News related to ARABIAN POST SPECIAL

David Cameron’s prospects for victory in 2015 can’t be guaranteed

Photo: STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA As they head for their holidays, senior Conservatives are beginning to worry that they are failing to benefit fully from Britain’s economic recovery. Recent months have seen a succession of good news stories, with growth well established, living standards no longer falling and predictions of future performance regularly upgraded. Yet the Tories seem unable to overturn Labour’s narrow lead. The table below illustrates what [...]

Lost world of an artist caught in the crossfire

Britain declared war 100 years ago tonight , but some other countries had already begun. On July 29, a Hungarian painter, Béla Zombory-Moldován, was on holiday at the seaside resort of Novi, on the Croatian coast, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Suffering from a hangover, he had slipped out in the early morning for a swim from the spit. The bathing attendant approached, and told him, [...]

Advantage Dubai: Singapore is losing shopping charm

|TAP Special| Dubai stands to gain from a changing shopping profile of Singapore as strengthening exchange rate, rising labour costs and sales tax are putting foreign shoppers at a disadvantage in the island city state. Reports already suggest a marked drop in tourist arrivals, particularly from China. Dubai retailer Al-Futtaim has closed its stores for brands including Shana and Vince Camuto in Singapore, and is closing Mango [...]

Spurt in foreign buying of Saudi stocks

The value of shares bought by foreign investors through swap arrangements on the Saudi stock exchange jumped in July, official statistics showed on Sunday. Authorities in the kingdom granted long-awaited approval on July 21 to open up the bourse to direct foreign investment for the first time in early 2015. Foreigners currently can only purchase shares through swap arrangements, contracts in which a local broker or investor [...]

Gulf Indians among victims of AED1b Ponzi scheme

|TAP Special|Indians living in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other GCC countries along with those in the US are among the victims of an Indian wealth management scheme gone bust. They are among the 5,000 investors who had parked their money with the wealth management schemes of Prashant Wasankar, who has been arrested as the main accused in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes. The amount involved is [...]

August 03

Hospitals in Gaza Overwhelmed as Attacks Continue

Medics at a field hospital in Rafah, Gaza Strip. More than 120 Palestinians were killed in Rafah alone on Friday and Saturday. By BEN HUBBARD and FARES AKRAM August 2, 2014 RAFAH, Gaza Strip — It was clear from the bodies laid out in the parking lot of the maternity hospital here that it had assumed new duties: No longer a place that welcomed new life, it was now a makeshift [...]

August 03

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Birthright Trips to Israel Continue Despite Mideast Conflict

Lila Faria, 19, at her home in Maplewood, N.J. Ms. Faria, a student at New York University, recently returned from a trip to the Middle East with the Taglit-Birthright Israel organization. By ELENA SCHNEIDER August 1, 2014 WASHINGTON — Lila Faria, 19, a student at New York University, heard the whine of a bomb siren for the first time last month in Jerusalem. Along with several dozen other Americans [...]

Reports & Analysis

Report estimates Iran’s oil reserves

Iran holds the world's fourth largest proved crude oil reserves and the world's second largest natural gas reserves, according to a report produced by US Energy Information Administration. Despite the country's abundant reserves, Iran's oil production has substantially declined over the past few years, and natural gas production growth has slowed. International sanctions have profoundly affected Iran's energy sector. Sanctions have prompted a number of cancellations or [...]

Off the Cuff

Chinese head for Harvard

Chinese students have a new favorite summer destination: Harvard University. So many students and their families are visiting Boston-area schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University that Hainan Airlines Co. started direct flights to Boston from Beijing in June and increased the number from four to seven a week in July and August. Tufts gets so many requests from large organized groups that [...]

Dubai World creditors seek to cut exposure thorugh offloading

|TAP Special| Some foreign banks with exposure to Dubai World are believed to be planning to divest parts of their debt as they feel it may be a good time to offload to take advantage of improved confidence in Dubai. Obviously, the improving Dubai rating would mean more value to the debt. $25 billion worth of debt is owed by Dubai World, which is keen to restructure [...]

Biz Tech

Arabian Post @ CeBIT Eurosia fair in Istanbul

The Arabian Post will report directly from CeBIT Eurasia to be held from 11 September to 14 September 2014 at the Istanbul Expo Centre. Arabian Post will have its own representative at the prestigious ICT event, rated to be the No 1 technology show in Eurasia, to report on deliberations during the four-day event. CeBIT Eurasia will bring ICT companies, government and media in the Eurasian region [...]

August 01

Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict Takes Effect as Talks Are Set

Family members mourned on Thursday in Tel Aviv at the grave of Staff Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, who was killed on Wednesday. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK LANDLER July 31, 2014 NEW DELHI — A 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza conflict negotiated by the United States and the United Nations took effect Friday morning, a diplomatic bolt-from-the-blue that will suspend the bloody 24-day military campaign and set the stage for [...]

August 01

Damac to list shares on Dubai bourse

Dubai luxury property developer DAMAC is offering investors the option of converting its Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), listed on the London bourse, into ordinary shares that would be listed on Dubai's main stock market. Investors would get around 23.08 shares per GDR. They have until Sept. 2 to decide on the offer, the developer said in a statement to the London bourse on Wednesday. No new shares [...]

August 01

Damac’s Planned Back-Door Listing a Positive for Dubai’s Market

Damac Properties is recommending investors convert GDRs, listed on the London bourse, into shares that would be listed on Dubai’s stock market. Reuters A company needs to sell at least 55% of its stock to list on the main U.A.E. bourses – a regulation that has been blamed in part for the weak IPO market in the Arab Gulf country. After all, most big companies in the [...]

Netanyahu Says Tunnel-Clearing Operation Will Continue

By ISABEL KERSHNER and FARES AKRAM July 31, 2014 JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Thursday that he would not agree to any cease-fire proposal that does not allow the Israeli military to complete its mission of destroying Hamas’s tunnel network in Gaza. “So far we have neutralized tens of terror tunnels,” Mr. Netanyahu said in televised remarks at the start of a government meeting at military [...]

Is it all over for the album?

Even the best albums contained the occasional dud – did anyone ever look forward to hearing the obligatory Ringo song on a Beatles album? . Photo: AFP/Getty Images My home is full of vinyl. It’s there in the living-room, the study, the spare bedroom – all my yesterdays, the good, the bad the ugly, filed in batches of 30 in sturdy black plastic boxes (they weigh a ton!), [...]

Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent

A cease-fire proposal by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt met most of Israel’s demands; Hamas immediately rejected it. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK July 30, 2014 CAIRO — Battling Palestinian militants in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbors to end the fighting. Not this time. After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a [...]

Tata to invest $35b in three years

Tata group will invest about $35 billion over the next three years to focus on new business areas such as infrastructure, defence and aerospace, as well as expanding its global footprint. The salt-to-software group has operations in more than 100 countries and combined revenue of $103 billion at the end of the fiscal year in March, with 67 percent coming from outside India. The Tata group includes [...]

Politics

Gold, diamond feed Central African religious violence

Zimbabwe diamonds Three young rebels, their AK47s propped against wooden stools in the afternoon heat, guard the entrance to the giant Ndassima goldmine carved deep into a forested hilltop in Central African Republic. Sat in a thatched shack at the edge of a muddy shantytown, the gunmen keep the peace - for a price - among hundreds of illegal miners who swarm over the steep sides of [...]

Markets

Emerging markets stocks drop on sanctions

Emerging-market stocks fell as the European Union and U.S. said they’re imposing tougher sanctions against Russia to punish President Vladimir Putin for supporting Ukrainian rebels. The Ibovespa fell the most in a month after Brazilian industrial production declined. India’s S&P BSE Sensex Index dropped for a second day as motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp Ltd. slid 1.6 percent. Stocks in South Korea and China advanced as automakers and [...]

July 30

Politics

UAE and Qatar compete as Saudi Arabia looks on

The Gulf states have become the most stable and influential force in the Arab world, with the decline of the Egyptian role, the spread of turmoil and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Algeria's retreat on itself after the "black decade" of the 1990s. Because of political stability and increasing oil revenues, the Gulf states have accumulated financial wealth that has strengthened their political, economic and media influence in [...]

July 29