Kuwait’s privately owned Jazeera Airways is preparing to bid for a big stake in state-run flag carrier Kuwait Airways, Jazeera’s chairman told Reuters. If the deal goes through, it will be a sign that the business scene is changing in the Gulf. For several decades, Gulf Arab economies have been dominated by the heavy hand of the state. Governments’ huge oil revenues have eclipsed private sector activity. […]
News Analysis By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK October 24, 2014 CAIRO — The British police arrest four men accused of plotting a bombing on the scale of the Mumbai hotel attack six years ago. The Australian authorities arrest a ring of 12 accused of plotting daring murders, including a public beheading. In Canada, a gunman assaults the Parliament building and kills a soldier guarding a war memorial, and a motorist strikes […]
Dubai is racing ahead to dominate the Middle East’s plastic surgery market with plans to attract half a million medical tourists in six years. Where cosmopolitan Beirut was once the region’s best known city for going under the knife, turmoil in Syria and violence often spilling into Lebanon is driving away wealthy Arab tourists. After splashing out on medical infrastructure over the past years, Dubai already ranks […]
Dubai International Capital (DIC) should complete the sale of the two main assets remaining in its portfolio within 18 months, which will provide it with cash to cover its outstanding debt well ahead of scheduled repayment in two years. Proceeds from the divestment of the five remaining assets should also give the private equity firm surplus funds to pass to its parent firm, Dubai Holding, to help […]
There were six in contention; four were dropped, and one became the Chosen One: The Rafale. In French, ‘Rafale’ poetically means a ‘sudden gust of wind.’ It was one of the six fighter aircraft in competition for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, MMRCA, when the Indian Air Force wanted to acquire 126 polyvalent fighter planes. In April 2011, the IAF shortlisted two birds — […]
Rescue team members carry avalanche victims to safety at Thorong La pass Photo: AP In the wake of one of Nepal’s worst trekking disasters, the rescue efforts are just beginning. Already, harrowing stories are emerging. Hundreds of tourists and Nepalis have been caught up in the recent snow storms and avalanches in the Himalayan mountains, killing more than 40 and injured nearly 200. One British visitor spoke of […]
The morning after: dejected Yes supporters head home up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh After a lifetime in the business world, Lord Smith of Kelvin is bound to have come across his fair share of chancers. However, I do wonder if he realises what he has taken on in agreeing to hold the coats in the war between Scotland’s political parties over what “extensive” extra powers should […]
New Delhi: Oil companies’ gains on diesel sales jumped 87 per cent within a fortnight on a historic slide in global crude prices. Their profits from diesel, recorded for the first time ever, continue as the government delays a decision on deregulating its price. “The over-recovery on high-speed diesel (HSD), applicable for the second fortnight effective October 16, is now Rs 3.56 per litre. The over-recovery […]
An advertisement by the highway outside Dubai’s massive Jebel Ali Port tells firms they don’t need to ship goods through the Strait of Hormuz, the traditional gateway to the Gulf. Instead they can have goods delivered to a port in Oman, outside the Gulf, and bring them into the region by road. “Why go through the Strait when you can go straight to the Gulf,” the billboard […]
NEW DELHI: The telecom regulator has proposed to set the base price of 1800 MHz band in the upcoming spectrum auctions at 10% more than the previous round, a recommendation that operators and analysts say is likely to hurt an industry that is laden with debt and facing an uncertain business environment. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has suggested Rs 2,138 crore as the […]
By Harihar Swarup It is unbelievable but true that there are as many as 3,000 obsolete, redundant or repetitive laws in India. There are over 300 colonial-era enactments in force, which are absolutely redundant. Some of these British-era laws are even derogatory to a particular group and hence remind us of the days of slavery. Have a look at some of the ridiculous laws still […]
October 10, 2014 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY The American-led coalition’s bombing campaign against Islamist militants in Syria has focused new attention on the Westerners among their ranks. In television interviews broadcast this week, American, Australian and Dutch citizens who traveled to Syria to take part in the jihad against President Bashar al-Assad’s government expressed bitterness at the airstrikes their nations have carried out against Islamist rebels. […]
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) hired senior bankers from Rothschild and Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) for its investment banking business in the Middle East. The New York-based bank named Majed Al Mesmari, previously at Rothschild, as head of investment banking coverage in the United Arab Emirates, it said in a statement today. Fahad Al-Deweesh has joined from British lender Standard Chartered to lead investment banking coverage in […]
|By TAP Staff| RAK Petroleum said it would offer shares worth $25 million to institutional and retail investors in Norway and a private placement to certain international institutions. The IPO would be listed on the Oslo exchange. Current shareholders will be able to place their shares in the offer as well, the company said in a statement. RAK Petroleum said its assets included a 42.8 percent stake in DNO ASA, an […]
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA October 3, 2014 The Islamic State has released another video of a beheading — this one of a middle-aged British aid worker, Alan Henning, who was abducted last year from the ambulance he had driven into Syria to offer lifesaving help. As in the previous three execution videos circulated by the extremist group, the victim is shown kneeling in a rocky, desert landscape and is […]
The PM has pledged seven-day GP cover by the end of the decade Photo: Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph Everyone will have access to a family doctor seven days a week by the end of the decade, David Cameron has pledged. But according to official figures, millions of patients have to wait a week or more for an appointment with their GP. Doctors’ unions are warning that there would need […]
A landmark ruling by the court system in Dubai’s financial free zone suggests the emirate is starting to influence the way international business disputes are resolved in the Middle East, partly taking over that role from London and New York. Last month a court in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) found Switzerland’s Bank Sarasin had mis-sold $200 million of investment products to Kuwait’s prominent Khorafi family, […]
By Ashok B Sharma The likely face off between Indian and Chinese troops at the line of actual control (LAC) in Ladakh has been averted. Thanks to efforts of the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart Wang Yi at the margins of the UN General Assembly. The Chinese troops have begun withdrawing from Chumar in Ladakh following the flag meeting between two sides. […]
Defiant pro-democracy demonstrators remained on the streets of Hong Kong’s financial center early Monday, after a day of protest-fueled clashes that left at least 38 people injured. Despite calls from organizers for them to return home, many of the protesters continued to jam streets of the business district. The demonstrations, which authorities have intermittently attempted to disperse by force, follow a week of student-led boycotts and protests […]
ACT I. SCENE ONE A hotel in Northern England. Late morning. Ed, a 44-year-old politician, is posing for informal, behind-the-scenes photographs with his wife, Justine. He is due to make a speech in three hours’ time. It is being billed as the most important of his career. ED (talking like a ventriloquist, without moving his lips): Stop staring at my teeth, it’s making me feel self-conscious. JUSTINE […]
By BRUCE WEBER September 27, 2014 Michael Harari, an Israeli intelligence agent who led the hit squad that was sent to avenge the murders of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, died on Sept. 21 in Tel Aviv. He was 87. His death was reported by The Associated Press, citing a statement by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who called Mr. Harari […]
David Cameron has said he will keep the Barnett Formula but Scotland must expect extra responsibility and any deal must be fair to all parts of the UK Photo: FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA The Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, coined the phrase “When one door closes, another opens”. His fellow Scots’ nail-biting rejection of independence shelves the debate on secession. But it prises open the possibility of […]
A lead-alloy pilgrim badge found in the mud near London Bridge in 1982 shows John Schorne grasping the bat-winged Devil Mudlarks and enthusiasts with metal‑detectors sometimes turn up little scraps of lead, fretted and bent at the edges, perhaps with a face recognisable and not much else. These can end up in the scrap bucket, but with luck they add to the growing scholarly knowledge of pilgrims’ […]
City skyscrapers stand on the waterfront seen from a construction site of residential apartments on Palm Jumeirah artificial island in Dubai. Bloomberg News A rebounding Dubai property market has caught everyone’s attention again. Following a colossal crash in property prices in the wake of the financial crisis, not many had expected a recovery so soon afterwards, or so swiftly. The total amount invested in the emirate’s property […]
