The European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wants to see a new partnership including a free trade agreement between Africa and the European Union. On Wednesday, Juncker expressed his vision for a more balanced partnership with Africa, versus just development aid to the continent.Juncker said a new economic partnership “would create  up to 10 million jobs in Africa in the next five years alone," 36% of Africa's trade is with the European Union (while it is 16% with China and 6% with the United States).

Uber Technologies Inc. faces a lawsuit claiming that the ride-hailing company is saving money by bypassing labor laws. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of a car delivery service, alleges that Uber is misclassifying its California drivers as independent contractors and therefore avoiding the average $9.07 an hour payment in expenses and benefits that it would incur if drivers were properly classified as employees.That means, Uber could potentially be saving circumventing certain legal regulations related to minimum wage, overtime, meal and rest breaks, workers’ compensation and unemployment and health insurance, as well as Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Amazon said that its business-to-business operation has generated an annualized $10 billion in revenues globally. Launched in the U.S. in 2015, Amazon Business has schools, hospitals, factories, local governments and more than half of Fortune 100 companies as its users/customers.Outside the U.S., Amazon Business spans over several countries including Germany, Japan and India. Merchants pay a commission to Amazon on each sale.

Two U.S. startups promise revoltuonary technologies in the drone space. Impossible Aerospace, a Silicon Valley-based startup founded by Tesla and SpaceX veterans, reveled Monday that they are ready to sell drones that need two hours to reach fire departments, police departments and search and rescue teams.It is also adding cinematic features for improving recording quality. If successful, these startups could potentially take on Chinese dronemaker DJI, which reported $2.7 billion in revenue last year. Introduced in 2013, DJI's drone is the most popular in the commercial market.

Alibaba has inked a deal with the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Mail.ru to form a joint venture worth $2 billion. Alibaba will fold its domestic operation of Tmall and AliExpress into the venture  called AliExpress Russia, while MegaFon PJSC will sell its 10 percent stake in Mail.ru to Alibaba in exchange for 24% of the venture.The Russian Direct Investment Fund will contribute an unspecified amount in return for a 13 percent stake. The joint venture seems to be a critical consumer business strategy, as it potentially connects  Mail.ru’s consumer services - spanning online food delivery, e-retail in Chinese goods and ride-hailing services - with Alibaba’s e-commerce marketplace platform AliExpress.    

  Houston, Jacksonville, Louisville, New Orleans and San Antonio will get the wireless teclecom major’s 5G internet  services, following the seven previously announced cities (Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Raleigh and Waco).The next generation in wireless internet is projected to be 100 times faster compared to current standards. The company also announced plans to start testing commercial-grade equipment for Project AirGig – comprising technology aimed to serve rural populations that don't have access to high-speed internet.            

It is not just equity that is in the eye of the storm for Tesla; the company's bond prices have been nose-diving in recent weeks. $1.8 billion of Tesla bonds due to mature in August 2025 traded for 84 cents on the dollar on Friday, down from 98 cents a year ago.Some analysts are apparently concerned over whether Tesla would be able to generate enough cash to make good on its debt obligations in a timely manner. If the electric carmaker is able to ramp up Model 3 production and garner healthy sales from it, the company can potentially be expected to ease some of the financial pressures.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially rejected requests to list nine cryptocurrency funds, dealing a blow to the digital currency enthusiasts who lobbied hard for the ETFs. The decision was not particularly surprising – the SEC has cited concerns about market surveillance and manipulation for as long as they have been dealing with cryptocurrency, encouraging exchanges to minimize the risks investors face in an unregulated market.Hester Peirce, an SEC commissioner, promised a review of the decision, but a reversal remains unlikely. ProShare Capital Management, GraniteShares Advisors, and Direxion Asset Management sponsored the nine ETFs, whose requests had been pending since December and January and were denied in advance of a hard deadline.

Snapchat is losing yet another top executive. Imran Khan, Snapchat's chief strategy officer, wants to leave the company as indicated by a regulatory filing Monday.The company does not have a  chief operating officer since Emily White left the company in 2015. Snapchat stock fell to a record low last week, and is currently trading in the single digits – compared to its initial offering price of $17 a share last year.

Jack Ma announced that he’ll retire as executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.in 2019, and that he will be succeeded by CEO Daniel Zhang. Zhang, who became chief executive officer three years ago, is a certified accountant and a major force behind Alibaba’s ‘New Retail’ technology –  touted as a revolutionary shift in retail industry encompassing digital shopping, physical stores, e-payments and logistics.Zhang also led mega shopping bonanza events such as the annual Singles' Day .The company’s stock has grown +87% during Zhang’s tenure.  

On Thursday, Verizon said that it will hike its quarterly dividend by 2.1% to 60.25 cents a share.Its Q2 operating cash flow was $9.8 billion – which is $1.9 billion higher from the year-ago period. Last year, Verizon paid out $2.34 dividend per share against earnings of $3.74.

President Donald Trump might be ready with an additional list of $267 billion of Chinese goods to impose tariffs on. On top of the $200 billion of Chinese goods that Trump has threatened to tax if he feels necessary, he told  reporters Friday on Air Force One, ““I hate to do this, but behind that there is another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want.” The U.S.imported $505 billion of Chinese products in 2017, according to Census Bureau data.That means, if all of the tariff threats are actually implemented, the whole of Chinese imports into the nation would be hit by tariffs. Since July, the U.S. has imposed levies on $50 billion of Chinese exports, which were retaliated by Beijing with their own tariffs on U.S. goods.

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. ‘s second quarter fiscal 2019 non-GAAP per-share earnings came in at 28 cents, which is -6.7% lower from the year-ago period.  Excluding the semiconductor manufacturing company’s acquisition of Cavium, earnings were 35 cents per share – an increase from the year ago period. Marvell’s revenues rose +9.9% year over year to $665 million, on the back of strong growth in networking and storage business. Looking ahead, the company expects its third-quarter fiscal 2019 revenues to be in the range of $825-$865 million, and projects Cavium’s businesses to contribute $210 million to revenues.  

Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co., Ltd. is reportedly planning to sell off its holding in Deutsche Bank. Holding nearly 8% voting rights in Deutsche, HNA plans to offload its entire stake according to people familiar with the matter (as reported by CNN).The news comes amidst Deutsche Bank’s struggles to revive its prospects following three years of losses. In recent years, HNA has been known for its purchases of massive stakes in major U.S. and European companies.

Hackers stole credit card information of 380,000 customers of British Airways. The company announced that cyber criminals got access to the names, addresses, emails and credit card details including the card number, expiration date and security code of travelers who booked flights on British Airways' website and app between August 21 and September 5.British Airways has promised to pay for a credit check for customers and to compensate them for any losses. According to the airline, it began notifying customers late on Thursday. Some customers on Friday complained that they first got to know about it from the media versus the company, while some others claimed to have received blank emails from the airline.

Tesla’s chief accounting officer and chief people officer are leaving the company. Dave Morton joined Tesla as Chief Accounting Officer just a day prior to Elon Musk posting a tweet about taking the company private." Also Gabrielle Toledano, the company’s chief people officer, took a leave of absence in August after 15 months on the job.

It was revealed that David Marcus, the former head of Facebook’s Messenger platform, was stepping down from his board post at Coinbase to lead the team – a natural choice, as former president of PayPal and overseer of Messenger’s chatbot commerce and peer-to-peer payment functions. There has been minimal additional news – a company spokesperson told TechCrunch that Facebook is “…still in the very early stages [of developing the team] and we are considering a number of different applications for the blockchain.But we don’t have anything else to share at this time.” That has not stopped speculation about what they might work on, however. Some parties believe that Facebook could introduce its own token and cryptocurrency wallet, which people could use to pay for products linked to through Facebook ads or from partnered businesses.

To fund its takeover of Express Scripts Holding Co., Cigna is expected to sell more than $22 billion of bonds. The health insurance company agreed to acquire Express Scripts in March for $54 billion, and the deal is reportedly close to regulatory approval.Cigna has started selling senior unsecured bonds in as many as 10 parts, according to a person with knowledge of the matter (as reported by Bloomberg).  

The decision comes after an investigation into what extent Apple could milk  Shazam’s data to garner users for its own streaming services. Of late, several tech giants have been in the crosshairs of EU regulators over data protection and competition among other issues.In July, the European Commission slapped a record €4.34 billion ($5 billion) fine on Alphabet's Google for allegedly misusing the dominant market position of its Android smartphone operating system.

Facebook has chosen Singapore to build its first data center in Asia and will pour $1 billion towards the project. The 11-stories tall facility will  "support hundreds of jobs" in Singapore, according to the company.Facebook already has data centers across the U.S. and Europe and is expected to plan more in Asia.