles, visit an interactive classroom and discover 3D-printed art as publishers plug into new technology. Organisers of the world’s largest publishing event say the focus on art and technology ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s heating season has started with a bang, as natural gas contracts reverse a two-year slump. Gas for next-day delivery in the UK is on its longest rising streak since at least 2007, when records of broker data compiled by Bloomberg began. The contract has added 23 percent this month, after rising 52 percent in September in the ...

  AFP China’s growth slipped to a seven-year low of 6.6 percent in the third quarter, according to a survey, despite ample stimulus and a red-hot property market in the world’s second-largest economy. The median forecast for expansion in gross domestic product (GDP), based on a poll of 18 economists, represents an easing from the second quarter’s 6.7 percent. It ...

  Bloomberg China will continue to relax policies designed to shrink its coal production capacity by allowing some mines to boost output to cool rising prices, according to Australia’s Whitehaven Coal Ltd. The world’s biggest producer and user of the fuel may increase the number of days of production allowed at “better mines” while limiting activity at less efficient ones, ...

  Bloomberg Zinc, this year’s best performing metal, has the potential to extend gains to the highest level since 2011 because of a shortfall in ore production, assuming that Glencore Plc doesn’t restart idled mines, according to Japan’s biggest producer. Prices could advance to $2,500 a metric ton by March because of “super tight” ore supply after companies cut output, ...

  Bloomberg China plans to plug a regulatory gap and begin overseeing low-speed electric vehicles used mainly in the country’s rural areas, legitimizing a market segment that dwarfs sales of regular battery-electric cars made by the likes of BYD Co. and Tesla Motors Inc. Under the current regulatory framework, there are no rules governing the production and sale of electric ...

  Bloomberg The world’s largest emerging markets must double trade between their countries in the next four years and unite to fight terrorist threats that hurt economic prosperity, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. Noting intra-BRICS trade was $250 billion, Modi said: “We should set ourselves a target to double this number to $500 billion by 2020”. The eighth annual ...

  AP Japan has withheld its annual UNESCO dues, saying it wants to make sure the UN body properly functions to foster trust among member nations. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, asked by a reporter, confirmed that Japan withheld dues of nearly 4 billion yen ($40 million) for this year. He refused to say if that was to protest UNESCO’s listing ...