SINGAPORE, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped in Asia on Thursday after gaining more than $1 in the previous session, as concerns over supply disruptions eased and markets looked for evidence of improving fuel demand.

Brent crude futures dipped 18 cents, or 0.2%, to $97.22 a barrel by 0419 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 22 cents, or 0.2%, to $91.71.

Oil is struggling to find direction, suggesting investors have not reached consensus on the outlook for supply and demand, analysts from Haitong Futures said.

SAO PAULO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian pork and poultry processor BRF SA (BRFS3.SA) on Wednesday reported a second-quarter net loss of 468 million reais ($91.86 million), wider than the 156.93 million loss forecast by analysts.

BRF reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 1.368 billion reais, above an estimated 1.202 billion reais. BRF said its results were affected by two non-recurring events in the quarter.

The first was a negative 445 million reais hit to revenue from international markets, resulting from "hedge accounting" related to a debt security that matured in June 2022.

SYDNEY, Aug 11 (Reuters) - At an indoor pool in a western Sydney suburb, about 20 Afghan women who recently reached Australia as refugees listen to former asylum seeker Maryam Zahid as she offers them swimming classes and talks about the country's beach culture.

Zahid, who arrived in Australia from Afghanistan 22 years ago, said her sessions help the women develop "an identity for themselves" and deal with the trauma of the war that ravaged their home country.

"That is something that will impact psychological and emotional aspects of their life ... to have an identity for themselves as a human being first," Zahid told Reuters at the Ruth Everuss aquatic centre in the suburb of Auburn.

LOS ANGELES, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) edged past Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) with a total of 221 million streaming customers and announced it will increase prices for customers who want to watch Disney+ or Hulu without commercials.

The media giant will raise the monthly cost of Disney+ without advertising by 38% to $10.99 in December, when it begins to offer a new option that includes ads for the current price.

Shares of Disney rose 6.9% in after-hours trading to $120.15 on Wednesday.

LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Expectations for activity in Britain's housing market have dried up quickly thanks to a worsening economic outlook and rising interest rates, an industry survey showed on Thursday.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said its gauge of sales expectations for the coming 12 months slid to -36% in July from June's -21%, the lowest reading since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

The survey was conducted before the Bank of England last week announced its biggest rate hike since 1995. read more

MUMBAI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee opened higher against the dollar on Thursday as a decline in the U.S. inflation rate boosted Asian currencies, lifting risk appetite.

The rupee was trading at 79.25 per U.S. dollar by 0333 GMT, up from 79.52 in the previous session.

**Asian shares and currencies rose after U.S. headline inflation slowed more than expected, prompting traders to pare bets of aggressive policy tightening by the Federal Reserve.

SRINAGAR, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Militants attacked an Indian army post in the disputed Kashmir region on Thursday, killing three soldiers, while two attackers died in the shootout that came amid heightened security ahead of India's independence day celebrations.

The attack in the Rajouri area of India's only Muslim majority region took place in the early hours, and the area around the post was cordoned off afterwards as security forces conducted searches, an army official told Reuters.

"Three soldiers were killed and two were injured in the attack. However, troops fired back and killed two militants," the official said, asking not to be named as he was not authorised to speak with the media.

CIJARA, Spain, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A flock of sheep shelter from the midday sun under the gothic arches of a medieval bridge flooded in 1956 to create the Cijara reservoir in central Spain, but now fully exposed as the reservoir is 84% empty after a severe drought.

In Andalusia, one of Europe's hottest and driest regions, paddle-boats and waterslides lie abandoned on the cracked bed of Vinuela reservoir, remnants of a rental business gone with the water, now at a critical level of 13%.

A nearby restaurant fears a similar fate.

TORONTO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The first stop on Serena Williams' farewell tour came to a quick end as she fell 6-2 6-4 to Belinda Bencic in second-round action at the Canadian Open on Wednesday a day after announcing her forthcoming retirement from tennis.

Williams arrived on the court to a standing ovation and had the full support of the capacity crowd throughout the 77-minute match but was unable to conjure up the old magic that helped her lift three titles in Canada.

"It's been a pretty interesting 24 hours ... I'm terrible at goodbyes. But, goodbye Toronto," an emotional Williams told the crowd.

BANGKOK, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is expected to arrive in Thailand on Thursday and stay temporarily in a second Southeast Asian country since fleeing his island nation last month in the midst of mass protests.

Rajapaksa fled to Singapore on July 14 and resigned from office shortly afterwards, following unprecedented unrest over his government's handling of the worst economic crisis in seven decades, and days after thousands of protesters stormed the president's official residence and office. read more

The former military officer, who is the first Sri Lankan head of state to quit mid-term, is expected to travel from Singapore to Thailand's capital of Bangkok on Thursday, two sources said. It was unclear what time he would arrive.

Aug 11 (Reuters) - San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly warned it is far too early for the U.S. central bank to "declare victory" in its fight against inflation, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

Daly's remarks comes as U.S. consumer prices remained unchanged in July due to a sharp drop in the cost of gasoline, delivering the first notable sign of relief for weary Americans who have watched inflation climb over the past two years. read more

In an interview with the Financial Times, Daly did not rule out a third consecutive 0.75% point interest rate rise at the central bank's next policy meeting in September, however, she said that a half-percentage point rate rise was her “baseline”. (https://on.ft.com/3SEkQ7E)

KUDAMADUWELLA, Sri Lanka, Aug 10 (Reuters) - As anarchy gripped the Sri Lankan city of Colombo in May, Meenu Mekala and Nirosh Ravindra gambled their family's life savings on a two-week, 4,700-km voyage aboard a rusting trawler with their two young sons. The decision ended in ruin.

Meenu, a Buddhist, and Nirosh, a Christian, met and fell in love as migrant labourers in Dubai, despite opposition from their families. They married in 2005 in Nirosh's home village of Kudamaduwella, two hours' drive north of Colombo.

They are among hundreds of Sri Lankans who have attempted to escape an unprecedented economic meltdown by boarding fishing boats bound for Australia.

A look at the day ahead in markets from Alun John

Fed policymakers surged out of the traps last night, telling markets not to get too excited by the cooler-than-expected inflation reading, but to little avail.

The Nasdaq closed up 20% from its June low, the dollar tumbled after the data, and even bitcoin - remember that? - is back above $24,000 and testing a two-month high.

KAMPALA, August 10 (Reuters) - Ugandan IT student Andrew Njuki spent years hunched over English-language textbooks, often grappling with material that would have been easier to grasp in his mother tongue Luganda.

As of May, the 27-year-old has been able to copy-paste his online teaching materials into Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google translation service and read them directly in Uganda's official language Luganda, spoken by millions across the east African country but not taught in schools.

"To understand something better you need to first understand it in your mother tongue," said Njuki, who also finds the service handy for surfing the internet and social media.

Bot and spam accounts on Twitter have become a central issue in the legal fight over whether Musk, who is Tesla's (TSLA.O) chief executive, must complete his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

Musk said last month he was terminating the deal because Twitter has withheld information about these accounts. Twitter sued Musk to complete the deal, and has said the issue has no bearing on the agreement with Musk.

NEW YORK, Aug 10 (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) is set to post a gain of $34.1 billion by reducing its stake in Alibaba Group Holding (9988.HK) from 23.7% to 14.6%. read more

But the Japanese conglomerate will not sell its shares directly in the market. It is using a complex security called "prepaid forward contracts," which is a derivative largely used by investors.

Here's how these contracts work:

LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Financial services companies should set "stretching targets" for appointing people from working class backgrounds to senior positions, a UK government-sponsored report said on Thursday.

The finance industry is already making efforts to appoint more women, Black and ethnic minorities on to boards and into roles like chief executives and chairs but targets for socio-economic background have featured less in corporate diversity efforts.

A taskforce commissioned by the government and led by the City of London Corporation surveyed more than 9,000 employees across 49 financial and related professional firms and found the sector is out of kilter with society.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian woman Sabine Coll Boghici, 48, was arrested on Wednesday on allegations she was part of a bizarre scheme to defraud her 82-year-old mother, Genevieve Boghici, the wife of the late art collector Jean Boghici, out of money, artwork and jewelry totaling some 724 million reais ($142.42 million).

Her arrest has exposed a disturbing web of fraud that police say lasted years and involved alleged psychics to swindle artwork by some of Brazil's most emblematic painters. Four other people were also arrested and two others, Diana Rosa Aparecida Stanesco Vuletic and Slavko Vuletic, are on the run.

The scam began in 2020 when Genevieve was approached by a supposed psychic with prophecies of her daughter's imminent death.

Aug 10 (Reuters) - Illinois is rebranding an invasive carp in the hopes of encouraging people to eat it - and solving a decades-old issue that has been threatening the ecosystem of the U.S. state's waterways.

"We've launched a new name, 'copi', to help people consume this delicious fish and help us do our work in keeping them out of the waterways," said Kevin Irons, assistant chief of fisheries for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Irons and the DNR want everyone to start calling the abundant fish formerly known as Asian carp "copi."

FREETOWN, Aug 10 (Reuters) - At least two police officers and one civilian died after a day of anti-government protests in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, staff at the city's main mortuary said on Wednesday.

Sierra Leone's government previously said there had been deaths, but did not say how many, as protesters threw rocks and burned tyres in the streets out of frustration at worsening economic hardship and other issues.

The West African country, which has been struggling with rising inflation and a fuel crisis, imposed a nationwide curfew from 3 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) in a bid to stem the violence.

TAIPEI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Taiwan rejects the "one country, two systems" model proposed by Beijing in a white paper published this week, the self-ruled island's foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Only Taiwan's people can decide its future, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou told a news conference in Taipei, the capital.

China was using U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei as an "excuse to create a new normality to intimidate Taiwan's people," Ou added.

WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday the House of Representatives would pass the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday.

In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Pelosi called the $430 billion climate, tax and healthcare bill approved by the Senate over the weekend "life-changing legislation."