International News

Bloomberg Wildfires, smoke and drought are inflicting an increasingly painful toll on Indonesian agriculture, hurting everything from oil palm plantations to rubber trees and rice fields. Raging forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo may curb supplies of palm oil and rubber, while a longer than usual dry season in Java has wilted some of the country’s rice crop, which is ...

Bloomberg There’s nothing quite like a massive coal rail to demonstrate China’s loyalty to the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Almost a decade in the making, the nearly $30 billion Haoji Railway will start around the end of this month and eventually haul as much as 200 million tons from key producing regions in the north to consumers in the south. ...

Bloomberg The Port of Dover — through which a sixth of the UK’s trade in goods flows — can cope with any disruption thrown up by a no-deal Brexit, Chief Executive Officer Doug Bannister said, suggesting some of the direr predictions of chaos are wide of the mark. “The Port of Dover is 100 percent ready,” he said in an ...

Bloomberg A global effort to remove gastrointestinal medication tainted with a potential carcinogen from the market gained momentum, as one of India’s largest generic drugmakers halted shipments to customers worldwide and Italy ordered a recall of some medicine that originated in India. Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd said it is suspending all distribution of its ranitidine, the generic version of the ...

Bloomberg Google will invest 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) over the next two years to expand its server farms across Europe. The investments take its total spend on European data centers to 15 billion euros since 2007, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told reporters in Helsinki following a meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne. It’s also investing 1 ...

Bloomberg Australia will join the US on the mission to return to the lunar surface and then fly to Mars. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced his government will join the Moon-to-Mars project, including the NASA Artemis lunar program. Morrison pledged to more than triple the Australian Space Agency’s budget, according to a statement from NASA during Morrison’s US visit. The ...

Bloomberg The head of the United Nations said he believes the US can still pull its weight on climate change, even though President Donald Trump is skipping a UN climate summit on Monday and has worked to roll back restrictions on everything from vehicle to power plant emissions. Cities and businesses are helping fill part of the void left by ...

Bloomberg India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman defended her handling of the economy, following criticism on Twitter by a corporate leader on the lack of fiscal measures to support growth. “As Finance Minister — you might’ve observed — I’ve been working on and regularly speaking about measures we’ve been taking on matters of the economy,” Sitharaman said via Twitter, responding to ...

Bloomberg Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co, a Chinese handset maker largely unknown outside of Africa, has priced its initial public offering at double the valuation of Apple Inc. Transsion, whose mobile handsets outsell iPhone and Galaxy smartphones in Africa, is going public on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star Board, setting its IPO at 35.15 yuan a share, implying a trailing earnings multiple of ...

Bloomberg Blackstone-backed real estate investment trust’s successful India trading debut has left global funds including Japan’s NikkoAM-StraitsTrading Asia wanting a piece of the action. Eastspring Investments, North Carolina Fund, and Sentry Global are among names looking to invest in the instrument that bets on India’s rent-yielding real estate, said Shobhit Agarwal, managing director of Anarock Property Consultants Ltd. Blackstone Group ...