Beijing / AFP China’s undead army of zombie corporations will not qualify for debt-for-equity swaps, the government said, as Beijing tries to curb the risks of ballooning corporate debt. New guidelines posted on the website of the State Council, China’s cabinet, sought to offer some clarity to long-discussed but hazy plans to reduce debt by letting lenders swap bad ...

  Bloomberg Jera Co., a venture between two of Japan’s biggest power utilities, agreed to acquire EDF Trading Ltd.’s coal-trading business as part of a push to lower fuel costs and expand its overseas business. The Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. and Chubu Electric Power Co. venture signed a non-binding agreement to buy all of EDF Trading Australia Pty, ...

  BLOOMBERG Ssangyong Motor Co., the South Korean SUV maker, is exploring a joint venture in China with Shaanxi Automobile Group Co. to produce vehicles in the world’s largest auto market. Ssangyong signed a letter of intent with Xi’an-based Shaanxi Auto to study a possible joint venture and local production plant, the Pyeongtaek, South Korea-based automaker said in a statement. ...

  Bloomberg Takata Corp. fell the most in three weeks in Tokyo trading after it was said to be considering bankruptcy protection in the U.S. The air-bag maker said no decision has been made. Takata dropped 7.5 percent to 347 yen, while the benchmark Topix Index advanced 0.4 percent. The Tokyo-based company, whose defective air-bag inflators triggered the biggest recall ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis that requires a ‘massive response’ from the international community, the United Nations chief said, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid following last week’s battering by Hurricane Matthew. The storm left at least 372 dead in the impoverished Caribbean nation, with the toll likely to rise sharply as rescue ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Tuesday told her government to prepare for large-scale defections from North Korea, just days after direct appealing to its citizens to flee their country. A recent spate of high-profile North Korean defections have provided a propaganda windfall for Seoul, which has spun them into a narrative of a Pyongyang leadership in ...

  Islamabad / AFP Pakistan’s government has imposed a travel ban on a leading journalist after he sparked an uproar by reporting that civilian officials had clashed with the military over its covert support for militants. Cyril Almeida, an assistant editor at Dawn, the country’s oldest and most prestigious English daily, announced early on Tuesday he had been placed on the ...

  Geneva / AFP A jailed scholar defending China’s mostly-Muslim Uighur minority was awarded a leading honour for human rights on Tuesday, a move swiftly condemned by Beijing. Ilham Tohti, who was handed a life sentence in 2014, won the Martin Ennals award for his outspoken criticism of Beijing’s policies towards Uighurs. “Ilham Tohti has worked for two decades to foster ...

  Paris / AFP Big cities worldwide have expanded faster than their rapid transit systems, leading to higher levels of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and commuter misery, a report released Tuesday showed. “Low-density, car-oriented development — known as ‘sprawl’ — has been the predominant urban form for cities in the past century,” said Michael Marks, a researcher at the non-profit, New ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Most major bourses in the Gulf rose on Tuesday as oil prices held near one-year highs, while Egypt retreated after news that Saudi Arabia had suspended oil product supplies to the country this month. Riyadh’s stock index gained 1.5 percent, trimming its loss over the last four weeks to 8.4 percent. All 14 listed petrochemical producers ...