Photo Donald Trump at a rally against the Iran deal in Washington last year. He vowed during his campaign to renegotiate or renounce the agreement. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Seventy-six national security experts urged President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday to reverse his hostility to the nuclear agreement signed with Iran last year and to use it as a tool to ease other tensions with […]
After months of sending government troops to battle militants blowing up oil pipelines in the Niger Delta, Muhammadu Buhari tried a different tack. The Nigerian president invited the region’s community leaders and traditional rulers to his villa this month for talks — a step energy sector executives hoped could halt a wave of sabotage since January that has cost the country billions of dollars in damages and […]
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below. I’m a fan of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s performance as Negan on The Walking Dead, but we’re quickly seeing that a little Negan goes a very long way. After listening to him flippantly speechify for a solid hour in the premiere, and then catching a bit more of him last week in “The Cell,” this week’s chapter began to collapse under […]
Investors are betting on a new era of improved US-Russian relations following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election — anticipating that a possible easing of economic sanctions and a reduced risk of capital flight will make the rouble more robust than other emerging market currencies. At the end of last week, the rouble escaped the worst of a brutal sell-off in emerging market currencies that […]
Peter Thiel, the billionaire who became Donald Trump’s most prominent backer in Silicon Valley, made a critical distinction last week. He complained that the media tended to take the man literally, but not seriously. Now that Mr Trump is the president-elect of the US, everyone takes him seriously. And hence it becomes vital to work out whether we should take what he has been saying literally. After […]
Photo An Egyptian street vendor in Cairo on Friday. The country is struggling with soaring inflation and shortages of staple foods. Credit Amr Nabil/Associated Press CAIRO — The International Monetary Fund approved a $12 billion loan for Egypt on Friday, in a move intended to stave off economic collapse in the Arab world’s most populous nation as it grapples with a plunging currency, soaring inflation and shortages […]
By Catherine Cadell | SHENZHEN, China SHENZHEN, China Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) Singles’ Day festival posted a record 120.7 billion yuan ($17.73 billion) worth of sales on Friday, though the gala shopping day saw growth slow as Chinese shoppers searched for deeper discounts and lower pricetags. Amid fanfare and celebrity razzmatazz, sales on Alibaba’s platforms had raced to a billion dollars in less than five minutes […]
The EU is ready to use punitive anti-dumping tariffs on imports — such as steel — after a UK-led blocking minority of countries opposed to the reforms collapsed. Britain had been part of an alliance set on scuppering the plan as unnecessary and protectionist. But on Friday the Netherlands and Austria indicated that they would throw their weight behind the proposal, leaving the UK likely to be outnumbered when […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Crossing from Syria into Lebanon on Tuesday night proved to be a parable for the diametrically opposed ways the world sees the election of Donald J. Trump. At the passport counter, a Syrian officer’s face lit up when he saw an American traveler. “Congratulations on your new president!” he exclaimed, giving an energetic thumbs up. Mr. Trump, he said, would be “good for Syria.” […]
By Marcin Goettig | WARSAW WARSAW Poland’s digital economy minister accused Facebook FN.O of censorship on Monday after the company suspended some users’ profiles for using a little-known far-right symbol. The Falanga symbol, depicting a stylised hand holding a sword, was used by a banned radical nationalist group in the 1930s but is legal in Poland and other countries. It now serves as the logo of a […]
AT&T Trying To Buy Time Warner Inc. After its acquisition of satellite television service DirecTV, telephone giant AT&T Inc. might be setting its sights on an even bigger prize, Time Warner Inc. Bloomberg News reported Thursday afternoon that AT&T and Time Warner executives have engaged in preliminary talks about a potential merger or other partnerships. [Update: Friday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T is in […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE has started the process of staffing the Federal Tax Authority, which will be responsible for the implementation of the proposed federal tax system, beginning with the introduction of VAT. The Ministry of Finance is scouting around for a Compliance and Enforcement Director, who will help maximise Federal tax revenues through the development and implementation of compliance and enforcement strategies. Deloitte LLP […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Despite external debt remaining at tight spreads due to still-high leverage and refinancing challenges, Dubai will muddle through the current crisis in terms of debt rollovers, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in its latest research. Although the investment bank expects the local bid on the shorter end to weaken due to low oil prices, it sees chances of less supply risk for Dubai […]
WASHINGTON — The United States formally suspended talks with Russia about the protracted Syria conflict on Monday because of the Russian military’s role in the assault on the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo. The United States also shelved plans with Russia for the joint military targeting of jihadists in Syria, the State Department said in a statement. The American step reflected aggravated tensions with Russia on a […]
The Interpreter By AMANDA TAUB It is a truth universally acknowledged by every war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars, like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much ignored conflict, do not. Some of the reasons are obvious; the scale of Syria’s war is catastrophic and much worse than Yemen’s. […]
|By Matein Khalid| When Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in May 2013, he triggered a bloodbath in emerging markets and a free fall in “fragile five” currencies that included the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah. However, Asian equities markets, while not immune to a Fed rate hike, are far better positioned for higher US dollar interest rates than in 2013, let alone 2007 or 1998. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The global oil market will most likely remain oversupplied for the rest of 2016 and well into 2017, rating agency Standard & Poor’s has forecast. The view has been attributed to global oil production remaining in excess of demand, and the resulting persistently high crude oil and product inventories putting spot prices and near-term futures under significant pressure. Members of the Organization of […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| With the Algiers meeting of OPEC drawing closer, the approach of the price boost initiatives is itself apparently evolving into something totally different from the initial idea of some sort of an output freeze. The new buzz word seems be ceiling rather than the freeze. Of course, the overriding consideration is voluntarism. According to reports, the OPEC producers, particularly the camp led by […]
Despite dark conspiracy theories in Turkey linking the United States government to the military coup attempt on July 15, Turkish leaders see no signs of American complicity with the plotters, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday. But Mr. Kurtulmus also said it was “the expectation of the people of Turkey” that the American judicial process would lead to the extradition of the person they regard […]
CAIRO — Seven people were killed in Saudi Arabia when a missile fired from Yemen struck a commercial district in the city of Najran, the kingdom’s official news media confirmed on Wednesday. The attack, on Tuesday evening, appeared to have been carried out by Houthi militias in northern Yemen in retaliation for a series of deadly airstrikes by the Saudi-led military coalition on Monday and Tuesday. Those […]
MOSCOW — Russia launched a fleet of bombers bound for Syria on Tuesday from an Iranian air base, becoming the first foreign military to operate from Iran’s soil since at least World War II. Russian use of the base, with Iran’s obvious support, appeared to set back or at least further complicate Russia’s troubled relations with the United States, which has been working with Russia over how […]
Normally, individual molecules of genetic material repel each other. However, when space is limited DNA molecules must be packed together more tightly. This case arises in sperm, cell nuclei and the protein shells of viruses. An international team of physicists has now succeeded in artificially recreating this so-called DNA condensation on a biochip. Recreating important biological processes in cells to better understand them currently is a major […]
