In a speech that will be delivered today in London, the former Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair is expected to say that the EU and UK should start preparing for another referendum on Brexit, as the Parliament is likely to reject Theresa May's deal.
Japan's capital expenditure plans and business confidence were unchanged from the prior quarter, sign that companies were not worried about global growth concerns and escalating trade frictions.
China's retail sales increased at their weakest pace in 15 years, while industrial output grew the least in three years in November, as domestic demand kept softening, underlining higher risks to the economy.
Japan's manufacturing activity grew in December, though export orders contracted at the strongest pace since 2016, in a sign of falling overseas demand, a preliminary survey revealed.
China was on track to hit the GDP growth goal of around 6.5% in 2018, though the economy is likely to face more external unclarities next year.
Starbucks announced on Thursday it had teamed up with UberEats over coffee and food delivery in the United States, seeking to also double its China outlets within the following four years.
On Thursday, Adobe Systems reported a 22.8% surge in its Q4 revenue, driven by the higher subscriptions for the Creative Cloud software suite, including Photoshop.
The US new vehicle sales are expected to fall in 2019, as higher prices and increased interest rates could prompt customers to postpone car-buying plans, the NADA stated.
The UK announced its intention to host UN climate negotiations in 2020, the British Energy Minister stated, as it sought to establish a leading role in the fight against global warming after Brexit.
The US federal government ran a $205B deficit in the month of November, according to the Treasury Department's report on Thursday, while analysts expected a $188B deficit for the period.
YouTube took down around 58M videos and 224M comments over the third quarter due to violations of its policies, the company stated, aiming to demonstrate its progress in combating problem content.
Chipmaker Qualcomm was asking Chinese courts to ban sales of Apple's latest iPhone models XR and XS, as it won a preliminary injunction over older models, it confirmed on Thursday.
Standard Chartered laid off more than 200 jobs in India in the company's retail banking division, as customers moved to digital services, a source familiar with the matter stated.
Google launched Thailand's artificial intelligence programme to screen for a disease of diabetic eye that leads to permanent blindness, the tech giant announced on Thursday.
WOW air, Iceland's low-cost carrier, which entered talks with the US private equity firm Indigo Partners over a possible investment, announced on Thursday it was set to slash 111 jobs and cut its fleet to eleven aircraft.
Jean Pierre Mustier, Italy's UniCredit Chief Executive Officer stated he did not view any merger deal with another bank, at least until the end of 2021.
On Thursday, General Electric stated that its digital arm was set to sell the majority stake in the cloud-based software provider ServiceMax, to the technology-focused PE group Silver Lake.
The second-largest court of Europe on Thursday has trimmed the EU antitrust fine imposed on Deutsche Telekom in 2014 by a third to €19M.
On Thursday, the French foreign ministry stated the hackers had stolen important data from its website, created for the country's citizens travelling abroad.
Chrysaor, the PE-backed oil company, selected advisers before entering the talks to acquire Chevron's British North Sea gas and oil fields for more than $2.5B.
On Thursday, the soda can producer Ball Corp stated it was planning to sell the Chinese beverage packaging facilities for around $225M.
Vietnam's newest ride-sharing app "be" stated on Thursday it had signed "hundreds of millions US dollars" of investments ahead of launching its operations starting the next week.
On Thursday, Nikkei reported that Japan Post Holdings will acquire a 7-8% stake in the US insurer Aflac in a deal valued at about $2.6B, as the company seeks overseas expansion.
Apple is set to make an investment of $1.0B to establish the second campus in Texas, while another $10B will be invested into new data centres within the following five years, as the tech giant seeks creating 20K new jobs in US.