Bloomberg Steinhoff International Holdings NV former Chief Executive Officer Markus Jooste sees the retailer’s claim for more than $56 million against him as “vague and embarrassing.” The owner of Poundland in the UK and Pep stores throughout Africa said in June it will look to claw back base salaries, bonuses and other incentives paid to Jooste since 2009 because of ...

Bloomberg The Earth is losing its plants and humanity is to blame, according to a new study. Global vegetation growth has been in decline since the late 1990’s, due to changes in the water content of the atmosphere. An atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD), or the difference between saturation water vapor and actual water vapor, was found to stall or ...

Bloomberg India is starting to ease restrictions on Kashmir after an almost two-week lockdown, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported, as some telecommunication services were restored and people could move more freely. Landline and low speed mobile phone services resumed in some areas in the Kashmir Valley on Saturday, even as stringent security arrangements remained in place, PTI reported, ...

Bloomberg The US government has issued a warrant to seize the supertanker Grace 1, which was detained on suspicion of hauling Iranian oil to Syria in violation of European sanctions. A complaint unsealed in Washington states that “‘Oil Tanker Grace 1,’ all petroleum aboard it and $995,000 are subject to forfeiture,” according to a Justice Department statement. The statement alleges ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump met his top national security advisers as his team prepares to unveil an Afghanistan peace agreement with the Taliban that would help bring an end to America’s longest war. Among those discussing the matter with Trump at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, were Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The ...

Bloomberg China urged Hong Kong to punish demonstrators who break the law as thousands of teachers added their voices to the city’s growing protest movement and marched to the chief executive’s residence on Saturday. Protesters who have broken laws must be punished accordingly, You Wenze, spokesman for China’s National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview with state ...

Bloomberg The Russian Communist Party held a rally in central Moscow calling for honest and fair city council elections as the newly energised opposition planned to skip mass protests this weekend for the first time in five weeks. The rally started at noon Moscow time at Sakharov Avenue, the traditional spot for demonstrations, and senior party officials, politicians and State ...

The tariff burden from the US-China trade conflict is “falling almost 100 percent on China,” President Donald Trump’s senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow argued last week. But take a look at what’s happening to business investment in the US, and it’s obvious Kudlow is wrong. Some businesses stand to gain from the president’s trade policy — especially those that compete ...

The term “Down Under” as a somehow blessed space separate from the realities of the rest of the world really ought to be banished, at least from discussions about economics. The direction of monetary policy in Australia and New Zealand is headed upside down after years of exceptionalism. As four central ba-nks across Asia reduced int- erest rates last week, ...

While China’s industrial sector crashes, one corner is booming. Oddly enough, it’s probably bad news for participants. Fixed-asset investment in mining increased 27.4 percent from a year earlier in July, continuing an extraordinary run this year that puts growth at the fastest pace in a decade. One commodity is likely to have dominated: Investments in mining and preparing coal have ...