Bloomberg Chinese billionaire He Xiangjian, who founded the world’s largest appliance maker Midea Group Co., is planning an initial public offering of his real estate business, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Guangdong Midea Property Co. has been speaking with investment banks about a potential Hong Kong share sale that could take place in 2018, the people said. ...
Read More »Ex-billionaire Vijay Mallya lives on $6,700 a week after court order
Bloomberg Vijay Mallya is becoming something of a fixture in London courts. As the tycoon fights his extradition back to India on fraud charges, another set of lawyers is trying to overturn a $1.5 billion worldwide freezing order against him across town. In the meantime, Mallya has to get by on 5,000 pounds a week, according to court documents. A ...
Read More »Israeli planes hit Gaza as Jerusalem crisis deepens
Bloomberg Israeli fighter jets struck Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, killing at least two people, in response to rockets fired by Palestinian protesters into Israel. The clashes came as Muslims took to the streets from the West Bank to Jakarta to protest US President Donald Trump’s move to recognise contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Violence associated with the “Day ...
Read More »â€˜Macron doesn’t get everything right on Europe’
Bloomberg Martin Schulz signalled he wouldn’t give France a blank check on European policy if he takes the party into a government with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Fresh from re-election as head of Germany’s second-biggest party, Schulz combined a defense of his call for a “United States of Europe†by 2025 with a message to French President Emmanuel Macron. Schulz has ...
Read More »Honduras election row drags on with no winner
Bloomberg Honduras is headed into its third week without a winner in presidential elections amid a political standoff between the two leading candidates and few signs its worst crisis in a decade is about to end. The Central American country of 9 million has slipped into a full-blown constitutional emergency since a chaotic November 26 election ended in claims that ...
Read More »Brexit deal lets May kick ‘questions of future’
Bloomberg The nail-biting finish to the first chapter of Brexit negotiations has left many Conservative lawmakers praising Prime Minister Theresa May as a winner who had, in the words of one prominent member of her Cabinet, “confounded her critics.†But like many of the key Brexit issues, the question of May’s future is merely delayed, not resolved and even the ...
Read More »â€˜South Africa’s ruling ANC faces challenge to unite party’
Bloomberg Cyril Ramaphosa, one of two leading candidates to win a divisive contest for the presidency of South Africa’s ruling Afri- can National Congress, said the party’s leaders must unite the party after this month’s elective conference. “Our movement is divided and there are factions in our movement,†Ramaphosa, the country’s deputy president, said in a program on Johannesburg-based radio ...
Read More »The Republicans’ tax wager is worth trying
The Republicans’ tax legislation is built on economic projections that are as confidently as they are cheerfully made concerning the legislation’s shaping effect on the economy over the next 10 years. This claim to prescience must amaze alumni of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, which were 85 and 158 years old, respectively, when they expired less than 10 years ago ...
Read More »How Google and Facebook could save net neutrality
Next week, five members of a regulatory committee will make a decision about one of the biggest threats to democratic discourse Americans have faced in our lifetimes — and it isn’t looking good. On December 14, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a proposal to end net neutrality. This means that internet service providers would be able to block, ...
Read More »What students, workers need isn’t rocket science
It’s become a bipartisan article of faith that US schools need to train more students in STEM. Yet the vast majority of good-paying jobs, now and in the future, don’t require knowing how to code. Improving basic digital skills is a more cost-effective way to boost workers and businesses. There are roughly 14 million ‘middle-skilled’ jobs in the US that ...
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