International News

  AFP Chinese appliance giant Midea said on Monday it had secured almost 95 percent of German robotics firm Kuka, in the face of European fears over losing control over the high-tech company. The company already held 13.51 percent of Kuka — a world-leading manufacturer of industrial robots — before its June offer of 115 euros per share, which valued ...

  Bloomberg Bulgaria and Russia agreed to resurrect the canceled South Stream natural gas pipeline across the Black Sea and the Belene nuclear power plant as the Balkan country seeks to reduce payments over unfulfilled contracts awarded to Russia by international courts. Bulgaria and Russia agreed to set up working groups that will seek ways to resume work on the ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Tens of thousands of Delta Airlines passengers around the world were stranded on Monday by a computer outage that the company said had grounded all its flights. It blamed a power failure at its hub in Atlanta. “Delta has experienced a computer outage that has affected flights scheduled for this morning,” the company said in a ...

  Beijing / AFP China’s economy, the world’s second largest, struggled in July with a worse-than-expected trade performance as imports plunged 12.5 percent year-on-year, Customs said. Imports fell to $132.4 billion, data showed, as weaker global commodity prices and lacklustre domestic demand weighed on purchases. The drop in imports was significantly larger than expectations for a 7.0 percent fall, the ...

  Bloomberg South Korea’s credit rating was increased one level by Standard & Poor’s, which cited the nation’s steady economic performance, sound fiscal position and flexible fiscal and monetary policies for the improvement. S&P said it raised the long-term credit rating for South Korea to AA from AA- with a stable outlook, the agency’s third-highest rating. This follows an upgrade ...

  Bloomberg There’s a river of steel flooding from China despite the best efforts of governments around the world to dam the flow from the top producer, with data on Monday showing that overseas shipments held above 10 million tons in July. Sales increased 5.8 percent on-year to 10.3 million metric tons last month, compared with 10.9 million tons in ...

  BLOOMBERG India said it could raise as much as a record 5.56 trillion rupees ($83 billion) by auctioning mobile-phone airwaves later this year, about four times last year’s proceeds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to sell spectrum across seven wavelengths starting Sept. 29, India’s telecom Secretary J.S. Deepak told reporters in New Delhi on Monday. The estimates of ...

  AFP China’s wall of cotton is coming down. Once the world’s biggest grower of the crop, the country lost that crown to India in the season that just ended in July after depressed prices discouraged plantings. China’s sowings are set to drop again in the 12 months that started on Aug. 1, with harvested acres poised for the lowest ...

  Bloomberg Global investors can’t get enough of Taiwan. Overseas funds poured $5.4 billion into the island’s equities last month, taking inflows for the year to $11.6 billion and making Taiwan the most popular destination for investors among nine Asian markets tracked by Bloomberg. That’s helped send both the benchmark stock gauge and the currency to one-year highs. Fueling gains ...

  AFP When Indian artist Dattadri Kothur saw the pollution caused by an annual Hindu tradition of immersing elaborately decorated idols of the elephant-headed god Ganesha in the sea, he decided to do something about it. The 30-year-old has come up with an environmentally friendly alternative that will make its debut during this year’s festival in the western city of ...