Leisha Chi
Business reporter in Singapore

Image source, Getty Images

The Financial Times is launching a new service on Japanese messaging app Line.

Line raised $1.3bn in a listing earlier this year and is one of the most popular messaging services in Asia along with China's WeChat, based on user numbers.

Starting from today, Line users will now get a mixture of daily free-to-read and paywall articles. The FT tested the waters with a similar service on Whatsapp last year.

We've written about how chat apps are proliferating. Banks and retailers have already jumped on the bandwagon.

So could apps like Whatsapp and Line help save the struggling newspaper industry?

Renée Kaplan, head of audience engagement at the Financial Times, called today's move part of their "broader engagement strategy".

"Line will allow us better serve our audience in Asia, which has been growing steadily since the launch of the FT’s Asia edition in 2003,“ she said in a statement.

Image source, Getty Images

South Korea's government has said it might provide Hanjin with loans to keep the bankrupt shipping giant afloat.

Seoul would give 100bn won ($91m; £68m) or more in long-term funding if Hanjin provided the necessary collateral. Hanjin Shipping shares jumped by more than 20% in reaction.

The company’s collapse has left much of its fleet stranded at sea, unable to dock over fears that vessels be seized by creditors.

Parent company Hanjin Group on Tuesday also said it would inject $90m in fresh funds to resolve the disruptions to the cargo transport currently stuck at sea.

Sports Direct's review mentions that its "comprehensive review" will be conducted on a "360 degree basis". Seventeen times no less. We have no idea what this means. Do you?

Get in touch @bbcbusiness or email bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk

Unite, the union that has campaigned against working practices at Sports Direct, has issued a statement welcoming the report, but says it "still has concerns over the use of the two employment agencies" - The Best Connection and Transline, "which supply over 3,400 workers to the Sports Direct Shirebrook warehouse."

"For Unite it has been their behaviour and the lack of oversight that has been the cause of so many of the abuses at Shirebrook."

Leisha Chi
Business reporter in Singapore

Asian shares have ended the day higher as investors focused on the possibility Saudi Arabia and Russia may work together to stabilise the oil markets.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, is currently trading below $48.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index hit a three-month high after adding 0.26% to finish at 17,081.98. The broader Topix index rose 0.65% to end at 1,352.58 points.

Both Hong Kong's Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.6% and ended at 23,787.68 and 3,090.71 respectively.

South Korea's Kospi gained 0.3% to 2,066.53. Hanjin Shipping was an outperformer today, rising more than 20% after the government threw it a 100bn won ($91m; £68m) financial lifeline.

Australian stocks bucked the trend, falling 0.3% to 5,413.63 after the country's central bank kept rates on hold at governor Glenn Steven's final policy meeting.

Image source, Getty Images

German pharmaceutical and crops manufacturer Bayer says negotiations with Monsanto have advanced, and that it is now willing to offer more than $65bn (£49bn) - $127.50 per Monsanto share, up from the previous $125 a share offer - to acquire the world's largest seeds company.

Monsanto has already rejected two offers from Bayer and described the previous offer in July as inadequate.

At the time, the company said it remained open to talks with Bayer and others about a deal.

Monsanto confirmed the new Bayer bid but would not comment further as it evaluates it.  

Eurozone GDP growth was 0.3% in the euro area and 0.4% in the European Union in the second quarter of 2016, according to the latest estimate by Eurostat, external, unchanged from last month's flash estimate figures.

Just 40 employees at Sports Direct's Shirebrook warehouse, the one where conditions were likened to a Victorian workhouse, will benefit from reforms to zero-hours contracts.

The remaining 4,059 workers will be on the same agency contracts as before - "arguably a form of zero hours contracts".

The report says the retailer will attempt to move 10 warehouse employees a month from agency contracts to Sports Direct ones - a process that would take more than 33 years, according to our back-of-an-envelope maths.

It was a parliamentary select committee that brought us many of the most sordid details of working practices at Sports Direct, so unsurprisingly, MPs are welcoming proposed changes.

Theo Leggett
BBC Business News Reporter

A rather telling line in the Sports Direct report:

“It is also apparent that only so much can be achieved in the short space of time that has been available over the last 3 summer months – and it will take far longer to improve the general culture within the warehouse and some other parts of the business”.

Image source, Getty Images

Toy brick-maker Lego has reported an 11% jump in half yearly revenues to DKK 15,692m (£1,765m) after sales growth in its City, Ninjago, and Nexo Knights lines.

However, profit before tax fell to DKK 3,489m compared with DKK 3,553m for the first half of 2015.

Lego said sales growth in the Americas had been flat.

A spokesman said the firm had taken a short term hit by taking on board new employees, and expanding manufacturing. It has increased output in its Mexico and Hungary factories, and opened a new factory in China, he said.

Around 90% of Lego business is in moulded toy bricks, with the remainder coming from avenues including digital gaming.

Kevin Peachey
Personal finance reporter

Some passengers affected by the IT gremlins at BA may be entitled to get something back from the airline after delays of two hours or more.

Anyone delayed for more than two hours on a flight of less than 932 miles - that's a London to Venice type trip - can get refreshments, phone calls and emails. Passengers on longer flights get them after a three-hour delay.

Flights must arrive more than three hours late before compensation payments begin.

There are different rules, and different amounts, regarding compensation - neatly explained by consumer group Which?, external.

Passengers affected by the disruption at London City Airport are unlikely to get the same compensation as the delays are beyond the airlines' control.

Image source, PA

Labour MP Iain Wright, chairman of the committee that lambasted Mike Ashley and Sports Direct for its working practices, says the report "isn't a whitewash", but he doesn't think the report goes far enough.

He says the abolition of zero hours contracts for retail staff will help the 18,000 people who work in Sports Direct shops, but adds "we'd like to see whether that can be applied to the warehouse", which employs about 4,000 people.

Shares in Sports Direct are up more than 2% this morning, in the wake of the report into working practices.

Overall, the FTSE 100 has opened up almost 0.08% at 6884.66, with miner Anglo American leading the charge, up 1.7%.

The pound is up 0.3% against the US dollar, at $1.3346.

Theo Leggett
BBC Business News Reporter

Sports Direct offer of guaranteed hours instead of zero hours will be offered to ‘casual retail staff’, not to agency workers. Which on the face of it excludes warehouse staff at Shirebrook.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Image source, Getty Images

US media group Liberty Media is reportedly in advanced talks to buy a stake in Formula 1.

But Paolo Aversa, a lecturer at the Cass Business School, says Formula 1 has been losing viewers since 2008, dropping from 600 million to 400 million viewers.

Younger viewers don't seem to be so interested, he says, because Formula 1 "didn't manage to really engage with new technologies, social media, internet interaction".

Fans have also become annoyed that in many countries Formula 1 rights have been sold to pay TV companies, he adds.

You may recall that a BBC investigation found ambulances had been called out to the Sports Direct headquarters 76 times in two years.

Many of the calls, for workers at the retailer's complex at Shirebrook, in Derbyshire, were for "life-threatening" illnesses, and former workers said some staff were "too scared" to take sick leave because they feared losing their jobs.

Well, the report addresses that. It says:

"The nurse and the Welfare Officer will be available as points of contact for people who wish to raise potentially delicate issues about their health and wellbeing on a confidential basis. The nurse may also hopefully be in a position to offer professional advice as and when required about when an ambulance is or is not required."

Perhaps this will help prevent a repeat of a shocking Shirebrook report, where a woman allegedly gave birth in a warehouse toilet.

There's 88 pages of this report, but here are the main recommendations made:

• Sports Direct should offer guaranteed working hours to those directly employed on 'zero hours' contracts - but not to agency staff
• An assurance that minimum wage will be paid to all workers
• 'Six strikes' policy should be axed

However the company will continue to use agencies.