Buenos Aires / AFP Venezuela’s top diplomat turned up uninvited to a meeting of the South America’s Mercosur, despite Caracas’ suspension from the trade bloc for failing to meet democratic and trade standards. Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez pushed her way through a crowd of riot police and journalists to enter the Argentine foreign ministry in Buenos Aires where the extraordinary meeting ...

  Bloomberg The UK wasted 285 million pounds ($360 million) on an almost unusable airport in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a panel of lawmakers said on Wednesday. Test flights in April to the landing strip on St. Helena, a British territory in the south Atlantic, revealed “dangerous wind conditions on the airport approach,” preventing the operation of regular ...

  Washington / AFP Amazon said it completed its first delivery by drone, in what the global online giant hopes will become a trend in automated shipments by air. The delivery to a customer near Cambridge, England, was announced in a tweet by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos. “First-ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Out-of-favour corporate jet ownership is fuelling growing demand for flights offered by business aircraft operator VistaJet, the founder and chairman of the Malta-based firm said. “The purchase of a business jet is not necessarily seen favourably by the boards or by the shareholders,” Thomas Flohr said during a visit to Dubai recently. However, executives still want ...

  Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc. was ordered to pay $1.6 million in penalties and fines to settle charges it trapped passengers on 27 flights that were delayed for more than three hours on the ground. The penalties equal the previous record for violations of tarmac-delay regulations that Southwest Airlines Co. paid after reaching an agreement with the Department of ...

  Bloomberg SAS AB plans to cut 1,000 administrative jobs and double its cost-savings target as the Nordic airline prepares for rising fuel prices and intensifying competition that’s lowering fares and hampering earnings growth. Profit in the fiscal first quarter, which started Nov 1, will decline from a year earlier following “more demanding” trading conditions in the autumn autumn, Stockholm-based ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is seeking to sell a smaller chunk of its Williams & Glyn consumer-banking unit after failing to draw any offers for the entire operation, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The UK government, which own 72 percent of RBS, is seeking European Union approval for the sale of a smaller ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea held its key interest rate unchanged on Thursday, despite an earlier US hike, as an ongoing political crisis tightened the reins on an already-slowing economy. In a move widely expected by analysts, the central Bank of Korea held its benchmark rate at its record-low of 1.25 percent for the sixth straight month. South Korea ...

  Frankfurt am Main / AFP Eurozone banks increased uptake of zero-interest loans from the European Central Bank in December, data showed on Thursday, as part of a lending scheme to ease access to credit for households and businesses. Banks borrowed 62.2 billion euros ($65.1 billion) in total, compared with September’s figure of 45.3 billion. Subtracting some 14.2 billion euros ...

Brussels / Reuters Italy’s banking problems can be solved and the EU will do everything to help, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said, dismissing fears of something akin to the euro crisis. New Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has said his government was prepared to come to the aid of the country’s third largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena ...