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  Vienna/ AFP The Austrian parliament voted on Wednesday on adopting some of Europe’s toughest asylum laws, as the country’s political leaders struggle to halt the surging far-right which triumphed in a weekend presidential poll. The hotly-disputed bill would let the government declare a “state of emergency” over the migrant crisis and reject most asylum-seekers, including from war-torn countries like ...

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy lost momentum in the first quarter as services posted their weakest performance for almost a year and industrial production continued to decline. Economic growth slowed to 0.4 percent from 0.6 percent in the final three months of 2015, as forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The estimate, published by the Office for National Statistics ...

  Tokyo / AFP The head of crisis-hit Mitsubishi Motors said on Wednesday that sales in Japan have fallen off a cliff since the company admitted last week that it has been cheating on fuel-efficiency tests. Tetsuro Aikawa, the automaker’s president, revealed that orders have dropped by almost half since the scandal erupted, as the crisis takes a toll on ...

  Sunaina Rana / Emirates Business International and local tanneries, designers, suppliers, and leather manufacturers are sharing centre-stage this week, as the Middle East’s only dedicated leather industry trade show opened in Dubai on Tuesday. The three day event at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Leatherworld Middle East 2016 is featuring 70 exhibitors from 16 countries, all of ...

  DUBAI / WAM The Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme has endorsed the names of 447 eligible citizens for housing loans and grants worth AED218.9 million, of which 317 will be loans and 130 grants. This was revealed during the third Board of Directors meeting of the programme chaired by Dr Abdullah Belhaiv Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development, and Chairman ...

DUBAI / WAM Emaar Malls (DFM: EMAARMALLS), the shopping malls and retail business majority-owned by global property developer Emaar Properties, reported first-quarter (January to March) 2016 net profit of AED 529 million (US$ 144 million), 22 percent higher than the Q1 2015 net profit of AED 433 million (US$ 118 million). Rental income for the first three months of the ...

  DUBAI / Emirates Business The Future of the UAE as a Global Tourism Hub was the headline session opener for the all-new Global Stage at Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2016, as eight of the Emirate’s leading tourism and hospitality minds shared their experience and insight into opportunities for sustained future sector growth. Moderated by BBC World News anchor, Zeinab ...

  Beijing / AFP Troubled Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB said on Tuesday it had defaulted on $1.75 billion in company bonds after missing an interest payment, heightening fears of a market-rattling bailout of the scandal-hit company. The fund, founded in 2009 by Prime Minister Najib Razak, is teetering on the brink of collapse amid multiple investigations around the world ...

  PHILADELPHIA / AP Donald Trump is aiming for a sweep of all five Northeastern states holding primaries on Tuesday, including Pennsylvania, leaving his rivals pinning their hopes of stopping the Republican front-runner on a fragile coordination strategy in the next rounds of voting. For Democratic leader Hillary Clinton, wins in most of Tuesday’s contests would leave little doubt that ...

  Bloomberg Australia snubbed a bid from Japan to award one of the world’s biggest defense deals to France’s DCNS Group, opting for a contract that will generate jobs in Australia and minimize a backlash from its major trading partner China. The French offer for the A$50 billion ($39 billion) contract to build 12 submarines trumped those by Japan’s Mitsubishi ...