January, 2019

• 7 January

  Eskom to extend job cuts beyond top-tier executives

  

  Bloomberg Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd will extend its strategy of trimming top executive positions to include lower ranking managers and finally the general workforce as South Africa’s cash-strapped power utility looks to cut costs, according to a person familiar with the plans. The state-owned company last month reduced its highest executive structure to nine positions from 21 by regrading and ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Goldman slashes oil price forecasts

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc cut its oil price forecasts for 2019, citing a re-emerging surplus and resilient US shale production. Global benchmark Brent crude will average $62.50 a barrel this year, analysts including Damien Courvalin said in a January 6 note, down from a previous estimate of $70. US marker West Texas Intermediate will average $55.50 a barrel, down ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Trump may try to suppress key part of Mueller’s findings

  

  Bloomberg The White House may try to block portions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report from being shared with Congress and the public in a fight that could end up before the Supreme Court. Mueller may submit his findings on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign to the Justice Department as early as February, according to one US ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Trump, Kim likely to choose Hanoi for second summit

  

  Bloomberg US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could meet in Vietnam’s capital for their second summit on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, the South Korean newspaper Munhwa Ilbo said. Denuclearisation talks have sputtered since Trump and Kim held an unprecedented June meeting in Singapore, with Washington and Pyongyang each calling on the other to take action. A ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Risks mount for Modi as parties team up

  

  Bloomberg Two powerful regional politicians are teaming up in India’s most populous state to take on the country’s ruling party ahead of national elections, in a move that complicates Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for a second term in office. The leaders of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have decided “in principle” to unite to contest the polls ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Gabon foils coup by army mutineers

  Bloomberg Gabonese authorities said they put down an attempted coup by a group of mutineering soldiers who’d seized control of the national broadcaster and vowed to “save a democracy in danger.” Communication Minister Guy-Bertrand Mapangou told Radio France Internationale that order had been restored, and the capital, Libreville, was largely quiet. His statement came hours after Ondo Obiang Kelly, an ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  UK lawmakers ratchet up campaign to avert no-deal Brexit

  

  Bloomberg Lawmakers called on Theresa May to rule out a no-deal Brexit, stepping up a campaign against an outcome they say threatens the livelihoods of voters. “Manufacturing plants employ thousands of our constituents and their jobs will be put at immediate risk if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union with no deal,” some 209 lawmakers from both May’s Conservatives ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Elon Musk breaks ground on $5bn Tesla factory in Shanghai

  

  Bloomberg After four years of planning, Tesla Inc finally broke ground on its planned $5 billion factory in the world’s biggest auto market. But the timing couldn’t be more inauspicious. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and some Shanghai officials, including Mayor Ying Yong, on Monday attended a function at a site near the city to kick off construction of what ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Xi aide shows up at US-China trade talks

  

  Bloomberg Chinese Vice Premier Liu He unexpectedly attended the first day of talks aimed at resolving the trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies, according to people familiar with the matter and a photo seen by Bloomberg. Liu is the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who led previous negotiations in Washington that produced a deal that ...

  Read More »
• 7 January

  Taiwan arrests six engineers suspected of leaking BASF technology to China

  

  Bloomberg Taiwan arrested six current and former BASF SE engineers accused of accepting bribes and sharing the German company’s technology with Jiangyin Jianghua Microelectronics Materials Co., in one of the more elaborate cases involving alleged Chinese intellectual property theft. Jianghua offered them $5.8 million in return for help building a new factory in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, Criminal ...

  Read More »