Nationalizing your biggest bank is never a happy affair but, if you have to, do it quickly. Ukraine moved swiftly last weekend — alongside the International Monetary Fund — to clean up its banking system by taking over Privatbank, securing a stable deal for depositors and preventing systemic risk. There was a $5.5 billion capital shortfall to be filled, …

  For decades, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine (or TCM) have disputed accusations that their craft is a pseudo-science, a placebo, exploitative of endangered species, poisonous and ineffective. Now China’s government is fighting on their behalf. On Christmas Day, it passed the country’s first law regulating TCM, with the aim of placing it on an equal footing with science-based Western …

  BAGHDAD / AP A suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden vehicle on Monday in a bustling market area in Baghdad, killing at least 36 people, Iraqi officials said, hours after the arrival of French President Francois Hollande to the country and amid a fierce fight against the IS group. The bomber driving a pickup truck attacked an outdoor fruit and …