Shanghai / AP The financial services affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba raised $4.5 billion in funding, it said, calling it the largest single private placement by an Internet company. The move values Ant Financial Services Group at roughly $60 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting people familiar with the situation. Previous media reports had said the company …

  Ratnapura / AFP From the Queen of Sheba to Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge, Sri Lanka’s sapphires have adorned royalty through the ages, but a flood of cheap imitations is threatening the island’s reputation for the precious stones. Ceylon sapphires, known after the island’s colonial-era name, enjoyed a huge boost five years ago when it was revealed that one formed …

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Air Berlin Plc and other airlines cancelled hundreds of flights in Germany on Wednesday as a strike by public-services workers at airports hobbled operations in Frankfurt, Munich and Cologne. Lufthansa eliminated 895 flights, or 60 percent of the services it had scheduled for Wednesday, Germany’s biggest carrier said in a statement. Munich airport, where a …