Mugabe era winds down as ruling party backs ouster

Bloomberg Robert Mugabe’s 37-year grip on political power in Zimbabwe is all but over. The ruling party’s 10 provincial co-coordinating committees resolved to oust the 93-year-old president, a decision that’s set to be ratified by its central executive as early as this weekend. The nation’s parliament is due to reconvene on Tuesday and could impeach him should he refuse to ...

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Aussie government faces knife-edge vote in key by-election

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is at risk of losing his one-seat parliamentary majority with a new poll showing the ruling Liberal-National coalition running neck and neck with the opposition Labor Party in a by-election in the Bennelong district of Sydney to be held on December 16. The by-election came after incumbent Liberal MP John Alexander resigned because of ...

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Russia’s economy is growing on borrowed money

The Russian economy is once again relying on consumers, who are borrowing more to buy real estate and imported products. The growth is real, but it’s also meager. And it will be hard to sustain without bigger changes. On November 13, Rosstat, Russia’s official statistics agency, announced that the country’s gross domestic product increased 1.8 percent year-over-year in the quarter ...

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How much is the Great Barrier Reef worth? Economists have an answer

As mankind puts the world’s largest living structure at risk, economists have come up with a new solution: put a price tag on it. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is bigger than Japan, visible from space and one of the most complex ecosystems on earth. But it’s also under siege from climate change, agricultural runoff, coastal development and illegal fishing. Debate ...

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Don’t leave Uber to the courts

A London tribunal’s ruling last week that Uber drivers aren’t self-employed was hailed as a victory by the company’s critics. The court upheld an earlier finding that Uber resorted to “fictions” and “twisted language” in denying its obligations as an employer, and that its claim to be a service linking 30,000 small businesses to their customers was “faintly ridiculous.” Clear ...

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Germany is burning too much coal

Germany is widely seen as a world leader in the fight against climate change. Thanks to its investments in renewable power, wind and solar energy provide a third of its electricity, more than double the US share. Germany’s goal to lower carbon-dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020 is significantly more ambitious than that of Europe as a whole or the ...

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As India endures blanket of smog, China’s battle offers lessons

As New Delhi suffers through a surge in the most harmful type of smog—a toxic stew that makes India’s capital one of the most polluted in the world—Beijing offers lessons in how another troubled city made progress clearing the air. China, which for more than a decade has been the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, has made its capital ...

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Narendra Modi’s early Christmas gift

If he doesn’t already, Narendra Modi should start believing in Santa Claus. For the Prime Minister, whose party faces an important poll in Modi’s home state next month, the one-notch rating bump to Baa2 by Moody’s Investors Service is an early Christmas present. More importantly, the rationale for the upgrade cites two of his most destabilizing measures of the past ...

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China doesn’t want your junk anymore but Japan does

For 30 years China has recycled more cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and old computers than any other nation. By doing so, it’s saved millions of tons of resources and indirectly funded thousands of recycling programs and companies globally. But now it wants to stop. In July, China notified the World Trade Organisation that it will soon prohibit the import of ...

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Tesla unveils all new electric Semi truck

Bloomberg Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk is showing the world a big rig-worth of reason to take seriously his master plan to electrify all the major forms of “terrestrial transport.” The electric-car maker offered scant detail ahead of his remarks, saving information such as range, price and production plans for Musk to announce. The company did say the truck will offer ...

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