Charter continues talks over SoftBank’s Sprint plan

Bloomberg Charter Communications Inc. is cool to Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son’s proposal to combine with his Sprint Corp., though talks remain active, according to a person familiar with the matter. Son, who is Sprint Corp.’s chairman, proposed a cash and stock merger of his money-losing wireless company with Charter, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified ...

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Apple removes VPN apps in China for not abiding local rules

Bloomberg Apple Inc. has removed some virtual private network applications from its stores in China, a move that could block users ability to bypass a local web firewall and access overseas sites. “We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations,” Carolyn Wu, Apple’s China spokeswoman told Bloomberg in an emailed ...

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Japan’s inflation stalls at 0.4% even as job market tightens

Bloomberg Japan’s key price gauge was unchanged in June, helped by rising power costs. The tight labour market may also start to help inflation, which remains far from the central bank’s 2 percent target. Highlights of Data Core consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, increased 0.4 percent in June from a year earlier (estimate +0.4 percent). Excluding fresh food and ...

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Demonetization enriches India’s richest banker

Bloomberg At least one winner has emerged from India’s crackdown on so-called black money: the country’s richest banker. Uday Kotak, billionaire chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., is reaping broad benefits as the government’s efforts to withdraw the biggest bills from circulation pushes savings into the formal financial sector — including his group’s banking, insurance, brokerage services and asset management ...

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Forget casinos, Singapore’s Indian tourists are in for some cruising

Bloomberg When Indian architect Rahul Maini and his parents embarked on their first trip abroad in May, Singapore was their destination of choice. But the trio wasn’t going for the hawker food or even the city-state’s casinos — they were there to get on a ship. The equatorial island has become a flourishing entry point for Indian cruise-ship passengers, bolstering ...

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Can we die in peace?

For those of us who had hoped that American attitudes towards death were shifting in ways that would promote a wider reconstruction of the health care system, there’s discouraging news from Health Affairs, the pre-eminent journal of health policy. It devotes its latest issue to ‘end-of-life’ care and finds that —at least so far —the power to make health care ...

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India’s bulls are not tiring yet

An equity culture is growing in India, propelling benchmark indices BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 to a record bull run. Now beware a turning of the tide. For years, the market was a playground for foreign institutions. Since 2014, domestic investors bought $28 billion net of stocks, matching overseas buyers’ $30 billion inflow. Unlike China’s mom-and-pop day traders, Indian households ...

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UK financial regulator right to retire Libor

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has announced the end of Libor — the London interbank offered rate, one of the world’s most important interest-rate benchmarks. This is no minor technical adjustment. The change will have far-reaching effects in global financial markets. It’s a good move — and the timing is right. Libor is used to set payments on more than ...

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Emmanuel Macron’s ‘embarrassing’ act

France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed to attract more foreign investment and to push for greater European integration. His government’s decision to block an Italian takeover of France’s STX shipyard has broken both promises in one fell swoop. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said recently that France would temporarily nationalize the yard —blocking a deal that would have seen Italy’s ...

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Sharif’s ousting returns Pak to high risk investor play

The ousting of Pakistan’s prime minister by the country’s top court dramatically raises the risk profile for investors and businesses in the tumultuous, but fast-growing South Asian economy. The Supreme Court’s disqualification of Nawaz Sharif after a graft probe, prompting his resignation, poses big challenges to the country’s credit profile. As the stock market dipped on Friday, the court’s dramatic ...

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