Photo Leah Pfeiffer, left, a student at the Culinary Institute of America, and Chuck Yu, a West Point cadet, cooking in a C.I.A. kitchen in October 2013.Credit Mike Groll for The New York Times We are hard pressed to think of many world-class liberal arts colleges with entire student bodies ambitiously studying and training toward a single profession – and in uniforms that are far from Vassar’s […]
|By Alaa Alghamdi| There can be few more crucial yet intractable conundrums in the world today than the question of the root causes of terrorism. Terrorism seems to strike out of the blue, and sometimes with devastating force; dealing with its effects after the event is very far from being a tenable strategy. If there is a way to deal with terrorism it is to prevent it, […]
When American writer Kate Bolick was in her mid-twenties, she and her boyfriend used to go running after work, jogging through Boston in the early evening. One night, they passed a woman running behind her toddler in an all-terrain buggy. Her boyfriend smiled and said: “Look: there’s you someday.” Bolick’s stomach lurched, like in a scene from a Woody Allen: the career woman horrified by smug maternity, […]
Dubai’s drive to develop its Islamic finance sector is fuelling growth of sharia-compliant banking but the benefits are unevenly distributed, with some lenders struggling to compete against burgeoning competition. In 2013, Dubai’s government announced plans to turn the emirate into a centre for an “Islamic economy” with sharia-compliant businesses ranging from banking to asset management, trade, food preparation and certification, fashion, education and tourism. This looked like […]
Bengaluru/By Vishnu Raja/The on-going brawl over telcos move to charge consumers differently and discriminate in favor of some apps opposed to others, had once existed in the past, but only in a realm of hypothetical discussions. The debate is becoming realistic as people in India begin to realize the importance of net neutrality (NN) and the ‘dangers’ this may pose to consumers. ISPs, globally, have a track record of such arbitrary actions and […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE Cabinet has paid tribute to the country’s Armed Forces during the ongoing Operation Decisive Storm military intervention in Yemen. The Cabinet also praised the leading role taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the action to restore safety and stability to Yemen, and stressed support for the international effort, reports Wam, the state news agency. “The UAE, and its brothers in […]
The BBC’s headquarters in London Photo: AP The BBC’s director-general, Tony Hall, is a man in a hurry. As one of the oldest DGs to be appointed, and already in receipt of his BBC pension, the 64-year-old is acutely aware that the corporation’s charter has less than two years to run, and that the licence fee – the BBC’s bedrock for the 93 years of its existence – […]
Gen Odierno said that British defence cuts are already jeopardising US-UK joint operations Photo: AP Ever since the Cold War ended more than two decades ago, America has never entertained any serious doubts about Britain’s ability to fulfil its commitment as a vital military ally when tackling threats to the Western alliance. Until now. For the dramatic cuts to Britain’s defence budget implemented since the Coalition took power […]
The media invitation Apple sent out for a March 9 “special event” doesn’t offer details about the reason for the gathering. However, the “Spring Forward” message on the invite is leading many to believe the star of the occasion will be the soon-to-launch Apple Watch. “Spring forward,” of course, is the saying that helps most of us remember to set our clocks ahead one hour for Daylight […]
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS February 25, 2015 WASHINGTON — Susan E. Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday over his plans to address a joint meeting of Congress next week, saying his actions had hurt his nation’s relationship with the United States. Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to travel to Washington to deliver the speech two weeks before the Israeli elections has “injected […]
HSBC Holdings, struggling to contain a scandal over tax evasion at its private bank, reported lower-than-predicted fourth-quarter profit as costs and conduct provisions rose. The shares slumped the most since 2011. Pretax profit dropped 56 percent to $1.7 billion from the year-earlier period, London-based HSBC said in a statement on Monday. That missed the $3.7 billion average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Full-year profit fell […]
|By Sarosh Zaiwalla| Towards the end of last year, it was announced that the UAE’s long anticipated insolvency reform bill was reaching its final stages prior to implementation. The legal framework was drawn up following the establishment of the Dubai World Tribunal that resulted from the entity’s inability to pay its creditors in November 2009. The case cast a spotlight on the UAE, which until today does […]
Op-Ed Contributor By MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER January 11, 2015 TEL AVIV — “WHAT are you,” he asked, “a leftist?” We were both wearing the surplus United States Marines uniforms given to prisoners at Israeli Military Jail No. 6. “It depends how you define ‘left,’ ” I said. “Don’t get clever with me. Why are you here?” “I didn’t want to be part of a system whose main task is the violent […]
|By Andrew Torchia| It’s a weekend morning at the Dubai Mall, a glitzy complex with 1,200 stores, and the shoppers are pouring in. A traffic jam has formed in the basement parking area. With passenger arrivals at Dubai’s airport at record highs, retailers expect a good month. The 55 percent plunge of oil prices since last June might be expected to usher in an age of austerity […]
When it comes to wearables, the headlines often seem dominated by smart watches and fitness-tracking bracelets. However, as the Consumer Electronics Show wraps up in Las Vegas on Friday one thing is clear — there’s a lot more to wearables than just bangles and timepieces. Among the wearable Innovation Award winners at this year’s CES were a heart-rate-monitoring strip that sticks to a user’s torso; a sensor-embedded […]
|By James G. Neuger |The bodies haven’t been buried and the killers are on the loose, but that didn’t prevent anti-Islam politicians across Europe from seizing on the Jan. 7 massacre in Paris. The rhetoric varied in intensity across the European Union’s 28 countries, each with its own religious and social phobias, many gripped by an economic recession that makes convenient scapegoats out of immigrants — especially […]
Reporting about widespread government surveillance of ordinary citizens helped win the Guardian and the Washington Post a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. But many ordinary citizens themselves have offered a “Ho-hum everybody does it” response to the spying revelations made by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The lackadaisical public reaction does not bode well for the future of privacy. And that’s the same conclusion that the […]
Gulf stock markets rose on Thursday as Saudi Arabia released a 2015 state budget that will keep spending high, reassuring the region that economic growth is unlikely to be hurt much by the plunge of oil prices. The Saudi budget envisions state spending at a record 860 billion riyals ($230 billion) next year, up 0.6 percent from the 2014 budget plan. That would be the smallest rise […]
Bisco Misr… bidding battle Kellogg outbids Abraaj third time for Bisco CAIRO, 2 days ago Breakfast cereal maker Kellogg Co has again raised its bid for Egyptian snack maker Bisco Misr, outbidding private equity group Abraaj for the third time and snatching the lead in a $140 million takeover battle. Kellogg said on Thursday it would improve its offer to EGP86.36 ($12.04) per share, hoping to secure […]
DUBAI, 2 days ago Developing countries in Asia—particularly China and India—are rapidly becoming the biggest trading partners with Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries ahead of other regions, according to a new report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in conjunction with Falcon and Associates. The study, entitled ‘GCC Trade and Investment Flows,’ explored the GCC’s economic ties with each world region and identifies major growth drivers. […]
Watan inks strategic tie-up with Natixis RIYADH, 2 days ago Natixis, the corporate arm of France’s banking group Groupe BPCE, and Saudi Arabia’s Watan Investment & Securities Company have signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The signing, which took place at the Council of Saudi Chambers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, marks the start of expectantly a long-term cooperation between the two institutions on a wide range of Natixis […]
Women in the Mena region mostly seek employmentin order to be more financially independent. Majority of Mena women see gender equality in jobs DUBAI, 2 days ago While 51 per cent of women in the Mena region consider recruitment and selection opportunities are regardless of gender, 31 per cent believe that women are treated less favourably in terms of salary, a report said. Women in the Mena […]
Gulf governments seek to improve the livesof citizens and create jobs. Oil slump won’t derail $500bn Gulf infrastructure plan DUBAI, 2 days ago Slumping oil prices will not halt a massive ramp-up in Gulf infrastructure spending, as rich nations deploy huge reserves to maintain a breakneck development pace and the rest turn to buoyant funding markets. However, states are being urged to consider the most effective funding […]
Cancer and heart disease death rates have fallen. Global population living 6 years longer than in 1990 LONDON, 2 days ago Global life expectancy has risen by more than six years since 1990 thanks to falling death rates from cancer and heart disease in rich countries and better survival in poor countries from diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria. In an analysis from the 2013 Global Burden of Disease […]
