The US election is weeks away and the doomsayers for the UK’s relationship with a post-Trump America are out in force. Joe Biden is “an Irish-American with no particular love for Boris Johnson or Brexit Britain” thundered a Times of London column last week. Other Conservative voices predict that a Democrat victory would be disastrous for the Brits and end ...

When talking among themselves, Silicon Valley big shots sometimes say weird things. In an internal presentation in March 2018, Google executives were asked to imagine their company acting as a “Good Censor,” in order to limit the impact of users “behaving badly.” In a 2016 internal video, Nick Foster, Google’s head of design, envisioned a “goal-driven ledger” of all users’ ...

China’s ambitious pledge to decarbonise by 2060 requires the world’s top polluter to dramatically raise the cost of spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A long-awaited national carbon market that is finally set to begin trading this year will be less demanding and more limited than initially anticipated, if draft plans are a guide. It’s worth welcoming anyway. Beijing could ...

Even before Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in 2016, the aphorism “It’s Trump’s party now” had been endlessly recycled by those delighted and dismayed by The Donald “body-snatching” the GOP and transforming its vision of America. To quantify just how far Trump’s rhetoric has moved his party’s nationalistic needle, Bloomberg Opinion asked Keatext — a Montreal-based AI text analytics company — ...

Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will invest about $3.6 billion to double its stake in Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, taking control of China’s largest chain of hypermarts to try and fend off rivals like JD.com Inc in e-commerce’s hottest growth arena. Alibaba will raise its direct and indirect stake in the grocery chain to about 72% by acquiring equity ...

Bloomberg Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co won a key approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for its listing in Hong Kong, paving the way for what could be the world’s biggest initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The Chinese regulator has given Ant a green light to seek a listing hearing with Hong Kong Exchanges ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s emergence from the Covid-19 shock is gathering pace, but that isn’t boosting the nation’s equity benchmark. That’s because the gauge is very much a bet on the global recovery rather than a wager on the city-state. The Straits Times Index is still 21% away from turning positive for the year, among the worst in Asia. Singapore’s plan to ...

Bloomberg The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has set up an office in Hong Kong to consult with companies considering a move to the Japanese capital, part of its push to make the city a global financial center. The Hong Kong office opened for online consultations, Governor Yuriko Koike said at a news briefing. “I want to make Tokyo the No. 1 ...

Bloomberg South Korean conglomerate SK Group is accelerating efforts to help China develop ESG standards after a years-long push by Beijing to improve social governance disclosures at its companies stalled. SK said it will team up with China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) to jointly establish a lab in Beijing to study and develop rating methods for environmental, ...

Bloomberg A Taliban official said signs that US President Donald Trump will hasten the exit of all American troops from Afghanistan would force the country’s warring groups to finally negotiate peace, but experts worry the move may give the militant group the upper hand. The group has welcomed Trump’s comments earlier this month about bringing remaining US troops “home by ...