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Swedish PM may face confidence vote

Bloomberg All signs point to Prime Minister Stefan Lofven losing the first round in his battle to remain in power as Sweden seats its new parliament. The 349-person legislature reconvenes on Monday two weeks after an election that saw the nationalist Sweden Democrats grab 62 seats and Lofven’s coalition hang on to a one-seat lead over the center-right Alliance opposition. ...

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Vietnam gets its first female head of state

Bloomberg Vietnam has its first female president with the appointment of Vice President Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thinh after Tran Dai Quang died on Friday from a serious illness. Thinh will be the acting president until the National Assembly elects a new leader, according to a statement on the government website, which cited parliament chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. Thinh has ...

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Investors stay wary as gold mining stocks get cheap

Bloomberg Investors stung by the sell-off in gold are going to need more than cheap equities and stabilising bullion prices to wade back into mining-company stocks. Bullion has slipped 8.2 percent this year as a stronger dollar and expanding global economy diminished demand for the metal as a haven. Miners have fared even worse, with the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold ...

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Rupiah set for central bank relief as RBNZ puts pressure on kiwi

Bloomberg Two of the year’s worst-performing Asia-Pacific currencies are poised to enter the fourth quarter with dramatically different support from their central banks. New Zealand officials are expected to keep the possibility of a rate cut on the table when they meet on Thursday, wary of a slump in business confidence even as growth has shown recent signs of picking ...

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Indian billionaire KM Birla says he’s hungry for deals

Bloomberg Kumar Mangalam Birla, the billionaire chairman of the acquisitive Indian conglomerate that bears his name, said he’s hungry for more deals after creating the nation’s biggest mobile-phone operator. His Aditya Birla Group continues to look for targets in the US, Europe and India that make business sense and are likely to add value, the 51-year-old said at Bloomberg’s India ...

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India plans doubling of sugar export aid

Bloomberg India, the world’s top sugar producer after Brazil, is considering a proposal to provide 45 billion rupees ($617 million) assistance to sugar mills to boost exports and cut domestic surplus next year. The government plans to provide a subsidy of 13.88 rupees per 100 kilograms of cane to sugar mills in the year starting from October 1, compared with ...

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Shareholders of Japan’s Takeda ‘skeptical’ of its Shire takeover

Bloomberg One of the top 10 shareholders in Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is “skeptical” on the value that will be created from the group’s $62 billion takeover of rare disease specialist Shire Plc, the Sunday Times reported, citing the unidentified investor. The deal, the biggest in Osaka-based Takeda’s history, has already faced opposition from a group of investors that ...

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China’s bullet trains are coming for Hong Kong’s airlines

Bloomberg Still bruised from a typhoon that grounded hundreds of flights, Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s top aviation hub faces a new threat: Chinese bullet trains. The world’s longest high-speed rail network extends to downtown Hong Kong starting on Sunday, providing a direct connection to 44 mainland destinations. With the addition of services from Guangzhou and Shenzhen — the major ...

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Comcast’s $39bn Sky win extends its ‘media empire’

Bloomberg Comcast Corp. won a bidding war for Sky Plc with a $39 billion offer for Europe’s largest satellite broadcaster, staving off rivals 21st Century Fox Inc. and Walt Disney Co. to extend the US cable giant’s empire abroad. In a rare auction overseen by UK regulators, Comcast bid 10 percent more than Fox on Saturday, all but assuring that ...

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