AT&T slams US merger suit with price hike claim

Bloomberg AT&T Inc. lashed out at the US antitrust lawsuit against the company’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Inc., saying the government’s own economic expert determined the deal would raise prices for pay-TV subscribers by just 45 cents a month. The telecommunications giant derided the Justice Department’s case, saying the government’s own analysis shows the deal would cause minimal consumer ...

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Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft jockey for Pentagon’s cloud business

Bloomberg In late February, Oracle Corp. co-CEO Safra Catz met with a top Pentagon official to discuss the government’s defense strategy days before the department was set to outline how it plans to spend billions of dollars on cloud-computing services. Catz’s meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, which was confirmed by a department spokesman, came as technology companies ...

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‘Trump must adopt patience with N Korea’

Bloomberg President Donald Trump will need to adopt an unfamiliar set of traits — patience, persistence, clear goals and conditions — and be prepared to walk away when he meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, people who have negotiated with Kim’s regime say. Trump’s apparently impromptu decision to begin setting up talks contrasts with Kim’s situation — North Korea ...

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Slovak coalition huddles after protests

Bloomberg Slovakia’s ruling parties prepared to respond after tens of thousands of people took to the streets in the biggest protests since the fall of the Iron curtain, calling on PM Robert Fico’s government to step down over a failure to fight corruption. The biggest crisis faced by the three-time premier’s government, triggered by the murder of an investigative journalist ...

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UK, Saudi to strengthen UN inspection regime for war-battered Yemen

Reuters Britain and Saudi Arabia want to strengthen a United Nations inspection regime for ships headed to Yemen, the Britishforeign minister said after meeting his Saudi counterpart in London. “Today we have agreed to strengthen the UN inspection of shipping in order to ensure that all Yemeni ports remain open to the humanitarian and commercial supplies that Yemen’s people so ...

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Hurdles to avoid third US shutdown remain

Bloomberg House and Senate negotiators aim to introduce a $1.2 trillion spending bill by Wednesday to avoid potentially messy battles that forced partial government shutdowns in January and February, according to members and aides involved in the talks. Three major obstacles remain: funds for the $12.9 billion Gateway commuter railroad tunnel under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New ...

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White House response on security clearances blasted

Bloomberg The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee criticised the Trump administration’s response to questions about its vetting and security clearance process following a series of controversies about staff with access to the country’s most classified information. Representative Trey Gowdy’s spokeswoman on the committee, Amanda Gonzalez, said that a five-paragraph letter sent to the committee by White House Director ...

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Donald Trump’s tariffs are a triumph of pride over policy

The controversy over President Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports of steel (25%) and aluminum (10%t) is less about economics than ego — Trump’s ego. Frustrated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the reported chaos in the White House, the president, it seems, had to show who’s boss and who’s driving events. Hence, his broadside attack against many traditional US ...

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Protectionism and tech prosperity

It’s becoming all too easy to throw accusations at Chinese companies, especially when trade and political tensions rise. You know the refrain: They’re just copycats of US counterparts, ripping off larger rivals and protected by trade barriers such as censorship and investment laws. Frankly, this is an intellectual crutch. Witness the overuse of descriptive cliches — X, the Netflix of ...

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Hong Kong property faith is too strong for peg jitters

Three down, one to go. Fire sales aren’t usually associated with handsome profits; lucky for HNA Group Co. that its asset hoard includes Hong Kong real estate. The indebted Chinese conglomerate has sold the third of four plots of land bought just over a year ago to local developer Wheelock & Co. for HK$6.36 billion ($811 million), the latest step ...

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