Bloomberg In the pre-crash days, sustainable building materials and low-flow toilets became part of the common real estate conversation: Slap “eco” on a home, the thinking went, and it was more valuable, not just to the earth but to the homeowner. The most direct path to an officially green building was through third-party certification—if the building could check ...

  London / Bloomberg Marks & Spencer Group Plc chief Steve Rowe’s strategy to reboot the retailer’s moribund clothing business got a cool reception from investors, with the stock falling the most in seven years amid concerns the plan will hurt short-term profits and doesn’t address some key decisions. The company will reduce styles to de-clutter its stores, cut prices ...

  Beijing / AP Chinese tech giant Huawei said on Wednesday it has filed patent infringement lawsuits against South Korean mobile phone rival Samsung in the United States and China, in a case that highlights the rise of Asian competitors as technology creators. Huawei Technologies Ltd. said it wants “reasonable compensation” but gave no financial figure for its claim against Samsung ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG is struggling to hire cabin crews for new routes, putting growth plans at risk as low wages and years of labour conflict complicate the airline’s recruiting amid a tight German job market. Through mid-May, Lufthansa has brought on about 500 flight attendants for its namesake carrier, the company said in response to questions from Bloomberg. ...

  Washington / AFP The Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered airplane piloted by Swiss national Bertrand Piccard, successfully flew out of Dayton, Ohio in the dark early on Wednesday en route to Pennsylvania, according to a live online feed of the departure. The single-seat plane with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 is covered in solar cells that power its propellers ...

  Washington / Bloomberg The first thing online clothing reseller ThredUp did after clinching a new round of funding last year? Hunt for strategic warehouse space to get the goods to its customers as fast as possible. Amazon.com has spoiled them for anything less. Within six months, ThredUp’s chief executive officer, James Reinhart, had signed leases on two additional warehouses. ...

  Hairatan / AFP Some days there is no train at all crossing the bridge to Uzbekistan, yawns a customs officer in Hairatan, formerly a teeming Silk Road border town whose decline is a barometer of economic depression in Afghanistan’s north. “The camel driver is at work; the caravan is being readied,” proclaimed the mystic poet Rumi, born in Balkh ...

  Bloomberg After starving farms across Asia of rainfall, El Nino’s last gasps have infused life into the battered market for diesel fuel in the region.South Asian nations are using more diesel to run irrigation pumps used by farmers in the absence of rainfall to water crops and as dry weather depletes hydropower. That’s contributed to a 65 percent surge ...

  Sunaina Rana/ Emirates Business Reichle& De-Massari (R&M) is an independent Swiss family business with more than 52-years of experience in the information and communications technology market. Since its establishment in 1964, R&M has grown into one of the leading providers of passive cabling solutions for high-quality communication networks. R&M is now a multinational organisation that is represented by subsidiaries ...

  Our Correspondent / EMIRATES BUSINESS In 1985, Louis-Paul Guitay had a life-changing experience — a devastating injury that forced him to endure cervical spine rehabilitation. During his excruciating, prolonged physical rehabilitation sessions, Guitay began to fantasise about helping the therapist by mechanising his protocols for greater consistency. Little did he know — he was mere steps away from the ...