September, 2016

• 21 September

  200 killed in China chemical accidents: Greenpeace

  

    Beijing / AFP Chemical accidents have killed nearly 200 people in China so far this year, environmental group Greenpeace said Wednesday, calling on Beijing to overhaul the “appallingly under-regulated” industry. Industrial accidents are common in China, where work safety regulations are often flouted. In the first eight months of the year, China saw 232 chemical accidents which killed 199 ...

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• 21 September

  Samsung suffers backlash over smartphone response in China

  

    Beijing / AP Liu Jingtang was a Samsung loyalist. The Shanghai technology consultant traded up steadily through its smartphones to the new Note 7. But Liu’s devotion was shaken by the Korean tech giant’s confusing response to its latest product safety scare. Liu, 32, said Samsung Electronics quickly confirmed his Note 7 wasn’t covered by a recall announced last ...

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• 21 September

  Investors ask German court for €8.2bn over VW’s ‘dieselgate’

  

    Frankfurt / AFP Volkswagen investors have filed 1,400 lawsuits seeking 8.2 billion euros in compensation from the car giant over its emissions cheating scandal, a German court said Wednesday, adding to a long list of legal woes for the embattled firm. Investors say the automaker failed to disclose details of the case in a timely way, leading them to ...

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• 21 September

  EU scraps time limits on free mobile roaming plan

    Brussels / AFP The EU on Wednesday scrapped a controversial plan to limit its landmark free mobile phone roaming policy to 90 days a year, after an outcry from angry consumer groups. While doing away with time limits for roaming across the currently 28-nation bloc, the European Commission said it will instead impose checks to curb abuse of the ...

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• 21 September

  Almost 5,500 UK-based firms use European passporting

    London / AFP The ‘passport’ rights allowing 5,500 British-based financial firms to operate freely across the European single market are at stake, the country’s financial watchdog has revealed in highlighting potential fallout from Brexit. Some 8,000 financial firms based elsewhere in the European Union also do business in Britain via passporting, and their rights are likewise threatened, data from ...

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• 21 September

  Brazil Real rises as carry trade lures traders in low-rate world

  

    Bloomberg The real strengthened as traders kept close watch on the U.S. Federal Reserve for signs regarding the timing and pace of interest rate hikes that could reduce the appetite for Brazil’s world-beating carry trade. The currency appreciated 0.5 percent to 3.2431 per dollar at 9:31 a.m. in Sao Paulo. One-month implied volatility on the real dropped for the ...

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• 21 September

  Denmark eyes looming skills shortage as economy picks up

  

    Copenhagen / AFP After a lacklustre recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, Denmark’s central bank has warned that the labour market faces a squeeze as unemployment falls, the population ages and young people shun vocational jobs. At Technical Education Copenhagen, traineeships for another 20 to 30 lorry drivers could probably have been found if only people were interested in ...

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• 21 September

  Deepen Charleston’s port, and the big ships will come

  

    Technology has put powerful computers in billions of pockets, but an invention much more mundane than the smartphone — the shipping container: a rectangular steel box — also has changed the world. Because of it, two of today’s preoccupations — infrastructure and globalization — are connected by a chain of events that began more than 60 years ago and ...

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• 21 September

  Poll debacles won’t deter brave Merkel

  

    Many people seem to expect Chancellor Angela Merkel to apologize. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, keeps underperforming in regional elections. Most recently, the CDU took a drubbing in parliamentary elections in Berlin on Sept. 18. The reason: the backlash against the kindness Merkel showed toward refugees last year. There have been five defeats this year, in every state ...

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• 21 September

  Don’t kill the driverless revolution with regulation

    In publishing new guidelines for automated vehicles this week, the U.S. Transportation Department tacitly acknowledged two important truths: This technology will probably be great. And no one knows what will happen. The regulators took a restrained approach, offering a safety checklist for manufacturers and better guidance for state officials but stopping short of issuing restrictive new rules. That’s prudent: ...

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