Headlines

The personal hospitality business may be the most obvious sector of Sierra Leone’s economy that has been decimated by Ebola. After all, the main slogan in Freetown, the capital, these days is A.B.C. — avoid body contact. But all across the most affected nations — Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia — Ebola continues to lay waste not just to immune systems but also to balance sheets, the International New York Times reported.

Allianz could be exposed to claims of at least $100 million linked to the AirAsia jet missing off the Indonesian coast with 162 people on board, which would be the third major airline accident it has been exposed to this year, the Irish Times reported. Allianz said it was lead reinsurer on the flight, having previously been the main reinsurer to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared over the Indian Ocean in March, as well as to flight MH17, shot down in July while flying over Ukraine.

Russia’s economy contracted for the first time in more than five years in November, taking a step toward a full-scale recession next year, data from the economy ministry showed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. After an optimistic start to the year, when Russia hosted the Winter Olympic Games and enjoyed high oil prices, the world’s largest country by area later stumbled over Western sanctions, massive capital outflows and a sudden drop in oil prices. Now the economy is widely seen contracting next year for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Greek agita is back. Or is it? After a two-year spell during which investors eagerly snapped up Greek assets, the prospect of new elections and the arrival of a tough-talking new prime minister are once again roiling European markets, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. But as the yields on benchmark Greek bonds soared and the Athens stock exchange plunged 4 percent, analysts remained divided as to whether the election of a new government with a mandate to reject years of forced austerity will signal a return to the dark days of the European debt crisis.

The founder of City Link’s parent company has denied the firm’s collapse was mishandled and apologised to more than 2,000 workers who found out on Christmas Day that they would lose their jobs, The Guardian reported. Jon Moulton said the directors of Better Capital, which owns the parcel delivery firm, were very sorry about its collapse and the fallout for its workforce.

There are not many executives who have asked their boss three times whether they should be fired and survived. Maria das Graças Foster, chief executive of Petrobras, Brazil’s crisis-stricken state-owned oil company, says she’s one, the Financial Times reported. She has offered her resignation to Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, on multiple occasions in recent weeks but her close friend of more than a decade has stuck by her — so far.

A drop in iron-ore prices has humbled resource-rich Western Australia, and turned a part of Perth where mining companies are based into something of a ghost town as offices lie empty, The Wall Street Journal reported. With its mineral abundance, the state helped steer Australia around a recession in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Western Australia has always seen itself as different, so sure of its importance to the national economy that it has threatened—just half in jest—to break away and join industrializing Asia, which buys its resources.

In the shadow of a group of enormous smokestacks and abandoned foundries, a peeling sign welcomes visitors to the Wenxi Steel Industrial Park. But in the nearby village, the working-age men and many of the women have gone, leaving only the elderly and the very young, the Financial Times reported.

Japan’s government approved on Saturday stimulus spending worth $29 billion aimed at helping the country’s lagging regions and households through steps like subsidies and merchandise vouchers, but analysts are skeptical about how much the government can spur growth, the International New York Times reported. The package, worth 3.5 trillion yen (about $29 billion) was unveiled two weeks after a huge election victory by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition gave him a fresh mandate to push through his stimulus policies, known as Abenomics.

In a gritty industrial park here, 59-year-old Zhou Shoufang is leading hundreds of co-workers in a fight for pension benefits at a toy factory, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Zhou is part of China’s first generation of migrant workers, people who left their farms decades ago to work on assembly lines in coastal cities and who are now nearing retirement age. Such workers have until recently focused on securing higher wages.