A vast China-funded high-speed rail network is heading toward Singapore, and saddling Southeast Asian nations with debt along the way: https://bloom.bg/3TZtdwL

📸: Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

Coachella is scrambling to find its headliners for next year after both Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar pass on offers to perform. Take a look inside the struggles of the biggest music festival in North America: https://bloom.bg/47Ur6QM

📷: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for NARAS

Apple is inching away from its annual product upgrade cycle, a move that could lead to more frequent releases and fewer jarring delays.

Read more, including the latest on when Apple Intelligence and M4 Macs will launch, in Mark Gurman's free Power On newsletter: https://bloom.bg/4fbGtqz

📷: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Heat stress: The searing heat felt living in South Africa's shantytowns exposes another disparity in the world's most unequal nation. https://bloom.bg/4ezieCu

Middle East conflict: One year later, the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas is still reverberating across the globe. https://bloom.bg/3NgHYYs

Conflict minerals: Congo is planning to clamp down on companies that buy or source minerals from its war-torn eastern region, where smuggling is fueling one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. https://bloom.bg/4exemBZ

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday

China stocks surge 11% as markets reopen after a week-long holiday. Follow our live blog for the latest news and analysis: https://bloom.bg/4gYsYfc

📷: Bloomberg

No water: Zimbabwe’s second biggest city of Bulawayo is planning to extend water cuts to almost 5 1/2 days a week after closing a third of its six supply reservoirs amid the worst drought in 40 years. https://bloom.bg/4gXY9ri

Rate cuts: Kenya’s central bank is set to cut interest rates at a second straight meeting for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic spurred an easing cycle four years ago. https://bloom.bg/4dAsklj

Reelected: Tunisian President Kais Saied won a second term in a low turnout election, as discontent rises over his authoritarian style of governance. https://bloom.bg/3A1v7Gp

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday

The US Justice Department considers recommending to a federal judge that Google sell off parts of its business in what would be a historic breakup. Read more here: https://bloom.bg/4gVf3GV

📷: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Former Singapore Transport Minister S. Iswaran — who once roamed the Formula 1 paddocks and took a billionaire’s private jet to Qatar — now has to adjust to a more grueling lifestyle: sleeping on a straw mat on the floor of an unairconditioned prison cell.

Read more about what life is like inside the city-state's infamous Changi Prison: https://bloom.bg/3YgyToK

📷: Singapore Prison Service

A new HBO documentary about the origins of Bitcoin suggests that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the original cryptocurrency, is likely Canadian software developer Peter Todd https://bloom.bg/3NjasRe

📷: Warner Bros Discovery

🎙 Inside the succession drama at a Hong Kong property dynasty. New World’s Adrian Cheng seemed poised to take over his family’s $20 billion empire, until he suddenly resigned as CEO.

Listen to the Big Take Asia Podcast to find out more on the Hong Kong scion’s dramatic ouster and what it could mean for other Asian https://link.podtrac.com/jxfy2rhy

Presidential impeachment: Kenyan lawmakers voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, raising the risk of renewed political instability after deadly anti-government protests earlier this year. https://bloom.bg/3Y1f1oo

Inequality costs: Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ laws have cost the nation as much as $1.6 billion since being introduced in May 2023, a new study found. https://bloom.bg/3YfLCrH

New leadership: Mozambicans voted Wednesday for a new leader who will need to quell an insurgency that’s stalled massive liquefied natural gas projects. https://bloom.bg/3zIkW9Q

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday

BREAKING: Ratan Tata, the businessman who inherited one of India’s oldest conglomerates and transformed it into a global empire, has died. He was 86 https://bloom.bg/4h0ovcc

Airstrike allegations: Egypt denied accusations it carried out an airstrike on a paramilitary group battling Sudan’s army in the neighboring country’s civil war. https://bloom.bg/3ZYrY4I

Nuclear win: The US beat out Russia to build Ghana’s first small modular nuclear reactor, in a deal Washington sees as prizing its technology over cheaper financing. https://bloom.bg/4gXOfWy

Pivot from China: Congo’s top mining official says the country is courting new investors for its world-class deposits of key metals as it looks to diversify ownership in its industry. https://bloom.bg/3BGQ61W

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday

Elon Musk has unveiled long-awaited prototypes of a Tesla robotaxi called the Cybercab, saying that production may start in 2026 and that the vehicle could cost less than $30,000: https://bloom.bg/480dG5P

📸: Tesla

Tech superstar startup OpenAI announced this week that it will set up a hub in Singapore to serve partners and customers in the region — a hard-won victory for the government, which has been trying to boost the nation’s chops in artificial intelligence. Find out more in our free Singapore Edition newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3Nn4rmB

📸: Marco Bertorello/AFP

China traders are bracing for volatility as Beijing readies further business support after an underwhelming finance ministry briefing over the weekend.

Follow our live blog for the latest news and analysis here: https://bloom.bg/4eTV61C

📷: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Sudan war: The World Bank cut its economic-growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa as a civil war in Sudan holds back the entire region. https://bloom.bg/3YkrS6q

Water crisis: Reservoir levels in South Africa’s richest province are plunging and the continent’s biggest bulk-water supplier has warned that taps may soon run dry in cities where about 12 million people live. https://bloom.bg/4h0AGWh

Facing charges: Allen Onyema, the Nigerian tycoon who owns the country’s largest airline, maintained his innocence after being indicted by the US on charges of obstructing justice for submitting allegedly false documents to end an earlier investigation. https://bloom.bg/3Ymsatm

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday

EXCLUSIVE: China has begun enforcing a long-overlooked tax on overseas investment gains by the country’s ultra-rich, according to people familiar with the matter https://bloom.bg/3zWXaaa

📷: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian diplomats of backing a pattern of criminal harassment and violence against Canadians, escalating a dispute that began last year when he suggested Indian agents were involved in the murder of a Canadian Sikh activist. Read more here: https://bloom.bg/4dHJXjn

📷: David Kawai/Bloomberg

Biden administration officials have discussed capping sales of advanced AI chips from Nvidia and other American companies on a country-specific basis, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would limit some nations’ artificial intelligence capabilities https://bloom.bg/4f1rhMs

📷: Bloomberg

Dirty money: Senegal is poised to be removed from a global dirty-money list as early as next week, a potential boost to the country following a reform push to counter money laundering and terrorist-financing risks. https://bloom.bg/4h5xgS6

Gas trade: TotalEnergies aims to approve an import terminal for liquefied natural gas in Mozambique next year that may help users in neighboring South Africa avoid a potential supply crisis. https://bloom.bg/3YrszLn

Against the law: Mozambique’s attorney general notified opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane that his actions in the election are violating the constitution and electoral laws and urged him to stop. https://bloom.bg/4f0G0qS

Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter on where sub-Saharan Africa stands now — and where it’s headed at https://bloom.bg/3OsOf3y. Next Africa publishes every Tuesday and Friday