International

• Saturday, January 13th 2018 - 09:33 UTC

  Record breaking year for London Heathrow Airport: 78 million passengers

  

  A record breaking 78 million passengers travelled through London Heathrow Airport in 2017, up 3.1% on last year with passenger volumes driven by larger and fuller aircraft. Heathrow became one of the fastest growing major European hubs for cargo, with 1.7 million metric tons travelling through the airport – equivalent to the weight of 134,000 London buses or 136 London Shards.

• Saturday, January 13th 2018 - 09:28 UTC

  PwC banned from auditing in India following country's major corporate scandal

  

  PwC's Indian unit has been banned from auditing listed companies for two years, over one of the country's biggest corporate scandals. Price Waterhouse was auditor for Satyam computers when company owner Ramalinga Raju admitted to inflating earnings.

• Saturday, January 13th 2018 - 09:17 UTC

  EU sigh of relief: Germany's grand coalition en route to a “renewed marriage”

  

  Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a deal with Social Democrat (SPD) rivals on Friday to open government coalition talks, easing months of uncertainty that has undermined Germany’s global role and raised questions about her political future. But the deal to revive a “grand coalition” that has governed since 2013 must be approved by an SPD congress planned for January 21.

• Saturday, January 13th 2018 - 07:31 UTC

  Trump cancels February visit to UK; Downing Street says invitation stands

  

  Donald Trump has cancelled a planned visit to the UK in February, where he had been expected to open a new US$1bn (£738m) US embassy in London. The US president tweeted he was not a “big fan” of the new embassy - which is moving from Mayfair to south London.

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 10:46 UTC

  Rigby & Peller lingerie loose royal warrant for disclosing Buckingham information

  

  The former owner of a firm that made lingerie for Queen Elizabeth II wept on Thursday as she expressed regret that the company lost its royal warrant after her memoir disclosed details of a meeting with the monarch at Buckingham Palace. June Kenton said Rigby & Peller lost the right to display the royal coat of arms in 2017 after she mentioned the royals in her book, “Storm in a D-cup.”

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 10:36 UTC

  Farage willing to a second referendum to end anti-Brexit “whinging and whining”

  

  Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage says he is close to backing a second EU referendum to end the “whinging and whining” of anti-Brexit campaigners. Mr Farage told Channel 5's The Wright Stuff a fresh vote could “kill off” the Remain campaign for a generation.

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 10:16 UTC

  Foreign Office rejects Ecuadorean diplomatic status for Wikileaks Julian Assange

  

  The British Foreign Office rejected an Ecuadorian government request to grant the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange diplomatic status in a bid to bring to an end his forced stay in the South American country’s London embassy.

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 10:10 UTC

  Super airlifter BelugaXL rolls out from Toulouse

  

  The first structurally complete airframe for the new BelugaXL rolled out from its assembly hangar in Toulouse, France this month. Once operational, a fleet of these next-generation airlifters will be used to transport completed sections of Airbus aircraft among the company’s European production sites and to its final assembly lines in France, Germany and Spain.

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 10:05 UTC

  Boeing's record year of sales with 763 deliveries of market leading 737 and 787 jets

  

  Boeing delivered more commercial airplanes than any manufacturer for the sixth consecutive year and set an industry record with 763 deliveries in 2017, driven by high output of the market-leading 737 and 787 jets. At the same time, the company grew its backlog with 912 net orders, reflecting healthy demand for its single-aisle and twin-aisle airplanes.

• Friday, January 12th 2018 - 09:44 UTC

  BAS team doing first scientific Southern right whale survey in South Georgia

  

  An international team of researchers, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), travels to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia this month to carry out the first scientific whale survey since whaling stopped in the 1970s.