Relaxnews This year’s new ski gear is all about performance and comfort. Here’s a look at some of the latest, most innovative products heading for the slopes this season. SKI BOOTS Salomon X Pro Custom Heat If your feet are often cold in ski boots, then Salomon’s X Pro Custom Heat with heated liner are just the job. They ...

  DPA Andreas Fraedrich has so many enormous golden-ball cacti that he could provide seating for a whole army of unloved older women — the thorny plants are jocularly known as “mother-in-law’s cushion.” The German also has a huge collection of other plants: queens of the night, ponytail palms, lemon and fig trees, yuccas, lantana, agave, weeping figs and rubber ...

  Donauwoerth / DPA For generations of little girls, the name Kaethe Kruse has been synonymous with a childhood dream — about one day possessing a genuine Kruse doll from Germany, perhaps the most famous doll in the world. It was a dream that always had some major obstacle. For example, that the dolls were too expensive for the girls’ ...

  Beijing / AFP China will be handed the opportunity to reshape the rules for global trade and profit from a more isolated US if President-elect Donald Trump carries out his pledge to abandon the landmark TPP pact, observers say. The likely demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been welcomed by state media in China, where the deal had been criticised ...

  Manila AFP The head of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday urged US President-elect Donald Trump to continue with a landmark trans-pacific trade deal, but said the region would press on with key accords regardless of his decision. The US-led Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP), promoted by outgoing US President Barack Obama as part of his Asia pivot, liberalises inter-regional ...

  Bangkok / AFP Thai prosecutors have charged a string of tour operators with ripping off Chinese tourists, police said on Thursday, as the kingdom cracks down on scams targeting their most lucrative visitors. China sends more people to Thailand than any other nation and tourism remains one of the few bright spots in the kingdom’s otherwise bleak economy. But complaints ...

  Istanbul / AFP The Turkish central bank on Thursday announced it was hiking its main interest rate by 50 basis points, in a bid to counter a drastic fall in the value of the lira. The monetary policy committee of the bank said the one-week repurchasing rate was being lifted to 8.0 percent from 7.5 percent, the first rate hike ...

  Beijing / AFP Coca-Cola workers in three Chinese cities have gone on strike after the US soft drinks giant announced it was selling its bottling interests in the country. Strikes and other labour protests have surged in recent years in China, where growth is slowing and parts of the economy are moribund. The beverage giant announced last week it was ...

  Mumbai / AFP The dollar hit a record high against the Indian rupee on Thursday as the US unit rockets against other global currencies on expectations of a rise in US interest rates. Trump’s victory last week lit a fire under the greenback as investors bet his big-spending tax-cutting plans will fan inflation and force the Federal Reserve to ramp ...

  New Delhi / AFP India’s former prime minister said Thursday the government’s shock move to withdraw all high-value notes from circulation would slow growth in the world’s fastest expanding major economy, calling it “legalised plunder”. Manmohan Singh, whose economic reforms are credited with rescuing the country from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, said the two-week-old scheme had ...