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  Seoul / AFP Shares in South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping plunged more than 10 percent on Tuesday on worries its parent will not stump up promised cash to prevent it from going under, while a court told it to return chartered vessels to their owners. The world’s seventh largest shipper is seeking bankruptcy protection at home and in the US ...

  JAKARTA / Reuters Congress potentially has small window to ratify trade deal Vietnam is set to delay ratifying a massive U.S.-led Pacific trade pact until next year, as anxiety rises over the fate of the deal in Congress with America’s presidential election campaign exacerbating an anti-free trade mood. Ha Ngoc Chien, head of a parliamentary committee, suggested the National ...

  Singapore / AFP Ride-hailing startup Grab said on Tuesday it has raised $750 million from investors to expand in burgeoning Southeast Asian markets including Indonesia, as it aims to build its lead over US-based rival Uber in the region. The new investments led by Japan’s SoftBank Group raised the Singapore-based firm’s total capital to more than $1.0 billion, it ...

  JAKARTA / Reuters Harvard and Columbia university research showing smoke from land fires in Southeast Asia led to more than 100,000 premature deaths last year “makes no sense at all,” an official at Indonesia’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday. Indonesian government records show only 24 deaths related to forest fires in 2015, but the disaster was estimated to have ...

  Bloomberg Tim Farron, the leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, called for a second referendum on Britain quitting the European Union to ensure the deal negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May has public support. Farron, whose party governed in coalition with May’s Conservatives until last year’s general election, accused the premier of having “no clue” about Britain’s future ...

  The Hague / AFP Britain’s vote to leave the EU has caused uncertainty in Europe and will impact The Netherlands including causing job losses, Dutch King Willem-Alexander said on Tuesday. Giving his traditional speech marking the opening of parliament — written by Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his cabinet — the king said the internationally-focused Dutch economy faced its ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German chemicals giant Bayer said it had increased its earnings and profits forecasts after signing a deal to take over US seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto. “We are optimistic for the medium-term development of Bayer and have set ourselves correspondingly ambitious targets,” chief executive Werner Baumann said in a statement. In the crop science division that ...

  Warsaw/ AFP Poland’s populist government on Tuesday suspended a new tax on supermarkets that targetted foreign-owned chains just a day after the European Union opened a probe into whether it violated competition rules. Announcing the suspension in Warsaw, Poland’s Finance Minister Pawel Szalamacha told reporters the EU investigation was “arbitrary and political”, launched “under pressure from large corporations.” Warsaw ...

  Paris / AFP France said on Tuesday it was sticking to its economic growth forecasts for this year and next, seen by some economists as too optimistic. In its 2017 budget draft law, the finance ministry said projected expansion would allow France to cut its deficit to below three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 as required ...

  London / AFP GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday appointed Emma Walmsley, its head of consumer healthcare, to lead the British drugs giant and develop new treatments in a fast-consolidating sector. Walmsley, 47, succeeds outgoing chief executive Andrew Witty, who is retiring early next year after almost a decade at the helm. Walmsley, who joined GSK from French cosmetics giant L’Oreal six ...