Plague and war, but good stuff too

Two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse will keep us busy in 2022 as they did in 2021. One is plague — in our case the Sars-CoV-2 virus that keeps mutating. As predicted in March, people are in for a seemingly permanent struggle between us (science) and nature (evolution). People keep coming up with new and better vaccines, but ...

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How Europe can reduce its dependence on Russian gas

  As if the pandemic and rising inflation weren’t enough, Europeans face another source of wintry discontent: an energy crisis. A supply crunch has caused the price of power to hit record highs, just in time for the coldest season. It also risks exacerbating a worrying situation in Ukraine. With Russia massing forces on the border, Europe’s dependence on Russian ...

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Westons sell Selfridges to Thai joint venture for $5.4 billion

  Bloomberg The billionaire dynasty behind Selfridges & Co has sold the British department store operator to a Thai-Austrian joint venture for about 4 billion pounds ($5.4 billion) in one of the biggest UK retail deals in years. The Weston family said Central Group, which is owned by the Chirathivats, one of Asia’s wealthiest families, and Signa Holding of Austria, ...

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Chinese consumers blast Walmart over missing Xinjiang items

  Bloomberg Chinese social media platforms erupted over allegations that Walmart Inc had stopped selling items from Xinjiang at its members-only grocery chain Sam’s Club in China, raising the risk that the world’s biggest retailer will be swept into escalating tensions between China and the US over the western province. Posts of screenshots showing no search results for the word ...

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Airlines’ US holiday flight cuts near 1,900 on crew shortages

  Bloomberg Airlines’ US flight cancellations approached 1,900 for the Christmas weekend, disrupting travel on one of the busiest periods of the year as the Omicron-fueled wave of Covid cases triggered air-crew shortages. Saturday’s pullbacks erased at least 12% of the schedule at Delta Air Lines Inc, United Airlines Holdings Inc and JetBlue Airways Corp, according to data tracker FlightAware.com. ...

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CK Asset exits aircraft leasing business

  Bloomberg CK Asset Holdings Ltd said it’s exiting the aircraft-leasing sector due to a “paradigm shift” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, selling two indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries to Maverick Aviation Partnership LP for $4.28 billion. The company is selling Accipiter Finance for about $2.44 billion and Manchester Aviation Finance for $1.84 billion, according to a filing to the Hong Kong ...

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Po family buys iconic Philippine brands

  Bloomberg Century Pacific Food Inc and Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures Inc, owned by the Po family in the Philippines, are buying two household names in transactions that perked up the local deals scene a week before yearend. Century Pacific, a tuna canner that has been building its portfolio, will acquire assets and intellectual property related to the manufacturing of ...

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Budget retailer Miniso weighing HK listing

  Bloomberg Miniso Group Holding Ltd, a Chinese budget household and consumer goods retailer whose stock is already traded in New York, is considering a second listing in Hong Kong next year, people with knowledge of the matter said. The firm is working with Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group AG on the proposed share sale, the people said, ...

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Japan won’t send government delegation to Beijing Olympics

  Bloomberg Japan won’t send any government representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympics, effectively throwing its support behind the US-led diplomatic boycott of the games that start in February. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno announced that Japan would dispatch three top members of the teams that helped organize this year’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. He added the government had reached ...

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Trudeau says China ‘playing’ Western states against each other

  Bloomberg Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said China has been “playing” Western states against each other and that democracies should present a “united front” in response. “There’s been a bit of competition amongst friends because we’re capitalist democracies trying to do well, especially given the extraordinary economic opportunity of the rise in the Chinese middle class,” Trudeau said in ...

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