Bloomberg UK retail sales grew at their fastest annual pace in more than a year this month, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which also warned that pressure on shoppers’ budgets could increase over the coming year. The CBI’s monthly retail-sales index climbed to 35 in December, the highest since September 2015, from 26 in November. Clothing ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea’s top carrier Korean Air said its staff followed company procedure in restraining an unruly passenger after 80s pop singer Richard Marx tweeted that he helped the “ill trained” crew handle the situation. Marx said he and his wife were flying from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to Incheon airport, the South’s main hub, when a ...

  Milan / AFP Stock in Monte dei Paschi di Siena tumbled on Wednesday as investors feared that the troubled Italian bank’s efforts to find billions of euros quickly are all but doomed. BMPS, the world’s oldest bank and Italy’s third-biggest, is racing against the clock to raise five billion euros ($5.2 billion) by the end of next week or ...