Moscow / AFP US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said on Friday they had agreed on “concrete steps” to salvage a failing truce and tackle extremist groups in Syria but refrained from laying out their deal. The top diplomats emerged from 12-hour marathon talks saying they agreed on the way forward, but Kerry stressed that ...

  Muzaffarbad / AFP A Pakistani social media celebrity whose selfies polarised the deeply conservative Muslim country has been murdered by her brother in a suspected honour killing, officials said Saturday, prompting shock and revulsion. Qandeel Baloch, praised by many of the country’s youth for her willingness to break social taboos but condemned by conservatives, was strangled near the city ...

  Srinagar / AFP Police seized tens of thousands of newspapers in Indian-controlled Kashmir early Saturday and detained printing press workers, ramping up an information blackout after a week of unrest left 39 dead, officials and media outlets said. Teams of officers swooped on major newspaper offices in the restive region overnight, seizing printing plates in an attempt to curb ...

  Bloomberg Avianca Brasil is pushing ahead with plans to overhaul its aircraft fleet as the closely held carrier shakes off worries over the deep Brazilian recession and looks ahead to projections of rapid growth in Latin American air travel. Synergy Aerospace Corp., the airline’s owner, agreed to buy 62 narrow-body planes from Airbus Group SE’s A320neo family, the companies ...

  Bloomberg US airlines surged by the most since late 2014 after Deutsche Bank AG recommended buying shares in the three largest carriers. American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and United Continental Holdings Inc. will rebound as they advance “in fits and starts” toward halting a slide in passenger revenue for each seat flown a mile, a key ...

  New York / AFP Delta Air Lines has announced that it will cut back flights serving Britain this year in the wake of the country’s vote to pull out of the European Union. Delta said it plans to reduce capacity on service between the US and Britain by six percent this winter, citing the steep drop in the British pound ...

  Bloomberg Staples Inc., looking to bounce back after a failed mega-merger, is bulking up its online selection and shortening delivery times to make the most of the back-to-school shopping season, which is more important for the office-supply retailer than the winter holidays. More than 1,000 products — including a wider assortment of technology products, such as headphones and tablets ...

  New York / AFP Boeing, creator of some of the world’s most iconic aircraft of the 20th century, commemorates its centennial this week facing multiple challenges to remain at the forefront of global aerospace innovation. At the top of the list is European archrival Airbus, which has topped Boeing in commercial orders in recent years and made inroads into the ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co reported second-quarter profit dropped from a year earlier as persistently low interest rates continued to squeeze lending margins. Citigroup reduced its forecast for net interest margin, the difference between what a bank charges for loans and pays depositors, while Wells Fargo said the UK’s vote to leave the European Union will ...

  Bloomberg A leading US banking regulator wants lenders to do more to manage their exposure to commercial real estate. As property lending accelerates, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — which oversees American banks alongside the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp — is actively monitoring banks’ stress tests and risk-management practices, Comptroller Thomas ...