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ARABIAN POST SPECIAL

Umno-PAS political cooperation difficult but necessary for Islamic unity, say political observers – Malay Mail Online

Umno-PAS political cooperation difficult but necessary for Islamic unity, say political observers Umno President Datuk Seri Najib Razak speaks during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Umno General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur December 1, 2016. — Bernama picKUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 ― Umno-PAS political cooperation may be difficult to achieve but cooperation in the interest of Muslims and Islam, especially social welfare is expected to continue, said [...]

GCC firms warned to brace for more gov't tax plans

Businesses operating in GCC countries should brace themselves for further government action to raise non-oil revenues, according to a new ICAEW report. The accountancy and finance body said that given the weak outlook for oil prices, imposing tax measures, along with subsidy reforms, spending cuts, and a freeze on public sector recruitment and pay, will help to close the fiscal gap. Its Economic Insight: Middle East Q4 [...]

Amid Flames and Suspicions in Israel, Acts of Jewish-Arab Cooperation

Photo Residents whose home was destroyed by a fire in the Jewish settlement of Halamish in the West Bank. Credit Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images NATAF, Israel — When Rama’s Kitchen, an earthy and much-loved restaurant in the small Israeli village of Nataf, was burned last week by one of the wildfires that raged in the area, the last civilians who stayed to fight the blaze [...]

From policing to news, how algorithms are changing our lives

First, write out the numbers one to 100 in 10 rows. Cross out the one. Then circle the two, and cross out all of the multiples of two. Circle the three, and do likewise. Follow those instructions, and you’ve just completed the first three steps of an algorithm, and an incredibly ancient one. Twenty-three centuries ago, Eratosthenes was sat in the great library of Alexandria, using this [...]

Saudi Arabia leads soaring MidEast demand for French cheese

The Middle East is one of the largest importers of French dairy products in the world, according to the latest research from the country’s official cheese board, the Centre National Interprofessionnel de l'Economie Laitière (CNIEL). The research puts the Middle East ahead of China ($354 million), North America ($270 million), Switzerland ($137 million) and Australia ($30 million). Of the $8 billion of French dairy produce exported around [...]

Big Data week in review: Integrated features rule

This week was full of Big Data news, including new releases, a brand new product, a new acquisition and an update to one of the major Hadoop distros. Let's get a survey of what was announced and then see if we can't draw a conclusion or two.A big driver for much of the news was this week's Amazon Web Services re:Invent conference, providing an opportunity for Amazon [...]

Man Who Police Say Admitted Shooting Joe McKnight Is Freed Without Charge

Photo Friends and family of the former N.F.L. player Joe McKnight gathered at the site of his fatal shooting in Terrytown, La., on Thursday. Credit Michael Democker/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune, via Associated Press The man held in the fatal shooting of the former N.F.L. standout Joe McKnight in Louisiana admitted to investigators that he had pulled the trigger, the authorities said, but he was allowed to walk free [...]

The Quality of China’s Yuan Deteriorates – In One Chart

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke. During the past year, the Chinese yuan (CNY) has shed a bit more than 7 percent of its value against the greenback. That’s only one aspect of the CNY’s weakness. Another concerns the quality of the CNY. As Jerry Jordan pointed out recently at the Cato Institute’s 34th Annual Monetary Conference, a [...]

A new standard in robotics

Credit: Yale University On the wall of Aaron Dollar's office is a poster for R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play that gave us the word "robot." The story ends with the nominal robots seizing control of the factory of their origin and then wiping out nearly all of humanity. Dollar, fortunately, has something more cheerful in mind for the future of human-robot relations. He sees [...]

Misk Nursery offers cribs than are more than just child's play

When Dala Farouki Kakos was a child, her parents invested in three Syrian chests, with matching mirrors, in the traditional sadaf style – on the understanding that they would be passed on to Kakos and her two siblings once they were grown up and had homes of their own. Beautifully embellished with mother of pearl, Kakos’s set has accompanied her on her travels around the world, and [...]

On Soccer: At Real Madrid, Zinedine Zidane’s Gift Is Wrapped in Charisma

Pérez made it clear that Benítez was safe as long as he picked what the president felt was his strongest team: an adventurous lineup that included the Colombian midfielder James Rodríguez. Such a selection ran against Benítez’s cautious instincts. He would have preferred the more defensively minded Brazilian Casemiro as a bulwark against Barcelona’s formidable attack, but eventually Benítez relented. Continue reading the main story Rodríguez started; [...]

Travel trends: new wildlife experiences around the world

Been on a safari? Swum with dolphins? Tracked bears in the wild? It’s time for something different, then. Luckily, there are plenty of new experiences being launched around the world.Swimming with humpbacksNingaloo Reef, AustraliaThe Ningaloo Reef has been one of the world’s best spots for swimming with whale sharks for a few years now, but this year, operators have been licensed to run swimming tours with the [...]

Work as hard as Umno, Zahid tells BN component parties – Free Malaysia Today

Zahid says all component parties should help each other out, especially during the next general election. KUALA LUMPUR: Other Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties must work as hard as Umno, says the party’s acting deputy president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Zahid said he had met with the presidents of BN component parties to discuss this and was confident that a “huge change” would happen soon. “I have urged [...]

Manila put on highest terror alert in 16 years – AsiaOne

A terrorist cell formed by a group seeking recognition from the ISIS terror network is already operating and planning a big attack in Manila. This comes as the Philippine capital was placed on its highest terror alert for the first time in 16 years following the arrest of two alleged militants over a makeshift bomb planted near the US Embassy on Monday. A senior police officer, who [...]

Holly to Bolly: Kanye West released from hospital, Netflix adds offline feature, and more

newslideKanye West released from hospitalKanye West has been sent home following 10 days in a California hospital, after being admitted because of a reported physical and emotional breakdown. West is now at “home, getting some rest”, People magazine quoted a source as saying. The 39-year-old rapper had already cancelled the remaining dates of his concert tour when he was hospitalised on November 21. – The National staffnewslideNetflix [...]

Before the Oil: A book to recall life so very long ago

Why is a book out of print for over 13 years – and one that recalls events that took place more than half a century ago – one of the most significant publishing events of the year?Anyone who has tried to obtain a copy of Susan Hillyard’s Before the Oil will know the answer. Her definitive and moving account of life in Abu Dhabi in the mid-1950s [...]

How the brain recognizes faces: Machine-learning system spontaneously reproduces aspects of human neurology

Tomaso Poggio, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and director of the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, has long thought that the brain must produce “invariant” representations of faces and other objects, meaning representations that are indifferent to objects’ orientation in space, their distance from the viewer, or their location in the visual field. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT researchers and their [...]

Tiger Woods Shows Flashes of Old Self, but Finishes Over Par

Photo Tiger Woods watched his tee shot on the third hole on Thursday at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Credit Lynne Sladky/Associated Press NASSAU, the Bahamas — As he made his way to the first tee for his first competitive shot in 466 days, Tiger Woods breezed right by the Golf Channel reporter Notah Begay, his former Stanford teammate and good friend. His focus before [...]

10 things to do today: celebrate National Day around the UAE, head to Emirates Dubai Rugby Sevens, and more

Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 2, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun.newslideAbu DhabiNational DayYas Mall has an array of activities to celebrate National Day, including a collection of vintage photographs of the UAE’s rulers; a painting by Sheikh Saifi of Sheikh Zayed, Founding President of the UAE; [...]

What the New MacBook Pro Means for the Future of iOS

Apple's new MacBook Pro lineup adds something unique: a Touch Bar atop the keyboard that I believe is an important evolution of the laptop user experience. The first time I saw and played with the Touch Bar, the macros of yore popped into my mind. MacBook power users all know the value of creating macros to speed up a particular business process we may use with [...]

Why fingers make handy, if not foolproof, digital keys

In this Feb. 25, 2014 file photo, theSamsung Galaxy S5 is displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014. Leading tech companies are increasingly nudging consumers to use their own fingers, faces and eyes as digital key to unlock phones and other gadgets. But there are downsides: Hackers could still steal your fingerprint, or its digital representation. And police may have broader [...]

Feature: How to Hide $400 Million

Pursglove would soon learn, however, that navigating this offshore archipelago is not easy. In any given year, trillions of dollars sit safely in the offshore financial world, effectively stateless, protected by legions of well-compensated defenders and a tangle of laws deliberately designed to impede creditors and tax collectors. Even the United States government finds it challenging: A special Internal Revenue Service division known as the “wealth squad,” [...]

The False Promises of the Internet

The early idealism of the Internet was imagined as some great network that would somehow free the world's oppressed people and lead to a grand utopian future. All the world's information would be available at the touch of a button, greater participation in government by the people would be easy, and so on. None of this has happened or will happen. Instead, the American public dove [...]