| By TAP Staff |With deadline fast approaching for Standard Chartered to exit part of its retail business, there is intense speculation over the likely suitor. Mashreqbank, one of the first names normally thrown up as a probable for such acquisitions, has ruled out any interest. The British bank is aiming to sell part of its business in the UAE after it agreed to close some accounts […]
Olive grove in Spain: Britons have taken this Mediterranean staple to our (we hope healthier) hearts Photo: Getty Images If the news that the price of olive oil may go up by 40 per cent is slightly alarming, it shows how we have taken this Mediterranean staple to our (we hope healthier) hearts. The stuff might only have been found in chemists when Elizabeth David’s writing caught on, […]
More and more places in Hong Kong now accept Chinese yuan Photo: ALAMY Lord Patten was the last governor of Hong Kong, and still, it seems, has a keen interest in its affairs. He has written a piece for The Financial Times, extolling his views on Britain’s “moral and political obligation” to its former colony. But his words, like his actions as governor, reveal that he never understood […]
Jeremy Paxman, who is a quarter Scot, would have like a say in the future of the Union Photo: PA/BBC On Thursday, the English will discover what the Scots really think of them. Like the final row in a troubled marriage, it could be the event that serves to separate those we were once told God had joined together. The decision is not for those of us who […]
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA September 13, 2014 The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria released a video Saturday of the third beheading of a foreign hostage, a British aid worker. The execution was a clear message to Britain, a vital ally of the United States as it builds an international coalition to target the militant group, which has made stunning advances across Syria and northern Iraq in recent months. […]
President Obama on Wednesday in Washington. Mr. Obama says he is aware of the “political price” he pays for being deliberate. By PETER BAKER September 13, 2014 WASHINGTON — Just hours before announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists last week, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East — the frenzied weeks leading up to the American invasion of […]
Standard Chartered Plc is in talks with potential corporate sukuk issuers from China and Hong Kong, as the city government debuts its Islamic bonds. The lender, the fourth-largest Shariah-compliant debt arranger this year, sees Hong Kong as a “very unique opportunity as a gateway to China,” Afaq Khan, the Dubai-based chief executive officer at Standard Chartered Saadiq, said in an interview. The city’s entry to the Islamic […]
Islamic debt could become a source of funding for U.K. infrastructure projects from wind turbines to high-speed trains and airports as Britain cements its position as the first sukuk market in a non-Muslim nation. Investors including Bank of London and the Middle East see scope for the U.K. to issue Shariah-compliant bonds with varying maturities after the Debt Management Office attracted bids for more than 10 times […]
By Dividend Yield: A good example how debt destroys the dreams of dividend growth investors is Tesco (OTCPK:TSCDY). The company cut its dividend payments yesterday by 75 percent. The major reasons for the trigger were worsening earnings as well as a high debt burden. Warren Buffett also bought a small stake in Tesco a few years ago and most of us thought it was a safe haven […]
The Floating Cinema drops anchor on the Grand Union Canal at King’s Cross, London Photo: HYDAR DEWACHI ‘It’s really captured people’s imagination,” enthuse producer Anna Ramsay and curator Laura Harford as they sit on the deck of the Floating Cinema, their 60ft wide-beam canal boat fitted out as a mini-Odeon. “I think it’s because it’s something so unusual, not at all what they expect to see on a […]
The United Nations condemned on Monday “appalling, widespread” crimes by Islamic State forces in Iraq, including mass executions of prisoners that could amount to war crimes. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay condemned “grave, horrific human rights violations” being committed by Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria to the alarm of the Baghdad government and its allies in […]
It’s slim, sleek, black and silver, and comes with Bluetooth. But unlike the latest mobile phone, you won’t be showing off the Black Pro 6500 to anyone outside your bathroom. This hi-tech gizmo from Oral-B – which has its own app – is the latest in toothbrush technology, and has a £250 price tag to match. It claims to be able to strip 100 per cent more […]
INTERNATIONAL. U.S. special operations forces made a failed attempt to rescue journalist James Foley and other Americans held hostage by Islamic extremists in Syria earlier this summer, the White House said in a statement. The secret mission was authorized by President Barack Obama after the administration’s national security team concluded that the hostages “were in danger with each passing day,” said Lisa Monaco, Obama’s assistant for homeland […]
U.K. authorities recovered more than 300,000 pounds ($498,000) from the sale of a convicted drug trafficker’s home in Dubai in the first such confiscation involving the United Arab Emirates. The apartment in Dubai Marina was owned by Redwan El-Ghaidouni, 37, who was convicted at Kingston Crown Court in March 2011 on drug charges, the Crown Prosecution service said in a statement on its website. A confiscation order […]
The execution of U.S. journalist James Foley by someone with a British accent has sparked soul-searching in the U.K. as to how and why the country has become an exporter of extremists to the Middle East. Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to redouble efforts to stop radicalized Britons traveling to Iraq and Syria to “take part in extremism and violence.” “The fundamental problem is as long as […]
Most of the rest of the world is horrified that so much British ice cream is made up of vegetable fat and air Photo: REX FEATURES The Ice Cream War was one of Scotland’s most notorious criminal cases. It involved two rival Glasgow families using ice cream vans to sell drugs and stolen goods in the Eighties. The vicious turf war culminated in arson and murder. Now, a […]
Letter From Europe Britons, including Anglican clergy members worried about the plight of beleaguered Iraqi Christians, accuse Prime Minister David Cameron of incoherence. By ALAN COWELL August 21, 2014 LONDON — For a century and more, Iraq has been the graveyard of Western dreams, often literally, from the defeat of British colonial forces in the First Battle of Kut in 1916 to the bloodshed that flowed from the American-led […]
August 19, 2014 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY After St. Louis county police officers in full battle gear trained sniper rifles on peaceful protesters in the suburb of Ferguson last week, and then proceeded to douse the streets in tear gas and round up journalists, a Russia analyst named Mark Adomanis observed that images of a crackdown on dissent in the United States would make life easier […]
Islamic State insurgents released a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria nearly two years ago, and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on U.S. action in Iraq. The video, titled “A Message To America,” was posted on social media sites. It was not immediately possible to verify its authenticity. Foley, who […]
|By TAP Staff| Indians were the biggest foreign investors in Dubai property in the first half of this year, while Saudis dominated the GCC investors. According to statistics published by the Dubai Land Department, more than Dh10.5 billion was invested into the emirate’s property market by Indians out of a total of Dh37.5 billion spent by foreigners in the first six months of the year. During the […]
Alex Salmond is taking refuge in scare stories about the NHS Down in the Salmond-bunker things are getting desperate. Assailed on all sides by, in no particular order, falling opinion poll ratings, senior colleagues who’ve lost confidence in him, a hammering at Alistair Darling’s hands in last week’s TV debate, the man in charge of the campaign to break up Britain is struggling to keep his head […]
London-based Gatehouse Bank is developing new business lines and widening its investor base as the Islamic wholesale lender looks to build a more stable revenue stream, its chief executive said. Gatehouse, one of Britain’s six full-fledged Islamic banks, is joining several of its peers in broadening its scope, after the country’s Islamic finance sector got a boost from the government’s first issue of an Islamic bond in […]
Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed it was considering selling the international arm of its private bank, a deal one source said could net it as much as $1 billion, as the British government leans on it to focus more on domestic lending. The move means that Coutts, founded in the 18th century and best known as banker to Queen Elizabeth, could be split into two businesses – […]
Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband Photo: PA To win in 2015, Ed Miliband not only has to set out a credible governing prospectus; he must demonstrate he fully understands Labour’s past mistakes. Mr Miliband has been coy about admissions of error on economic management, naturally preferring to castigate Britain’s Coalition government for overzealous austerity driving harsh cuts in the social fabric. Yet voters will only listen […]
