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  Beijing / AFP Chinese internet billionaire Jack Ma has bought a stake in cinema legend Steven Spielberg’s company, they said, the latest tie-up between China and Hollywood as they seek to make movies for audiences in the Middle Kingdom and beyond. Alibaba Pictures, a unit of Ma’s sprawling e-commerce conglomerate, has taken a minority shareholding in Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, ...

  Bloomberg Foreign ownership of Malaysian government bonds dropped in September for the first time in 12 months, with the outflows likely to have been triggered largely by debt maturities. Overseas holdings decreased 0.4 percent to 213 billion ringgit ($51.4 billion), after climbing to a record in August, according to central bank data released in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. Sovereign ...

Vilnius / AFP Lithuanians fed up with economic inequality voted for change in round one of a general election, with Monday’s results showing the opposition set to oust the governing leftists in an October 23 run-off. The national elections commission said near full results showed the centrist Lithuanian Peasants and Green Union party (LPGU) winning 21.62 percent of the vote, ...

  Dubai / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, received the credentials of new ambassadors to the UAE at Al Mushrif Palace in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Sheikh Mohammed welcomed Ambassador Goetz Lingenthal of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ambassador Andreas Liebmann of the Republic of Austria, Ambassador Robert ...

  Paris / WAM UAE and UNESCO officials met in Paris to discuss developing countries, with a focus on health, education, social services, and the safeguarding of world cultural heritages. Irina Bokova, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), met Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC), who is paying a working ...

  Dubai / WAM DP World has partnered with the government of Dubai’s Community Development Authority (CDA), reaffirming its commitment to empowering Emiratis with employment, training and development opportunities. The two entities recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of a common framework to promote cooperation and coordination in this regard. The CDA will train DP World staff ...

  Port-au-Prince / AFP Haiti began three days of mourning on Sunday for hundreds killed in Hurricane Matthew as relief officials grappled with the unfolding devastation in the Caribbean country’s hard-hit south. Matthew was downgraded Sunday to a post-tropical cyclone after cutting a swath from Florida to North Carolina that left at least 17 dead. As of 1500 GMT, the storm ...

  Beirut / AFP Syrian government forces on Sunday kept up their blistering assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo after a divided UN Security Council failed to agree on a truce to “save” the war-battered city. Regime forces and their allies were advancing street by street in the eastern sector which has been out of government hands since 2012. “Clashes on ...

  Sydney / AFP Australia’s richest woman and a Chinese property developer joined forces Sunday to bid for one of the world’s largest cattle estates, despite Canberra’s rejection of previous foreign offers. Australia’s biggest private landowner, cattle firm S. Kidman and Co, has attracted keen interest from Chinese firms wanting to secure the sprawling pastoral empire. But the government has ...

  Bloomberg Shanghai, China’s financial hub, is putting in place new measures to curb a surge in property prices as part of the country’s latest push to ensure stable and healthy real estate development. The new steps announced by the city’s housing commission include increasing land supply and forbidding price increases in new home pre-sales without approval. In addition, punishment ...