Bloomberg South Korea fined Alphabet Inc’s Google $177 million for hampering the development of rivals to its Android operating system, sustaining a campaign targeting the US search giant’s dominance in smartphone software. Regulators accuse Google, whose mobile operating system powers more than 80% of smartphones around the world, of using its immense bargaining power to squeeze out the competition. The ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s envoy for North Korea said the door remains open for talks, after Pyongyang claimed it tested new long-range cruise missiles that bolster its nuclear strike capabilities against Japan and South Korea. “We hope the DPRK will respond positively to our multiple offers to meet without preconditions,” Sung Kim, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at the White House next week, the White House said, for discussions that will include countering China’s expanding influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The meetings will be the first in-person summit for a group known as the “Quad,” as Biden seeks to make the region a top ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al Assad in the Kremlin, backing the Syrian leader’s efforts to eliminate the last enclaves of rebels backed by the US and Turkey. Under Western sanctions, Assad has maintained strong ties with Russia, which sent planes and troops to back his government in 2015. The intervention helped turn the tide ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin will go into self-isolation after being exposed to several people in his entourage infected with Covid-19, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. The 68-year-old leader is “absolutely healthy” and has tested negative for Covid-19, Peskov told a regular conference call. Putin will avoid in-person meetings for “some time,” he said. Plans to fly to ...

Bloomberg The number of workers on UK company payrolls climbed above its pre-pandemic level as vacancies hit a record high with firms battling staff shortages created by Brexit and lockdowns. The figures from Office for National Statistics (ONS) included a 35% surge in job openings in the quarter to 1.03 million, the first time they’ve risen above 1 million. That ...

Bloomberg The European Union (EU) met strong investor demand on its return to the bond market on Tuesday with a seven-year debt sale. The nation wracked up more than 85 billion euros ($100 billion) of orders for a 9 billion-euro offering of bonds maturing in 2028 via banks, with pricing set at 14 basis points below swaps. Analysts had expected ...

Bloomberg Prices paid by US consumers rose in August by less than forecast, snapping a string of outsized gains and suggesting that some of the upward pressure on inflation is beginning to wane. The consumer price index increased 0.3% from July, the smallest advance in seven months, according to Labour Department data released on Tuesday. Compared with a year ago, ...

Bloomberg Intuit Inc, the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks software, agreed to buy privately held email marketing firm Mailchimp for $12 billion in cash and stock, uniting two providers of services for small businesses. The deal will bolster Intuit’s offerings for businesses looking for ways to reach and serve customers online. Intuit has offered QuickBooks accounting software to clients for ...

Bloomberg Hungary plans to offer a range of dollar and euro bonds to shore up its budget as it’s facing a potential delay in accessing European Union (EU) funds because of a feud with the bloc over democratic values. The country may sell 10-year and 30-year bonds in dollars, as well as seven-year and/or 20-year bonds in euros, according to ...