Louisville/ AFP Thousands of people are expected to attend an Islamic prayer service for Muhammad Ali on Thursday, the start of two days of poignant ceremonies honoring the late boxing legend. Ali’s hometown of Louisville in the southern US state of Kentucky will host the tributes that will bring together VIPs and huge crowds of ordinary fans in the ...

  Los Angeles / AFP Two California men went on trial on charges of conspiring to join the IS group for which they allegedly hoped to die as martyrs. Nader Elhuzayel and Muhanad Badawi, both 25 and from Anaheim, were arrested in May of last year by federal agents when Elhuzayel attempted to board a plane in Los Angeles to ...

  Washington / AFP The United States underestimates the long-term impact of civilian deaths on its military missions and is failing to implement lessons learned from 15 gruelling years in Afghanistan, a report found. While the US military frequently stresses it does all it can to prevent civilian casualties, the report said poorly planned air strikes, misidentified targets, unexploded ordinance ...

  Bloomberg Japanese banks, known for the risk-aversion that spared them the worst of the credit crisis, have quietly grown into some of the world’s largest energy lenders. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s largest bank, disclosed last month it has become one of the biggest oil and gas lenders with 9.2 trillion yen, or about US$85 billion, in exposure ...

  Bloomberg Since a surprise interest-rate cut at his first meeting as European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi has shown a penchant for pushing the envelope. The bank’s entry into the corporate bond market was no exception: buying bonds with junk ratings. Purchases on the first day included notes from Telecom Italia SpA, according to people familiar with the matter, ...

  Bloomberg John Cryan’s plan to revamp Deutsche Bank AG risks unraveling as the departure of the chief executive officer’s most senior hire presents one more false start to a strategy he laid out last year. Quintin Price, hired in October to oversee growth in the bank’s asset-management business, is leaving the bank after going on medical leave in mid-April, ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc’s sale of its Brazilian unit should face tougher scrutiny from the nation’s antitrust office because the local banking industry is already highly concentrated, one of the agency’s regulators said. Any banking mergers should immediately be deemed ‘complex,’ Cristiane Alkmin Junqueira Schmidt, a member of the agency, said. “I am really uncomfortable approving any transaction in the ...

  Bloomberg Changes to the capital treatment of sovereign bonds discussed in Brussels and Basel may force European banks to raise as much as 171 billion euros (US$195 billion) in new capital or sell 492 billion euros of the securities, according to research published. European banks own about 2.3 trillion euros of sovereign debt, of which about 1.5 trillion euros, ...

  AP French bank Societe Generale has been ordered to pay about 450,000 euros ($510,000) to former trader Jerome Kerviel for unfair dismissal, after he was accused of one of the biggest trading frauds in history. Kerviel has become an icon for critics of the banking world, and his supporters hailed decision in his favour by a labour arbitration court. ...

  Mainz / DPA Gardeners at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany are attempting to bring to life a 15th-century herb garden partly based on Arab medical traditions. In their botanical gardens they’ve planted more than 70 plants featured in a 1485 book — published in the German city of Mainz — called Gart der Gesundheit (Garden of ...