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  The European Central Bank reckons that financial market uncertainty, as measured by how far stocks, bonds and the euro are from historical norms, is currently close to zero, in contrast with elevated uncertainty during the recessions of 2009 and 2013. The sheer range of known unknowns for 2017 — the outlook for China’s economy, the effect of populism on ...

  Bloomberg Air travellers globally are bracing for higher fares after Opec decided last month to cut output. Not in India, the world’s fastest-growing major aviation market. Carriers cut fares in November, selling tickets about 12% cheaper on average for Mumbai-New Delhi flights from a year ago, according to Yatra.com, India’s No. 2 online travel agency. The steepest discounts were ...

  Bloomberg Boeing Co. is making deeper job cuts in its commercial airplane business and planning further reductions for 2017, citing “fewer sales opportunities and tough competition.” The US planemaker will trim the workforce in its largest division by 8 percent by the end of this year compared with the January level, Boeing Vice Chairman Ray Conner and Kevin McAllister, ...

  Bloomberg Flybe Group Plc, Europe’s biggest regional airline, appointed Christine Ourmieres-Widener as its chief executive officer, succeeding Saad Hammad, who stood down in October after struggling to lift earnings. Ourmieres-Widener, an executive at Air France before she ran fellow regional operator CityJet Ltd. between 2010 and 2015, takes over Jan. 16, Flybe said in a statement on Tuesday. She’ll ...

  Bloomberg Killing four empty hours at Guangzhou airport waiting for a China Southern connection to Sydney may not be everyone’s idea of fun. For Gina Capella, it was a no-brainer. The 43-year-old Boston resident and her friend saved hundreds of dollars last year choosing China Southern Airlines Co. over a direct flight from Seoul with Korean Air Lines Co. ...

  Berlin / AFP Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that German authorities believe a deadly rampage by a lorry driver at a Berlin Christmas market was a “terrorist” attack likely committed by an asylum seeker. Police were questioning a suspect, described by media as a 23-year-old man from Pakistan or Afghanistan who had arrived via the so-called Balkan route ...

  Berlin / AFP The bloody carnage at a Berlin Christmas market, with a Pakistani or Afghan asylum-seeker as the chief suspect, immediately emboldened right-wing populist critics of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy. Merkel has been under fire over her decision in September last year to let in tens of thousands fleeing war and poverty from mostly war-torn countries ...

  Washington / AFP China has returned a US underwater probe it seized in the South China Sea, the Pentagon confirmed after Beijing’s capture of the craft sparked a dispute between the two powers. The Chinese navy handed over the drone near where it was seized, the Pentagon said, repeating US condemnation of Beijing’s actions in what it says are ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in favour of the central government in its bid to relocate a US airbase on Okinawa, dealing a significant blow to the plan’s opponents led by the island’s governor. The Japanese and US governments want the base in the middle of a crowded city moved to a sparsely populated area ...

  Bloomberg For unionized auto workers, even amid a booming US market, the only safe jobs of late have been building pickups and sport utility vehicles. Within the next month, General Motors Co. plans to permanently cut about 3,300 employees at three car plants, as the largest US automaker slashes production of models including the Chevrolet Cruze compact. The Detroit-based ...