Toyota Motor said it is exploring the possibility of investing in a potential buyout of key parts supplier Toyota Industries, a buyout that reportedly could cost $42 billion. “We are currently exploring various possibilities, including partial investment,” the automaker said in a filing with the Tokyo stock exchange on Saturday following reports about the possible buyout. Report had it that Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda and his founder family have proposed acquiring Toyota Industries in a possible 6 trillion yen ($42 billion) deal. Toyota Industries, which has a market value of 4 trillion yen, said in a statement it had received…
Author: Fatimah Idera
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on Saturday, the Palestine Liberation Organisation said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership. Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor. Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction, which was founded by Arafat and is now headed by Abbas. He is…
U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy had a “very productive” meeting on Saturday in Rome, a White House official said, as both leaders attended the funeral of Pope Francis. A spokesman for Zelenskiy’s office said the two leaders, in an encounter in St. Peter’s Basilica, which lasted about 15 minutes, had agreed to have a second meeting later on Saturday and that their teams were working on arrangements for that. The meeting at the Vatican, their first since an angry encounter in the Oval Office in Washington in February, comes at a critical time in negotiations aimed…
Canada stands to elect a more business-friendly government than has been the case in recent years but its trade-dependent economy could be in line for an increased level of deficit spending, analysts and investors said before Monday’s vote. Spurred on by a global trade war, Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, who leads the Liberal Party, and his main election opponent, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, have both proposed sweeping changes to boost economic growth. The Liberals are expected to win the most seats, according to the latest polls, although the race is tightening. While U.S. President Donald Trump’s…
Turkish authorities on Saturday detained 47 more members of the Istanbul municipality over accusations of corruption, broadcaster NTV and other media reported, amid a widening legal crackdown against the opposition and the city’s jailed mayor. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is also President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival and leads him in some polls, was jailed in March pending trial over charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist group. The mayor has denied all charges and his arrest triggered mass protests, economic turmoil, and broad accusations of a politicised judiciary. On Saturday, NTV said the municipality’s secretary general, Imamoglu’s…
The Trump administration said on Friday that it is restoring the student visa registrations of potentially thousands of foreign students in the United States whose legal status had recently been abruptly terminated. The decision was announced during a court hearing before a federal judge in Boston who was hearing a challenge by one of the many international students nationally suing over the administration’s actions. Those students’ status had been revoked as a result of their records being terminated from a database of the approximately 1.1 million foreign student visa holders, putting them at risk of deportation. Since Trump took office…
China has granted some exemptions on U.S. imports from its 125% tariffs and is asking businesses to identify goods that could be eligible in the clearest sign yet that Beijing is worried about the economic fallout from its trade war with Washington, according to businesses notified. The dispensation is the latest sign that the world’s two largest economies were prepared to rein in their trade war, assuaging concerns about the impact of the tariffs. Beijing’s possible consideration of wider tariff exemptions for dozens of industries follows a shift in tone from Washington, pushing the U.S. dollar up slightly and lifting…
In a budget watchdog report on Friday which revealed that Britain’s regulators have failed to drive sufficient investment in the water sector, highlighting their role in causing an environmental crisis in the industry. Water companies in England and Wales are at the centre of a public backlash over rising bills after ageing pipes and overwhelmed treatment works resulted in repeated sewage spills in recent years, polluting Britain’s rivers and seas. “The consequences of government’s failure to regulate this sector properly are now landing squarely on bill payers who are being left to pick up the tab,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of…
Three people, including a child, were killed, and eight more were wounded in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, the regional governor said on Friday. The governor for the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said on Telegram that “the aggressor again conducted a mass attack on the region with drones,” adding that 11 drones were destroyed over the region. Lysak said that several fires had broken out in the city, posting a photo of a fire raging on some levels of a multi-storey building. He said that six of the wounded were hospitalized while two others, including…
Britain could gain 400 billion pounds ($533 billion) from AI-driven growth if it trained its workforce, Google said, after a pilot scheme in the UK showed workers could save more than 120 hours a year by using AI in administrative tasks. Simple steps such as giving workers permission to use AI and a few hours of training to get them started could help double the adoption of the new technology, and in turn boost economic growth, Google said in a report on its pilot scheme, published on Friday. The U.S. tech giant, which developed the Gemini AI chatbot, said that…
