The arrival of the earliest English settlers in Jamestown is one of the cornerstones of American history. But few people know that the voyage was inspired and made possible by a financial innovation — the joint-stock company — that emerged in direct response to Queen Elizabeth’s outreach to the Muslim world. The Virginia Company was chartered by King James ...

  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 ...

  JERUSALEM / AP Israeli media is reporting that police are expected to question Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a pair of corruption allegations. A black screen was placed on Monday in front of Netanyahu’s official residence in apparent anticipation of the police investigators’ arrival and to obstruct the view of journalists seeking to film them. Netanyahu has denied what ...

  KABUL / AP An Afghan official says that at least one police officer has been killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Logar province. Salim Saleh, spokesman for the provincial governor in Logar, said on Monday that four other people including a district police commander and three road construction engineers were wounded in the blast. Meanwhile at least six ...

  TEHRAN / AP Iranian state TV is reporting the country’s coast guard has detained 21 fishermen and their three boats from neighboring Arab nations for straying into its territorial waters and fishing rare species. The Monday report said the traditional boats, known as dhows, had entered Iranian waters near the country’s Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. It said ...

  Bloomberg IS claimed responsibility for the killing of 39 people celebrating the New Year inside a fabled Istanbul nightclub, an act of terrorism that has become grimly familiar in Turkey as it fails to keep the violence in Syria from spilling into its cities. Shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, an assailant killed a police officer guarding the entrance ...

  ABS, Yemen / AP As the first light of dawn trickles in through the hospital window, 19-year-old Mohammed Ali learns that his two-year-old cousin has died of hunger. But he has to remain strong for his little brother Mohannad, who could be next. He holds his brother’s hand as the five-year-old struggles to breathe, his skin stretched tight over tiny ...

  BEIRUT / AP Hundreds of civilians fled a mountainous region outside the Syrian capital, where government forces were battling several insurgent groups, including an al-Qaida-linked outfit excluded from a recent nationwide cease-fire. The Syrian military said some 1,300 people fled the Barada Valley region since Saturday. The region has been the target of days of airstrikes and shelling despite the ...