Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. offered to buy Sky News to help Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. win over UK regulators reviewing Fox’s 11.7 billion-pound ($16.5 billion) acquisition of broadcaster Sky Plc. Disney is interested in acquiring Sky News regardless of whether its larger $52.4 billion takeover of most of Fox goes through, guaranteeing the editorial independence of the operation, ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP said its female employees in the UK earn an average of 30 percent less than male colleagues, providing a rare glimpse into the gender pay gap in the private equity (PE) industry. Although more than 400,000 people work in private equity in the UK, most of the firms have fewer than 250 employees, exempting them from ...

Bloomberg The American consumers who were stretching themselves to buy or lease a new car are starting to go missing from showrooms. Rising interest rates and new-vehicle prices are squeezing shoppers with shaky credit and tight budgets out of the market. In the first two months of this year, sales were flat among the highest-rated borrowers, while deliveries to those ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump says the US will withdraw troops from Syria “very soon.” He’s also vowed to counter Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East. Doing both at the same time may be impossible. Trump’s off-the-cuff aside at a rally in Ohio last week — “We’re knocking the hell out of IS. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very ...

BEIRUT / Reuters Syrian rebels in a besieged area northeast of Damascus have been told they must accept state rule or leave, a rebel group said on Tuesday, as the government and its Russian ally seek to wipe out the last pockets of opposition territory near the capital. The ultimatum to the rebels of eastern Qalamoun was served to civilians ...

BEIJING / Reuters China appreciates North Korea’s “important efforts” to ease tension on the Korean peninsula, senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi told the North’s foreign minister on Tuesday, hours after he called on all sides to stay focussed on talks. China has traditionally been secretive North Korea’s closest ally, though ties had been frayed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s ...

GENEVA / Reuters United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the warring sides in Yemen on Tuesday to reach a political settlement to end a four-year-old conflict that has left 22 million people in urgent need of aid. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi echoed the call for a return to the negotiating table and said that his internationally-recognised government was working ...

BERLIN / Reuters German prosecutors filed a request to a regional court on Tuesday for the extradition of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to Spain, where he faces charges of rebellion over the region’s campaign for independence. Puigdemont has been held in a detention centre in the northern German town of Neumuenster for just over a week after he was ...

LONDON / Reuters Britain is looking for a “proportionate way” to respond to the threat posed by Russia, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday, after a retired Russian army official said the poisoning of a former spy could start a new world war. “We need to respond in a proportionate way to this aggressive behaviour from ...

JERUSALEM / Reuters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he was cancelling an agreement with the UN refugee agency to relocate thousands of African migrants, bowing to right-wing pressure to scrap the deal. Hours after announcing the arrangement, which also would have given thousands of other migrants the right to stay in Israel, Netanyahu posted on his Facebook ...