News

  Los Angeles / AFP A huge debut for “Rogue One” has seen Walt Disney Studios become the first distributor in history to hit $7 billion in annual global box office receipts, it said. The $290 million worldwide opening for the “Star Wars” spinoff puts Disney’s haul for 2016 at $2.7 billion in North America, also an industry record, and ...

  Bloomberg A federal judge said Volkswagen AG continues to make progress in settlement talks with car owners and regulators to fix or get about 80,000 Audi, VW and Porsche vehicles with emissions-cheating 3.0-liter diesel engines off US roads. US District Judge Charles Breyer, saying he was optimistic a resolution would be reached, ordered a “final continuance” and told lawyers ...

  Bloomberg Ericsson AB is considering cutting about 1,000 jobs in Italy, about a quarter of its local workforce, after losing out on a contract to manage the country’s largest wireless network, according to people familiar with the matter. The Swedish company wasn’t selected to merge and run the network of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and VimpelCom Ltd., said the ...

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc. risks a multimillion-euro fine for allegedly misleading European Union merger watchdogs when it won approval to buy the WhatsApp messaging service in 2014. The EU’s antitrust authority said in a statement on Tuesday it suspects Facebook supplied “incorrect or misleading information” on linking data with WhatsApp when regulators cleared the tie-up two years ago. Officials said ...

  Bloomberg BP Plc is piling up assets with more than $3 billion of deals in three days as Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley sees the company emerging from the doldrums after a two-year price slump. Since Saturday, BP has announced a $2.2 billion expansion of output in Abu Dhabi and a $916 million investment in fields in Mauritania and ...

  CAIRO / Reuters The Egyptian government has increased the price it pays local farmers for sugar cane by 25 percent, the Ministry of Supplies said on Tuesday. Sugar companies belonging to the Ministry of Supplies will buy local sugar cane from farmers for 500 Egyptian pounds ($26.11) per tonne, up from 400 pounds in the last season, the statement ...

  Reuters Oman’s Electricity Holding Company (EHC) has signed an agreement for a $325 million working capital loan, the state-owned company’s finance chief said on Tuesday. The company, which holds the Omani government’s stake in nine electricity firms, has raised the funds to support four of its distribution subsidiaries, Hussain Al Balushi said. Bahrain’s Bank ABC coordinated the facility, which ...

  Reuters New standards for the use of precious metals in Islamic finance are encouraging the development of financial products based on gold and silver, from futures contracts to a mobile app. The Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), which sets guidelines followed in whole or in part by Islamic financial firms around the world, approved ...

  Bloomberg In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political base of Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city, weaver Zainul Abedin stares at the uneven mud floor of his home. Behind him, more than a dozen handlooms lie idle. Abedin is part of the collateral damage of Modi’s Nov. 8 decision to ban high-value currency notes, effectively canceling 86 percent of cash in circulation. ...

  Bloomberg Australia on Tuesday signed a mega deal to purchase a fleet of next-generation submarines from France, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hailing the vessels’ “cutting-edge technology”. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian inked the inter-governmental agreement (IGA) in Adelaide that will see French shipbuilder DCNS design and build the Shortfin Barracudas. The total cost of the 12 submarines, ...