Middle East carriers again outranked US airlines this year in the 2015 Skytrax World Airline Awards. Qatar Airways took the top honor, up from second place in 2014. But the other Gulf airlines from the so-called Middle East Three group, Emirates and Etihad, were not far behind, in fifth and sixth place, respectively.
Fourteen Caribbean countries are among 30 territories blacklisted by the European Union (EU) as the world’s worst tax havens. The list published by the EU on Wednesday includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa announced he would temporarily withdraw two controversial tax bills from the legislature, saying he would give the public time to debate them. The bills, which would have raised taxes on inheritances and capital gains, generated uproar that led to mass street protests in recent days.
Brazilian senators seeking on Thursday to visit jailed opposition leaders in Venezuela said their minibus was stoned and blocked, forcing them to return to the airport. The group of opposition senators had planned to drive from the coastal airport of Maiquetía to the capital Caracas and then on to a military jail where hard-line opposition leader Leopoldo López has been for more than a year.
A dynamic, interactive and constructive workshop on how to tackle implementing the forthcoming International Maritime Organization (IMO)’s Polar Code has just concluded and fittingly, the workshop took place at London’s home of exploration, the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington.
In a display of her political standing, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez confirmed Daniel Scioli as her Victory Font's grouping presidential candidate forcing the other hopeful, whom she had also encouraged, Interior and Transport Minister Florencio Randazzo to step down from his candidacy.
The Mail on line revealed on Thursday a secret handwritten account of the Falklands War by Margaret Thatcher. The 128 page, 17,000 word handwritten memoir of the 1982 conflict reveals for the first time her anxiety on the eve of battle and her joy at winning back the Islands from Argentina.