India has decided to block investigations by the United States into its trade policies and patent laws and prepare for a battle at the World Trade Organization (WTO), a move that could escalate already-strained tension between the two countries. New Delhi is furious about a threat of trade sanctions made by the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office over its protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), preference for […]
|TAP Special|If you are lucky, maybe you can buy your stolen credit card details from the black market yourself. If you are not, chances are that the information will land up with someone else, who will surely want to use it to make money off you. A cybersecurity firm said on Tuesday that it uncovered stolen credentials from some 360 million accounts that are available for sale […]
In an age of aerial drones and driver-less cars, Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is designing unmanned cargo ships. Rolls-Royce’s Blue Ocean development team has set up a virtual-reality prototype at its office in Alesund, Norway, that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel’s bridge. Eventually, the London-based manufacturer of engines and turbines says, captains on dry land will use similar control centers to command hundreds of crewless ships. Drone […]
Concerns from Indian carriers on the quantum of increase in bilateral seat entitlements requested by Dubai may result in the emirate getting only half of its initial request of enhancing weekly entitlements by 20,000 seats. the Economic Times reported. A top official of the civil aviation ministry told ET that officials of various ministries met as part of an Inter Ministerial Group on Monday where a “couple” […]
|By Pranay Gupta| When I look out of the windows of my 25th-floor apartment in Dubai, I see the Persian Gulf shimmering a few blocks away. Cruise ships are parked at the dockyard, and in the blue waters beyond a steady stream of oil-laden tankers head out to quench the world’s thirst for black gold. Closer to me are other skyscrapers, vast shopping centers, and crowded convention […]
BuzzFeed has come a long way from cat lists. This month one of its journalists was on the ground in Kiev reporting on the crisis in Ukraine, and last December it published an in-depth article on a Chinese dissident living in Harlem, New York. The kittens haven’t disappeared, but these days there is serious journalism as well. When Facebook Inc tweaked its News Feed filters in December […]
|By Ole Hansen| Commodities showing strong gains for a third week with positive performances seen across all sectors, not least agriculture where coffee and sugar were strong performers followed by precious metals. Growth-dependent commodities such as energy and industrial metals also showed a positive return but were held back by another decline to a seven-month low in Chinese manufacturing confidence. Adverse weather across the Americas continues to […]
Only a thin blue hoarding separates the busy shopping district of Downtown Dubai from the new waterside office and residential area of Business Bay – yet the two locations feel worlds apart. Turn right along a narrow road from The Dubai Mall and you are suddenly faced with piles of sand and heaps of junk. Shiny green glass buildings stand next to half-finished structures of grey skeletal […]
Technology will cause disruption and create opportunity at an accelerating pace, placing unprecedented pressure on ‘society’, China will move towards a half-way house of democracy, USA will become the Disunited States of America while India will be burdened with 150 billion people below the poverty line by 2050, according to the conclusions of a think-tank. The report is produced by Tangent Link, investment analysts and fund managers with a focus […]
The two most-accurate gold forecasters are holding to their bearish forecasts for 2014 even after the metal posted its best start to a year since 1983. Futures rose 9.7 percent in 2014 through Feb. 14, rebounding from the biggest annual drop in three decades, and reached a three-month high. Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by bullion increased by 3.2 metric tons last week, the most since December […]
A Saudi English-language daily has become the country’s first newspaper with a female editor-in-chief after the Saudi Gazette this week appointed Somayya Jabarti to succeed veteran journalist Khaled Almaeena for the top post. “I was pleasantly surprised,” she told the Wall Street Journal over the phone, “because I did not think we as a country were ready for a female editor. But I believe this is a […]
UAE telecom firm du has agreed terms on a $720 million loan which will be used to replace two existing debt facilities and lower the company’s funding costs, two banking sources said on Sunday. The five-year loan will be provided by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia’s Samba Financial Group, the sources who both have knowledge of the matter said. They […]
Risk appetite is in full flow, led by Turkey’s remarkable return to the international bond markets on Wednesday, just weeks after a currency crisis had thrown the country, and through it the emerging markets asset class, into a tailspin. Not only did the sovereign raise US$1.5bn, it did so through a 31-year bond as investors cast aside doubts about Turkey’s vulnerable political and financial situation – on […]
Indian mobile phone market leaders Bharti Airtel and Vodafone bought airwaves worth about $3 billion each in a hotly contested auction that raised nearly $10 billion, far exceeding the government’s target. No.1 Bharti and second-ranked Vodafone said they had won airwaves in the premium 900 megahertz band that was available in three key cities — Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Conglomerate Reliance Industries, a new entrant in telecoms that is seen […]
|By Arjuna Mahendran|The GCC stock and bond markets remain a safe haven to investors, underpinned by solid fundamentals. The Expo 2020, MSCI inclusion of the UAE and Qatari markets in the emerging market (EM) category, infrastructure spending across countries – the GCC Railway project to mention one – the revival of trade, tourism and real estate – as tensions in Egypt, Syria and Iran subside somewhat – […]
Comcast Corp is buying Time Warner Cable Inc for $45.2 billion in an all-stock deal, combining the nation’s two largest cable operators, according to people familiar with the matter. The friendly takeover comes as a surprise after months of public pursuit of Time Warner Cable by smaller rival Charter Communications Inc, and immediately raised questions as to whether it would pass regulatory scrutiny. Comcast will pay $158.82 […]
CNN has reported on the plight of Burj Khalifa residents who faced the threat of unplugged air-conditioning and out of service elevators in a dispute with developer Emaar Properties over unpaid service fees. “ What is it like to live in the tallest building in the world? “Well, if the elevators stop, not that great. “Unplugged air conditioning and out-of-service elevators became a real threat for residents of […]
Deutsche Bank AG agreed to hand over documents related to a probe into the operations of its Dubai-based wealth management division after being taken to court by the emirate’s financial free zone regulator. The Dubai Financial Services Authority began proceedings against the Frankfurt-based lender at the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts on Oct. 31 in an attempt to force the bank to comply with its investigation. Deutsche […]
Oven-hot pizza delivered to your home by drone! Sounds like fantasy? Well, this could become a reality in Dubai and elsewhere in the UAE if tests currently under way succeed. The technology is almost there. The only limiting factor is the cost. Obviously a pizza costing AED55 with a delivery cost of AED550 wouldn’t make sense. But the people behind the idea say the cost will over […]
Janet Yellen, fresh from taking the helm of the Federal Reserve, made it clear on Tuesday she would not make any abrupt changes to U.S. monetary policy, saying the central bank was on track to keep reducing its stimulus even though the labor market recovery was far from complete. In her first public comments since becoming Fed chief earlier this month, Yellen said the central bank must […]
The Bayt.com ‘Millennials in the MENA’ survey, recently conducted by Bayt.com and YouGov Siraj, a research and consulting organization, has revealed that in the UAE, millennials (working professionals 35 years of age or below) are considered to be innovative and hardworking by older peers, and that the majority of them (71%) consider entrepreneurship more preferable than employment. Millennial Careers in the UAE: Current and Future Four in […]
JP Morgan has cut its correspondent banking relationship with Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest bank, as part of a global review of its business, sources familiar with the matter said. In a memo to staff last year, the U.S. bank said it would scale back its relationships with foreign banks in order to comply with regulatory pressure to tighten risk controls. As part of this process, the bank […]
Crucial factors such as banking secrecy, diverse investment products and services have contributed to Switzerland remaining a premier offshore haven for the Middle Eastern investors, according to a leading Swiss-based asset manager specializing in the Middle Eastern region. William Spencer, at WT Capital Management S.A, says there is an increase in demand for wealth management solutions from Middle East region, with a surge in requests for custodian […]
Emerging Asia will become the world’s primary weak spot in 2014, but we have reached the beginning of the end of this crisis, according to Saxo Bank’s investment outlook for the first quarter of 2014 Global overview Having maintained world growth at acceptable levels throughout the current crisis, emerging Asia will become the world’s primary weak spot in 2014. Investment in that region has reached a staggering […]
A number of new openings will come up this week when local companies from different sectors hold walk-in interviews. Among the companies holding open days for jobs include Dubai Refreshments, Dubai Islamic Bank, Crown Plaza Hotel, Gulf Medical University and an IT company. Dubai Refreshments, the sole franchisee and distributor for Pepsi Co. in the UAE, is recruiting Warehouse Supervisor, Store and Spare Parts Supervisors, QA/QC Chemist, […]
Asian shares regained a measure of stability on Friday, stepping further away from five-month lows after a strong rally on Wall Street and hopeful signs the upcoming U.S. payroll report could put some global growth concerns to rest. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.8 percent, a day after the index posted its biggest gains in over two months. The index bounced 2.2 […]
Investment bankers in Europe are off to the leanest start to a year in a decade as dwindling income from deal-making and trading presses firms to reduce costs. Revenue from arranging mergers, loans and stock and bond offerings for clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 22 percent to $1.58 billion last month from the year-earlier period, according to data compiled by New York-based research […]
When planners designed the Business Bay district in Dubai at the height of the last real-estate boom, they boasted it would become the largest business and office district in the Middle East. Yet a visit to the site today suggests there is a lot more living than working taking place, with nannies pushing carriages and children romping around a playground. Throughout Dubai, developers are restarting projects that […]
Lenovo Group said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Google Inc’s Motorola handset division for $2.91 billion, in what is China’s largest-ever tech deal as Lenovo buys its way into a heavily competitive U.S. handset market dominated by Apple Inc. It is Lenovo’s second major deal on U.S. soil in a week as the Chinese electronics company angles to get a foothold in major global computing markets. […]
Gold’s biggest slump in three decades has been a boon for MKS (Switzerland) SA’s PAMP refinery near the Italian border in Castel San Pietro, whose bullion sales to China surged to a record as demand rose for coins, bars and jewelry. As prices plunged 28 percent in 2013, investors dumped a record 869.1 metric tons from gold-backed funds traded mostly in the U.S. and Europe. Much of […]
