Rio Olympics 2016: Games set for opening ceremony www.bbc.com

The 2016 Olympic Games officially start in Rio on Friday with the opening ceremony at the Maracana Stadium.

Athletes from 206 nations and a refugee team are in Brazil to compete in 28 sports and be watched by a global audience of billions.

The build-up has been dominated by a Russian doping scandal, the Zika virus and issues with the city's security, infrastructure and venues.

But it is time for the sporting action to take centre stage.

These are the Games of the 31st Olympiad but are the 28th to be held as those in 1916, 1940 and 1944 did not take place because of war.

The Games - held in South America for the first time - officially take place between 5 and 21 August, but they have actually already started.

The opening ceremony is at midnight BST on Friday night but the action kicked off two days ago with the women's football.

Defending Olympic men's tennis champion Andy Murray will be Great Britain's flag bearer inside Rio's Maracana stadium on Friday.

An estimated three billion people will watch the ceremony, which has taken five years to produce and includes 300 dancers, 5,000 volunteers and 12,000 costumes.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Briton Dame Judi Dench are confirmed to have roles in the production before the 207 competing teams take part in the Parade of Nations.

You can watch the opening ceremony on BBC One and online, with further coverage on BBC Radio 5 live, from 23:40 BST on Friday.

Swimmers Yusra Mardini and Rami Anis are part of the Refugee Olympic Team
Swimmers Yusra Mardini and Rami Anis are part of the Refugee Olympic Team
There will be 10,500 athletes from a record 207 teams competing in Rio, including the Refugee Olympic Team, while it will be the first time Kosovo and South Sudan have taken part in the Games.

The Refugee Olympic Team will compete under the Olympic flag and has 10 members - five from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia.

With 554 athletes, the United States has the largest Olympic team, but 100m runner Etimoni Timuani is the only athlete from the South Pacific nation of Tuvalu.

The Rio Games will be the first to feature Olympians born since the year 2000 - and the youngest is 13-year-old Nepalese swimmer Gaurika Singh.

What about Russia?

The build-up to Rio has been overshadowed by events in Russia, after the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report into state-sponsored doping in the country.

It seemed at one stage that no Russian athletes would be at the Games after Wada recommended a blanket ban.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said individual sporting federations must rule on whether Russians can compete.

Their decisions were then ratified by a three-person IOC panel.

On Thursday, the IOC cleared 271 Russian athletes from the country's original entry list of 389, though 67 of its 68 track and field athletes have been barred by the sport's governing body.

Any other problems?

Plenty.

Brazil is in a deep recession and political crisis, while protests marred the arrival of the Olympic torch in Rio on Wednesday.

A New Zealand jiu-jitsu athlete claims he was kidnapped in Rio, while Chinese state media criticised security after women fencers were robbed and shooting team members found "unauthorised payments" on their credit cards.

Brazil has drafted in 85,000 security personnel from 55 countries who will be stationed at the sport venues, Olympic Village, airports and main roads - almost twice as many as were at the 2012 London Olympics. There is also 200km of security fencing being used.

More than 500,000 tourists are expected to come to the Games and organisers say more than one million of the 7.5 million tickets remain unsold.

security at rio
Security is tight in Rio with 85,000 security personnel drafted in
There have also been issues with the Olympic Village and the sailing venue.

Australia initially refused to move into the village, in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood, citing electrical problems, gas and water leaks among other issues in their building.

When they did eventually move in, the team were evacuated for a small fire and returned to their rooms to find essential equipment had been stolen.

At the sailing venue in Guanabara Bay, a taskforce removed 25.4 tonnes of floating rubbish during last year's Olympic test event.

But Rio officials admit they have failed to keep up promises to clean the water and the Associated Press says swallowing just three teaspoons of water from the bay is likely to lead to illness.

This is not the first time a host city has been criticised for its preparations, but the IOC says Rio is now "ready to welcome the world".

Brazil is at the centre of an outbreak of Zika virus, that is spread by mosquitoes and can lead to birth defects.

It is so serious the World Health Organisation has recommended pregnant women avoid travelling to the Games - but mosquitoes are rare in August and in June it recommended the Games not be moved or cancelled.

That advice has not stopped a number of the world's top golfers and tennis players withdrawing, citing Zika fears.

But what about the actual sport?

Competitions will take place across 32 venues in Rio, with football matches also scheduled for the cities of Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Manaus, Salvador and Sao Paulo.

There are 306 events in 28 Olympic sports but none are bigger than the 100m sprint final and the world's fastest man Usain Bolt.

The Jamaican is aiming for an unprecedented triple triple, as he tries to win the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay titles for the third time - and his battle with American sprinter Justin Gatlin is likely to be a highlight of the Games.

USA swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, will be looking to add to his 18 gold medals.

American tennis player Serena Williams could win her fifth Olympic medal, while Team USA's star-studded basketball team will be aiming for their third consecutive gold.

Brazil's Barcelona striker Neymar will once again carry the hopes of the home nation as they go for gold in the men's football.

Among those who miss out are top tennis players Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, NBA stars Stephen Curry and LeBron James and a number of golfers.

Anything new?

Golf is returning after a 112-year absence but without more than 20 of its top players.

The top four male golfers Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson have all withdrawn because of Zika fears.

In fact, only four of the top 10 will be in Rio - and McIlroy said he probably will not even watch television coverage of golf at the Games, preferring "track and field, swimming, diving, the stuff that matters".

Rugby sevens will be making its debut at the Olympics, although rugby union featured regularly at the Games until 1924.

Team GB medal hopes

mo farah and ennis-hill
Farah and Ennis-Hill will be defending their Olympic titles in Rio
Great Britain's athletes have been set a minimum target of winning 48 medals, which would make Rio their most successful overseas Olympics.

Sport statistics company Infostrada is forecasting Team GB will finish fourth in the Rio 2016 medal table with 51 - 18 gold, 16 silver and 17 bronze.

World champion Mo Farah will be attempting to defend his 5,000m and 10,000m titles.

Fellow defending Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill will be up against team-mate Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the women's heptathlon.

Nicola Adams, who became the first British woman to win Olympic boxing gold in London, will be out to defend her title, while cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins could become Britain's most decorated Olympian with gold in the men's team pursuit.

Swimmer Adam Peaty, taekwondo's Bianca Walkden, cyclist Laura Trott, sailor Giles Scott and shooter Amber Hill are among Britain's gold medal prospects in Rio.

Chief sports writer Tom Fordyce on Team GB's top 12 medal hopes

Rio is four hours behind the UK and most of the gold medal events will be late evening/early morning so be prepared to become a night owl or an early riser.

Britain's first gold medal could go to Chris Froome or Lizzie Armitstead as they go in the men's and women's road race on Saturday and Sunday.

Swimming dominates the early part of the Games with the track and field events starting on Friday, 12 August.

The highlight of the action inside the Olympic Stadium is the men's 100m final at 02:25 BST on Monday, 15 August, so set your alarm clocks.

Saturday, 13 August sees a potential London 2012 'Super Saturday' repeat, with Ennis-Hill in the heptathlon, Farah in the 10,000m and Greg Rutherford in the long jump.

The BBC will bring you live coverage of every gold medal at Rio 2016 across TV, radio and digital platforms - this will be the first mobile Olympics.

BBC TV will broadcast more than 3,000 hours of coverage, including 550 hours on BBC One and BBC Four, while Radio 5 live will have extensive live coverage.

New York tops London as most expensive city after Brexit vote www.cnn.com

1. New York

Ho Ching: Singapore PM's wife chooses $11 pouch for state visit www.bbc.com

UK interest rates cut to 0.25% www.bbc.com

UK interest rates have been cut from 0.5% to 0.25% - a record low and the first cut since 2009.
The Bank of England announced a range of measures to stimulate the UK economy including buying £60bn of UK government bonds and £10bn of corporate bonds.
The Bank also announced the biggest cut to its growth forecasts since it started making them in 1983.
It has reduced its growth prediction for 2017 from the 2.3% it was expecting in May to 0.8%.
The decision to cut interest rates to 0.25% was approved unanimously by the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and is the first change in interest rates since March 2009.
Chart showing UK base interest rate
The £60bn increase in quantitative easing to £435bn was approved by a vote of 6-3, with Kristin Forbes, Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale preferring to wait until more concrete data is available rather than relying on surveys.
The corporate bond buying scheme was opposed by one member: 
As part of the package of measures designed to boost the economy following the UK's vote to leave the EU in June, the Bank is also introducing a new Term Funding Scheme.
This will lend directly to banks at rates close to the new 0.25% base rate to encourage them to pass on the lower interest rates to businesses and households.
Analysis: Kamal Ahmed, economics editor
The Bank of England is not very confident about the future of the economy.
It says growth will fall dramatically, announcing the biggest downgrade to its growth forecast since it started inflation reports in 1993.
The economy, it says, will be 2.5% smaller in three years' time than it believed it would be when the Bank last opined on these matters in May.
Unemployment will rise (although only marginally), inflation will rise, real income growth will slow and house prices will decline.
Growth, the Bank believes, will fall perilously close to zero over the final six months of this year.
It predicts that the amount of money lent through the scheme could reach about £100bn.

Separately, the corporate bond-buying scheme will purchase up to £10bn of bonds issued by companies outside the financial sector. Only companies considered to be contributing to the UK economy will be eligible. More details of the scheme will be released in September.
The extensive series of measures was revealed the central bank predicting that inflation would rise above its 2% target as a result of the falling value of the pound.
A weaker pound makes imported goods more expensive, which boosts inflation. The pound fell by 1% against the dollar following the Bank's announcement.
A weaker outlook
The Bank has warned that there will be "little growth in GDP in the second half of the year" although the forecast for 2016 growth has been left unchanged at 2% as a result of stronger-than-expected growth in the first half.
The forecast for 2018 has been cut from 2.3% to 1.8%.
It also expects the unemployment rate to rise to 5.4% next year and 5.6% in 2018.
The MPC meeting was the last one before it moves to only meeting eight times a year, meaning that it is not scheduled to meet again until 3 November, although it can call an extra meeting before then if it wants to.
A majority of MPC members said that if the economy performed as they expected in the coming months, they would support cutting interest rates again before the end of the year to their lowest possible level of "close to, but a little above, zero".
Fighting off recession
Before the referendum, there were warnings of a recession if there was a vote to leave the EU.
The Bank of England's quarterly inflation report does not foresee a recession, although all of its forecasts take into account the stimulus measures.
Even with those measures, the Bank still predicts little growth in the second half of the year, suggesting there could have been a recession if the Bank had not acted.
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has written to Chancellor Philip Hammond to outline the measures taken by the MPC as well as explaining why inflation remains, for now, significantly below its target rate.
In response, Mr Hammond wrote: "Alongside the actions that the Bank is taking, I am prepared to take any necessary steps to support the economy and promote confidence."
He said that those plans would be set out in the Autumn Statement.

Premier calls for attracting more investment from home and abroad www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Prime Minister J.Erdenebat gave directions to the Ministers at the regular meeting on Wednesday, on attaching more focus to the attracting of more investment from inside and outside to every sector rather than receiving loans and aid.

Trump Taj Mahal casino to shut down after years of losses www.bbc.com

Trump Taj Mahal, the Atlantic City casino, founded by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump but no longer under his ownership, will shut down after years of losses.
The owners said the casino had long been unprofitable.
The closure after Labour Day will come after a lengthy strike over benefits.
Closing the Trump Taj Mahal will cost 3,000 jobs, adding to 8,000 workers who were laid off in 2014 when four of the other casinos in the city were closed.
The closure of the Trump Taj Mahal will leave only seven casinos in Atlantic City.
The casino was opened 26 years ago by current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
It was taken over by billionaire Carl Icahn in 2009 when Trump Entertainment filed for bankruptcy - a move which forced Mr Trump to give up all of his investment in his Atlantic City casinos.
Mr Icahn told the AP news agency that he has lost nearly $100 million on the Taj Mahal.

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Russian gas transit through Ukraine up 21 pct in January-July www.xinhuanet.com

KIEV, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russian natural gas transit via Ukraine to European countries increased 21 percent year-on-year to 43.2 billion cubic meters in the first seven months of 2016, official data showed Tuesday.

Foreign rail firms shunted as 'Made in China' mantra gathers pace www.reuters.com

Foreign firms say they are struggling to gain access to China's vast railway market as the country, seeking to transform its domestic industry into an export powerhouse, tightens the bidding criteria on rail tenders.

The complaints echo similar concerns raised in other industries including technology and renewable energy, and highlight what some foreign companies see as an uneven playing field when operating in China.

Four rail suppliers with offshore funding said they were finding it harder to win contracts thanks to the proliferation of government-supported rivals, with at least one saying it was already experiencing discrimination.

"In the last 1-2 years there have been tendencies to disregard foreign-invested companies as Chinese companies, and to prefer Chinese-invested companies versus foreign-invested companies," Ansgar Brockmeyer, board chairman of German brake maker Knorr-Bremse's Asia Pacific arm, told Reuters.

Foreign participation in China's rail market has for the last decade been limited to minority stakes in joint ventures or as sub-suppliers of domestic players, often with the condition that they transfer technology to local partners.

Many, like Germany's Siemens AG SIEG.DE and Canada's Bombardier (BBDb.TO) did and consequently helped build the world's biggest railway network by both length and revenue.

Beijing now wants to help many of these local partners such as CRRC Corp (601766.SS)(1766.HK) become globally competitive behemoths which will export home-grown technology. Its "Made in China 2025" plan released last year described railways as a priority sector.

Some industry insiders say this is causing concern that wholly-local firms are being increasingly favored at the expense of foreign invested companies.

Knorr-Bremse, which has been supplying braking systems to metro operators for 25 years, said it had received tender documents from 11 Chinese cities in 2015 that stipulated new bidding rules which scored down foreign-invested firms versus purely local names. It lost out on three as a result, it said.

"We are concerned that ... this might become a trend but on the other hand we can't really imagine because this would clearly infringe any World Trade Organisation agreement," Brockmeyer said. "We are in discussions with the local governments and the NDRC on this."

The 11 Chinese cities including Kunming, Urumqi and Guangzhou have begun to score companies on whether they are foreign-invested or 100 percent local firms. In the past firms simply had to prove that at least 70 percent of their supply chain was in China. Metro operators award bidders on different categories such as price, which they later add up to determine a winner.

The metro operators of Kunming, Urumqi and Guangzhou as well as the National Development and Reform Commission did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

"INCREASINGLY HOSTILE" ENVIRONMENT

The European Chamber of Commerce in China has also raised concerns over tougher conditions for companies with foreign investment, saying recent statements from Beijing about opening the rail market up to private capital "indicates that the government treats domestic capital preferentially."

"For the market for urban rail, the regulatory system also restricts foreign companies from bidding directly for rolling stock and signaling business. In some instances it even prevents Sino-foreign JVs from obtaining a license or qualification to bid," the Chamber said.

The Chamber in June warned of an "increasingly hostile" overall business environment that was tilted in favor of domestic firms.

Such concerns have been particularly prevalent in the technology sector, which lobbied U.S. President Barack Obama last year.

In February last year, China dropped some of the world's leading technology brands from its approved state purchase lists, while approving thousands more locally made products.

Other rail suppliers spoke of growing pressure coming from a proliferation of new local rivals, many of whom are government-supported.

"The new competitors we're facing here in China are purely local companies," said Lv Yachen, who chairs a joint venture between French electronics firm Thales SA (TCFP.PA) and state firm Shanghai Electric Group [SHEGP.UL], which supplies signaling systems to Chinese subway project. "As the NDRC is attaching great importance to independent property rights, we used to have 4-5 signaling suppliers in the industry but now it has become nine and another three are to be approved very soon," he said. Two industry executives who declined to be named for fear that it would affect their business relationships said some firms were considering shifting their focus to other overseas markets, or choosing to downplay the foreign participation in their partnerships to cope with the "buy local" push.

"Now it's all about buying from Chinese companies," said a source from a large European railway supplier. "It's harder to do business here."

Brexit 'means economy faces 50/50 recession chance' www.bbc.com

The UK has a 50/50 chance of falling into recession within the next 18 months following the Brexit vote, says a leading economic forecaster.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) says the country will go through a "marked economic slowdown" this year and next.
Inflation will pick up temporarily too, rising to 3% by the end of next year.
"This is the short-term economic consequence of the vote to leave the EU", said Simon Kirby of the NIESR.
Overall the institute forecasts that the UK economy will probably grow by 1.7% this year but will expand by just 1% in 2017.
This would see the UK avoid a technical recession, typically defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
Mr Kirby argued that the June referendum vote had led to such financial and political uncertainty that this would bear directly on the spending and investment decisions of both businesses and households.
"We expect the UK to experience a marked economic slowdown in the second half of this year and throughout 2017," he said.
"There is an evens chance of a 'technical' recession in the next 18 months, while there is an elevated risk of further deterioration in the near term."
The pick-up in inflation to 3% will mainly be due to the recent fall in the value of the pound, but that should be ignored by the Bank of England the Institute said.
"The Monetary Policy Committee should 'look through' this temporary rise in inflation and ease monetary policy substantially in the coming months," Mr Kirby said.
The institute forecasts that the Bank will reduce interest rates to just 0.1% eventually, after cutting them to 0.25% later this week.
Falling optimism
In a separate report, the CBI business lobby group says that the UK's small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMEs) fear they will be hit by a fall in orders in the next three months.
Its latest quarterly survey of SMEs says business optimism has fallen at its fastest rate since January 2009, when the UK economy was falling into recession.
Now, the culprit is the uncertainty following June's Brexit vote.
Despite this, the 472 firms surveyed said that current orders were stable.
Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI's director for economics, said: "The UK's SME manufacturers reported higher production, more staff hired and now expect to sell more of their world-class goods overseas over the next quarter, with a weaker sterling having a hand in this.
"But overall they do feel less optimistic and are scaling back some investment plans in machinery and plants."
The CBI's survey is just the latest to suggest that the effect of the June referendum vote may be, in the short term at least, to depress business activity.
On Monday the Markit/CIPS manufacturing purchasing managers' index suggested that activity among UK manufacturers in July had shrunk at its fastest pace for three years.
Meanwhile shoppers continue to benefit from falling prices in the UK's shops, stores and supermarkets.
According to the latest survey from the trade body the British Retail Consortium, overall prices fell by 1.6% in the year to July.
Food was 0.8% cheaper than a year ago and non-food items were 2.2% lower.