BENGHAZI / Reuters Libya’s giant Sharara oil field has been closed since late on Sunday, shutting off the production of more than 230,000 barrels per day (bpd), an engineer at the field and a Libyan oil source said. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) said in a statement on Monday that it was “working towards a swift restart of production. At ...

Reuters Qatar’s economic growth slowed in the second quarter to its lowest rate since the global financial crisis because of a sagging oil sector, and sanctions by Arab states, reports said. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded just 0.6 percent from a year earlier in the April-June period, the slowest growth since the 2009-2010 crisis. GDP grew 0.5 percent ...

Bloomberg Reliance Communications Ltd.’s plan to merge with Aircel Ltd. collapsed in a blow to the Indian mobile phone carriers’ plans to pare debt and gain scale to take on bigger rivals. “Legal uncertainties” and “interventions by vested interests” caused delays in regulatory approvals, Reliance Communications said in an exchange filing. Consequently, the merger has “lapsed with mutual consent,” it ...

Bloomberg Go-Jek, Indonesia’s first billion-dollar startup, is looking to expand its ride-hailing services to three to four countries in Southeast Asia, escalating its rivalry with Grab and Uber Technologies Inc. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Nadiem Makarim didn’t specify the countries or services that Go-Jek will target, but said in an interview they will be places with a large population ...

Bloomberg North Korea now has two ways to get on the internet, thanks to a new connection from Russia, according to cybersecurity outfit FireEye Inc. Russian telecommunications company TransTeleCom opened a new link for users in North Korea, Bryce Boland, chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region at FireEye, said in an interview on Monday. Until now, state-owned China United ...

Bloomberg On the last page of a nine-page tax plan that calls for slashing business rates, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans proposed a little-noticed, brand-new tax that may hit companies like Apple Inc. and Pfizer Inc. It’s contained in one sentence: “To prevent companies from shifting profits to tax havens, the framework includes rules to protect the US tax ...

Bloomberg A hard Brexit could be a lot more painful for the UK than for the European Union. Britain’s automotive, technology, health-care and consumer goods sectors may lose $22.8 billion a year in export revenues when the UK leaves the single market and customs union, according to a report released on Monday by Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie LLP ...

Bloomberg Euro-area factories are scrambling to add staff as burgeoning orders stretch capacity. A Purchasing Managers Index for the region’s manufacturing industry rose to 58.1 in September from 57.4 the previous month, London-based IHS Markit said on Monday. That compares with a preliminary reading of 58.2 and is the highest level in more than six and a half years. A ...

Bloomberg Square Inc. struck an agreement to process payments for ticketing service Eventbrite and made a strategic investment in the startup, part of the digital-payments company’s push into online commerce, an area dominated by larger players like PayPal Holdings Inc. San Francisco-based Square invested $25 million in Eventbrite, which lets event organisers sell tickets and promote and manage events. Eventbrite, ...

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. directors plan to vote on Tuesday on board reforms and whether to pursue a major stock deal with SoftBank Group Corp. despite the surprise appointment of two new members by ousted Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, two people familiar with the matter said. Those two coordinated moves could drastically reshape the ride-hailing company’s governance, while officially ...