The lower oil price for about 19 months is benefiting the consumers, but creating a lot of problems for the global governments and business firms. Many banks and the US government forecast oil price above $40 a barrel this year. The oil price fell to below $30 during the past 19 months from $107 a barrel.

Both ChemChina and Syngenta have agreed on the amount of $34 billion for ChemChina to acquire the Swiss company. The acquisition, if completed, would be the biggest foreign purchase ever made by a Chinese company. However, the trend shows that Chinese company are showing interest in investing overseas, especially in the Western countries.

The case had been investigated since 2013, and the practices are believed to have been going on since 2011. U.S federal regulators claimed that African-American, as well as Asian/Pacific Islander borrowers, were charged more for auto loans. Toyota voluntarily agreed to pay the amount of compensation, but the company refuses to admit that the practice is a form of racial discrimination.

The Pentagon on Tuesday unveiled its plan to boost spending in defense mechanism in 2017, aiming to increase its military capability to back its European NATO allies. The US Defense Department requested a budget seeking 7.5 billion US dollar for operations in Syria and Iraq for the year 2017.

Gramercy said that it will pursue more than 1.3 billion US dollar from the government of Peru over a land bond clash. The dispute relates to bonds issued as per the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s as reimbursement to farmers who lost their lands under the agrarian reform.

Malala Yousafzai will be speaking at the "Supporting Syria and the region" conference in London on Thursday, February 4 to ask the world leaders attending to donate $1.4 billion in support of education for Syrian refugees. Muzoon Almellehan, a student and Syrian refugee will also speak at the conference in support of her cause.

S&P rating service on Tuesday downgraded Sprint credit to B, citing a challenging environment for the wireless industry. Morningstar and Moody have also demoted Spring credit rating.

The US federal contracts are somehow still not won by the women-owned small companies in this day and age. Senator Jeanne Shaheen has openly expressed her disappointment regarding this sobering fact. But she is still optimistic that the changing laws would rectify the situation and empower women with the experience to bid for larger and more competitive federal contracts in the future.

Swiftkey, the popular predictive typing app for smartphone, has been reported to be bought by Microsoft for nearly $250 million. Microsoft is said to have a bigger plan with the app, going further than just expanding on more than iOS and Android devices.

Citigroup holds view that it's too early to come to a conclusion about the state of the world's largest economy. It advises investors not to offload stocks over China. Citigroup in its latest research reports terms the present uncertainty and sluggishness in the Chinese economy and markets as a 'correction.'