Bloomberg Governments, companies and international health organisations rushed to contain a Sars-like coronavirus that has claimed more than 100 lives, with Hong Kong the latest to announce travel restrictions on people moving in and out of the mainland. Hong Kong will close some border checkpoints and restrict flights and train services from the mainland, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on ...

Bloomberg China has purchased Australian, Canadian and French wheat as Beijing looks to fill import quotas set by the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to people familiar with the matter. In the past two months, China bought about 1 million metric tons of wheat from the three countries, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the transactions ...

Bloomberg Indonesian authorities are weighing the induction of a strategic investor into a unit of the nation’s oldest insurer that’s on the brink of collapse after alleged fund mismanagement left a $2 billion hole in its books. PT Asuransi Jiwasraya has submitted a restructuring proposal to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) that includes the stake sale in unit PT Jiwasraya ...

Bloomberg Kolkata Metro Rail Corp expects to complete its East-West project, which runs partly under the city’s iconic Hooghly river, by March 2022 after a delay of several years doubled costs. The authority is awaiting 20 billion rupees ($280 million) over the next two years from the Indian Railway Board, said Manas Sarkar, managing director at KMRC. A soft loan ...

Bloomberg Singapore introduced new payments legislation that offers global cryptocurrency firms a chance to expand their operations in the country by applying for operating licenses for the first time. The Payment Services Act, which comes into force Tuesday, is the first comprehensive regulation for companies handling activities ranging from digital payments to trading of tokens such as Bitcoin and Ether. ...

Bloomberg The Chinese Embassy to Denmark wants the newspaper Jyllands-Posten to apologise for publishing a drawing that depicts China’s flag with virus symbols instead of five stars. “We express our strong indignation and demand that Jyllands-Posten and [cartoonist] Niels Bo Bojesen reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologise to the Chinese people,” the embassy said in a statement on ...

Bloomberg It’s almost as if the last decade never happened for investors of Exxon Mobil Corp shares. Once the gold-standard of Big Oil, the stock closed on January 27 at its lowest since October 2010, amid a slump in oil prices due to concerns about weak demand coupled with a glut. The S&P 500 also posted its worst one-day decline ...

Bloomberg Oil giant Total SA is being sued by 14 local governments and a handful of non-governmental organisations in France for not doing enough to reduce its carbon emissions and fight global warming. The legal challenge is the latest sign that the biggest oil companies are coming under increasing pressure from activists, investors and governments to cut emissions as the ...

Bloomberg As major players jostle for market share in large-scale power storage, American Electric Power and Nissan Motor Co are testing new technology that re-uses old electric vehicle batteries to slash costs. The pilot study in Ohio will road test technology that could lower system costs by about a half and extend the life of lithium-ion batteries by about a ...

Bloomberg France’s grid operator will test storing excess wind and solar power in batteries to reduce the need to build new transmission lines that involve heavy construction work and take longer to complete. Network operators across Europe are seeking ways to both minimise the cost and environmental impact of the energy transition. Reseau de Transport d’Electricite estimates that France will ...