Minimum rest is set by the GCAA not Emirates. The UAE GCAA sets the FTLs, following closely, international standards. There are a few variations.
Yes but they can hardly be call independent when the president of Emirates was part of that. It was like having QF on the board of CASA. The argument that the GCAA is some sort of independent authority doesn't hold much water.
Meanwhile QF have to deal with CASA and all the problems that involves.
There are simply no 15 hour sectors with 18 hours layovers. Zero. Very few layovers less than 24 hours
Poor wording on my behalf but I believe the Houston flights were somewhat an issue at one stage. Whilst the layover was 24 hours by the time you account for getting around it didn't add up to much. Also if you look at the MEL accident there wasn't much rest going on there.
When you are a nominated augmenting pilot, you do not log hours spent in the bunk (for the purposes of the 100hr and 900hr limits).
There is no 'factor' applied. Typically on a 31hr ULR pairing, you log around 22 hours.
Which the rest of the world logs as flight time. Either we agree it is or it isn't and we all play by the same rules.