International News

Bloomberg Few people consider used plastic to be a valuable global commodity. Yet China has imported 106 million tons of old bags, bottles, wrappers and containers worth $57.6 billion since 1992, the first year it disclosed data. So when the country announced last year that it finally had enough of everybody else’s junk, governments the world over knew they had ...

Bloomberg China’s “Thousand Talents” programme to tap into its citizens educated or employed in the US is a key part of multi-pronged efforts to transfer, replicate and eventually overtake US military and commercial technology, according to American intelligence officials. The programme, begun in 2008, is far from secret. But its unadvertised goal is “to facilitate the legal and illicit transfer ...

Bloomberg The escalating trade battle between the US and the rest of the world is raising the risk of a meaningful slowing in an otherwise vibrant American economy. While the tariffs already in place and set to be implemented will barely dent US growth, economists say the panoply of additional measures being considered would take a perceptible bite out of ...

Bloomberg Economic momentum in the euro area unexpectedly picked up in June, suggesting the 19-nation bloc is starting to recover from a temporary soft patch just as risks to the outlook increase. Private-sector growth also gathered pace in the region’s two largest economies, Germany and France, underpinning the European Central Bank’s prediction that a rebound — even if it arrives ...

Bloomberg The European Union says it will continue a tit-for-tat escalation in its trade dispute with the US while countering President Donald Trump’s assertion that the US is being treated unfairly by the 28-nation bloc. Jyrki Katainen, the EU commissioner in charge of jobs and growth, told the French newspaper Le Monde in a story posted that if Trump applies ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc. filed petitions challenging four Qualcomm Inc. patents, dragging the US Patent and Trademark Office into a long-running licensing dispute that already spans the globe. The two are locked in a bitter fight over the amount of royalties Apple’s suppliers should pay to use Qualcomm’s technology on telecommunications. Billions of dollars are at stake. A hearing in one ...

Bloomberg The chill that has crept over some segments of the Toronto housing market may soon extend to one of its persistent hot spots: condominiums. Evidence of a slowdown is emerging as new rules make it tougher to get a mortgage and borrowing costs rise for the first time in almost a decade. That’s reducing the appeal of Toronto condos, ...

Bloomberg Internet giant Meituan Dianping has filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, becoming the latest Chinese technology juggernaut to throw a multi-billion-dollar coming-out party in the former British colony this year, according a person familiar with its filing documents. The food delivery and restaurant reviews service submitted documents for a share listing late on June 22, the ...

Bloomberg Terry Gou, the billionaire chairman of Apple Inc.’s main iPhone assembler, said the biggest challenge facing his Foxconn Technology Group is a trade war between the US and China. Foxconn has a number of response plans to a trade war, Gou said, without elaborating, at the annual shareholder meeting of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., his main listed unit. ...

Bloomberg ZTE Corp. is close to clearing the final hurdle needed for the Trump administration to lift sanctions that prevented the Chinese telecommunications giant from buying American equipment, a US Commerce Department official said. The Shenzhen-based company has paid a $1 billion fine and another $400 million in escrow will be completed in a couple of days, the official said. ...