September, 2017

• 30 September

  Japan election sets up two-horse race

  

  Japan’s main opposition party agreed to merge with a new group created by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, setting her up as the main challenger to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he dissolved parliament ahead of an October 22 election. The Democratic Party, one of Japan’s top political forces for the past two decades, decided on Thursday to run its candidates ...

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• 30 September

  Don’t relax the rules on coal ash disposal

  When you think of pollution from coal-fired power plants, you may envision dark soot puffing out of tall smokestacks, peppering the air and making it harder for people to breathe. But since technology has eliminated much of this airborne pollution, what’s worse for the environment now is coal ash, a sludge that pours from US power plants at the rate ...

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• 30 September

  The new Republican tax plan still isn’t a plan

  With the release of their new “framework” for tax reform, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have once again succeeded in avoiding an actual plan. At best, it’s the start of a process that might conceivably lead somewhere. The framework has some commendable principles—calling for simpler, lower taxes for businesses and the middle class; a broader tax base with fewer ...

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• 30 September

  Democrats should cut a border deal with Trump

  

  “We have to get massive border security,” President Donald Trump declared 10 days ago. There has to be “100 percent operational control” of America’s border with Mexico, Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, likes to say. This is good stuff for the conservative base, evoking the specter of hordes of lowlife immigrants storming across the border and threatening US security ...

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• 30 September

  South Korea’s Moon tries to rescue liberalism

  

  While much of the world’s attention is fixated on North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, something with the potential to be equally globe-rattling is taking place, generally unnoticed, in South Korea. There, new President Moon Jae-in is charting an entirely contrary course in economic policy than much of the rest of the developed world. If successful, the experiment could alter ...

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• 30 September

  Why European socialist parties keep imploding

  

  It’s clear after election in Germany that the electoral failures of established socialist parties in Europe are not a few isolated events but a trend, an existential crisis for the center-left. There are few better illustrations of this crisis than Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz’s futile anger at Chancellor Angela Merkel in the aftermath of Sunday’s election. Schulz called her ...

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• 30 September

  Amazon girds for rivals Apple, Google in home devices push

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc., girding for competition from Apple Inc. and Google in the race to equip homes with smart devices, unveiled a slew of consumer gadgets including an Alexa-powered digital-home hub, a smaller and cheaper Echo speaker and a new mini Echo with a screen, called Spot. Though hardware products aren’t key to Amazon’s bottom line, they serve as important ...

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• 30 September

  Roku IPO 2017’s best for tech stock debut with 68% jump

  Bloomberg Roku Inc.’s trading debut has catapulted it among the biggest gainers for newly listed technology and communications stocks as investors bet on the success of streaming video. The shares closed at a high on its first day of trading at $23.50, up 68 percent from its $14-a-share initial public offering price. That surpassed MuleSoft Inc.’s first day rise in ...

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• 30 September

  Toshiba inks $18billion deal to sell chip arm to Bain group

  

  Bloomberg Toshiba Corp. signed a final agreement to sell its flash memory chip business to a group led by Bain Capital for about $18 billion, moving a step closer to completing the deal after months of contentious negotiations. The Bain consortium includes major technology players Apple Inc., Dell Inc., SK Hynix Inc. and Japan’s Hoya Corp., while Toshiba itself will ...

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• 30 September

  Apple urged to activate iPhone’s FM radio chip after hurricanes

  

  Bloomberg For 19 nonstop hours as Hurricane Irma lashed Florida, disc jockey Nio Fernandez broadcast updates in Spanish from the 92.5 Maxima radio studios in St. Petersburg, fielding updates from those trapped in their homes as wind and rain whipped through the area. “There was a sense of desperation in people’s voices,” he said of callers to the station. “They ...

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