Bloomberg Businessweek-Europe Edition 11/20/2017

Asia ● More than 500 Iranians and several Iraqis died in an earthquake that struck near the border on the night of Nov. 12. ● Recent Asian summits have produced little progress on trade. Discussions of a new 11-country Trans-Pacific Partnership failed to yield a hoped-for framework, and China-led talks on a rival Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership also concluded without an agreement. ● Australian voters approved gay marriage, voting 61.6 percent in favor. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for Parliament to pass legislation by Christmas. ● A North Korean soldier was shot five times while crossing the border to defect to the South. As of Nov. 15, he remained on life support. ● Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Myanmar and discussed the ongoing expulsion of the Rohingya people with leader Aung San Suu Kyi,…

As rebel, revolutionary, Machiavellian manipulator, and supreme leader, Robert Mugabe has been the face of Zimbabwe for so long that it’s almost impossible to imagine the country without him. Almost. The impossible finally began to happen on Nov. 14, when tanks rolled into the capital, Harare, and the armed forces took custody of Mugabe and his wife, Grace. Military spokesmen said they were “safe and sound and their security was guaranteed.” Mugabe has ruled for 37 years—the entire existence of Zimbabwe after the downfall of the white minority government of what was then called Rhodesia. In that four-decade period, the economy has deteriorated from resource-rich breadbasket to basket case. Violent repression made Zimbabwe’s leader a pariah to most of the world. Mugabe’s visage became a face loved only by fellow leftist…

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government likes to portray its conflict with Central European University as a mere bureaucratic dispute. It is not. Orbán’s campaign against the university and its founder, billionaire investor George Soros, carries a darker cast. Some background: In April, Hungary’s Parliament passed a law requiring that all foreign universities—CEU is based in Budapest but incorporated in New York state—also have campuses in their home countries. CEU has just such an arrangement with Bard College in New York, but the Hungarian government refuses to recognize it. In October, instead of certifying CEU’s compliance, the Hungarian government extended the deadline to 2019. The university now faces a year of uncertainty over its future. This episode is the latest in the prime minister’s long campaign against opposition. Over the past seven…

You don’t have to be an ally of President Trump to have problems with AT&T Inc.’s $85 billion bid for Time Warner Inc., the owner of CNN. Some of the strongest opposition to the merger is coming from groups that ordinarily oppose the president. Trump warned when the deal was proposed in October 2016 that if elected president he would block it “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Trump has continued attacking CNN since then, but he says he hasn’t pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to stop the deal. Organizations such as the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and the Open Markets Institute have little sympathy for Trump’s tweets attacking CNN. But they are concerned that the tieup would harm ordinary Americans by giving…

“I find it shocking that in the richest country in the world we run out of fundamental, basic supplies” Small saline-solution bags are ubiquitous in modern hospitals, cost about $1.50 each, and are the preferred method for delivering everything from painkillers and antibiotics to chemotherapy and heart drugs. The Cleveland Clinic, a top academic medical center, uses the bags to administer 350 different medicines, typical for hospitals across the country. But supplies are running dangerously low. A long-standing problem, the situation worsened when Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, knocking out power at factories that make the small bags for Baxter International Inc., the product’s biggest supplier. Another large maker of the bags, B. Braun Medical Inc., is having problems of its own—the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking into reports…

A tumultuous year for Samsung Group and other conglomerates threatens to get worse as South Korea’s competition authority, the Korea Fair Trade Commission, probes whether their founding families use the cloak of charity to maintain power without having to pay billions of dollars in taxes. When the new conglomerates bureau of the commission starts operating in December, its first order of business will be auditing the family foundations of the country’s biggest conglomerates, or chaebol. “If foundations are found to be abusing the purpose of their establishment, we will consider ways to regulate them,” says Kim Sang-jo, the commission chairman. Foundations created by Korea’s corporate giants hold about 12.9 trillion won ($11.5 billion), according to national tax service data analyzed by Bloomberg. Questions have long swirled around the groups and their donations.…