International News

  The Hague / AFP Dutch authorities said on Tuesday they have suspended plans to sue the US makers of Pokemon Go after the company deleted its virtual pets from a protected beach in The Hague. The so-called Pokestops and Pokegyms, which attract Pokemon and allow players to buy accessories to capture, treat and train the virtual monsters, “have been ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Sentiment among investors in Germany sharply improved this month from its post-Brexit doldrums, data showed on Tuesday, but analysts warned against overconfidence. The ZEW economic institute’s headline investor confidence index hit 6.2 points in October, an increase of 5.7 points over September and beating the 4.0 points analysts surveyed by Factset had predicted. Sentiment had hovered ...

  Geneva / AFP The UN health agency on Tuesday urged countries to start taxing sugary beverages as they fight against an obesity epidemic, pointing to evidence that price hikes can dramatically reduce consumption. The World Health Organization’s recommendations on sweetened beverages came as the world seeks to bring down whopping obesity rates, with one in three adults overweight. “There ...

  The US government reiterated its request that construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota be paused, while authorities consider the impacts of its route on a Native American tribe. The Dakota Access Pipeline has been the subject of a months-long protest, in which Native Americans and their supporters have camped out in the state’s prairie lands to block ...

  Bloomberg UK government proposals to make companies list their foreign workers would harm the economy because they are “anti-business and dangerously naive,” more than 100 leaders of small and medium-sized businesses said in a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “The ability to hire both British and non-British people has historically helped business grow by bringing in varied skills ...

  Bloomberg European Union policy makers aren’t attempting to read anything into signals sent by Theresa May and the rest of the U.K. government on Britain’s future relationship with the bloc and are just waiting for an official communication, an EU Commission vice president said. “The European Commission will probably not be interpreting the U.K. government,” Valdis Dombrovskis said in ...

  Stockholm / AFP British-American economist Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom of Finland on Monday won the Nobel Economics Prize for their work on contract theory, the jury said. “This year’s laureates have developed contract theory, a comprehensive framework for analysing many diverse issues in contractual design, like performance-based pay for top executives, deductibles and co-pays in insurance, and the ...

  Bloomberg German chemicals firm Bayer said on Monday it would not introduce genetically modified crops in Europe after its gigantic takeover of US seed and pesticide producer Monsanto. “We aren’t taking over Monsanto to establish GM plants in Europe,” chief executive Werner Baumann told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. “Some people think it might be easier for us than for ...

  Berlin / AFP Booming exports pumped up Germany’s trade surplus in August, as calls grow for Europe’s largest economy to use the cash it brings in to nurture growth. Firms exported 102.3 billion euros ($114.3 billion) of goods in August 2016 adjusting for seasonal and calendar effects, the federal statistics office Destatis said. That was an increase of 5.4 ...

  Beijing / AFP Chinese internet billionaire Jack Ma has bought a stake in cinema legend Steven Spielberg’s company, they said, the latest tie-up between China and Hollywood as they seek to make movies for audiences in the Middle Kingdom and beyond. Alibaba Pictures, a unit of Ma’s sprawling e-commerce conglomerate, has taken a minority shareholding in Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, ...