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In Africa, the plastic shopping bag is an endangered species. Last week, tiny Benin became the latest African country to restrict the import, production and even use of such bags. It’s not messing around, either. Following in the steps of Rwanda (where plastic bag importers are publicly shamed) and Kenya (where bags users can be subject to four years in ...

Let’s not mince words: Eight months after Snapchat went public, the company is a disaster. Parent company Snap Inc. turned in its third earnings report as a public company, and for the third time its shares tanked when both revenue and user growth were disappointing. Snapchat also disclosed it would change the fundamental character of its app—the sole significant revenue ...

Bloomberg The components in Apple Inc.’s new iPhone X cost $115 more than the guts of the iPhone 8 due to its pricey new screen and facial recognition scanner, according to an analysis by IHS Markit Inc. The total bill of materials for the base model iPhone X with 64 gigabytes of storage is $370.25, according to IHS’s report, excluding ...

Bloomberg Zynga Inc. wants to be the go-to place for mobile card games. The San Francisco-based online gaming pioneer is acquiring the copyrights for mobile card game business of Turkish game designer Peak Games for $100 million in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter. The Peak business is profitable and will add to earnings, Zynga Chief Executive ...

Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd. has developed its own autonomous driving system, according to people familiar with the matter, becoming the latest technology player to dive into a crowded field that could become a $42 billion industry. The social media giant intends to leverage its mapping and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to compete in a sector that’s attracted investment from the ...

Bloomberg Navya Technologies SAS will roll its robot-driven automobiles onto the cobbled streets of Paris in the next few weeks to try and beat behemoths from General Motors Co. to Alphabet Inc. at proving autonomous cars are safe. The French startup’s 15-seater driverless shuttles have been dodging bankers and corporate executives in the capital’s business district of La Defense since ...

Bloomberg China took a major step toward the long-awaited opening of its financial system, saying it will remove foreign ownership limits on banks while allowing overseas firms to take majority stakes in local securities ventures, fund managers and insurers. The new rules, unveiled at a government briefing, will give global financial companies unprecedented access to the world’s second-largest economy. The ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG expects to raise about 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) from selling a quarter of its asset management business in an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The partial offering would value the unit at about 8 billion euros and account for substantially all the capital the bank had expected to raise through ...

Bloomberg Pakistan central bank Deputy Governor Jameel Ahmad played down concerns over the nation’s widening current account and trade deficits and said they will improve this year as exports begin to pick up and rising imports slow. “There are challenges in the form of a growing trade deficit and also its impact on the current account deficit, but when you ...

Bloomberg New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson said he expects to discuss the central bank’s current focus on the 2 percent midpoint of its inflation target band once a new governor is appointed. “The most important thing for me is that we continue, and we’ve committed to, keeping the band,” he said in an interview in his Wellington office. “I ...