ECONOMY

A bar on the Spanish island of Majorca as well as the event planner that planned the bar crawl that filmed an 18-year-old British girl performing oral sex acts on 24 men has been ordered to close and shut down operations for a year.

The international global community led by the U.K. wants the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to take away from Russia the opportunity to host the 2018 World Cup. Vladimir Putin's country is already facing a slew of economic sanctions due to its alleged involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17.

Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey called the economy of New Zealand "the envy of the world" during his visit to the small island nation across the Tasman. In an interview with TV ONE, Hockey said Australia could learn some lessons from New Zealand.

Rising tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine are sure to impact an already plummeting global economy reeling from slowdowns in the U.S. and China. On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund said projected global growth for 2014 has been lowered to 3.4 per cent, from the previous estimate of 3.7 per cent in April.

The mysterious disappearance of one commercial airliner four months ago, plus the three successive crash accidents in just the past week has definitely taken its toll on the jittery global aviation industry. On Wednesday, the British Armed Forces scrambled two of its Royal Air Force aircraft after air controllers lost contact with a private plane. London's military presumably believed the plane had been compromised.

Pope Francis was every inch visibly moved when he met on Thursday Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith even as a death sentence loomed over her head.

Has the world reached the purging stage as precursor to the prophesied end of times? In just a span of seven days, some 500 lives were lost from around the world due to three aviation accidents, the latest of which is the Air Algerie flight AH5017.

The U.S.' Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a ban that barred U.S. airlines from traveling to and from Ben Gurion International Airport. The new directive took effect as of 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday.

The New Zealand dollar fell to its six-week low against the U.S. dollar after the Reserve Bank governor, Graeme Wheeler, said the strength of the Kiwi was "unjustified." This paved the way for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to intervene in the currency exchange market.

At least 32,000 people in Taiwan were left without power supply after typhoon Matmo pummeled the east Asian country. Matmo has likewise made landfall in China, the country's second weather disturbance within a week.

Travelers going in and outside of China are being advised to brace for potential delays and worst, flight cancellations in the next three to four weeks. The country's People's Liberation Army is currently conducting military drills over the East China Sea, thus imposing "air traffic restrictions."

Five days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 over eastern Ukraine, leaders of the European Union finally met on Tuesday to deliberate sanctions against Russia. They agreed imposing travel bans against high-ranking Russian government officials as well as mounting a new round of asset freezes.

A restructuring plan meant to be announced in 2015 to save the embattled Malaysia Airlines could be already revealed this August.

Health Canada has ordered processors and sellers of mechanically tenderized beef meat to label their packages effective August 21.

Mourning families and loved ones of the 298 lives that perished from the downed Malaysia Airlines MH17 may have to condition themselves to further bear the painful accident. Investigators looking into the aviation accident said the probe could stretch into a year.

The black boxes or flight recorders of downed Malaysia Airlines MH17, an essential electronic recording device placed in an aircraft that would greatly facilitate investigations in the event of an aviation accident or incident, are finally in the hands of Malaysian authorities.

At least 18 people have died after typhoon Rammasun struck Hainan island off China's southern coast on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's world seems to be getting smaller as global leaders gang up on him to owe up to the tragedy that befell Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Either that, or Russia may end up losing contact with its G20 comrades as well as possibly having its assets frozen in London.

As if their sudden death wasn't bad enough, the bodies of passengers aboard doomed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 were stolen by pro-Russian rebels to be brought to an undisclosed location. And if that wasn't ruthless enough, rebels have also been reportedly stealing possessions from the dead. It was more than a double whammy the bereaved families of the victims can take from the senseless killing.

Could the disaster that fell upon Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 trigger a major global war after dozens of innocent lives, who definitely had nothing to do with the tensions ongoing between Ukraine and Russia, were lost?

Line App - a leading messaging app filed for an Initial Public Offering two weeks ago in Tokyo Stock Exchange and valued at $9.85 billion.

A list of what could be the first batch of identities of people who perished aboard the downed Malaysia Airlines MH17 had started to emerge.

The terrorist act that led to the downing and crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 has been attributed to a group of Russian separatists, based on a recording of intercepted communications released by Ukraine.

Disaster struck again Malaysia Airlines. Four months after Flight MH370 first went mysteriously missing on March 8, another Malaysia Airlines plane, flight MH17, went into peril. Global reports surmise the airliner was a victim of tensions between Ukraine and Russia, purposely shot down and killing all 295 onboard.

Typhoon Rammasun, now on its way to strike southern China and northern Vietnam, forced over 400,000 people in the Philippines to evacuate and seek higher and safer grounds on Tuesday till Wednesday.

Eighty workers of ABC will join the ranks of the unemployed under a forced redundancy programmes as the media firm restructures its international broadcasting commitments after the Australia Network was axed.

The final phase of an operation to salvage Italy's ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia has began on Monday, two and a half years after it sank off the island of Giglio, claiming 32 lives in the process.

Now it can be told. Seems German Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's prayers worked better than Argentinean Pope Francis. And sourgraping Brazil is very much elated that archrival Argentina didn't win the coveted World Cup 2014 title.

French police on Thursday said it had intercepted a terrorists' plot to blow-up the famous romantic monument Eiffel Tower, the Louvre as well as a nuclear plant in France last summer.