Business

LONDON: Microsoft Corp is in talks to buy ByteDance-owned TikTok, the New York Times reported, citing a source. The discussions between Microsoft and TikTok were first reported earlier on Friday by FOX Business, the Times said.

SYDNEY: Australia unveiled a draft law Friday to force Google and Facebook to pay news media for their content in a “world-leading” initiative sure to prompt a confrontation with the US digital giants. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the “mandatory code of conduct” to govern relations between the struggling news industry ...

LONDON: Barclays set aside a higher than expected £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) to cover a possible rise in loan losses in the second quarter and warned that a grim outlook and low interest rates would hurt profits into 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced banks globally to set aside billions to ...

SHENZHEN: China’s Huawei overtook South Korea’s Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) as the world’s biggest seller of mobile phones in the second quarter of 2020, shipping 55.8 million devices compared to Samsung’s 53.7 million, according to data from research firm Canalys. While Huawei’s sales fell 5% from the same quarter a year ...

BEIJING: Some investors of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance seeking to take over the popular social media app are valuing it at about $50 billion, significantly more than peers such as Snap Inc, according to people familiar with the matter. ByteDance is considering a range of options for TikTok amid pressure from ...

MADRID: Spain’s unemployment rate rose in the second quarter of the year, reflecting the negative impact on the labor market of lockdown measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s unemployment rate rose to 15.33% in the quarter from 14.41% in the first quarter of 2020, Spanish statistics office INE ...

LONDON: Keeping borders closed to halt the spread of COVID-19 is unsustainable, the World Health Organization said, urging countries to adopt comprehensive strategies based on local knowledge of where the virus is spreading. Border closures and travel restrictions remain an important part of many countries’ strategy to combat the novel ...

LONDON: Alphabet Inc’s Google said it would allow employees, who do not need to be in the office, to work from home until the end of June 2021. Google had said in May it would begin reopening more offices globally as early as June this year, but most Google employees ...

LONDON: Bitcoin breached $10,000 on Sunday for the first time since early June. After several weeks of trading in narrow ranges. In addition to suffering pricing blows due to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, the virtual currency went through its third so-called halving on May 11, which cut the ...

LONDON: British police and supermarkets clashed Friday on who should implement new rules that have made face masks compulsory in shops. Anyone who breaks the rules can be fined up to £100 ($128). “It is our members who are expected to police what is a new way of living and ...