|By Matein Khalid|The rise in Brent crude to $60 a barrel and the trade volume ballast generated by the world’s first post Lehman synchronized economic recovery is hugely positive for UAE economic growth in 2018. After all, the UAE is unique because Abu Dhabi’s 100 billion barrels of proven oil reserves is complemented by Dubai’s role as the Gulf’s financial, logistics, aviation, shopping and services hub. The […]
|By Matein Khalid| US and global equities surged on news of the US House of Representatives pass the tax reform bill, Cisco and Walmart posted blowout earnings and a potential bidding war emerged for Fox’s media assets. The rally on Thursday followed a week of carnage in the US high yield debt markets, flattening of the US Treasury yield curve and losses in the major stock market indices worldwide. […]
|By Matein Khalid|Emaar Properties will sell 20% of its UAE development portfolio in an initial public offering in November. This is the first IPO in the UAE capital markets in the last three years and follows bellwether offerings such as Emaar Malls and Emaar Misr. Emaar’s Dubai development’s adjusted net value is 24.1 UAE dirhams and I would not be surprised if the post IPO revalues the […]
|By F R Chowdhury| Myanmar (previously known as Burma) is a vast country of 676,550 sq. km. or 261,217 sq. miles on the north-east coast of Bay of Bengal. Basically it is between Bangladesh and Thailand though it has also long common border with India and China. Its population is only about 49 million. Majority are Buddhists. Next large population is ethnic Bengali Muslims and a small percentage […]
|By Matein Khalid| Trump’s post Charlottesville remarks, the Barcelona terrorist attacks and Cisco’s results unnerved the US stock market bulls last week. Friday was a surreal moment in the history of Wall Street. It was entirely rational for traders on the New York Stock Exchange floor to cheers and the Dow Jones Index rise 150 points when news broke that Trump had fired his alt-right, white nationalist chief strategist […]
The president’s packed schedule is filled with opportunities for Mr. Trump to slip up, publicly or privately: back-to-back discussions with the leaders of other nations, many of whom are veteran negotiators well versed in issues they care deeply about. Continue reading the main story By contrast, it could also serve as a much-needed change of subject for a president besieged at home with an agenda frozen by […]
Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, The system is disintegrating, and slapping a “reformist” coat of paint over the dryrot cannot renew the structural timbers that have rotted to their very core. I confess to being amused by the mainstream media’s implicit view that everything would be peachy if only Trump wasn’t president. Memo to MSM: the nation is fragmenting for reasons that have nothing to […]
For years we’ve written about the fact that Americans, young to old, are lousy savers (see “Retirement Crisis Looms As Average U.S. Household Has Saved $2,500 For Retirement“). Of course, they have to be because how else can a mature economy continue to grow unless every single person levers every asset they own to the maximum extent possible and then spends all of that money? Anything less […]
British world boxing heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua looks set to fight again in November, with both Dubai and Doha being considered as possible venues, according to the fighter’s promoter. Joshua scored a stunning 11th round knockout win against former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley last month, and it now looking towards his next bout. Speaking to media at a press conference this week, the fighter’s promoter […]
Europe’s top court has ruled that a key EU-Singapore agreement requires backing by all EU member states — but only for a narrow set of issues — in a decision that could chart the way for a post-Brexit trade accord with the UK. The European Court of Justice ruled that EU member states must sign off on specific areas related to investment in the Singapore trade deal. […]
By Ange Aboa | BOUAKE, Ivory Coast BOUAKE, Ivory Coast The leaders of a nationwide military mutiny in Ivory Coast have accepted a government proposal on bonus payments and agreed to return to barracks, ending their revolt, two spokesmen for the soldiers told Reuters on Tuesday. Neither Ivory Coast’s defence minister nor government spokesman was immediately available to confirm details of the agreement, but a Reuters witness […]
BuzzFeed News announced on Monday the addition of Forbes staff writer Ryan Mac to its expanding team of reporters in San Francisco who cover Silicon Valley. Mac, who’s already based in San Francisco, joins a BuzzFeed News tech team of 20. He’ll be covering “the intersection of wealth, tech and power” under BuzzFeed San Francisco Bureau Chief Mat Honan and technology editor John Paczkowski. Rather than focus […]
Authored by Gwynne Dyer via BangorDailyNews.com, “I am no Mussolini,” Venezuela’s beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro insisted on television early this month. But if things go on this way, he could end up like Mussolini. That would be very unfortunate for him and also for Venezuela. The daily street protests against Maduro’s rule are in their second month, and around 40 people have already been killed, most of […]
By Angus McDowall and Ayat Basma | BEIRUT BEIRUT The Middle East’s protracted conflicts have caused a region-wide health crisis that goes beyond war wounds to heightened resistance to antibiotics and a collapse in vaccination drives, leading to a resurgence of diseases tamed in peacetime. Health threats are so varied that one of the Middle East’s main teaching hospitals, the American University of Beirut Medical Center, has […]
Having surged to its highest since Oct 2014 early in the year on the back of Trumptopian exuberance, Empire Fed’s manufacturing survey crashed back to -1.0 in May 4 standard deviations below expectations. This is the worst (and first) contractionary print since October 2016 as New Orders crash from 7-year highs to 7-month lows. Prices paid and received both fell (deflationary threat from China), inventories […]
While equity volatility has collapsed to record lows (amid the biggest increase in net VIX shorts in 9 months), positioning across bond, FX, money market, and commodity markets has been shifting massively in recent weeks. As US Macro data has crashed to its weakest and most negative in 12 months… US equity complacency has hit record lows… As Speculators add to VIX shorts by the […]
When we looked at subprime auto delinquencies most recently, we found some troubling trends: first, in February, we showed that 61+ day delinquencies in General Motors’ subprime securitization book would support a rather bleak thesis for future auto sales, and specifically the demand side of the equation, with January 2017 delinquency rates soaring to the highest levels since late 2009/early 2010. Ironically, this hasn’t stopped lenders from […]
The tunnel was one of two at the Energy Department’s Hanford reservation used as dumping grounds from 1960 to 2000 for radioactive machine parts, vessels, and other equipment. It was, in short, a tangible expression of the department’s policy of covering over some of its nuclear bomb-making detritus and effectively pretending it isn’t there. The neglect followed a blunt warning 26 years ago from the State of […]
Europe’s investment community has barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief following Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential elections before starting to fret about other latent threats to the eurozone. Some investors have hailed the election — in which Mr Macron, a pro-EU liberal defeated Marine Le Pen, the Eurosceptic rightwing candidate — as a sign that Europe’s economic recovery remains on track. This […]
But conservatives have targeted Mr. Rouhani for what they regard as his softness toward the United States and tolerance of Western culture. They also have sharply criticized him for what they call his misleading prediction that the nuclear agreement would herald an economic boom in Iran, where joblessness remains pervasive and the economy is the most pressing campaign issue. Still, Mr. Rouhani is considered the front-runner. Photo […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump has responded to the new South Korean president’s advocacy of talks with North Korea by saying he does not oppose discussions, but reiterated that the circumstances must be right, according to a transcript of an NBC interview. Moon Jae-in’s advocacy of engagement with North Korea has appeared to contrast with the approach of the United States, South Korea’s main ally, which has […]
Balikatan 2017 highlights humanitarian assistance & disaster response as well as counter-terrorism operations. Photo by Chiara Zambrano, ABS-CBN News. Troops from the Philippine and United States Army conducted urban search and rescue exercises in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija Friday, as part of humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) training for Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises 2017. Simulating a disaster in the city, the two armies practiced search and extraction […]
The completion date for the world’s tallest tower has been pushed back to 2019, a Saudi Arabian billionaire said Thursday, almost six years after launching the record-breaking project. Jeddah Tower is to rise more than a kilometre (almost 3,300 feet), placing it above Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. “The project was delayed… but it’ll open (in) 2019,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal told AFP during a visit to the site […]
Nuclear radiation concerns are up at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation facility in the United States where an underground tunnel collapsed. The site has been functioning as a depository of radioactive nuclear waste since 1980. The nuclear waste removal at the site has been costing more than $2 billion a year and is supposed to go on until 2040. The facility contains 56 million gallons of nuclear waste stored […]
