Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday refused to rule out closing its New Zealand operations after more than a century as it announced a review of its operations in the country.

The news comes as energy giants around the world scale back operations and investments in the face of a plunge in commodities prices that has sent a chill through stock markets.

Share prices of Samsung Electronics and some of its key affiliates rose Thursday after the company unveiled a plan to develop components for self-driving cars, entering a market eyed by rivals including Apple.

The new automotive component team will "focus on building its competencies in infotainment and autonomous driving vehicles", the South Korean electronics giant said in its annual business reorganization plan announced Wednesday.

Embattled German auto giant Volkswagen is due to provide an update Thursday on the latest developments in the massive pollution-cheating storm it has been engulfed in since September.

Matthias Mueller -- the man brought in to steer the company out of a crisis that is expected to cost it countless billions of euros and has left the reputation of the former paragon of German industry in tatters -- is scheduled to field questions from the world's media at a news conference in VW's headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany.

Australia's unemployment rate dropped for the second-straight month in November, data showed Thursday, signaling an improvement in the domestic economy even as concern grows about a slowdown in the nation's largest trading partner China.

The jobless rate was a seasonally adjusted 5.8 percent in November, down from 5.9 percent the previous month and 6.2 percent in September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

South Korea's central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low of 1.5 percent for a sixth consecutive month Thursday, ahead of an anticipated rate increase by the US Federal Reserve.

The decision had been widely expected with the Bank of Korea's (BOK) board members adopting a wait and see approach to the impact of an eventual Fed hike on the global economy.

A purple-colored pedestrian bridge over the U.S.-Mexico border opened Wednesday to connect Tijuana's airport to a terminal in the neighboring U.S. city of San Diego, the first of its kind between the countries.

The 120-meter (390-foot) enclosed bridge was inaugurated at a time when U.S. politicians still talk of tightening border security by building more walls to prevent illegal immigration.

Embattled auto giant Volkswagen on Wednesday was offered some respite from the massive emissions-cheating scandal it is currently engulfed in when it said it had not lied about the carbon dioxide emissions of some of its cars. 

The news sent VW shares sharply higher on the Frankfurt stock exchange, even if the much wider scandal related to the pollution-cheating software installed in 11 million diesel cars worldwide is still a long way from being resolved.

A leading Gulf retailer has stopped selling products from the brand owned by U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump after his controversial call to bar Muslims from entering the United States.

But Trump's prestigious golf club being developed in Dubai appeared to have withstood, so far, calls to boycott the property tycoon, as his UAE partner sought to separate business from his political statements.

The EU unveiled plans on Wednesday that would by 2017 allow travelers to get their Netflix film fix or listen to Spotify when abroad, something currently blocked by complex copyright rules.

Europeans spend about one billion nights in other EU countries every year but are confronted with a frustrating inability to enjoy watching many of their favorite films or TV shows on an iPad or laptop computer when they travel outside their home country.

U.S. banking giant Morgan Stanley on Wednesday said it had appointed former British finance minister Alistair Darling, who steered Britain through the financial crisis, to its board of directors.

Darling, 62, who served as finance chief in ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government from 2007 to 2010, will start work at Morgan Stanley on January 1.