August, 2016

• 30 August

  Israel calls UN criticism of settlement building ‘absurd’

    Jerusalem / AFP Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday called criticism of Israeli settlement building “absurd” after a UN envoy strongly hit out at his government over the issue. “The claim that it is illegal for Jews to build in Jerusalem is as absurd as saying Americans can’t build in Washington or the French can’t build in Paris,” Netanyahu ...

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• 30 August

  Libya: Last chemical weapons stocks shipped out

  

    Tripoli / AFP Libya has shipped the last of its chemical weapons stocks out of the country, officials said on Tuesday, under a UN-backed plan to ensure the arsenal could not fall into the wrong hands. The move will ease fears that extremists like the Islamic State group could gain access to the weapons in Libya, which has been wracked ...

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• 30 August

  3 hurt in suicide blast at China’s Kyrgyzstan embassy

    Bishkek / AFP A van driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, wounding three people, authorities said. “As a result of the explosion, only the suicide bomber terrorist died. Security guards were injured,” Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov told journalists at the scene. Razakov said the ...

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• 30 August

  Bangladesh upholds radical tycoon’s death sentence

  

    Dhaka / AFP A wealthy tycoon who was a chief financier for Bangladesh’s largest radical party could be executed in days after losing his final appeal on Tuesday against a death sentence from a controversial war crimes tribunal. The Supreme Court rejected Mir Quasem Ali’s last attempt to overturn the death penalty handed down two years ago by the domestic ...

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• 30 August

  US-EU trade deal gets hung up on politics

  

    Germany’s vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, says talks about a major trade deal between the European Union and the U.S. have failed, though “nobody is really admitting it.” That statement should be taken with a grain of salt, but the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership appears to be doomed, at least until after elections in the U.S. and major European ...

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• 30 August

  India’s Monsanto clash is bad news for innovators

  

    Monsanto’s many battles with the Indian government have typically been cast as clashes between poor Indian farmers and a giant multinational that’s overcharging for its genetically modified seeds. And certainly, the U.S. agriculture giant isn’t the most sympathetic of companies. Its seeds are indeed expensive and, in the case of cotton, no longer deliver the returns promised as resistance ...

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• 30 August

  Voters deserve to know more about candidates’ health

  

    Like all of us, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are going to die. Will it be in the next four years? Probably — ideally — not. But for voters, that’s a reasonable question, especially given that Clinton is 68 and Trump, 70. Unfortunately, the candidates have refused to divulge the kind of information that would enable anyone to arrive ...

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• 30 August

  Challenges ahead for US-India bilateral trade

    A day after signing a defence agreement that would make joint operations between their militaries easier and efficient, the US and India kicked off a two-day strategic and commercial dialogue in New Delhi on Tuesday. The world’s two largest democracies are keen to boost their bilateral trade —which currently stands at $109 billion — to $500 billion. They look ...

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• 30 August

  Anguish of Obamacare didn’t have to happen

  

    The last few weeks have featured a great deal of news for Obamacare, most of it bad. Insurers are pulling out of the exchanges and premiums are rising. Coverage has been expanded, but it increasingly looks as if that coverage will mostly consist of companies taking their Medicaid managed care plans and repackaging them for private customers. Call it ...

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• 30 August

  Uber is trying to figure out if it’s a real business

  

    Uber is still losing lots and lots of money, the world learned last week from Bloomberg’s Eric Newcomer. It may even be losing a lot more money than Newcomer was able to tell us about. As he put it in his weekly e-mail newsletter: We know that Uber has lost at least $1.2 billion in the first half of ...

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