The heir to the Samsung empire was convicted of bribery and other offenses Friday and jailed for five years in connection with the scandal that brought down South Korean president Park Geun-Hye.

France's wine production is expected to plummet 18 percent this year after spring frost damaged vines across the country, the government said Friday -- but a hot summer is expected to yield a top vintage.

World stock markets mostly advanced Thursday, with analysts playing down U.S. President Donald Trump's government shutdown threat as they looked ahead to a key central bankers' meeting.

Alibaba-backed Chinese food delivery firm Ele.me will take over the food delivery unit of search engine giant Baidu in a deal that could be worth up to $800 million, the firm and a report said Thursday.

The number of EU nationals leaving Britain rose sharply to 122,000 people in the 12 months to the end of March in the biggest increase in a decade, after the country voted to leave the European Union.

Iran has secured an eight-billion euro credit line from South Korea's Eximbank, the Islamic republic's biggest loan deal since its 2015 nuclear accord, the Iranian central bank announced Thursday.

Italy's police said Wednesday that it had seized over 92,000 eggs and 26,000 chickens as part of an investigation into an insecticide scandal that has spread across Europe.

Wall Street stocks retreated early Wednesday after President Donald Trump suggested he could shut down the U.S. government if Congress did not fund a border wall with Mexico.

The pullback came after U.S. stocks staged a solid rally Tuesday, in part due to optimism that Trump-related controversies were receding and that long-awaited tax reform could take center stage.

Qatar has approved a law limiting domestic staff to a maximum of 10 hours' work a day, the first such protection for thousands of household maids, nannies and cooks in the emirate.

Brazil's government is eying the privatization of giant power utility Eletrobras in a bid to balance a yawning budget deficit, the energy ministry said, sparking a surge in share prices Tuesday.

"This is a move of fundamental importance for developing the Brazilian electricity sector," Mining and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho told a press conference in Brasilia.