Volkswagen will hold a minority stake in the joint venture, SOVAC Production SPA, which will produce vehicles from the Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, SEAT and Skoda brands, the German carmaker said.

"The Volkswagen Group opted for participation in SOVAC Production SPA as we have co-operated successfully with our sales partner SOVAC for many years," Volkswagen executive Josef Baumert said in a statement.

"For us, this is a logical step towards increasing vehicle sales in Algeria in the long term."

SOVAC has been a sales partner for Volkswagen since 2001, Volkswagen said, adding it delivered 30,000 new vehicles via SOVAC in 2015. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Mark Potter)

Virtually every American analyst agrees on what Trump should do to meet the No. 1 threat: drop his plans of confronting China on trade to obtain its assistance on “denuclearizing” the Kim regime.

This line of thinking is not new and ignores 13 years of American foreign policy failure. In fact, it’s possible the opposite is true, that waging a trade war on China may be the only way to obtain Beijing’s cooperation on North Korea.

It’s not hard to see why the outgoing administration thinks the North is such a danger. At this time, Kim Jong Un, the regime’s unstable ruler, can press a button and send three types of missiles to the lower 48 states, the Taepodong-2; the road-mobile KN-08; and the KN-08 variant, the KN-14. Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center thinks the KN-14 might be able to reach Washington, D.C.

The consensus is that North Korea cannot mate a nuclear warhead to these launchers, but in, say, four years, it will have that capability as well. The North already possesses a nuke that fits atop its Nodong intermediate-range missile, which can travel a little under a thousand miles.

How did North Korea, one of the world’s most destitute states, develop its nukes and missiles in the face of opposition of virtually all the international community? The simple answer is that Presidents Obama and Bush relentlessly pursued ineffective policies.

With the regrettable exception of about a month in early 2012, when his negotiators crafted the misguided Leap Day deal, Obama practiced a policy of “strategic patience,” not talking to the North Koreans until they showed good faith. At the same time, Washington worked with Beijing to impose sanctions as the North detonated four nuclear devices during the president’s eight years.

That Obama policy was an understandable reaction to Bush’s failed efforts. The 43rd president, placing a higher priority on integrating China into the international system than disarming the North, gave Beijing a lead role in multilateral negotiations, the so-called Six-Party talks.

BMW will rework the front and rear of the i3 and equip the car with a new battery to increase its range substantially beyond the current 300 km maximum, the paper said, adding that the increase would be below 50 percent.

BMW has been torn about whether to accelerate development of new electric cars given its expensive early investment has only resulted in lackluster sales, with 25,000 i3s delivered last year.

To help improve sales, BMW has already increased the battery range of its i3 city car by 50 percent this year.

BMW was not immediately available for comment on the newspaper report.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; editing by David Clarke)

Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) Saturday said the total represented a 21.6 percent increase from the same day of last year and 290 million dollars above the predicted 3.05 billion dollars sales for the traditional shopping day after Thanksgiving holiday.

The Black Friday this year also registered as the first day to ever generate over a billion dollars in online sales from mobile devices. Sales through mobile devices totaled 1.2 billion dollars, or 36 percent of all online sales for the day and an increase of 33 percent over the same day of last year.

The ADI research is based on the analysis of select, anonymous, and aggregated data from more than 5,000 companies that use the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud to obtain real-time data and analysis of activity on websites, social media and advertising.

About 800 government officials and business leaders from the 2 countries took part in a forum in Beijing on Saturday to discuss environment-related issues.

Japanese industry minister Hiroshige Seko said that in the energy-conservation and environmental sectors, China is strong in production capacity, while Japan has experience and technological knowhow in both fields.

Seko added he believes the 2 countries can build "a win-win relationship."

He then signed a memorandum on energy cooperation with China's National Development and Reform Commission Minister, Xu Shaoshi.

The memorandum covers training of experts and the extending of financial assistance for energy-saving and environmental efforts.

During the forum, it was announced that public entities and companies of the 2 countries had signed up for 28 projects in the past year.

At a subcommittee meeting, the participants also heard about the results of joint research on setting up more charging stations for electric vehicles in China.

A Japanese participant said a meeting like this is significant as it allows the sharing of technology needed by China.

The protests, which began five weeks ago, were the largest in South Korea since pro-democracy demonstrations of the 1980s.
Those attending on Saturday came from a cross-section of South Korean society, with farmers, Buddhist monks and university students all involved.

"I was watching the news and thought this cannot go on - people really want her to step down but she hasn't," one of the protesters, Kwak Bo-youn, told Reuters.
"This is the second time for me to the protests, but the first time for my husband and kids."
Ms Park, whose approval rating has dropped to 5%, apologised earlier this month for putting "too much faith in a personal relationship", and has pledged to co-operate in an official investigation into the scandal.
South Korea's constitution does not allow a sitting president to be prosecuted, and Ms Park has 15 months left in her term.
But now that prosecutors have directly linked her to the scandal, it is possible she could be impeached for breaking the law.
Prosecutors are expected to bring charges against Ms Choi, along with two former presidential aides. She was arrested earlier this month.
Ms Choi is accused of trying to extort huge sums of money from South Korean companies, and suspected of using her friendship with Ms Park to solicit business donations for a non-profit fund she controlled.

Manturov says work on the intergovernmental agreement may be finished in the first quarter of 2017. Construction of the industrial park will start in 2018.

The decision to build a Russian industrial zone in Egypt was agreed by President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart in 2014. Negotiations were temporarily frozen after a Russian airliner was blown up by terrorists over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015.

The new industrial zone will have a friendlier tax regime for resident Russian firms. It is expected to provide 77,000 jobs, and the companies expect revenues to reach $11.6 billion. The tax rate for businesses in the project and personal income tax will be 10 percent. Sales tax will be abolished.

Russian companies will design and construct the industrial facilities, jointly produce and supply various types of equipment, and provide the necessary technical assistance.

It is estimated around $4.6 billion will be invested in the construction of the industrial park by 2035.

Two years ago Egypt announced the modernization of the Suez Canal, which is one of the world's major transportation routes. Originally, it was planned to complete the work in three years, but later it was reduced to 12 months. The new Suez Canal will include a vast range of services, as well as several industrial parks, including Russian, Chinese and Italian.

More than 4,000 households left France in 2014 (it’s the most recent year with available statistics), according to Les Echos newspaper which has obtained the report.

For those earning over €100,000 the trend has continued since 2007.

In 2014, about 589 people earning over €300,000 a year left the country. The figure was down from 659 the year before.

For those earning €700,000 or more per year, 127 people said ‘au revoir’ to France in 2014, down from 179 people a year earlier.

Experts cite France’s relatively high tax rate as one of the main reasons for the outflow of millionaires. Taxes were significantly increased in 2012 with a 'supertax' of 75 percent on the rich which was meant to force the wealthy help the country out of the economic crisis. The unpopular measure was introduced by France’s President Francois Hollande, but two years later the supertax was adjusted to a 50 percent rate due to accusations of it being anti-business.

The report, however, found that over half the top earners leave France for "professional reasons," while 30 percent move for personal or family reasons.

Some other studies also show the massive exodus was more likely linked with a new job, a change of scene, or for family reasons. Very few high earners blamed taxes for causing them to move.

Last month’s study from the Ipsos research company revealed the French are more pessimistic about the future of their country than anyone else in the world. A total of 88 percent of respondents said the country was heading down the wrong path. They considered terrorism to be the "most worrying topic" in France, followed by unemployment, taxes, and poverty/social inequality.