Roscosmos and Space Adventures have been cooperating in space tourism since 2001, when the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, went into orbit. Since then, a total of seven people have been in space under the space tourism programme. Now, however, the first-ever contract for a tourist walk in outer space has been signed, with the venture being set for 2023.

Wirecard - a German payment provider company viewed just a week ago as a strong, solvent company - filed for bankruptcy on Thursday as it continues to reel from the news that vast sums on its ledger might have never existed.

The fate of Germany's ailing Lufthansa airline will be decided on Thursday at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, in which a €9bn ($10bn) government bailout will be put to a vote.

The US Trade Representative’s office added items valued at $3.1bn to its list of European goods eligible to be hit with duties - including black olives, beer and gin - and said it could switch gears to target other items on a previously published list or raise existing duty levels further. The move is part of the latest development in the 16-year dispute over aircraft subsidies between Europe’s Airbus and US rival Boeing.

The world could reach “peak oil” sooner than expected and that may be a problem for Europe. The moment global oil production reaches its highest point was expected to be around 2030, but Norwegian researchers from the Rystad Energy consultancy say it could occur in 2027 or 2028. As a result, the EU could suffer an oil shortage within a decade, with supply drying up faster than the demand for fossil fuels, according to climate think tank The Shift Project.

Google will invest as much as $2bn to build a data centre in Poland, which will deal with cloud services, the Puls Biznesu daily said on Wednesday. News of the investment follows an announcement by Microsoft in May that it will also invest $1bn in a seperate Polish data centre, as the largest economy in the European Union’s eastern wing tries to position itself as a regional technology hub.

Supercomputers have become a symbol for both technical and economic competitiveness. And while China and the United States are locked in a contest to develop the world’s most powerful one, a massive machine in Japan has topped them both by taking the top position on the TOP500 list, - a supercomputer benchmarking index.

Italy approved a decree offering state guarantees for a €6.3bn loan to Fiat Chrysler’s Italian unit, paving the way for the largest crisis loan to a European carmaker,  news wires reported. Italy’s audit court had signed off on the decree, in a final step of what had been a lengthy and contested process to get the loan approved, said a source close to the matter. The court’s approval follows an earlier endorsement by the economy ministry.

Volkswagen AG is in talks to acquire French car rental firm Europcar Mobility Group SA, in a deal that would allow the German carmaker to better capitalise on its fleet, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The acquisition would come as Europcar struggles to cope with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has weighed on travel around the world and sapped demand for car rentals.

With each week, more data emerges to show how the Covid-19 pandemic is permanently reshaping the restaurant industry. The world is currently on track for a radical overhaul of its food-service landscape: Hundreds have filed for bankruptcy over the last three months, according to consulting firm Aaron Allen & Associates, and the situation is poised to keep worsening.