The European Union has approved economic sanctions, including an arms embargo on Venezuela. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels announced the measures on Monday in response to regional elections last month, which they say worsened the country’s crisis. The weapons ban is intended to prevent the government of President Nicolas …

The United Nations says Asia Pacific countries need to address issues surrounding the rights of migrant workers as international talks move toward a Global Compact on migrant labor. The Global Compact’s rise, with a final agreement set for 2018, was a result of the migrant crisis faced by the European …

Venezuela’s foreign debt renegotiation committee will meet with creditors at 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Monday at the government’s “White Palace” in downtown Caracas, the finance minister said on Saturday. “Once again, we invite investors to register their participation in this meeting,” Simon Zerpa, who is also the finance boss …

Emirates Airlines agreed to buy 40 Boeing 787-10s in a deal worth more than $15 billion. The purchase was announced Sunday at the Dubai Air Show by the largest airline in the Middle East. Deliveries of the wide-body, twin-engine planes are set to begin in 2022. Boeing’s website says the …

The biennial Dubai Air Show opened Sunday with hometown long-haul carrier Emirates making a $15.1 billion buy of Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners, as the world’s biggest defense companies promoted their weapons amid heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Other airlines also are taking part, but missing from the trade show …

West Virginia could produce profitable niche crops grown on reclaimed mine sites. At least that’s what Nathan Hall, president of Reclaim Appalachia envisions. Hall spoke about uses for reclaimed sites at the West Virginia Good Jobs Conference last Tuesday at Tamarack. The goal of the conference is to bring together …

Ranchers in the Midwestern U.S. state of Nebraska are raising beef for tables in China, reopening trade suspended more than a decade ago during concerns over mad cow disease. From Nebraska, VOA reporter Abby Sun tells us how U.S. beef producers are changing to meet Chinese food-safety requirements. …

Luber Faneitte has lung cancer but there’s no medicine to treat it. She cannot make ends meet. Crime is rampant in her neighborhood. And she fears that if Venezuela defaults on its $150 billion debt, which is considered likely, things will get worse. Faneitte, 56, lives on the 18th story …

Afghanistan has received an inaugural consignment of wheat from India through an Iranian port, opening a new trade and transit route for the landlocked nation that bypasses neighboring Pakistan. The strategic sea route, officials say, will help improve trade and transit connectivity between Kabul and New Delhi. It will also …

U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on Vietnam Saturday, saying the southeast Asian nation is “one of the great miracles of the world.” Trump’s remarks were made at a state banquet in the capital of Hanoi, the latest event on his five-country Asian tour. Trump, who arrived in Hanoi Saturday, …

Chinese consumers are spending billions of dollars shopping online for anything from diapers to diamonds on “Singles Day,” a day of promotions that has grown into the world’s biggest e-commerce event.   China’s biggest e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group, said sales by retailers on its platforms had topped $19 billion by …

Despite President Donald Trump’s tough talk on trade at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, international business leaders say they are excited by the prospects of greater cooperation among the 21 member countries of APEC. Many believe the annual economic leaders forum, established nearly three decades ago, will become …

Kurdish refugee Hakki Akdeniz left Turkey in 1999 and came to New York City. At times he was homeless and often wondered where his next meal would come from. But as Saleh Damiger reports, he has more than turned his life around. …

Afghan farmers and traders in the western city of Herat are hoping saffron cultivation can help wean them off their addiction to opium production. Faith Lapidus reports. …

From Queen Elizabeth to U2 frontman Bono, the leak of more than 14 million documents from firms involved in offshore finance, known as the Paradise Papers, has engulfed some of the world’s most famous names. One country appears more than most in the papers: Britain. Campaigners say weak regulation means …

Uber lost the latest round in the battle over its operating model Friday, when a British panel ruled that the company’s drivers are workers, not independent contractors. The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld a lower panel’s decision, agreeing that the two drivers in this case were “workers” under British law and …

Trade ministers of the remaining 11 countries of the expansive Pacific Rim trade pact abandoned by U.S. President Donald Trump reached a deal early Saturday to salvage the agreement without participation by the United States. Previously known as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), it now will be known as the …

Rupert Murdoch telephoned AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson twice in the last six months and talked about cable network CNN, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday. One source said the 86-year-old executive chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. offered to buy CNN in both conversations. Another …

From Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to Formula One racing champion Lewis Hamilton — the leak of more than 14 million documents from firms involved in offshore finance, known as the Paradise Papers, has engulfed some of the world’s most famous names. The latest revelations show U2 frontman Bono used a company …

Maine’s wild blueberry crop fell sharply this summer to land below 100 million pounds (45.3 million kilograms) for the first time in four years, according to a trade group that promotes the industry.   Preliminary industry figures show the crop coming in at about 65 million pounds (29.5 million kilograms), …

The large drop in global cocoa prices has hurt African farmers, leading some to abandon their plantations. In Cameroon, however, cocoa producers are mapping out ways to encourage more local processing. At Nkog-Ekogo in the center region of Cameroon, a cocoa post-harvest processing and treatment center is inaugurated. Farmer Petronella …

President Donald Trump’s two-day stop in China saw the signing of $250 billion in deals between the world’s two biggest economies and the two countries aligning themselves closer in resolute opposition to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But analysts say little new ground was broken on trade or North Korea, an …

Donald Trump warned that the stock market was a “big, fat, ugly bubble” just weeks before he was elected. A year later, Wall Street remains on a milestone-shattering run that the president has been eager to tout and tweet about. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the broadest measure of …

Bicycle highways, urban farms and local energy hubs — just some of the ways that yesterday’s smokestack cities are turning into tomorrow’s green spaces. The Urban Transitions Alliance (UTA), a network that brings together cities in Germany, the United States and China, launched this week to help members learn regeneration …

Former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg is donating $50 million to help nations around the world shift from coal to combat pollution and climate change, expanding his funding outside the United States. The project would start in Europe and expand into other countries later on, his charity, Bloomberg …