Adam Minter The story first turned up in mid-May: Foxconn, Apple’s favorite manufacturer, was replacing 60,000 of its workers with robots. Everyone from the BBC to Apple fan sites soon reported the ground-shifting news. There was just one problem: It was mostly false. Last weekend, a Foxconn spokesperson told Chinese media that the company hadn’t laid off anyone, much ...

  J. Randy Forbes SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS With tensions rising in the South China Sea, the United States’ alliance with the Philippines may be approaching one of its most important moments in its 65-year history. Over the past few years, the world has watched as China has steadily worked to achieve de facto control of the islands and waters ...

  JEDDAH / Reuters Saudi Arabia will offer foreign and local property developers partnership deals in a vast housing construction programme that aims to build 1.5 million homes over the next seven or eight years, the housing minister said. “We are preparing five or six types of partnership between the ministry and the developer,” Majed al-Hogail told a news conference ...

  Bloomberg Partners Group Holding AG of Switzerland is in exclusive talks to buy French real estate management business Foncia from Eurazeo SA and Bridgepoint, the sellers said in a statement on Thursday. Foncia, which has refocused on real estate services since Eurazeo and Bridgepoint bought it from French bank BPCE SA in 2011, had revenue of €696 million ($793 ...

  Bloomberg RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, Canada’s largest REIT by market value, is teaming up with Tricon Capital Group Inc. and Diamond Corp. to develop a combined retail and residential project in Toronto’s midtown core, according to people familiar with the deal. The joint venture agreed to buy the real estate — a row of high-end boutiques and a ...

WASHINGTON One of the mysteries of Campaign 2016 is why the Iran nuclear deal has vanished as an issue. But a new book reveals some startling details about how the diplomacy with Tehran began in secret, long before reformers took power there, and the crucial role played by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The diplomatic narrative is laid out ...

  Once more history is being scripted in the US election. Eight years ago, an African American young Senator, Barrack Obama, cruised to the Oval House. Now Hillary Clinton claimed victory on Tuesday over rival Bernie Sanders in the Democratic White House nomination race. If she defeats Donald Trump in November, Clinton will become the first female president of America. ...

    Adam Minter When Air France Flight 447 crashed in the Atlantic in 2009, it took two years and more than $25 million before investigators found it. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in 2014 and still hasn’t turned up. EgyptAir 804, lost on May 19, is somewhere on the bottom of the Mediterranean, but until investigators can dredge up ...

    Listening to our political leaders, you’d think everyone on the planet works in a factory. Donald Trump wants to stop China and Mexico from “taking our jobs” by preventing factories from moving there — and he’s willing to launch a trade war to do so. Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, recently claimed that a ...

  Beirut / AFP Thousands of civilians have fled a stronghold of the IS group in northern Syria almost surrounded by US-backed fighters seeking to cut a key supply lifeline for the extremists. The Arab-Kurdish offensive on the town of Manbij is one of two major assaults on the route IS uses to send in more fighters, weapons and money from ...