Unterhaching / AFP Out with the cardboard boxes, rough forklift crates and no-frills warehouse look — in with cozy wood panelling, natural light and chilled fruit smoothies at the breakfast bar. Aldi, Germany’s original discount supermarket chain, is getting a major facelift — spelling the end of an era, at least in design terms, for the traditional first-stop shop of ...

  Paris / Bloomberg Airbus Group SE disclosed a cracking issue in its A400M military transport aircraft and said its government customers must inspect the planes and make fixes if necessary. The issue doesn’t impact flight safety, the European planemaker said. The issue was first identified in 2011 in tests before the plane went into service, Airbus said in an ...

Shanghai / Bloomberg An anti-counterfeit group suspended the membership of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., one month after the Chinese Internet giant joined, after questions were raised about conflicts of interest involving the coalition’s president and complaints from some members. The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition, a nonprofit global organization that fights counterfeit products and piracy, created a new membership category in April ...

  Washington / Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc. directors got a Delaware judge to throw out investors’ claims they bungled the handling of a probe into alleged bribes paid to facilitate Mexican real-estate deals, wiping out the majority of lawsuits over the scandal. Disgruntled Wal-Mart shareholders accusing the retailer’s board of covering up the bribery scheme can’t re-litigate their claims over ...

  London / AFP Tesco said that it rebounded into slender annual net profits on strong sales, after a vast property writedown and challenging home trade sparked a record loss the previous year. The troubled British supermarket giant revealed that earnings after taxation stood at £138 million ($197 million, 172 million euros) in its 2015/2016 financial year, which ran until the ...

  Kalisari / AFP In a dark and steamy room in Indonesia’s tofu heartland three men sweat over bubbling cauldrons, churning creamy beancurd with wooden paddles before draining it by hand and slicing it into silky cubes. Tofu has been cooked this way for generations but today, innovative villagers on Java island are producing something extra from the simple soybean ...

  Los Angeles / AFP You’re love-struck and can’t wait to have your partner’s name or face etched onto your skin for eternity.Or you’ve just turned 18, and your first rebellious act upon reaching the age of majority is to have a dragon tattooed on your chest. Well, you may want to think twice before rushing to the tattoo parlor. ...

  Our Correspondent / Emirates Business Biddi.com, the online portal that let you buy and sell anything, has formally launched its operations in the UAE. Biddi.com is an intuitive free e-commerce and listing site selling just about anything. It creates an ecosystem for buyers and sellers to interact seamlessly, backed by door-to-door delivery and secure payments — including cash on ...

  Our Correspondent / EMIRATES BUSINESS Seiko was founded in 1881, when Kintaro Hattori opened a watch and clock shop called ‘Hattori Tokeiten’ in the Ginza area of Tokyo, Japan. 11 years later, in 1892, he began to produce clocks under the name Seikosha, meaning roughly ‘The house of precision’. Seiko in Japanese means ‘precision’. The first wrist watch produced ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM A national tourism strategy will provide a framework of action that will help mobilise all stakeholders to position the UAE among the best tourism destinations in the world, Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, said during a meeting with officials in charge of the tourism sector in his ministry. The minister also called ...