Authored by Bethany Bell Rome has been struggling to cope with a rubbish crisis and Austria has spare capacity at a waste-to-energy plant near Vienna. So a deal has been struck. The Italians are paying Austrian company EVN to dispose of up to 70,000 tonnes of Roman household refuse this year. The waste is transported by train through northern Italy, over the Alps and ends up at […]
Many discussions of digital transformation focus on marketing metrics such as page views, clicks, and even mentions in the press. Although marketing is important, this limited and unsophisticated view ignores underlying issues such as improving business speed, agility, and responsiveness to customers. Only by rethinking business models can we meaningfully gain benefit from digital transformation in departments across the company including operations, supply chain, manufacturing, and customer […]
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts, Not everyone likes to hear about the threat of nuclear war. Some find refuge in denial and say that nuclear war is impossible because it makes no sense. Unfortunately, humankind has a long record of doing things that make no sense. In previous posts in recent years I have pointed out both written documents and changes in US war doctrine that indicate […]
Russia. Flags.Image: Yuri Kochetkov/Epa/REX/Shutterstock By Colin Daileda2017-04-30 02:42:34 UTC Trolling is mostly dumb, but sometimes it’s an art. President Donald Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday and, as he was speaking, someone tossed a bunch of tiny Russian flags, confetti-style, in front of the cameras streaming his speech to news networks. As far as protests go, it certainly earns points for creativity. The Trump campaign […]
Islamabad Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry Tuesday said Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) used Panama Papers as a political ploy after its allegations of electoral rigging were rejected by a judicial commission in 2014.Addressing a press conference along with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Member of National Assembly Daniyal Aziz, he said the name of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was not even […]
ROME The Knights of Malta, a Catholic chivalric order and global charity, elected a new, interim leader on Saturday to oversee a period of reform and restore calm to the organisation after its recent row with the Vatican. The previous grand master, Briton Matthew Festing, resigned in January after a month-long, highly public spat with the Vatican over the running of the group, which laid bare tensions […]
BEIRUT Fighting between rebel groups in the biggest insurgent stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus entered a second day on Saturday, while government forces pressed an offensive against the besieged enclave, a war monitor said. The clashes broke out in part of the densely-populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta which has been besieged by Syrian government forces since 2013. The Syrian Observatory […]
Sadara’s 26-plant chemical complex makes strong headway towards full operation with completion of plastics envelope JUBAIL, Saudi Arabia, April 27, 2017 – Sadara Chemical Company (Sadara) announced today the startup of its fourth and final polyethylene unit, the High Pressure Low Density Polyethylene (HP-LDPE) Train. This marks a significant milestone for the company as it continues to bring its world-scale manufacturing facilities on stream. The HP-LDPE Train […]
From the Slope of Hope: Earlier this week, my son asked me a sincere question: “How come Marissa Mayer got $200 million by screwing up Yahoo?” It was a good question, and one I had trouble answering at first, because I’d like him to think that there’s some level of fairness, meritocracy, and sensibility to this world of ours. In Mayer’s case, however, there is none. Her entire massive fortune is […]
By Matt Robinson | BELGRADE BELGRADE Nationalists in Macedonia are “playing with fire” in refusing to relinquish power and the European Union should consider halting its accession process in order to break a dangerous deadlock, said the former envoy who helped avert civil war in the Balkan country. A long-running political crisis in the former Yugoslav republic turned violent on Thursday when supporters of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE […]
It has been a long time since an HP business device made me sit up and take notice, but the latest Elitebook x360 has changed that. In a world where manufacturers continue to push tablets with keyboards as productivity devices, I’m increasingly convinced that convertible laptops are the superior option. The Elitebook x360 1030 G2 is first and foremost a very good laptop, and the ability to […]
MANILA A strong earthquake measuring 7.2 struck off the coast of Mindanao island in the Philippines on Saturday, and the country’s seismology agency advised people to stay away from coastal areas but expected no major damage. There were no immediate reports of destruction or casualties, but witnesses said the quake was very strong and shook the ground and walls. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was […]
North Korea tested a ballistic missile on Saturday morning local time, in a provocative move that came just hours after Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, called on UN member states to impose “painful” sanctions on the regime in Pyongyang. US Pacific Command, which oversees US forces in Asia, said North Korea launched a missile at 5.03am local time on Saturday from a location near Pukchang airfield, […]
28 April 2017 Beirut, April 27, 2017 US$ 43.9 billion of assets US$ 36.0 billion of customers’ deposits US$ 17.0 billion of loans to customers Advertisement US$ 3.8 billion of shareholders’ equity US$ 110 million of net profits in the first quarter of 2017, of which 23% from Odea Bank and 10% from Bank Audi Egypt, raising the contribution of entities abroad to consolidated net profits to […]
On the last day of the busiest earnings week in a decade, here is a striking statistic from Goldman Sachs, showing just how dominant a handful of large cap companies have become in terms of both overall profitability and market impact: Year to date the top 10 contributors have combined to account for 37% of the S&P 500 index return (more than double their market cap representation […]
Emerging market equities have been the darling asset class de jour in 2017, mainly in Asia and Latin America, despite the March FOMC rate hike, a US Dollar Index at or above 100 and a mini-swoon in crude oil after a Saudi-Russian output cut spat. Earnings growth (India/Thailand) a stabilized currency (China), policy reforms (India, Brazil, Indonesia) local interest rate cuts (Brazil) and lower US protectionist policies […]
With Democrats seemingly unsatisfied with Republicans dropping border wall funding and adjusting on Obamacare-related items, it appears President Trump is calling Schumer’s and Pelosi’s bluff, proclaiming “If there’s a shutdown, there’s a shutdown,” adding that Democrats would be to blame if the federal government was left unfunded. Schumer today: *SCHUMER: TRUMP CONCESSIONS BRING SPENDING DEAL CLOSER TO FINISH *SCHUMER SAYS ‘SOME STICKING POINTS’ LEFT ON SPENDING BILL […]
By Karen Lema and Neil Jerome Morales | MANILA MANILA Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Friday warned that Southeast Asian countries needed to ensure their economic growth was inclusive, or risk marginalized populations turning to violent extremism or even overturning political systems. Speaking at an event for entrepreneurs during the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Manila, Najib said the region was posting […]
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has taken the limelight in Southeast Asia not only as the host of the ASEAN Summit this year, but also as a center of infrastructure development in the region given the government’s aggressive infrastructure push. The country’s lead infrastructure agencies said in a press briefing yesterday their respective infrastructure development programs have garnered strong interest from other members of the Association of […]
SKOPJE Protesters stormed into Macedonia’s parliament and the leader of the Social Democrats was injured in a fistfight on Thursday after his party and ethnic Albanian allies voted to elect an Albanian as parliament speaker, witnesses said. Live television footage showed Zoran Zaev with blood trickling from the left side of his forehead, not long after he announced that the majority coalition led by his party had […]
JERUSALEM Israel’s Patriot anti-aircraft missile system shot down an aerial target over the Golan Heights on Thursday, the Israeli military said. Israeli media said residents in the northern Israeli town of Safed reported seeing two missiles being launched and of explosions occurring afterwards. It was initially unclear whether the target, which media said was an unmanned drone, was shot down over Syria or Israeli-controlled territory. The incident […]
There’s rich material to be mined from the premise of The Circle, a new thriller set in the offices of a tech giant that’s like Google, Facebook, and Apple all rolled into one. Unfortunately, the film has neither the patience nor the insight to dig very deeply at all. Instead, it blows the whole concept to rubble and pats itself on the back for having the insight […]
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and later led to the creation of both PBS and NPR, also recognized the importance of archiving public broadcasting material in the United States. It stipulated that CPB should: …Establish and maintain, or contribute to, a library and archives of noncommercial educational and cultural radio and television programs and related materials and develop […]
By James Pomfret, Lawrence White and Sumeet Chatterjee | DONGGUAN, China/LONDON/HONG KONG DONGGUAN, China/LONDON/HONG KONG In the digital age, footfall in bricks-and-mortar outlets is an incomplete measure of business activity, but HSBC’s empty branches in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) suggest it’s not all plain sailing for the bank’s expansion in mainland China. HSBC, the world’s sixth-largest bank by assets, announced in 2015 that it would hire […]
