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Orthodox Jews in black coats and skullcaps danced with Arabs in flowing robes and checkered kaffiyehs at a Hanukkah celebration over the weekend in Bahrain, a Muslim-majority monarchy whose king has sanctioned celebrations of the Jewish holiday. Video of the celebration, which included a Jewish delegation giving a large silver menorah to Arab dignitaries and members of both groups dancing together, appeared on Monday on YouTube, where […]

$6.2 million: Amount former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon, who Trump picked to serve in his Cabinet as the Small Business Administration administrator, donated to pro-Trump political groups ahead of the election 33: Number of states that will be led by a Republican governor in 2017 3-to-1: Factor by which Team Clinton outgunned Team Trump on the TV airwaves during the general election 11: Percentage of TV ads sponsored by […]

BEIJING The eastern Chinese city of Wuxi will suspend poultry trade from Thursday amid fears about bird flu, becoming the second city in Jiangsu province to halt live poultry markets, it said. The city will close live poultry wholesale markets, restrict vehicles carrying live poultry from entering Wuxi markets and temporarily ban the entry of outside poultry, the city’s information office said on Wednesday on its official […]

KABUL An explosion went off in a crowded area of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday, causing some casualties, witnesses said, while a police officer said it appeared to have been a bomb attack aimed at a member of parliament. The police official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media, also said there had been some casualties but he […]

ABU DHABI // A private philanthropic fund set up to support Emiratis in education, their careers, and encourage entrepreneurship has raised hundreds of millions of dirhams in its first year. Initiated in April by a group of Emirati businessmen, Sandooq Al Watan, or National Fund, aims to develop the economy by supporting social entrepreneurship, providing Emiratis with career guidance, identifying and developing talent and funding research and […]

Shares in Toshiba sank by their daily limit of 20 per cent on Wednesday morning as investors scrambled to reassess the company’s financial stability and questioned the future of one of Japan’s most celebrated industrial names. The stock plunge followed Toshiba’s warning to the market the previous evening that it could book multibillion-dollar impairment losses on part of its Westinghouse nuclear business in the US – a […]

By Thomas Wilson and Saeed Azhar | TOKYO/SINGAPORE TOKYO/SINGAPORE Japan Inc may become a more important force in dealmaking next year as its cashed-up companies seek to buy growth prospects elsewhere in the world and as Beijing’s crackdown on capital outflows prevents some Chinese companies from making foreign acquisitions, bankers and lawyers said. Facing tepid prospects at home after decades of stagnation amid a shrinking population, Japanese […]

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Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 28, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Dubai Art exhibition See the exhibition As If Anything Here Belonged To You, in which artist Cecilia Fattorini presents works about our impact on the world, sourcing her subject matter from the rhythms and […]

By Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry | MOSCOW/BEIRUT MOSCOW/BEIRUT Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the Syrian government was consulting with the opposition ahead of possible peace talks, while a Saudi-backed opposition group said it knew nothing of the negotiations but supported a ceasefire. In an interview with Interfax news agency, Sergei Lavrov did not say where the consultations were taking place or which opposition groups were […]

A Kingdom of Oil From the beginning, the social contract between commoners and royals constituted a trade-off: a share of the country’s wealth in exchange for absolute rule by the Saud monarchs. A Life magazine correspondent visiting in 1943 described how, as King Abdulaziz waited on a roadside while a flat tire was fixed on his Packard, he gave a shepherd passing on camelback several gold pieces. […]

Global debt sales reached a record in 2016, led by companies gorging on cheap borrowing costs that are now threatened by Donald Trump’s pledge to fire up the US economy. The bond rally that dominated the first half of the year helped entice borrowers that issued debt via banks to take on just over $6.6tn, according to data provider Dealogic, breaking the previous annual record set in […]

By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city. Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity […]

The low-for-long era is over. Central banks, fiscal activism and populism pricked the bond bubble in 2016. Next year will be a lot worse for bond investors, and the aftershocks of the burst will spread across many other assets. Since the crisis, investors have been buying bonds for capital gains and equities for yield, trusting in the holding hand of easy monetary policy. However, today the central […]

By Peter Hobson | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia, China and Pakistan warned on Tuesday that the influence of Islamic State (IS) was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating. Representatives from the three countries, meeting in Moscow, also agreed to invite the Afghan government to such talks in the future, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “(The three countries) expressed particular concern about the rising […]

Toshiba warned the market that it could book an impairment loss of “several billion dollars” at its troubled US nuclear division and reconsider its presence in that industry as accounting issues returned to blight one of Japan’s biggest industrial names. With Toshiba’s financial position becoming more clouded by the announcement, its chief executive, Satoshi Tsunakawa, told a press conference on Tuesday night in Tokyo that the company […]

The eurozone’s biggest stock markets are closing in on double-digit gains for the final quater of 2016, as a combination of resurgent banks shares and a weaker euro entice investors into a region that has disappointed for much of the year. On Tuesday’s return from the Christmas break, Germany’s Xetra Dax 30 advanced 0.1 per cent in early afternoon trading, and is now up more than 9 […]

MANILA Philippine authorities have seized about 6 billion pesos ($120 million) worth of methamphetamines in a series of anti-narcotics operations this month that have yielded the biggest haul in the country’s history, the justice minister said on Tuesday. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) conducted the operations, including one on Monday in San Juan City in the capital Manila where drums of chemicals used to produce methamphetamines, […]

In 2016 it was all about Panamagate. But by retaining Konrad Mizzi in his executive and Keith Schembri besides him in Castille, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat stubbornly failed to recognise the extent of the public outrage at these revelations Jurgen Balzan 27 December 2016, 7:20am Joseph Muscat stood by his men and by his own admission, he evidently considers himself unable to complete the energy plans without […]

AMMAN, Jordan: The Syrian army escalated aerial bombing of a rebel-held valley northwest of Damascus in an offensive begun last week to recapture the strategic area where a major spring provides most of the capital’s water supplies, rebels and residents said on Tuesday.They said the army shelled and bombarded several towns in Wadi Barada valley about 18 km (11 miles) northwest of the capital in a major […]

Dec 27, 2016 12:54 pm IST A Mumbai-bound Jet Airways plane carrying 161 people skidded off the runway on Tuesday at Goa’s Dabolim airport in western India. The Boeing 737 aircraft with 154 passengers and 7 crew members on board veered off on the runway minutes before it was scheduled to takeoff early morning from Goa, a popular holiday destination to travel to India’s financial capital Mumbai, […]

Cyanogen started with a grand dream: Create a commercially-supported, vendor-neutral Android-fork that anyone could use to keep their smartphones and tablets up to date. The vision went from grand to grandiose. In 2015, then Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster said, “We’re putting a bullet through Google’s head.” Not two years later, Cyanogen shut down its Android fork, CyanogenMod and its services. Android vendor Cyanogen is abandoning its operating […]

By Anne Mireille Nzouankeu YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sitting in a circle with several other young men in a charity’s offices in Cameroon’s capital, Fleur listens intently to the speaker talk about gay sex before slowly raising his hand. “Can we catch AIDS by swallowing sperm?” he asks, prompting laughter from his peers at the group discussion held by Alcondoms, an organisation promoting the rights and […]

BANGKOK Devotees of a Buddhist abbot suspected of money laundering barricaded entrances to their temple on Tuesday as more than 700 police assembled outside, preparing to raid the sprawling complex north of Bangkok. The Wat Phra Dhammakaya Temple commands a huge following and is supported by influential Thai politicians and business folk, but critics say it exploits people and religion for money. Thailand’s attorney general said in […]

Chinese retail investors may be able to dream of Picasso while hanging share certificates on their walls. A Singapore-based Chinese billionaire investor, who this year acquired stakes in peer-to-peer group Lending Club, Legg Mason, the fund manager and Sotheby’s, has proposed “securitising” the artist’s work to create fractional ownership and tap a wider market in Asia. Chen Tianqiao and his wife Chrissy Luo, co-founders of investment group […]

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