A new year is just around the corner, and pressure on the yuan means Beijing can look forward to a host of fresh outflows into Hong Kong insurance, curbs or no. The annual $50,000 cap on foreign-exchange conversions resets on Jan. 1, and it’s a safe bet sales of dollar-denominated premiums in the city will spike. Before October’s ban ...

  There’s no good place to start a nuclear arms race — and Twitter is an especially bad venue. So it’s unfortunate that President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted his desire for the US to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability,” then followed up on Friday morning by saying, “Let it be an arms race.” It’s hard to know ...

  The Obama administration abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s West Bank expansion. Israel reacted fiercely. Tel Aviv accused Washington of abandoning its closest Middle East ally. The resolution called Israeli settlements illegal and demanded that country immediately stop construction in West bank and other territories seized in 1967 Middle East war. Some 430,000 ...

  This year’s news about what artificial intelligence can do in the arts has been both exciting and scary. Neural networks have learned to paint like masters and compose sophisticated music. Those of us in creative endeavours might be as endangered by technological advances as blue-collar workers are often said to be — though we are protected by certain limitations ...

  It’s a Christmas fairy tale. After a 30-year sleep, during which costs have run out of control, investment banks have suddenly woken up to the fact that thousands of their customers don’t make them money. Cursing the ogres of Basel, they find a magic marker pen and cross the freeloaders off their client lists. It all ends happily ever ...

  It’s not looking pretty for department stores. Other than electronics retailers and gas stations, department stores are the only major retail category in the US in which sales fell in the 11 months through November from a year earlier, according to US Census data released this week. And while most of the conversation about dying department stores centers on ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany was hunting for possible accomplices of the suspected Berlin truck attacker on Saturday, a day after he was killed in a shoot-out with Italian police in Milan. As most of the country readied to celebrate Christmas Eve, Germany’s under-pressure authorities said hundreds of investigators would be working on the probe throughout the holiday season. Tunisian ...

  Berlin / AFP Berlin’s Christmas market truck rampage was the deadly extremist attack Germany had long feared, as security services have warned of the growth of a shadowy extremist scene. Rarely a week has gone by in past years without the arrest of a radical preacher, an extremist backing the IS or other extremist groups with money, arms or ...

  Seoul / AFP Tens of thousands of people, many in Santa Claus outfits, marched through the streets of Seoul on Saturday calling for the immediate ouster of impeached President Park Geun-Hye. Parliament voted to impeach Park earlier this month over a corruption scandal in which she allegedly colluded with her friend, Choi Soon-Sil, to strong-arm donations from large conglomerates ...

  Kinshasa / AFP Hopes of a deal to end DR Congo’s dangerous political crisis before Christmas were faltering on Saturday after fruitless all-night talks over President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to quit power. Kabila’s second and final five-year term ended on December 20, but he has shown no intention of leaving office soon, sparking violent protests that have left at ...