Bloomberg Middle Eastern carriers seized on the social media storm surrounding the forced removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight to hit back at one of the arch-critics of their breakneck expansion. Dubai-based Emirates mocked United’s best-known advertising slogan on its Twitter account, urging passengers to “fly the friendly skies with a real airline.” Royal Jordanian Airlines …

  Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd. told travel agents in Zimbabwe to stop selling tickets for its flights after the International Air Transport Association warned it’s getting harder to move funds out of the country, according to a circular sent by the Australian airline to agencies and seen by Bloomberg. The carrier owed a ‘substantial’ amount by Bank Settlement Plan Zimbabwe, …

  Bloomberg UK retail sales fell the most since 2011 last quarter as consumers started to feel squeeze from faster inflation. Retail sales dropped 0.7 percent from a year earlier on a like-for-like basis, the British Retail Consortium said on Tuesday, noting that the timing of the Easter holiday — which this year falls in April — may be distorting …

  HARTFORD / AP Rick Maynard found the manila envelope containing letters from the battlefields of World War I while he and his sister were cleaning out the basement after their father’s death. The more than three dozen letters were written, some in pencil, by Paul Maynard, Rick’s great-uncle. “He was on the front lines,” said Rick Maynard, the parks and …

  Dubai / Emirates Business Dubai Islamic Bank (DFM: DIB), the first Islamic bank in the world and the largest Islamic bank in the UAE by total assets, announced its first quarter results for the period ended March 31, 2017. Group Net Profit increased to AED 1,042 million, up 4% compared with AED 1,001 million for the same period in …

  DUBAI / Reuters OPEC and the United Arab Emirates’ ministry of energy will next week launch the first phase of a new global oil and gas database project aiming to develop an easy-to-use tool to analyse energy information and allow for more transparency. The Oil and Gas Big Data Project “will consist of a set of high standard analytic …

  DUBAI / WAM Dubai has opened its doors to the second generation of world-class construction projects with the launch of the Al Wasl Plaza Project, the main hub of Expo 2020 Dubai. Al Wasl Plaza is a dynamic, urban, cultural, environmental, tourism, educational and recreational destination for future generations, which will be completed by the end of 2019. It …

  DUBAI / WAM Nasdaq Dubai has added NBAD (now known as First Abu Dhabi Bank), Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and Dubai Investments (DIC) to its equity futures market, raising the number of leading UAE companies on which futures can be traded to 12. Market making services on futures contracts on the three additional companies are provided by SHUAA Capital, …

  ABU DHABI / WAM The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) has unveiled a major community initiative for the Year of Giving 2017 in partnership with 10 of the UAE’s leading property businesses. The ‘CSR Year of Giving Initiative’ will see the UPC work with real estate developers to establish new community amenities such as mosques, parks, playgrounds and …

  Abu Dhabi / WAM His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, stressed that the UAE foreign aid represents a global model to follow in terms of humanitarian and development work. This is not just for being one of the largest international donors compared to its gross national income (GNI) for the fourth …