Bloomberg Chinese construction contractor New Headline Holdings Ltd. shelved a HK$340 million ($44 million) initial public offering in Hong Kong after a key executive, who is also the chairman’s wife, was put under police surveillance. Executive Director Xie Birui is under “designated residence surveillance” by the Public Security Bureau of Lianyungang, the city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province where the ...

Bloomberg A landmark medical trial involving Alphabet Inc.’s DeepMind artificial intelligence division violated British data protection laws, the UK’s top privacy watchdog ruled. The Information Commissioner’s Office said that the National Health Service hospital that conducted the trial with DeepMind improperly shared 1.6 million patient records with the tech company, failing to inform patients that their data would be used ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. reorganized its sales and marketing operations in a bid to woo more customers in areas like artificial intelligence and the cloud by providing sales staff with greater technical and industry-specific expertise. The changes will mean thousands of job cuts in areas such as field sales, said a person familiar with the restructuring who asked not to be ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturing slowed more than forecast in June as uncertainty hit demand, raising doubts about the outlook for the economy, according to IHS Markit. Its Purchasing Managers Index fell to a three-month low of 54.3 from a downwardly revised 56.3 in May, the company said in London. While that’s below what economists had forecast, it’s still above the 50 ...

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. suffered another setback in the European Union after an adviser to the bloc’s top court backed a French law that led to sanctions for top managers in the country. EU nations “may prohibit and punish the illegal exercise of a transport activity such as UberPop without having to notify the” European Commission of the draft law, ...

Bloomberg June US sales show automakers are still selling lots of expensive trucks and sport utility vehicles, a bright spot that’s rescuing profitability in a market forecast to decline from last year’s record sales. Deliveries of Toyota Motor Corp.’s RAV4 spiked 25 percent, while Honda Motor Co.’s HR-V saw a 35 percent gain, according to Autodata Corp. Toyota, Honda and ...

Reuters­­­­ / Bloomberg United Arab Emirates foreign minister His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Tuesday that Arab countries boycotting Qatar over its support for terrorism were still awaiting a response to their demands via mediator Kuwait. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt are pressing Qatar to shut its Al Jazeera news TV station and scale ...

Bloomberg Chinese President Xi Jinping called for closer cooperation with Germany in shaping the global order, marking out Chancellor Angela Merkel as an ally on free trade at this week’s Group of 20 summit. “The strategic character of Chinese-German relations is steadily gaining in importance,” Xi said in an op-ed article published on Tuesday in German newspaper Die Welt, citing ...

NEW YORK ­­­­ / WAM Movements by sea from Libya to Europe, despite being the most dangerous route for reaching the continent, have increased and there are indications that it will likely continue to do so, a new study by the United Nations refugee agency has revealed. According to ‘Mixed Migration Trends in Libya: Changing Dynamics and Protection Challenges’, a ...

Bloomberg North Korea said on Tuesday it successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, a claim that brings the isolated state closer to its aim of building a device capable of hitting the continental U.S. with a nuclear warhead. The missile was a newly-developed ICBM that reached an altitude of 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) and was fired at its highest angle, ...