Bloomberg With some of Europe’s largest banks still struggling to boost profitability and raise dividends, BNP Paribas SA is doing both. That helps explain why investors have driven the shares to the highest in almost a decade. The Paris-based lender will probably report on Tuesday that fourth-quarter net income more than doubled to 1.63 billion euros ($1.75 billion), according …

  Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc is poised to pay more in bonuses than Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc for the first time since the financial crisis, underscoring the contrasting performances of two of Britain’s bailed out banks. Lloyds has earmarked about 390 million pounds ($486.8 million) for its employee bonus pot, overtaking RBS, which is considering a pool …

  Broome / DPA The Dead Sea shimmers blue-green under a mild winter sun, waves rippling gently to the beach as a tourist couple enters the water. The high salt content – at 34 percent almost 10 times the level in the world’s seas – means that a human floats on the water like a cork with no danger of …