AFP Swedish automaker Volvo Cars will form a joint venture with car safety world leader Autoliv to develop software for driverless vehicles, the two companies said on Tuesday. Volvo Cars said in a statement it was forming the joint venture with Autoliv, a Swedish pioneer of the safety belt in the 1950s, to “develop next generation autonomous driving software.” ...

  AP Germany’s finance minister says the country will keep its budget balanced despite increasing spending on research, training and infrastructure, as well as dealing with the huge influx of migrants last year. Germany’s budget has been balanced since 2014 and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Parliament on Tuesday his plans through 2020 foresee it remaining that way. His budget ...

  Bloomberg Swiss economic momentum accelerated in the second quarter, exceeding that of the euro area and hitting its fastest pace since 2014. Gross domestic product rose 0.6 percent in the three months through June, after gaining a revised 0.3 percent in the prior quarter, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Bern said on Tuesday. That jump, helped by ...

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG will buy a 16.6 percent stake in Navistar International Corp. for $256 million as part of a strategic alliance with the struggling US truckmaker to enter the North American market. VW will pay $15.76 per share for the stake, which is part of a collaboration that includes technology sharing and joint purchasing, Navistar said on Tuesday. ...

Beirut / AFP Despite major setbacks including the loss of access to the Syria-Turkey border and the assassination of several top leaders, the IS group remains a potent force, analysts warn. The increasing pressure on IS, including Turkey’s decision to launch an operation against it in northern Syria, has seen the organisation lose ground at an unprecedented pace. But the extremist ...

  Beirut / AFP The IS group has announced the death in Syria of an Australian extremist convicted over a 2005 plot to bomb the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in a new English-language magazine. Ezzit Raad, who travelled to the Middle East after serving time in jail, died fighting for IS in Manbij near the battleground city of Aleppo in northern ...

  Istanbul / AFP Turkish prosecutors on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for almost 150 teachers who allegedly used an encrypted messaging app employed by followers of the US-based Muslim preacher authorities blame for the botched coup bid, state media said. Police in the central Anatolian city of Kayseri launched an operation with 400 officers in a bid to detain 147 ...

  Paris /AFP Paris will open its first refugee camp in mid-October, Mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Tuesday, unveiling plans to take hundreds of people off the streets as France struggles to accommodate migrants. The emergency shelter, which will have an initial capacity of 400 and be solely for men, will be housed on an old railway site in the ...

  Warsaw / AFP Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Tuesday that an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had suggested delaying a proposed meeting between the two leaders in Moscow on Friday. “Netanyahu’s representative proposed to delay this meeting to a later date. So the meeting will not happen,” Abbas said at a joint press conference in Warsaw ...

  Kabul /AFP Explosions rang out on Tuesday during an hours-long attack on an international charity in Kabul, the latest assault in a wave of violence in the Afghan capital that has killed at least 24 people and wounded dozens. The assault on CARE International began late Monday with a massive car bombing, just hours after the Taliban carried out ...