China's coal imports from North Korea have surged in recent months, government data showed Monday, raising questions about Beijing's commitment to international sanctions intended to curb Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

Global airlines are expected to post record profits of almost $40 billion this year, the head of industry body IATA said Thursday, but he warned the sector faced threats from terrorism, a sharp rise in oil prices and protectionism.

Telecoms equipment maker Ericsson plans to end manufacturing in Sweden with the loss of around 3,000 jobs, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported late Wednesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is to make a renewed drive to overhaul labour laws, hoping to create millions of new jobs by making it easier to hire and fire, the labour ministry's top bureaucrat said on Thursday.

Japan's central bank has revealed yet another exotic weapon to generate growth, but sceptics say all it shows is that the armoury is empty and a long battle against deflation is being lost.

Indonesia's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate Thursday in a bid to boost sagging growth, given space to act thanks to the Fed's decision not to raise the cost of borrowing.

British supercar maker McLaren said Wednesday it was not in talks with Apple about a possible acquisition by the US tech giant, denying a report in the Financial Times.

European lenders took up almost twice the amount of cheap loans that analysts had predicted in a second round of European Central Bank refinancing, according to data released Thursday.

INDITEX, the world's biggest clothing retailer, said on Wednesday its first half net profit rose 8 percent from a year ago, beating analysts' estimate and driven by strong sales as it focuses on flagship stores and its online business.

OIL prices jumped 2 percent on Wednesday after a surprisingly large drop in US crude inventories and as an oil services workers strike in Norway threatened to cut North Sea output.

US carrier Verizon Communications Inc has begun taking orders for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, after having stopped sales of the device earlier due to fire-prone batteries.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it would propose scrapping daily limits on mobile telecoms roaming following criticism of its initial idea to limit the amount of time consumers could use their phones abroad.

After a lacklustre recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, Denmark's central bank has warned that the labour market faces a squeeze as unemployment falls, the population ages and young people shun vocational jobs.

India is talking to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to fill half of the 1.5 million tonnes of the Mangalore strategic storage, along with Iranian crude, its oil minister said on Wednesday.

Carrying her wages in wads of cash across Myanmar was once a risky, onerous but unavoidable ritual for maid Khin Myint Oo. But now she just pings off a text to move the money to her children back home as mobile banking sweeps into a country whose people have for decades been locked out of basic financial services.

The dollar jumped on Wednesday after the Bank of Japan altered its policy framework, and investors bought back the US currency ahead of the outcome of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting later in the session.

British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday promoted its consumer healthcare head Emma Walmsley to chief executive, a move which will make her the most powerful woman on the FTSE 100.

Qatar's budget should be back to "near balance" by 2018, as it overcomes the shock waves from a global fall in energy prices, economists at Qatar National Bank have forecast.

The 'passport' rights allowing 5,500 British-based financial firms to operate freely across the European single market are at stake, the country's financial watchdog has revealed in highlighting potential fallout from Brexit.

India's government will partly fund a $2 billion gas pipeline project linking five eastern states to help kick-start economic growth in a region that has trailed the rest of the country, the oil minister said on Wednesday.