Bloomberg BMW AG is betting an overhauled 5Series sedan and new X2 crossover will boost sales this year as the world’s second-biggest luxury carmaker works on its pledge to retake the global lead from Mercedes-Benz. Those models, plus an updated X3 utility vehicle, should carry BMW to gains in all markets, including the US and China, Chief Financial Officer Nicolas ...

Bloomberg The collapse of Carillion Plc with more than half a billion pounds of unfunded pension commitments may increase pressure on some of the nation’s biggest companies to plug their own funding gaps. The construction and services giant employs almost 20,000 people in Britain and has a pensions shortfall of 587 million pounds ($811 million). The government-backed Pension Protection Fund ...

Bloomberg Russia’s government is discussing a proposal to turn on the fiscal taps in what would be the biggest domestic spending spree since President Vladimir Putin last ran for re-election in 2012. Kremlin economic aide Andrey Belousov said expenditures on health, education and infrastructure could be raised by 1.5-2 percent of gross domestic product, the official Tass news agency reported ...

Bloomberg Palestinian leaders called on President Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw recognition of Israel and break off security cooperation, in a move that follows the Trump dministration naming Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council declared it should no longer be bound by the 1993 Oslo peace accords and that its leaders will never recognise Israel as ...

Bloomberg Already grappling with extremist militants in the northeast, secessionists in the east and unrest in the oil-rich Niger River delta, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is facing an upsurge in violence between crop farmers and herders that may threaten his party’s election chances next year. Images of bodies hacked with machetes and perforated by bullets shared on social media are ...

BAGHDAD­­­­ / Reuters Iraq’s central government said “an atmosphere of trust” marked talks with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to resolve a conflict that triggered armed clashes in October. Envoys of the two sides met in the Kurdish regional capital Erbil in northern Iraq and discussed issues including security, control over the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) land borders, airports, the oil ...

Bloomberg Germany’s Social Democrats began taking sides on forming a government with Angela Merkel as the party leadership stepped up efforts to convince doubters of the need for a rerun of their grand coalition. SPD leader Martin Schulz continued his tour of key Social Democratic Party regions on Tuesday to sell the preliminary deal reached last week with Merkel’s Christian ...

Bloomberg Republican congressional leaders are struggling to separate the immigration blow-up set off by President Donald Trump from a funding bill to avert a US government shutdown at the end of this week. Democrats say the burden is on Trump to help break the stalemate after he rejected a bipartisan proposal to shield young, undocumented immigrants from deportation and ignited ...

TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough made his viewers weep last month with an exposé on how plastics are polluting the oceans, harming marine animals and fish. Last week, British prime minister Theresa May announced a slew of new measures to discourage plastics use, including plastic-free supermarket aisles and an expanded levy on plastic bags. A ban on microbeads in cosmetics ...

What’s not to like about Singapore’s property market? Sales in 2017 touched a four-year high. Developers paid homeowners S$8.5 billion ($6.4 billion) — the most since 2007 — to vacate their homes so new apartment complexes could be built. Prices have stopped falling, and Credit Suisse Group AG expects them to rise between 5 percent and 10 percent this year. ...