International News

Bloomberg The UK said it will spend 1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) on developing the most powerful weather and climate supercomputer in the world. The programme aims to improve weather and climate modelling by the government forecaster, the Met Office, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said in a statement on Monday. The machine will replace the UK’s existing supercomputer, which is ...

Bloomberg UK consumers will face higher prices on goods coming from the European Union (EU) after Brexit, whether Boris Johnson signs a free trade agreement with the bloc or not, according to a major business group. Products imported from the EU after January 1 2021 will require customs declarations, which cost between 16 pounds ($21) and 56 pounds per product ...

Bloomberg General Motors Co will leave Australia, New Zealand and Thailand by year-end as it exits poor-performing markets and focuses on new technologies such as self-driving cars and electric vehicles. The largest US automaker will take $1.1 billion in charges mostly in the first quarter, of which $300 million is cash, to cover the costs of leaving those markets, it ...

Bloomberg China might have data and the US might have money, but Europe has purpose. That’s the message European Union tech czar Margrethe Vestager aims to convey on Wednesday when she unveils plans to help the bloc compete with the US and China’s technological might on its own terms, conforming with fundamental EU rights including strict privacy and non-discrimination rules. ...

Bloomberg Vodacom Group Ltd sees its African financial-services business as a cornerstone of growth as the wireless carrier expands into products such as funeral insurance and loans of as little as $2. The unit of the UK’s Vodafone Group Plc uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to customise its financial offering depending on the different needs of markets ranging from ...

Bloomberg Elon Musk’s first electric car plant in Europe is facing legal delays that could set the project back by several months after a court halted work on clearing a forest for the new Tesla Inc factory near Berlin while it considers a challenge by environmentalists. The Berlin-Brandenburg higher administrative court issued a temporary injunction against further logging, overturning a ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s top energy official said he’s confident that Russia won’t be able to complete the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea — and signalled that the US will press forward with its opposition to the project. Asked about Russian efforts to circumvent US sanctions on the pipeline by completing it on its own, US ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson’s regime change at the Treasury could herald yet more tweaks to the rules that keep Britain’s budgets in check. The shock resignation of Sajid Javid as chancellor of the exchequer last week robbed the new Conservative government of a fiscal hawk who moderated the big spending ambitions of the most powerful prime minister since Tony Blair. His ...

Bloomberg Alphabet Inc’s Google is in discussions with publishers about paying licensing fees to include excerpts of their articles in Google News search results. The early-stage talks are taking place primarily with French and other European publishers, and may not lead to any agreements, a person familiar with the matter said. A deal would apply only to news products like ...

Bloomberg A possible US-Kenya free-trade agreement could undermine an existing continent-wide commerce pact and limit Africa’s power to negotiate with the US. Washington announced on February 7 that it intended to start trade negotiations with Kenya. President Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t favour renewing the Africa Growth Opportunity Act, a trade deal under which 39 sub-Saharan African countries have duty-free access ...