Business

MILAN (AP) — New car sales in Europe are continuing to fall for the seventh straight month, dropping by 4 percent in March.

The European carmakers’ association ACEA, based in Brussels, said 1.72 million new cars were sold last month, down from 1.79 million in March 2018. Italy led all five top markets in decline, with a double-digit drop.

The Volkswagen group gained market share, capturing 23.2 percent of sales with a mild 1-percent drop. Shares of its luxury brands were mixed, with Audi up by 1.7 percent and Porsche plummeting 19 percent.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stepping up pressure on Cuba, the Trump administration will allow lawsuits against foreign companies doing business in properties seized from Americans after the island’s 1959 revolution, a senior administration official said.

The move marks a change in more than two decades of U.S. policy on Cuba.

16 Apr 2019; DW: Russian Duma deputies on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported a bill allowing Russia to create its own autonomous internet. The law will create an independent infrastructure for the Russian internet, or "Runet," which will essentially allow Russia to pull up its virtual drawbridges in case of attack. 

TEHRAN, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif started a trip to Syria and Turkey on Tuesday to discuss bilateral ties, Tasnim news agency reported.

On the first leg of his trip, Zarif will visit Damascus, capital of Syria, for meetings with top Syrian officials, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem.

The two-day trip will take the Iranian foreign minister later to Turkey.

MOSCOW, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese engineers and workers are busy tunneling in southwest Moscow using domestic equipment and technology for a new metro line of the city.

This is the first time for the Chinese to build a subway in Europe.

The first tunnel was holed through in early April and the remaining eight tunnels are expected to be drilled through by the end of this year, said Xue Liqiang, a manager of the project with China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC).

RIYADH, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) held on Monday a coordination meeting and discussed the activation of a joint market, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The meeting of the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council held in Riyadh highlighted that the two countries will launch an open market project, to help achieve economic diversity and maintain their market performance.

The two countries are also developing a joint vision related to tourism and national heritage, through a partnership between concerned authorities of both countries.

BELGRADE, April 15 (Xinhua) -- China's global cooperation project has emerged as a major factor in the infrastructural and economic development of Serbia and the Western Balkans, fostering regional partnership and mutual benefits, said keynote speakers of an international scientific conference dedicated to the sixth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) here on Monday.

The international conference "Belt and Road Initiative: Six Years After" opened on Monday with the participation of academics from both Serbia and China.

15 Apr 2019; DW: The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Monday reported a 20 percent jump over the past year in people from countries outside the EU coming to work in Germany.  

The group makes up a relatively small portion of the country's 10.9 million foreigners.

What Destatis found:

15 Apr 2019; DW: Public prosecutors in the German city of Braunschweig have brought charges against former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn over his role in the Dieselgate scandal, they said on Monday. Four other managers were also charged, they said.

Winterkorn stepped down as Volkswagen CEO in 2015 after revelations that the carmaker had programmed computers in its vehicles to detect when they were being tested and alter the running of diesel engines to conceal the true level of emissions.

GUANGZHOU, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The 125th China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, opened Monday in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, with over half of companies attending its import fair hailing from Belt and Road countries and regions.

The spring session of the biannual fair holds import exhibitions in its first and third phases, with 1,000 booths booked by 650 enterprises from 38 countries and regions.