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While the attention of the United States continues to be focused on the Middle East and the battle against IS — despite President Obama’s hope to “pivot to Asia” — China has been behaving in an increasingly aggressive way in the Eastern Pacific, claiming large swaths of ocean as its territorial waters. It has built artificial islands on reefs in ...

  Pending government approval, a group of 35 doctors and nurses based in Shanghai will soon become the nation’s first medical team to join the World Health Organization’s emergency response system, specializing in disaster relief. It’s a big step, but China is no tenderfoot. Long gone are the days of the chijiao yisheng, or “barefoot doctors,” when farmers with rudimentary ...

  The biggest source of fresh cash in American equities isn’t speculators or exchange-traded funds — it’s companies buying their own stock, by a 6-to-1 margin. There’s been a lot of chatter about stock buybacks the past few years. Some people believe share repurchases are propping up the market; others think this is a myth, or a non-story. There is ...

  Bloomberg Crystal Lagoons, the patented technology developer of giant crystalline lagoons and only global company with the technological capability to make the development of giant controlled manmade bodies of water economically viable, has joined forces with Egyptian real estate development company, TatweerMisr, to develop the first man-made lagoons in the Sokhna mountains. The development will bring six stunning lagoons ...

  Bloomberg Billionaire property investors David and Simon Reuben won approval to turn one of the oldest office towers in London’s Westminster borough into luxury apartments. The brothers will be allowed to turn the Millbank Tower complex near the Palace of Westminster into 207 homes with a skybar and a 150-bedroom hotel, the borough council decided at a meeting. Soaring ...

  Bloomberg It used to be a real estate listing with “Jacuzzi tub” or “crystal chandelier” would draw a lot of eyeballs, leading to higher prices and a speedy sale. These days, a barn door might be the golden (or wooden) ticket. According to a report released on Tuesday by Zillow Digs—the real estate site’s design and home improvement cousin—a ...

  Cao Bang, Vietnam / AFP Long a bastion for cheap, fast-fashion manufacturing, a new crop of designers are trying to transform the Made in Vietnam label and save the country’s rich ethnic heritage in the process. In the remote hills of Cao Bang, some 300 kilometres north of the capital Hanoi, Vietnamese designer Thao Vu is gleefully dropping swaths of ...

  Relexnews The concept of gender-segregated transportation such as women-only ride-share schemes and trains is gaining steam around the world, most recently with the launch of an ‘Uber for women’ and calls for ‘pink carriages’ on Australian public rail lines. Though women-only buses, rail and subway cars have been in place for years in countries like Japan, Malaysia, India and ...

  San Francisco / AP The robots are coming — to help run your life or sell you stuff — at an online texting service near you. In coming months, users of Facebook’s Messenger app, Microsoft’s Skype and Canada’s Kik can expect to find new automated assistants offering information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging “chatbots” are basically ...

  DUBAI / Emirates Business Dubai’s market for apparel and footwear is estimated to be worth US$12.8 billion, registering 5.5 percent annual growth in sales since 2010, according to a report by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry based on data from Euromonitor International. The category is mainly composed of apparel, footwear and sportswear, with apparel leading total sales ...