With the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates, and President Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank seemingly unable to escape his addiction to quantitative easing policy, many investors are questioning who wants to buy the euro. The answer is simple. The whole world is eager to buy the euro. The problem in 2017 is more likely to be finding anyone who wants to buy the US […]
JEDDAH / DUBAI (December 29, 2016) Arab News has been honored at this year’s MENAA Awards for its transformation over the last three months and creating “momentum and buzz” in the media industry. The newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Faisal J. Abbas, who was appointed in late September, was presented with the prestigious Best Business Leaders Award at an event held this month at the Burj Al Arab hotel in […]
Technological revolution means robots no longer are the song of the future. The Governor of the Bank of England predicts today that up to half of British workforce face redundancy in the imminent ‘second machine age’. No wonder, the research of multi-robot systems generates serious buzz both for promising (albeit at times scary) results and for their application prospects in the real world. (via WSJ)
By Tom Hals | WILMINGTON, Del. WILMINGTON, Del. Peabody Energy Corp said on Thursday the deadline for creditors to join financing deals aimed at bringing the largest U.S. coal miner out of bankruptcy had been extended after large investors sued to slow the process. Last week, Peabody unveiled its plan to eliminate more than $5 billion of debt and raise capital from creditors with a $750 million […]
Russia is set to round off a year of rejuvenated global standing with the distinction of watching its currency stand apart from other major economies and resist US dollar strength. The rouble has been the only major currency to appreciate against the dollar since the end of September and, so far this year, has outperformed rivals, up more than 21 per cent against the dollar to Rbs60.48. […]
M&A: back with a bang Deal activity was vigorous with much of it concentrated just below the level of the industry’s biggest companies. Nasdaq bought International Securities Exchange for $1.1bn, while CBOE Holdings announced a $3.2bn deal for Bats Global Markets in September. Of most significance, the pending €24bn tie-up between London’s LSE Group and Deutsche Börse, which will create Europe’s largest exchange. As the chart above […]
By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin | NEAR MOSUL, Iraq NEAR MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi security forces on Thursday began the second phase of their offensive against Islamic State militants in Mosul, pushing from three directions into eastern districts where the battle has been deadlocked for nearly a month. Since the offensive to capture Mosul began 10 weeks ago, counter-terrorism forces have retaken a quarter of the city, […]
India’s former central bank chief Raghuram Rajan was once described as a “rock star” economist but the Reserve Bank of India’s new deputy governor has actually written an album of songs. Viral Acharya, a New York University professor, was on Wednesday named as a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Not only does Mr. Acharya have an impressive professional and academic record, he is also […]
By Jamie McGeever | LONDON LONDON European shares, the dollar and bond yields fell on Thursday, with traders using the quiet holiday period to book some profit on the rise that had lifted all three to multi-year and in some cases record highs recently. Weakness in European financial stocks helped push broader indices into the red, extending the slippage after soft U.S. housing data the previous day. […]
Health officials in New Hampshire revealed on Tuesday, Dec. 27, that a former psychiatric patient at a state hospital posted thousands of private information on a social media website. Jeffrey Meyers, commissioner of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), said the patient used a computer in the New Hampshire Hospital’s library in October 2015 to illegally access the personal data of 15,000 individuals who had […]
Shares in Toshiba fell 17 per cent to ¥257 on Thursday, taking the total loss of equity value to more than 40 per cent since the Japanese company announced that it was facing a multibillion-dollar writedown at its US nuclear division Westinghouse. As investors continued to digest Tuesday’s warning, shares in some of Japan’s biggest banks slid after the electronics-to-nuclear conglomerate raised the prospect of losses on their […]
On the other were Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump, firing back at what they deemed a hypocritical betrayal of America’s closest friend in the Middle East. Continue reading the main story If Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry were playing for history, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump were playing for time. The departing administration intended for the speech to lay out a path to peace that they had […]
This year has been tough-going in more ways than one and, by most accounts, Singapore’s economy is expected to be heading for rougher seas in 2017. According to a survey by the Singapore Business Federation, 63 percent of local companies said the economic climate worsened in 2016 and 48 percent believed the downward spiral would continue in the new year. The Monetary Authority of Singapore also warned […]
Sprint has revealed that it is going to hire about 5,000 personnel, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump quickly claimed credit for purportedly negotiating the deal. Trump has lumped those figures with the 3,000 new hires planned by a startup called OneWeb, for a grand total of 8,000 new jobs, which Trump has promptly announced as very good news for the economy. Sprint is owned by Japanese firm […]
Principal Investment Arm of the Government of Dubai Grows its Portfolio to AED 736.8 Billion Dubai 28 December 2016 Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) announced its consolidated financial results for the six-month period ended 30 June 2016 showing Revenues of AED 82.5 Billion and a Net Profit of AED 10.3 Billion. These results are achieved against a backdrop of lower oil and commodity prices, a strong US […]
Israel is clearly now on a path toward absorbing the West Bank’s 2.8 million Palestinians. There are already 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel, so putting these two Arab populations together would constitute a significant minority with a higher birthrate than that of Israeli Jews — who number 6.3 million — posing a demographic and democratic challenge. Continue reading the main story I greatly sympathize with Israel’s […]
Chinese technology giant Tencent, along with Beijing-based mapping company NavInfo and Singapore state-owned investment firm GIC, announced this week the trio intended to jointly take up a 10 percent share of mapping company Here, with current owners Audi, BMW, and Daimler reducing their indirect holding by the same amount. As well as the share purchase, the companies announced the creation of a 50/50 joint venture between Here […]
Aliens may be communicating to us in the form of fast radio burst (FRB) signals, scientists believe. Two separate groups of astronomers have recently discovered radio bursts coming from the Auriga constellation, which is about 3 billion light years away from the Milky Way galaxy. According to a report filed in The Astrophysical Journal, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia discovered five radio bursts coming from the Auriga […]
Some of the biggest law firms on Wall Street are scrambling to shore up their defences against cyber attacks, in the wake of a raid by Chinese hackers which led to millions of dollars of profits from insider trading. Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York, this week charged three individuals who he said infiltrated law firms over a period of about 18 […]
By Richard Cowan | PALM BEACH, Fla. PALM BEACH, Fla. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said telecommunications group Sprint Corp (S.N) and a U.S. satellite company OneWeb will be bringing 8,000 jobs to the United States, celebrating the moves as a result of optimism associated with his election. It was unclear how the 8,000 jobs are related to a $50 billion investment announced in December by […]
New York state’s financial regulator on Wednesday revised a proposal for the nation’s first cyber security rules for banks and insurers, loosening some security requirements and delaying implementation by two months to March 1. The rules from the New York State Department of Financial Services are being closely because they lay out unprecedented requirements on steps that financial firms must take to protect their networks and customer […]
US secretary of state John Kerry delivered a stinging rebuke of the Israeli government on Wednesday, accusing it of making the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nearly impossible through the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. With Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining forces with president-elect Donald Trump to attack the Obama administration, Mr Kerry said that the US allowed a […]
While the opening of the archives was not expected to provide a conclusive end to the chapter for many of the families, given the partial and sometimes contradictory information in the files, the government hoped to at least dispel the notion that it was hiding information, and to perhaps bring some relief. Continue reading the main story “Today we are correcting an historic injustice of disregard or […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that Israel’s building of settlements in occupied territory was endangering Middle East peace, expressing unusually frank frustration with the longtime American ally. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of showing bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign […]
