2017 was the safest year on record for the commercial airline industry, two new reports said. No major airline experienced a plane crash anywhere in the world, the Dutch aviation consultancy To70 reported Monday. “2017 was much better than could reasonably [and statistically] be expected, and was again better than …

Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets last year, according to a Dutch consulting firm and an aviation safety group that tracks crashes, making 2017 the safest year on record for commercial air travel. Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 and the Aviation Safety Network both reported Monday there …

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani may have to step back from some of his core economic policies in the face of nationwide protests by tens of thousands of people frustrated by high unemployment and stagnant living standards The protests, during which at least 10 people have been killed, are fuelled by …

More than two decades after California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana use, on January first it becomes the final West Coast state to legalize pot for recreational purposes — a move approved by California voters in November 2016, in a referendum known as Prop 64. While this …

China’s total domestic movie ticket sales rose 13.5 percent in 2017 to 55.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion), a state news agency said Monday. The top-grossing title was the mainland-made action picture “Wolf Warrior 2,” which took in 5.7 billion yuan ($875 million), the Xinhua News Agency said, citing data from …

North America couldn’t catch a break in 2017. Parts of the United States were on fire, underwater or lashed by hurricane winds. Mexico shook with back-to-back earthquakes. The Caribbean got hit with a string of hurricanes. The rest of the world, however, fared better. Preliminary research shows there were fewer …

There were no fireworks on Wall Street for the last trading day of the year, as U.S. stocks closed out their best year since 2013 on a down note, with losses in technology and financial stocks keeping equities in negative territory for the session. Major indexes hit a series of …

When the 55-year-old woman stood up to speak at a meeting of shoemakers in south India earlier this month, she was seeing her employers for the first time. She told them about the decades she had spent hunched up in her home, repeatedly pulling a needle through tough leather as …

President Donald Trump returned to a favorite target Friday, saying that the U.S. Postal Service should charge Amazon.com more money to ship the millions of packages it sends around the world each year.    Amazon has been a consistent recipient of Trump’s ire. He has accused the company of failing …

Officials in the Philippines, one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, are planning a series of economic stimulus measures in 2018 to ease poverty and compensate for a lag in foreign investment. Manila is building $169 billion in infrastructure, such as railways and an airport terminal, while toying with legal changes …

President Donald Trump’s administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands, government officials announced Thursday. The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose …

United Parcel Service Inc is on track to return a record number of packages this holiday shipping season, a sign that e-commerce purchases surged to new heights over the past month. The world’s largest package delivery company and rival FedEx Corp get paid by retailers like Amazon.com Inc and Wal-Mart …

Airbus is drawing up contingency plans to phase out production of the world’s largest jetliner, the A380 superjumbo, if it fails to win a key order from Dubai’s Emirates, three people familiar with the matter said. The moment of truth for the slow-selling airliner looms after just 10 years in …

The global fight over land and resources is getting increasingly bloody and the race for control of valuable assets is expanding from forests and indigenous territories to the seas, space and databanks. Here are five hotspots for property rights in 2018: Rising violence: From Peru to the Philippines, land rights …

There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each. Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up …

The sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high.  Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and …

Authorities in eastern Libya have announced a conference in March to drum up support to rebuild the country’s second-largest city Benghazi heavily damaged during three years of fighting between military forces and Islamist fighters. The announcement signals a desire to demonstrate a return to normality in the port, where top …

Oil moved higher above $65 a barrel on Tuesday, within sight of its highest since mid-2015, supported by an explosion on a crude pipeline in Libya and voluntary OPEC-led supply cuts. The move towards restart of a key North Sea pipeline, Forties, capped the rally. The pipeline is being tested …

Sudan is to devalue its currency to 18 Sudanese pounds per dollar in January from the current exchange rate of 6.7, the finance minister said on Tuesday. The International Monetary Fund urged Sudan earlier this month to float its currency to boost growth and investment, but the government has ruled …

The shops in Mali are full of imported goods from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This, Mali’s captains of industry maintain, is not necessary. Mali can produce a lot of what it consumes at home. But for that to happen, there needs to be a wholesale revival of its …

Construction is one of the fields that has long been dominated by men. Though women have increasingly come to the field, working as electricians, carpenters and plumbers, they’re still underrepresented. Faiza Elmasry tells us about a training program established by Supporting and Linking Tradeswomen, SALT, an Australian non-profit that works …

Many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh facing diminished income are supplementing their needs with work in the camps. Steve Sandford talks to a few young and old entrepreneurs who have set up new businesses in the refugee zones. …

Israel’s markets regulator said on Monday he will propose regulation to ban companies based on bitcoin and other digital currencies from trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). Shmuel Hauser, the chairman of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), told the Calcalist business conference he will bring the proposal to …

Management experts are always coming up with innovative ideas to improve the work environment, inspire employees and raise productivity. Big companies in Germany, like Lufthansa, Siemens, Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen’s Audi, are bringing harmony to the workplace by having symphony orchestras and encouraging employees to play music together. Faiza Elmasry …

In 2017, China’s Xi Jinping rose to become the country’s most powerful leader in decades. And as he shoulders more responsibility, analysts say the government in Beijing is likely to take more risks in 2018 at home and overseas, even as it deals with economic challenges at home, a nuclear …