February, 2019

• 16 February

  Brazil now treads softly on Venezuela

  

  Bloomberg Brazil was among the first countries to recognize US-backed National Assembly President Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader but it’s unlikely to add much more pressure to help oust Nicolas Maduro. President Jair Bolsonaro is no fan of Maduro, yet he’s been constrained by economic interests, a long-held Brazilian tradition of non-intervention in other countries, and a dash of ...

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• 16 February

  Libya vote by year-end ‘true possibility’

  

  Bloomberg Libya should be ready to hold elections this year, with rival factions on track to hold a national reconciliation conference by the end of March, the United Nations envoy to the oil-rich but chaotic north African state said. “End of the year is a true possibility” for holding parliamentary and presidential elections, UN envoy Ghassan Salame said in an ...

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• 16 February

  Pro-Brexit ministers could live with ‘limit on backstop’

  Bloomberg Pro-Brexit members of Theresa May’s Cabinet would be willing keep Britain tied to the European Union’s customs regime for as long as five years in an effort to break the deadlock in divorce talks, people familiar with the matter said. The prime minister is trying to renegotiate the so-called backstop guarantee for avoiding a hard border with Ireland because ...

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• 16 February

  Nigeria’s postponement throws election into disarray

  

  Bloomberg The last-minute delay of Nigeria’s general elections by a week carries dangers for both President Muhammadu Buhari and his main opponent, Atiku Abubakar. While the electoral commission said the postponement just over five hours before polls were due to open Saturday was for logistical reasons, it reinforces opposition criticisms that state institutions under Buhari aren’t independent and are incompetent. ...

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• 16 February

  Redefining the commuter car

  

  Bloomberg It’s all-electric like a Tesla. It’s priced like a Ford Fiesta. It’s one of the oddest-looking vehicles you’ve ever seen — and it may just redefine the commuter car. As General Motors Co. prepares to shut the plant near Toronto that got car-making started in Canada more than a century ago, a new model is taking shape in a ...

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• 16 February

  Robot scratches tip of Fukushima’s 600-ton melted fuel conundrum

  

  Bloomberg Japan reached the latest hard-fought step in the 40-year, $194 billion cleanup of the 2011 Fukushima meltdown: A robot successfully touched some of the melted fuel sitting inside one of its three wrecked reactors. Japan has decided to remove and dispose of the melted nuclear fuel inside of the Fukushima plant, rather than entombing the site as was done ...

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• 16 February

  Angry Birds maker plans to sell control of Hatch unit

  

  Bloomberg Rovio Entertainment Oyj, maker of the Angry Birds mobile games, fell after it reported declining profitability, and warned investors of lower profits for the first half of the year. The company is prepared to cede control of subsidiary Hatch Entertainment, the cloud-based gaming service it currently owns 80 percent of, to less than 50 percent. Without Hatch, the Finnish ...

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• 16 February

  Video games are changing!

  

  Bloomberg As the video game model evolves, Morgan Stanley expects the market to pay less for publishers until they develop a better sense of what works. The success of free-to-play games like Fortnite by Epic Games and recently released Apex Legends by Electronic Arts Inc. are changing player behavior, as gamers may not see the utility of paying $60 for ...

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• 16 February

  Google to spend $13bn on data centers, offices

  

  Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s Google plans to spend $13 billion on data centers and offices across the US in 2019, saying the investment will create thousands of new construction jobs in states outside its traditional base of California. The new spending builds on $9 billion the company put into expanding across the country last year. By the end of 2019, Google ...

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• 16 February

  Nintendo unveils new games to boost switch

  Bloomberg Nintendo Co. has unveiled 18 previously unannounced games as the company doubles down on software titles to revive slumping sales of the Switch console. Among the most promising new games are Super Mario Maker 2, which will go on sale in June, and Zelda: Link’s Awakening slated for some time this year. The release of Fire Emblem: Three Houses ...

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