Beijing / Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s financial affiliate is planning to purchase a 20 percent stake in Thailand’s Ascend Money in a bid to become a key financial services player in Southeast Asia. Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group, known as Ant Financial and controlled by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, also wants an option to increase ...

  Tokyo / AP Mitsubishi Motors is giving 100,000 yen ($960) to each Japanese owner of its car as a compensation for inflated mileage and extra gas costs. The Japanese automaker said Friday it will take a 50 billion yen ($913 million) charge to cover mileage-rigging expenses, including for the eK minicar models sold in Japan since 2013, and also ...

  Tokyo/ bloomberg Siemens and Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica agreed to combine their wind-turbine manufacturing businesses, creating a company that will dominate the industry and speed up consolidation triggered by competition and price pressures. Europe’s largest engineering company will own 59 percent of the capital of the new business, Gamesa said in a statement on its website. Gamesa, based in Zamudio, ...

  WASHINGTON / AP State Department officials shook up America’s generally obedient diplomatic establishment this week with an internal memo urging US military action against Syria’s government with the goal of pressing President Bashar Assad to accept a cease-fire and gaining the upper hand on him in future talks on a political transition. Reasons abound for why an intervention is ...

  Dhaka / AFP A teenage suspected militant being held in custody in Bangladesh was shot dead on Saturday in a gunfight, police said, days after he allegedly hacked and critically wounded a Hindu lecturer. Police said Golam Faizullah Fahim, 19, who was in custody for questioning, was killed when officers under attack in a farmland area after taking him ...

Jalalabad / AFP A major Afghan-Pakistan border crossing reopened on Saturday after it was closed for several days following deadly clashes between the two countries following the construction of a gate on the Pakistani side to control cross-border movement, officials said. The clash, which erupted along the Torkham border a week ago, left at least three Afghan policemen and a ...

  Bosso / AFP Rotting bodies, looted buildings and a grim silence mark the once bustling town of Bosso in southeastern Niger following one of Boko Haram’s deadliest ever attacks in the west African nation. In the empty, dusty streets, soldiers outnumber the few remaining residents—including the elderly who were unable to flee the insurgents, and some who have returned ...

  Fallujah, Iraq / AFP Iraqi forces hunted down holdout extremists in Fallujah on Saturday after retaking the city centre and trained their sights on Mosul, the IS last remaining major hub in the country. While not fully under government control yet, Fallujah is the latest in a string of battlefields losses for IS, which has seen its two-year-old “caliphate” shrink ...

  Aden, Yemen / AFP Yemen’s warring parties exchanged dozens of prisoners captured in fighting for third city Taez on Saturday following mediation by local tribes, the chief mediator said. Saudi-backed government forces which control the city released 118 prisoners, while Iran-backed rebels who control most of the surrounding province freed 76, tribal chief Abdullatif al-Muradi said. Loyalist officials in the ...

  Brussels, Belgium / AFP Dozens of anti-terror raids were carried out across Belgium overnight in a case that needed “an immediate intervention”, and 12 people have been held, federal prosecutors said on Saturday. The raids took place in 16 communes in Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia and “passed off without incident,” they said in a statement, adding that “until now no ...