Bloomberg China called for better coordination to cut emissions after a sixth day of heavy smog engulfed much of the northern part of the country and spurred the year’s highest alert. With the toxic haze shrouding the capital Beijing, coastal Tianjin, and surrounding Hebei province, the environmental protection ministry called for cities to coordinate anti-emission measures such as halting ...

  Bloomberg Beijing and other regions of north China were blanketed by the year’s worst bout of noxious smog, prompting officials to cancel 351 flight departures from the capital’s airport because of limited visibility. The concentration of PM2.5 — the particles that pose the greatest health risks — was 402 micrograms per cubic meter near Tiananmen Square at 5 p.m. ...

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co.’s website failed, blocking access to booking and flight check-in tools in a busy holiday travel week. The carrier said it was making progress in fixing the disruption and was getting reports of successful transactions and online check-in attempts around 5:45 p.m. New York time. The failure affected all customers but didn’t have any impact on ...

  Lagos / AFP Nigeria’s Arik airline has resumed flights following a deal to end a one-day strike that paralysed its operation, the company said on Wednesday. Aviation unions called the strike on Tuesday to protest non-payment of seven months of salaries to Arik workers, non-remittance of taxes and the sacking of five union leaders. Thousands of local and foreign ...

  Brussels / AFP Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola has agreed to pay more than three billion dollars to recently-merged AB InBev for control of Africa’s biggest soft drinks bottling company, both companies said on Wednesday. On merging with SABMiller in September, Belgian-Brazilian giant AB InBev found itself with 54.5 percent in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) and Coca-Cola said in October ...

  Bloomberg UK retail sales grew at their fastest annual pace in more than a year this month, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which also warned that pressure on shoppers’ budgets could increase over the coming year. The CBI’s monthly retail-sales index climbed to 35 in December, the highest since September 2015, from 26 in November. Clothing ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea’s top carrier Korean Air said its staff followed company procedure in restraining an unruly passenger after 80s pop singer Richard Marx tweeted that he helped the “ill trained” crew handle the situation. Marx said he and his wife were flying from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to Incheon airport, the South’s main hub, when a ...

  Milan / AFP Stock in Monte dei Paschi di Siena tumbled on Wednesday as investors feared that the troubled Italian bank’s efforts to find billions of euros quickly are all but doomed. BMPS, the world’s oldest bank and Italy’s third-biggest, is racing against the clock to raise five billion euros ($5.2 billion) by the end of next week or ...

  New Delhi / AFP India’s central bank on Wednesday rolled back an order restricting deposits of banned rupee bills into bank accounts, after the move sparked a huge public backlash. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unleashed chaos last month with his shock move to withdraw high-denomination 500 ($7.50) and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation, in an effort to tackle widespread ...

  Luxembourg / AFP The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that Spanish banks must reimburse clients who had signed mortgage contracts that unfairly prevented them from benefiting from a steady drop in interest rates. The decision by the Luxembourg-based court caused shares in Spanish lenders to fall with small lender Liberbank leading losses, down over ten percent in ...