Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. plans to sell billions of dollars of bonds, in what will be a test of investor appetite after the e-commerce giant’s recent run-ins with Chinese authorities.

In a brief statement late Tuesday, Alibaba said it planned to issue dollar debt, including some bonds to fund sustainability-related projects, subject to market conditions. It said the deal’s total size hadn’t been fixed, nor had the bonds’ maturities, interest rates or other terms.

South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma has said he will no longer appear before a commission investigating corruption during his presidency.
 

The inquiry, known as the Zondo Commission, was established to investigate the "state capture" scandal during Mr Zuma's tenure as president.

The scandal revolves around allegations that the wealthy Gupta family, who are close friends of the former president, used their relationship to unfairly secure millions worth of dollars of government contracts.

Al Shabaab militants kill 5, including retired army general in hotel blast.

As the smoke rises from the site of the blast, Mogadishu was once more rocked by fighters of the Al Qaeda linked Islamist group al Shabaab.

On Sunday afternoon, as armed militants neared a checkpoint on the road leading to the international airport, an al Shabaab militant detonated explosives, causing panic in the area.

The Republican National Committee is planning to invite former President Trump to their spring donor meeting in April, two sources confirmed to CBS News.

The news comes as the RNC tries to figure out its post-Trump future and amid his polarizing impeachment and the loss of two high-profile Senate seats in Georgia, throwing the Senate majority to the Democrats. 

Some of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram nearly seven years ago have finally escaped from their captors, a father of one of the girls told CNN.

Halima Ali Maiyanga, one of more than 100 young women still missing, called her father to say she and others had managed to flee Boko Haram militants Thursday.

A frightened policeman fires a live round as a warning shot. Young men cowed by baton-wielding officers, drenched in foul smelling chemicals from water cannon, scream abuse. Ultra-Orthodox Jews clashing with Israeli authorities has become an almost daily routine.

At the immediate heart of the tensions is the refusal of some elements within the community to observe tough lockdown regulations that ban gatherings of more than five people inside and 10 outdoors.

Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp overtook Germany’s Volkswagen in vehicle sales last year, regaining pole position as the world’s top selling automaker for the first time in five years as the pandemic demand slump hit its German rival harder.

Toyota said on Thursday its group-wide global sales fell 11.3% to 9.528 million vehicles in 2020. That compared with a 15.2 percent drop at Volkswagen to 9.305 million vehicles.

A war of words between the European Union and AstraZeneca escalated on Wednesday as the two sides argued in public over coronavirus vaccine delays that threaten the bloc's fragile recovery from the pandemic.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga apologised on Wednesday after lawmakers from his ruling coalition visited night clubs despite his government’s call for people to avoid unnecessary outings to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The news is another headache for Suga whose approval rating has tumbled due to dissatisfaction with his handling of the pandemic, which critics have called too slow and inconsistent.

President Joe Biden is poised to issue executive actions as soon as Tuesday scaling back the use of private prisons and placing new limits on the transfer of military equipment to local law enforcement, according to a person familiar with the matter and a planning document.