October, 2016

• 31 October

  Nigeria officials ‘sexually abusing Boko Haram victims’

    Lagos / AFP Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Nigerian officials of sexually exploiting women and girls living in camps for victims of Boko Haram in the restive northeast. HRW said it had in July documented 43 cases of women and girls in seven internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps in Maiduguri, the epicentre of the seven-year Islamist insurgency, who had ...

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• 31 October

  Japan Airlines warns on profits as foreign travel dips

  

    Tokyo / AFP Japan Airlines on Monday slashed its full-year earnings outlook, and warned its fiscal first-half net profit nosedived owing to a slump in its international business. While falling oil prices have helped carriers’ profits — fuel is often an airline’s single-biggest expense — the loss of a fuel surcharge imposed to deal with previously sky-high crude prices ...

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• 31 October

  BA starts direct flight between Muscat-London

  

    Dubai / Emirates Business British Airways (BA) launched a direct flight between Muscat and London, further adding convenience to customers travelling between the two regions. The UK carrier, which first began flying to Oman in 1972, inaugurated the new service with a water cannon salute as it landed at Muscat International Airport on Monday. Customers, who previously flew between the ...

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• 31 October

  Private-jet forecast cut by 600 planes

  

    Bloomberg Business-jet deliveries are dropping and won’t rebound before 2018, according to a benchmark forecast of corporate aircraft demand over the next decade. Honeywell International Inc. lowered its annual long-term forecast for private jets by 7 percent, or 600 aircraft, as emerging markets suffer from low commodity prices and the U.S. economy limps along at a slow pace. As ...

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• 31 October

  Qantas flags lower interim earnings

  

    Sydney / AFP Australian carrier Qantas flagged on Monday a hit to first half earnings with falling international airfares offsetting a decline in fuel prices. The airline, which has turned itself around in recent years on the back of aggressive cost-cutting, said it expects underlying profit before tax to be between Aus$800-850 million (US$607-645 million) for the six months ...

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• 31 October

  China’s COMAC chases Xi’s dream to challenge Airbus, Boeing

  

    Bloomberg China has a dream of challenging the duopoly of Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. in the global market for air planes. That ambition is slowly taking shape in a hangar in Shanghai. The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd., locally known as COMAC, is building the 168-seat, single-aisle aircraft C919, betting the model would help the ...

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• 31 October

  ANZ to sell Asia wealth and retail units to DBS

  

    Bloomberg Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.’s sale of businesses in five Asian markets to DBS Group Holdings Ltd. offers the latest sign of consolidation in the region’s highly competitive wealth industry, which has already seen a retreat by European players like Barclays Plc and Societe Generale SA. DBS will pay S$110 million ($79 million) for retail and ...

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• 31 October

  Saxo Bank top traded CFDs

    Dubai/ Emirates Business Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist, revealed that the most traded equity CFDs (Contracts for Difference) in the MENA region are focused on the US stock market and US tech companies. Two of the top three most traded CFD equity indexes by Saxo clients in the MENA region since January 1, 2015 are ...

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• 31 October

  Chinese banks ‘scramble’ for profit sees bad-loan buffers slide

  

    Bloomberg Two of China’s biggest banks, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp., are testing their regulator’s tolerance by protecting profits at the expense of bad-loan buffers. ICBC and Construction Bank both reported loan-loss coverage ratios below a regulatory minimum of 150 percent of existing nonperforming loans when they disclosed third-quarter earnings. So far, ...

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• 31 October

  UK banks may gain $14.6bn yearly leaving EU

  

    Bloomberg The UK’s biggest banks and financial firms could gain an additional 12 billion pounds ($14.6 billion) a year in revenue from Britain leaving the European Union, according to a report from a pro-Brexit lobby group. Leaving the 28-nation trading bloc and ending membership in the EU single market for trade and services would help Britain cut “stifling Brussels ...

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