Reuters Sky Prime Aviation Services has become the latest aviation company in Saudi Arabia to be awarded a national air operator licence under an ongoing liberalisation of the kingdom’s aviation market. The company, which provides private jets, received the licence for chartered flights from Minister of Transport Sulaiman al-Hamdan during a ceremony in Riyadh, according to its Twitter feed. …

  Reuters Iran and Ecuador discussed ways that the two countries can strengthen oil prices as Iran signals it may support joint efforts by exporters to prop up flagging crude. Iran has been boosting output since Western sanctions were eased in January. Tehran refused to join a previous attempt this year by OPEC plus non-members such as Russia to stabilize …

  Bloomberg Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh will join an informal meeting of OPEC members next month in Algiers, a state news service reported, ending uncertainty about whether OPEC’s third-biggest producer would participate. Producers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet on the sidelines of an energy policy group in the Algerian capital next month to consider …

  Bloomberg For UK consumers, the good times might not keep rolling. Quickening inflation looks set to erode almost two years of real-wage growth, undermining the key driver of the economy. Data due Friday will probably show consumption helped growth accelerate to 0.6 percent in the second quarter, before the referendum on European Union membership. Still, there are challenges ahead …

  AFP Spain’s economic growth stagnated in the second quarter, official data showed on Thursday, as the country remains mired in political limbo after two inconclusive general elections. The Ine statistics agency said that GDP expanded by 0.8 percent compared to the previous three months — slightly higher than the 0.7 percent estimate it had announced in July. The agency …

  AFP Germany is waking up to the threat of Brexit and could see weaker growth in 2017, analysts said on Thursday, after a key business confidence survey showed a sharp decline. The Ifo economic institute’s closely-watched index fell to 106.2 in August from its July level of 108.3, reaching its lowest point since December 2014. Analysts surveyed by Factset …

  Bloomberg Orders for business equipment climbed in July for a second month, advancing the most since January and indicating US firms are becoming less reluctant to invest. Bookings for non-military capital goods excluding aircraft rose 1.6%, exceeding the most optimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey, after a 0.5% June gain, Commerce Department data showed Thursday. Demand for all durable …

  AFP The number of unemployed young people is set to swell by 500,000 worldwide this year to reach 71 million, marking the first hike in three years, the UN said Wednesday. In a new report, the UN’s labour agency estimated that the global youth unemployment rate would reach 13.1 percent in 2016, up from 12.9 percent in 2015, and …

  Brasília / AFP The impeachment trial of Brazil’s first woman president, Dilma Rousseff, got underway on Thursday with high expectations that the suspended leader of Latin America’s biggest economy will be sacked within days. The Senate trial was opened by Supreme Court president Ricardo Lewandowski half an hour late in the blue-carpeted chamber at 9:30 am (1230 GMT). The …

  Amatrice / AFP The death toll from a powerful earthquake in central Italy rose to 247 on Thursday amid fears many more corpses would be found in the rubble of devastated mountain villages. Rescuers sifted through collapsed masonry in the search for survivors, but their grim mission was clouded by uncertainty about exactly how many people had been staying in …