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Six of the world's biggest container shipping companies were raided by South African authorities on Wednesday on suspicion of colluding to inflate rates between Asia and South Africa, the country's Competition Commission said. An oversupply of vessels has weighed on shipping rates, prompting top-ranked A.P. Moller-Maersk to restructure and forcing South Korea's Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd into receivership, stranding an estimated $14 billion in cargo on its ships. The six companies raided comprise local subsidiaries of Denmark's Maersk, Portugal's Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), France's CMA CGM Shipping, Germany's Hamburg Sud, Singapore-based Pacific International Line and Maersk unit Safmarine, the commission said in a statement.

By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Shimon Peres, who died on Wednesday at the age of 93, never realized his vision of a new Middle East built upon a 1993 interim peace deal he helped shape with the Palestinians. Peres was hospitalized following a stroke two weeks ago and his condition had improved before a sudden deterioration on Tuesday, doctors said. "Don't forget to be daring and curious and to dream big," Peres urged first-graders at the start of the school year in a posting on his Facebook page earlier this month.

LONDON (AP) — A deal worth over $100 billion to combine the world's two biggest beer companies cleared its last major hurdle Wednesday when the shareholders of SABMiller approved the takeover by Budweiser maker Anheuser-Busch Inbev.