Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte called on lawmakers to pass legislation that will help cool the fastest inflation in five years and spread wealth and power beyond the capital region. In his annual address to Congress, Duterte asked both chambers to prioritise the measure that will remove caps on rice imports to augment supply and cut the price by as ...

Bloomberg China’s battle to cut notorious air-pollution levels is hurting sales of air purifiers by Royal Philips NV. Revenue from the machines that capture harmful fine particles in homes dropped by a high-single-digit amount in China, in the second quarter, the Dutch maker of hospital scanners and medical gear said in a statement. That left distributors scrambling to adjust inventories. ...

Bloomberg Senegal’s decision to become the first African country on the Atlantic coast to sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative shows how quickly the transport network project connecting China by land and sea to Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa is expanding. Lending by China to Africa rose to about $12 billion in 2015 from little more ...

Bloomberg A deadly heat wave across Asia is stretching electricity grids from southern China up to Tokyo and Seoul, sending prices to multiyear highs and sparking warnings of more power stress to come. Japan breached records above 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) as the heat that’s been blamed for at least 15 deaths this month pushed electricity rates to the ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump launched a new broadside against Iran, warning of unspecified “consequences” if Hassan Rouhani continues threatening America. In a Twitter post, Trump said, “To Iranian President Rouhani: Never, ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country ...

Bloomberg Ethiopia has “no option” but to open up its politics for multiparty democracy in order to secure lasting progress, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said. Ahmed spoke while meeting in the capital of Addis Ababa with nearly 50 political parties, including four from overseas, “who demanded reform to include election laws,” Fitsum Arega, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s youth are likely to get more power after backing 93-year-old Mahathir Mohamad to topple a regime that ruled the Southeast Asian nation for six decades. Malaysia is “very serious” about reducing the voting age to 18 before the next elections due by 2023, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, 25, told Bloomberg in an interview ...

Bloomberg British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK will not “blink” in Brexit negotiations, as he warned the European Union it risks forcing the country to crash out of the bloc with no deal. On his first trip to Berlin since he replaced Boris Johnson earlier this month, Hunt appealed for more flexibility from his European counterparts as time ...

Bloomberg Justin Trudeau’s latest headache is unusual for a country bounded by three oceans and just one neighbour: the border. Canada has seen a steady flow of asylum seekers since Donald Trump’s election, with people who fear the US will deport them or reject their bids for asylum crossing the 4,000-mile undefended border and filing a claim. While the total ...

Bloomberg Finance chiefs from the world’s leading economies met in Buenos Aires at the weekend as trade tensions threaten to undermine the fastest growth in seven years. Finance ministers and central bank chiefs met after US President Donald Trump accused Beijing and the European Union of gaming their currencies to boost exports. He also attacked the US Federal Reserve for ...