Washington / AFP With spats over Apple and Deutsche Bank and squabbles about Airbus and Boeing, approaching elections on both sides of the Atlantic are exacerbating strains in US-European economic relations. The recent controversy over taxing the iPhone maker surely epitomizes the situation best. European authorities’ decision in late August to force the American giant Apple to pay $14.5 …

  Kiev / AFP The scandal was complex but its outcome potentially simple — Ukraine tried to fiddle with its murky gas sector and upset its EU partners enough to freeze huge sums of financial help. The fight for control over a profitable company that transports Russia’s blue fuel to Europe also exposes the clan warfare and backstabbing that surrounds …

  Los Angeles / AFP From real estate, to high-tech firms to entertainment giants, Chinese investments in the United States, notably California, are moving at a dizzying pace and are on course to smash records again this year. Chinese companies shelled out a record $15 billion last year in the US and that figure could more than double in 2016, …