Bloomberg Indonesia will close an island inhabited by endangered komodo dragons following reports of rampant smuggling of the giant lizards, the Tempo reported. Komodo Island in Manggarai Barat in East Nusa Tenggara province will be shut to tourists from January, the newspaper reported, citing Marius Jelamu, a spokesman for the provincial administration. The decision was taken after consulting the environment ...

Bloomberg Japan’s remarkably tight labour market just got even tighter. The jobless dipped again to around the lowest in almost three decades while the number of jobs available for each applicant has remained at a 44-year high since last year. Even in easy going sub-tropical Okinawa, which has traditionally lagged mainland Japan in economic development, the ratio is near a ...

Bloomberg Governments in the Asia Pacific region are accelerating efforts to fight malicious use of online media, unveiling laws that make it easier to target websites which enable distribution of criminal or fraudulent content. Australia said it will legislate “tough” new laws to prevent social-media platforms from being “weaponised” by terrorists and extremists who may use them to live-stream violent ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump issued a new permit for TransCanada Corp’s controversial Keystone XL pipeline, circumventing a court ruling that blocked a previous authorisation by his State Department. The move aims to undercut legal challenges to the $8 billion project, including a November ruling by a Montana-based district judge that faulted the State Department’s previous environmental analysis, according to a ...

Bloomberg Tech unicorns got a bounce in their step with Lyft Inc’s initial public offering valuing it at $22.4 billion after its first day of trading. Ride-hailing’s No. 2 provider in the US first raised its target range and then expanded its offering to raise $2.34 billion. While the shares closed up only 8.7 percent compared with the 21 percent ...

Bloomberg BlackBerry Ltd jumped the most in six months after fourth-quarter results surpassed analysts’ estimates, boosted by strong gains in licensing revenue. The former phone maker reported sales of $99 million from its segment that distributes licenses for its existing patents to other businesses. That was a 71 percent increase over the previous year and helped boost total revenue 8 ...

Bloomberg Mondelez International Inc, the maker of Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolates, is in advanced talks to acquire international brands being sold by Campbell Soup Co, people familiar with the matter said. Mondelez is negotiating final terms of a purchase of Arnott’s Biscuits, the Australian maker of Tim Tam cookies, and Danish butter-cookie producer Kelsen Group, according to the people. ...

Bloomberg Switzerland’s property-market watchdogs aren’t likely to catch a break. With European interest rates set to remain low for even longer, that’s going to further fuel the ongoing exuberance in Swiss real estate that’s seen multiple warnings this month alone. The issue is particularly acute in buy-to-let properties, as insurers and pension funds look to compensate for otherwise meager returns. ...

Bloomberg If Donald Trump’s administration was looking for signs of easing tensions between two of his vaunted constituencies — blue-collar oil and rural farmers — a hearing in Michigan proves otherwise. The two sides exchanged heated comments at a public hearing over proposed changes by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on ethanol policy. Oil refiners and agricultural proponents, including Iowa ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump gave North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a list of demands that included a call for handing over nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the US in their talks in Hanoi last month, Reuters reported, citing the document. Trump handed Kim the piece of paper stating the US position at their meeting in Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel ...