North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed in his New Year’s message that the development of banned intercontinental long-range missiles is in ‘final stages’. US president-elect tweeted the following day: it won’t happen. Kim also vowed to further enhance his country’s military capability unless the US ends war games with rival South Korea. Trump is confident that Pyongyang will …

  This is the year that active-investment management makes its return to form. It is the year, or so we are told, when active fights back, scores some points, and gets its revenge on passive indexers. For the record, active management never went away. The claim that it has returned, after a run of fairly horrific performance, is likely little …

  When the temperature drops to freezing in a country of almost 1.4 billion people, the power needed to keep the population warm soars. That’s one of the main reasons China’s northern cities have spent much of the past month choking on smoggy, toxic air. Particulate concentrations in areas north of Shanghai that once qualified for state heating subsidies and …

  It’s hardly a happy new year for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Just before Christmas, the US Trade Representative added Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce site to a list of “notorious markets” that traffic in counterfeits. That’s an unseemly place for a publicly held company: Other members include a Chinese shopping mall that specializes in counterfeit leather goods and a Paraguayan border …

  Bloomberg Faraday Future staked its claim to the world’s fastest electric car with its FF91 production model, showing footage of it outracing Tesla Motors Inc.’s Model S at CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in Las Vegas. The startup electric-car maker backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting is counting on its debut offering to drum up support from investors, many of …

  Relaxnews Chinese tech giant Lenovo announced it was launching a smart home assistant powered by Amazon’s Alexa, becoming the latest firm to enter the market for voice-activated devices. The new Smart Assistant, to go on sale for $129, will compete with Amazon’s Echo speakers using the artificial intelligence developed by Amazon. Lenovo made the announcement ahead of the opening …

  Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. have formed a consortium with four medium-size automakers to speed development of auto- industry standards for in-vehicle apps, a step toward preventing Apple Inc. and Google from controlling how drivers connect smartphones to their cars and trucks. Ford and Toyota said that Mazda Motor Corp., PSA Group, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. …

  Bloomberg This fall, one of the hottest things in outdoor gear wasn’t a new drone or motorized skateboard. The tech tastemakers—from Outside Magazine to Gear Patrol—collectively drooled over a recreational vehicle. That’s right, an “RV” —specifically the Airstream Basecamp, a $35,000 teardrop of aluminum that can be towed behind a Subaru. The aerodynamic, riveted pod comes with one massive …

  Dubai / WAM Dubai Municipality has organised a ceremony entitled, “Together, Let’s Innovate” to honour employees who submitted innovative suggestions under the DM’s Suggestion Scheme. The corporate suggestion scheme, with the slogan, “Have Your Say”, picked up 89 winning ideas which were implemented by the civic body, resulting in performance enhancement as well as material savings and income for …

  DUBAI / WAM Dubai Investments has broken ground on the Mirdif Hills project, being developed by its subsidiary, Dubai Investments Real Estate Company (DIRC). The AED3 billion Mirdif Hills is a mixed-use residential, commercial and retail development spread across 3.9 million square feet and equipped with 1,054 apartments. The ground-breaking ceremony was held onsite in the presence of Khalid …