Beijing / AFP The size of China’s workforce may decline by as much as 23 percent by 2050, a government official said, as the population of the world’s second-largest economy rapidly ages. China’s working age population, defined as those between the ages of 16 and 59, peaked in 2011 and would soon “experience a process of sharp decline”, particularly after ...

  Munich, Germany / AFP The lone teenager who shot dead nine people in a gun rampage in Munich was “obsessed” with mass killers such as Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the IS group, police said on Saturday. Europe reacted in shock to the third attack on the continent in just over a week, after ...

  Kabul / AFP IS extremist group claimed responsibility for twin explosions on Saturday that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 64 people and wounding 265 others in their first major attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings, apparently aimed at sowing sectarian discord in a country well known for Shia-Sunni harmony, came as thousands of ...

  Washington / AFP Hillary Clinton tapped Tim Kaine, a popular Spanish-speaking senator from the swing state of Virginia, to be her running mate in the White House showdown against Donald Trump. The pick comes three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton — and now Kaine — will be elevated as the nominees ...

  Vientiane, Laos / AFP Staunch China ally Cambodia is preventing Southeast Asia from reaching a consensus on the South China Sea after an international tribunal rejected Beijing’s territorial claims to the waters, a diplomat said on Saturday. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is meeting in Laos for the first time since the UN-backed tribunal ruled earlier this month ...

  Bloomberg PayPal Holdings Inc and Visa Inc just made up after more than a decade sparring over the future of digital payments. The two companies announced an agreement in which PayPal will stop discouraging customers from linking accounts to Visa cards and share more data with the card network in exchange for “long-term Visa fee certainty” and other incentives. ...

  Bloomberg The world’s largest currency trader says forget about the Federal Reserve driving the dollar higher, even if the central bank does raise interest rates later this year. The greenback, which strengthened for a third week for the first time since May, is more likely to trade on evidence of US economic growth than on what the central bank ...

  Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co plans to exit the business of settling government securities for most dealers by the end of 2017, including some transactions in a key corner of the US$1.6 trillion repurchase-agreement market. The departure from the business of facilitating settlement of such trades with 30 dealers and broker-dealers, a fraction of the bank’s hundreds of clients, ...

  Bloomberg Azerbaijan closed down four more banks as the former Soviet Union’s third-largest crude exporter reels from the worst collapse in oil prices in a generation. The Financial Markets Supervisory Authority revoked the licenses of Dekabank, Kredobank, Parabank and Zaminbank to “reduce risks in the banking sector, ensure financial sustainability and increase trust,” Rufat Aslanli, head of the Baku-based ...

  Swiss watchmakers sailed into a perfect storm this year. The industry, which generates more than $20 billion in exports, was buffeted from all sides — largely by circumstances largely beyond its control, but it’s increasingly clear that the decline will continue unless the industry changes the way it designs and markets its products. In January through June, the exports ...