EU Commission vice president expects Northern Europe to follow UK as promoter of market economy

01:59, July 28, 2019

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  Chinese, Colombian presidents pledge to promote ties

  Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) holds talks with visiting Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, July 31, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and visiting Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez on Wednesday pledged to promote bilateral relations to new heights.The year 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the Latin American country.During their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi said Duques father, as a member of the then Colombian government, firmly supported the decision to forge diplomatic ties 40 years ago and witnessed the birth of the bilateral relationship."The relay baton of China-Colombia bilateral ties is passed to us now," Xi told the Colombian president."I highly appreciate your visit to China, which shows that you are committed to enhancing the traditional friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Colombia," said Xi.Xi called on both countries to intensify high-level exchanges and exchanges of governance experience, deepen mutual political trust, mutual understanding and mutual support.China will continue to support Colombia in promoting the peace process and post-conflict reconstruction, said Xi.He also encouraged both countries to further explore potential for pragmatic cooperation, consolidate cooperation in traditional areas and expand to new areas.China welcomes Colombia to take part in the Belt and Road construction so as to realize the alignment of development strategies of both sides, Xi said, calling on the two to enhance people-to-people exchanges, jointly safeguard the existing international system with the United Nations at its core, promote the reform of global governance mechanisms and make more efforts to help the economic globalization process become more open, inclusive and balanced, and develop towards win-win resu...

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  UK says EU must compromise on Brexit deal

  Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced £300 million of new investment for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (Photo: AFP)British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday urged EU leaders to drop their opposition to renegotiating Brexit, as the pound slumped on growing concerns about a no-deal departure.Johnson, who took office last week, wants to change the exit terms struck by predecessor Theresa May but insists he will leave the European Union without any agreement at all if necessary on October 31.Brussels has said it will not reopen the text."The withdrawal agreement is dead," Johnson told reporters during his first visit to Scotland."I am confident we will get a deal but it is also right we prepare for no deal," he said.The government has not yet announced plans for Johnson to visit EU capitals, and a spokeswoman indicated he would not go until Brussels changes its stance."He obviously wants to meet EU leaders and negotiate but not to be sat down and told that the EU cannot possibly reopen the withdrawal agreement," the spokeswoman said.The Confederation for British Industry (CBI), the countrys top business lobby group, said companies now needed to be on an "emergency footing" because of the growing likelihood of no deal.The pound lost more than one percent of its value against the dollar on Monday, hitting a two-year low.In a report, the CBI warned that both Britain and the EU were not prepared for a no-deal Brexit and urged businesses to step up contingency plans.The groups head of EU negotiations Nicole Sykes tweeted that it was "like putting sandbags down for a flood"."Your kitchens still going to be underwater but MAYBE we can save the bedroom upstairs," she wrote.- Union under unprecedented pressure -The Institute for Government also warned that a no-deal Brexit would "dominate government for years", allowing little room for other domestic priorit...

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  Alphabet beats Q2 market expectations with 38.94 bln USD in revenue

  SAN FRANCISCO, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Googles parent company Alphabet Inc. on Thursday exceeded market expectations, posting 38.94 billion U.S. dollars in revenue for the second quarter of 2019 with a growth rate of 19 percent year on year.(Photo: VCG)The growth was mainly driven by a sharp increase in advertising business and cloud services. Google yielded 32.6 billion dollars in advertising revenue for the second quarter that ended June 30, 2019, a jump from 28.09 billion dollars in the same period last year."From improvements in core information products such as Search, Maps, and the Google Assistant, to new breakthroughs in AI (artificial intelligence) and our growing Cloud and Hardware offerings, Im incredibly excited by the momentum across Googles businesses and the innovation that is fueling our growth," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on an earnings call Thursday.He said that its Google Cloud service reached an annual revenue run rate of over 8 billion dollars.Last year, Google said for the first time that its cloud business earned 1 billion dollars for each quarter."We continue to build our world-class Cloud team to ... expand the business, and are looking to triple our salesforce over the next few years," Pichai said on the call.Googles operating income was 9.18 billion dollars for Q2, a sharp rise from 3.05 billion dollars in the corresponding quarter of 2018, while it generated 9.947 billion dollars in net profits, compared with 3.195 billion dollars a year before.In the last quarter, Alphabet posted a net income of 6.6 billion dollars and 36.33 billion dollars in revenue.In the Q2 financial results released on Thursday, Alphabet said Googles other revenues, including Play Store and Google Cloud enterprise services, came in with 6.18 billion dollars, compared with 4.4 billion dollars in the same period last year.Google also witnessed a growth of 28 percent in paid clicks on its properties for the second quarter of ...