Washington warns Brussels over plan to demand billions in unpaid taxes from Apple www.rt.com

The US Treasury Department has threatened possible retaliation if the European Commission pursues American companies like Apple, Amazon and Starbucks over tax avoidance.
The EU has been investigating whether Apple’s tax dealings in Ireland, which allowed the company to pay very little income tax for its European earnings, violated European rules. Apple is suspected of using loopholes in tax laws and paying just two percent tax in Ireland, well below the official 12.5 percent. The decision is expected to be announced next month.

PayPal and FIS team up for careless ATMs www.businessinsider.com

Google punishes sites with pop-up adverts www.bbc.com

Google is to penalise websites that feature intrusive pop-up adverts.
It is updating the algorithms used to rank its search results so that offending pages are more likely to get lower placings.
The change is due to come into effect on 10 January.
Google makes much of its money from placing ads on the mobile web. One expert said the company wanted to give users one less reason to use ad-blockers or search within apps instead.
For its part, Google said the move should make using some of its results less frustrating.
"Pages that show intrusive interstitials [elements that cover the content] provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible," it blogged.
"This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller."
Punishing pop-ups
The California-based company gave three examples of practices it wanted to discourage:
pop-ups that covered part of the main content when the user clicked on to a page
an intermediary webpage that had to be dismissed before the main content could be seen
an ad that filled the web browser's screen so users had to scroll down "below the fold" before they could see the material they wanted
Google will, however, make some exceptions.
Pop-ups that alert readers to the use of cookies are still permissible, for example, as are ones that require log-in details to let visitors get behind a paywall.
"Google is one of the largest advertising companies in the world, but it's in a very different position to Facebook, Snapchat and other global media consumption apps," said Daniel Knapp, senior director of advertising research at the IHS consultancy.
"Google is still very reliant on the desktop and mobile web to make money, and it's much more difficult to clean up that experience than the native app environments.
"That's why it needs to tighten the screws on everyone with this crackdown."

UK firm launches sports streaming service in Japan www3.nhk.or.jp

A British media firm has started live streaming of international sports events for smartphone users in Japan.

Kobe Bryant starts $100m fund www.chinadaily.cn

Bryant Stibel co-founders and general partners Jeff Stibel (3rd from left) and Kobe Bryant (2nd from right) ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. 

Venezuela ordered to pay Vancouver miner $1.6 billion www.mining.com

Rusoro Mining Ltd (CVE:RML) stock more than doubled on Tuesday after the junior miner announced an international tribunal found in its favour in suit against the Venezuelan government over the South American nation's seizure of its gold projects.

Mongolians scrabble for dollars after local currency's plunge www.reuters.com

Making money amid Mongolia's deepening economic crisis, currency dealers thronging the black markets of Ulaanbaatar wave wads of American dollars and Chinese yuan, warning desperate customers that foreign banknotes are becoming scarcer by the day.

The Naiman Sharga market, close to the Mongolian capital's cluttered and impoverished "ger" or tent districts, has become a daily destination for residents panicked by a precipitous decline in the currency, the tugrik.

"Now I can't find any more dollars," said Ganbold, a currency trader, sporting a white, brimmed hat and galloping-horse belt buckle.

Ganbold has traded currency since the fall of communism in 1990 and up until now he’s been able to rely on the network of traders whenever he needed more cash.

But if a shipment of dollars doesn’t arrive from overseas as he hopes, Ganbold will have to close shop until more arrives.

Mongolia's government, elected in a landslide at the end of June, has been plunged into turmoil after years of collapsing foreign investment, unsustainable fiscal expansion and a decline in demand for commodities like coal and copper.

Last week, the central bank hiked interest rates by 450 basis points to a record 15 percent, stabilizing a currency whose 9 percent fall against the dollar from the start of August made it the world's worst performer. MNT=

Dollar supplies have dwindled, and commercial banks were severely restricting currency transactions, with one bank refusing to convert any dollars, Ganbold told Reuters as frustrated buyers milled around him.

Finance Minister Battogtokh Choijilsuren said earlier this month that the central bank's foreign exchange reserves stood at $1.3 billion. But, he added that after stripping out a 15 billion yuan currency swap agreement with China, reserves would show a deficit of $46 million.

An International Monetary Fund team was in town last week to meet members of Prime Minister Jargaltulga Erdenebat's new government, but some analysts suspect Mongolia might turn to China for another swap agreement rather resort to the IMF.

"There is a good chance China asserts its regional influence and offers Mongolia a bigger and better deal than the IMF in a bailout,” Nick Cousyn, chief operating officer of brokerage BDSec in Ulaanbaatar, commented.

“Mongolia is highly strategic for China, given Mongolia’s vast natural resources and potential as an economic corridor with Russia.”

ANXIOUS TIMES

The government, which promised to cut debt and lure back foreign investors, has introduced austerity measures like cutting senior employees' salaries and cancelling monthly student allowances.

Economic growth slowed to 1.4 percent in the first six months of 2016, down from an all-time high of 17.3 percent in the mining-driven boom of 2011.

Nearly half of Mongolia's three million population live in Ulaanbaatar, and these are desperate times for those aspiring families sending their sons and daughters for a university education overseas.

"My son is going to America for university tomorrow, but dollars are expensive and it's hard for us," a woman, who gave her name as Enkhmaa, said as she, and many other parents, hunted for the best rate among Naiman Sharga's dealers.

On Tuesday morning, traders were offering around 2,247 to 2,250 tugrik per dollar, which was still better than the official rate of 2,260 tugrik and the all-time low of 2,265.28 that was hit last Thursday.

Bank of Mongolia Governor Nadmid Bayartsaikhan told local media on Friday that he expected a tough two years, renegotiating terms on foreign debt which had totaled $23.5 billion in the first quarter of this year.

In a transcript published on the bank's official website, he called the appreciation of the dollar "artificial", and said it would eventually reverse course.

"That's why I would like to tell people not to be tricked by today's dollar exchange rate," he said. "Don't panic."

Asian stocks consolidate after Wall Street gains, oil slips www.reuters.com

Asian stocks consolidated a recent run of gains on Wednesday, helped by Wall Street's rise overnight, even as oil prices slid on trade data showing a surprise build-up in U.S. crude stocks.

Tesla's Elon Musk says new car battery is a milestone www.bbc.com

Tesla Motors has unveiled a new battery pack for the performance versions of its Model S and X cars that will extend the range and mean faster acceleration.
Elon Musk, chief executive of the electric car maker, hailed the upgraded battery as a "profound milestone".
He said the battery cell chemistry is the same, but the reconfigured product stored more energy in the same space.
Tesla, which this month posted a steeper-than-expected loss, is adding a new sedan car to its sports line-up.
Mr Musk claimed that the new 100-kilowatt hour battery pack means high-end versions of the Model S sedan, called the P100D, will be the world's fastest accelerating car in production.
It will do 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds. He said there were faster cars on the market, but these were limited-run vehicles, while the Tesla is aimed at the mass market, he said.
"These are very profound milestones and I think will help convince people around the world that electric is the future," he said on a conference call with journalists.
The new battery extends the range of performance versions of the new Model S well beyond 300 miles (482.8 km), from about 290 miles, Tesla said.
Mr Musk said that in cool weather, a driver could travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles - a nearly 400 mile drive - without recharging.
In May, Tesla said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule.
But the company also warned that investment would ramp up as well.

Polish apple farmers casualties of Russia-EU trade war www.rt.com

Poland is expecting a record apple harvest, but growers are having difficulty selling their produce and even face bankruptcy. Before the trade dispute with the EU, Russia accounted for more than half of Polish apple exports.