Saudi Arabia revised sharply upward the number of cases of the new MERS virus within its borders and said it had been fatal in more than 40 percent of the cases. After a review of medical records, the country’s total number of cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome since the virus was isolated in 2012 is now 688, up from 575; the death toll is 282, not […]
Dubai saw the steepest house price growth globally over the past year despite government cooling measures, Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index shows. House prices grew 27.7 percent over the 12 months to March 2014, the fastest pace among the 54 countries tracked on the index. However, house prices only climbed 3.4 percent in the first quarter, much slower than 9.2 percent growth in the same period […]
Election officials began counting votes in Syria’s presidential election early on Wednesday as polls closed in government-held areas. State-run media reported that voting closed at midnight and that officials began the process of checking the number of votes against lists of registered voters to ensure the numbers matched. Syrians on Tuesday voted in their first election in nearly 50 years, which the incumbent Bashar al-Assad is widely […]
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won Egypt’s presidential elections by a huge majority, the country’s election commission has said. The former military chief, who last July overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, won 96.91 of legal votes cast in last week’s election. SISI 23,780,104 (96.91%) SABAHI 757,511 (3.09%) Accepting the result, Sisi urged Egyptians to work to restore stability and achieve “freedom” and “social justice”. “I look forward to your […]
By Alan Cochrane, Scottish Editor 8:59PM BST 03 Jun 2014 A FUNNY thing happened to me on my way to save the Union yesterday; Gordon Brown cracked a joke and everyone laughed. Mind you, there was a bit of a delay, a sort of double-take, whilst the people in the room – assorted Labour politicians and reporters – worked out if their ears had deceived them or […]
Air India Ltd. said it’s demanding compensation from Boeing Co for delivering 787 Dreamliner aircraft that don’t meet promised fuel-efficiency targets because the planes are heavier than planned. Design changes made after targets were set meant some 787s are overweight, Air India Chairman Rohit Nandan said in an interview in Doha, Qatar. The Mumbai-based airline and the planemaker are negotiating a formula for compensation, which may be […]
|By TAP Staff| Regulation topped the list of risks among the global banking industry– replacing 2012’s leading threat, the macro-economic environment, according to the Banking Banana Skins 2014 survey The CSFI’s biennial Banking Banana Skins survey, produced in association with PwC, revealed the overwhelming message from respondents: the weight of new regulation is becoming excessive and could dampen economic recovery and growth. The poll is based on […]
The commodity markets regulator has launched a fresh attempt to rebuild volume on domestic commodities exchanges, after their credibility was dented by last year’s failure of the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). The regulator said it had asked its capital market counterpart to require companies to disclose their commodity trading positions on domestic futures markets, seeing this as a way of boosting the credibility of those markets, […]
PineBridge Investments, a New York-based asset manager, said on Tuesday its Middle East unit had raised $140 million for a sharia-compliant fund that would invest in income-producing real estate assets in Gulf Cooperation Council countries. PineBridge Investments Middle East’s fund will acquire existing real estate assets that generate stable returns, with a focus on the logistics, social infrastructure and community retail sectors, chief executive Talal Al Zain […]
Abu Dhabi’s economy expanded an inflation-adjusted 5.2 percent in 2013, its official statistics centre said on Tuesday, a much slower rate than the government had previously estimated but still higher than 4.8 percent in 2012. The figure from the Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi (SCAD) was much lower than an estimate in February by the emirate’s Department of Economic Development (DED), which said real GDP grew 7.4 percent […]
Voters at a polling station in the Maidan district of Damascus were regaled by Damascene sword dancers and Assad chants. Syria went to the polls Tuesday, despite a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. Pro-government voters stuffed ballot boxes and held rallies outside polling stations as Syrians in regime-held areas of the country cast ballots in an election widely seen as a bid […]
With the election in Egypt last week of former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi as the new president, a nation and a region awaits a potential period of stability in the troubled Arab state. And one company that is desperate for calm is the flag carrier EgyptAir. EgyptAir website “We expect some indication of recovery, especially after the presidential election,” said Sameh El Hefny, the chairman […]
Global airline executives might have gathered in Qatar for their annual general meeting this week to bemoan their lack of profitability, but the event itself was certainly not short of a dime or two. The title sponsor and host of the IATA AGM was Qatar Airways – and the Gulf state’s flag carrier wasted no time in using the annual mix of conference, talking shop and lavish […]
Apple Inc on Monday took the wraps off mobile applications that pool and analyze health and home data, kicking off an annual developers’ conference lacking in big surprises, despite hopes the iPhone maker would offer a glimpse into its secretive pipeline of products. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and software-engineering boss Craig Federighi told several thousand developers about new features that come with the latest “Yosemite” Mac […]
A rocky planet weighing 17 times as much as Earth has been found, surprising astronomers who expected it to be a big ball of gas. Scientists dubbed the planet a “mega-Earth” because it’s much larger than previously discovered rocky celestial bodies. The planet, sighted by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler spacecraft, is located 560 light years from Earth and circles a Sun-like star every […]
Inside a nondescript office building in central London, a roomful of men and women sit at computer screens and talk over Skype with people in faraway places. Sharp-edged Cantonese fills the air, and a flat-screen TV emits a continuous din. It’s the chanting, singing Midlands crowd at Birmingham, England’s Villa Park Stadium: Liverpool at Aston Villa. The match has just kicked off. The name of the company, […]
Photo: AFP/GETTY As the Newark by-election approaches, the Prime Minister is reported to have said in a private – inevitably leaked – conversation that if the wrong candidate becomes president of the European commission it will trigger an early referendum and a likely Brexit. That’s some tough talk from a Tory leader who has previously insisted that he wants to stay in the EU. Labour says he’s […]
Etisalat has added four banks to the list of bookrunners for its potential debut bond, which could include dollar and euro-denominated paper of up to 12 years duration, banking sources said on Monday. The mainly state-owned company added Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Morgan Stanley, National Bank Of Abu Dhabi and Natixis as passive bookrunners, three sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the information is not […]
Qatar’s sizzling growth would slow if it lost the right to host the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, but the tiny country is so rich that the impact on its economy and financial markets would be much smaller than the blow to its reputation. The Qatari stock market sank 1.1 percent on Monday, underperforming the region, after a British newspaper published what it said was evidence of […]
|By TAP Staff|Australasia was the fastest-expanding market for Dubai International in the first quarter, up 21.9 percent on the previous year, as a direct result of the partnership between Qantas and Emirates, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting Dubai Airports sources. Both North America and Asia, two markets where Emirates has expanded routes recently were pipped by Australasia. Dubai has become a popular stopover for Australians en […]
WASHINGTON — As Syrians go to the polls this week amid civil war, the presidential victor is all but assured: Bashar al-Assad. So why bother holding an election at all? Analysts say Assad has more to gain than votes. He is trying to display political solidarity to the world and to ignore the apolitical transition that the West has called for. Watch related video report by VOA’s […]
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Fatah and Hamas have unveiled a government of national consensus that will pave the way for elections for a new Palestinian president and parliament. The government of 17 politically-independent members, agreed on Monday, is already being put to the test, as Israel announced it would not negotiate any peace deal with it. The announcement came after the passing of a five-week deadline that […]
Heavy fighting is raging in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, apparently between the armed group Ansar al-Sharia and irregular forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a former army general. Witnesses said on Monday that gunfire, which began the day before, could be heard across the city, particularly coming from a special forces army base in a western suburb of Benghazi. At least seven people have died and […]
‘As a scientist, all I can do is tell the truth based on the evidence,’ says Dr Jane Plant Photo: MARTIN POPE In 1993, the breast cancer that had plagued Jane Plant since 1987 returned for the fifth time. It came in the shape of a secondary tumour – a lump in her neck the size of half a boiled egg. Doctors told her that she had only […]
