How is it that China’s power plants are running short of coal, a year into a national mobilization plan to ensure security of supply? Over the past five years, the country’s six major generators typically have had enough solid fuel in their yards to keep their turbines running for about three weeks. The figure has hardly ever dropped below about ...

  It’s tough being caught in the middle, especially when it comes to inflation. The pandemic caused a significant shift in demand toward goods and away from services and shattered the stable supply-demand balance that had spawned two decades of inflation averaging just above 2%. This abrupt change in demand patterns sparked pricing shocks that basically divided companies into winners, ...

  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has finally delivered his message loud and clear: To get inflation under control, the central bank intends to push interest rates higher, and keep them there longer, than markets had expected. It’s a great first step. Now the Fed must follow through. In his speech at the annual Jackson Hole economics conference, Powell defined ...

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc plans to take Massmart Holdings Ltd. private and will promote the unit’s chief operating officer to head of the company as it prepares to renew its focus on South Africa. The global retail giant plans to buy all of the shares it doesn’t already own of Massmart for 62 rand ($3.65) apiece, a 53% premium to ...

  Bloomberg Australian retailers powered further ahead in July, suggesting cashed-up households are coping well with rapid interest-rate increases. Sales advanced 1.3%, easily exceeding economists’ forecasts for a 0.3% gain, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said in a statement on Monday. The gain was the largest in four months. “Turnover rose in five of the six retail industries,” said Ben ...

  Bloomberg WhatsApp, the popular messaging service owned by Meta Platforms Inc., is rolling out a shopping product in India, the first time users will be able to browse and purchase groceries and other household products without leaving the app. WhatsApp unveiled the new tool alongside JioMart, part of Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Jio Platforms, an Indian tech company that Meta ...

Bloomberg Nasa delayed the debut launch of its new massive rocket due to an issue with one of its engines, dealing a temporary blow to the space agency’s plan to return to the lunar surface. With Vice President Kamala Harris in attendance at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and a global audience watching online, the uncrewed Artemis I mission was called ...

  Bloomberg Two Air France pilots were suspended after coming to blows in the cockpit of an Airbus jetliner during a flight between Geneva and Paris, latest safety issue to plague the airline. The mid-air dispute occurred in June, according to a spokeswoman for the carrier, who confirmed a report by La Tribune newspaper. The incident was resolved quickly, and ...

Bloomberg Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of trying to create a global sense of fatigue about its invasion, including by restricing the flow of gas to drive energy prices higher. The European Union is working on “an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market” to drive down spiking power prices, according to Ursula von der Leyen, ...

  Bloomberg International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will lead an inspection of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine this week, he said in a statement on Twitter. The visit to Europe’s biggest nuclear power station will take place amid almost-daily reports of new shelling and damage to infrastructure surrounding its six reactors. A document ...