Bloomberg The US is communicating with North Korea about its nuclear programme and testing Pyongyang’s appetite for negotiations, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the first public acknowledgment by a senior administration official of direct contact on the matter. Tillerson, speaking to reporters on Saturday after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, insisted that the US would never accept a …

Bloomberg The authorities in western Cameroon have banned public meetings in the mainly English-speaking region before planned demonstrations on Sunday to demand independence from the rest of the largely Francophone nation. The protests in the Southwest and Northwest regions have been called by a group known as Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia Governing Council. Activists plan to hoist blue and white Ambazonia flags …

Bloomberg President Donald Trump, under rising criticism for the federal response to hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico, swung from defending his administration’s approach to lashing out at the San Juan mayor for her “poor leadership ability.” The president, in a series of Saturday morning tweets, said Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, “who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been …

LONDON / Reuters Saudi Arabia plans to further open up its stock market to foreign investors later this year as it seeks to become an international capital markets hub, Mohammed Abdullah Elkuwaiz, chairman of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) said. Qualified foreign institutions (QFIs) were allowed to begin investing directly in Saudi stocks in 2015 and qualification requirements were eased …

Emirates Business Souqplace.com, the first Emirati online marketplace in the UAE, connecting quality SMEs and artisan products, in addition to branded ones to consumers, announces the expansion of its platform to Saudi Arabia. Capitalizing on the upward growth of e-commerce in the UAE and the support it has received over the period of two years, the Emirati e-commerce startup is …

Bloomberg The Trump administration has thrown a lifeline to the last hope for a US nuclear power revival, offering $3.7 billion in additional loan guarantees for Southern Co.’s troubled reactor project in Georgia. The conditional guarantees announced by the Energy Department come at a critical time for Southern. Georgia regulators are weighing whether to allow the company and its partners …

Reuters Kuwait’s parliament is likely to approve a law to extend the country’s borrowing limits, enabling 30-year debt issues, a senior finance ministry official said. The law would allow Kuwait to increase its debt ceiling to 25 billion Kuwaiti dinar ($83 billion) from 10 billion currently. It would also allow the Gulf state to issue debt instruments with maturities of …

SINGAPORE / Reuters Middle East oil producers are venturing into trading crude as three years of weak oil prices has encouraged them to find new sources of income beyond the business of exporting their output. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is among those making the shift. A subsidiary of state-owned Saudi Aramco plans to start trading non-Saudi crude, …

Bloomberg The success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious plan to electrify all households in India by December 2018 faces a familiar hurdle: the money-losing state power retailers. Modi earlier this week announced the government will spend 163.2 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) to provide electricity connections to every home in India by the end of next year, ahead of an …

Bloomberg Tata Motors Ltd. won an India government order for 10,000 electric cars as the country makes efforts to reduce emissions and curb fuel imports. The maker of high-end Jaguar and Land Rover models and the Nano small car will initially supply 500 vehicles to government-backed Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. in November, with the remaining 9,500 autos to be delivered …