Stephen Fry has boasted of taking drugs in royal palaces and famous hotels Photo: REX FEATURES Someone once called Stephen Fry “a stupid person’s idea of what a clever person is like”. Which is unkind: there’s nothing wicked about being a bit stupid, or admiring celebrities who seem brainy and cuddly, or enjoying a faux-donnish, avuncular figure who admits his problems with depression and makes you feel as […]
|TAP Special| The star-crossed Dubai Pearl project is in trouble again. Work on the project, which has a history of chronic fund shortages, missed deadlines and botched up designs, has been completely stalled and expectations of an early resumption of construction have been belied. In the wake of defaults of various nature, the structure faces the risk of even a second demolition, according to insiders. After the […]
As airstrikes led by the United States against the militant group Islamic State continued on Wednesday, for the first time in over two decades – Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf monarchies openly joined the campaign. While Arab participation in the strikes is of more symbolic than military value, analysts described it as a bold move for a group of countries that for long preferred to act […]
Saudi exported just below 7 million barrels of oil per day in May-July,the lowest amount since September 2011 Saudi Q2 GDP growth down to 3.8pc on oil slowdown DUBAI, 19 hours, 16 minutes ago By Martin Dokoupil Saudi Arabia’s economic growth eased to an annual 3.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2014, the lowest rate in a year, because of a slowdown in the oil […]
How do you take sales away from a dominant company like Apple? One way might be to beat Apple’s signature product to market with one of your own. That seems to be the thinking by Samsung as it prepares to launch its new Galaxy Note 4 “phablet” ahead of schedule in China and South Korea this week. With early sales success by Apple with its iPhone 6 […]
Actress Emma Thompson and her daughter Gaia take part in the “People’s Climate March” in central London Photo: REUTERS Down with climate change! Listen – and heed – Emma Thompson’s dire warning on global warming! There now, how’s that? Having satisfied everyone’s environmental conscience, let’s tackle the other burning (but, let me stress, not fossil-fuel) issue at the heart of the People’s Climate March in London at the […]
Hedge funds extended this year’s longest exit from bullish gold bets as slumping prices and investor outflows since June erased $6.7 billion from the value of exchange-traded funds backed by the metal. The net-long position in New York futures and options fell for a fifth straight week, with speculators boosting short bets to the highest since June, U.S. government data show. Investors sold 7.75 metric tons of […]
DIFC Investments LLC, which owns properties in the Dubai International Financial Center business park, said it plans to raise about $700 million from an Islamic bond sale to repay debt and fund development as borrowing costs decline. The state-controlled company, which is planning to issue the sukuk before the end of October, will use the proceeds to repay the $650 million outstanding on a syndicated loan, DIFC […]
|TAP Special| Dubai World will reach a deal on renegotiating its debt repayment schedule soon, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Dubai’s Supreme Fiscal Committee, disclosed. “I can say for sure we will reach it. It is there and you will hear about it soon,” he told reporters at the sidelines of Ciyscape. Dubai World had offered creditors a series of incentives to lengthen a $25 […]
David Cameron has said he will keep the Barnett Formula but Scotland must expect extra responsibility and any deal must be fair to all parts of the UK Photo: FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA The Scottish inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, coined the phrase “When one door closes, another opens”. His fellow Scots’ nail-biting rejection of independence shelves the debate on secession. But it prises open the possibility of […]
A lead-alloy pilgrim badge found in the mud near London Bridge in 1982 shows John Schorne grasping the bat-winged Devil Mudlarks and enthusiasts with metal‑detectors sometimes turn up little scraps of lead, fretted and bent at the edges, perhaps with a face recognisable and not much else. These can end up in the scrap bucket, but with luck they add to the growing scholarly knowledge of pilgrims’ […]
Worried about the privacy of your calls and text messages to friends and family? Well, BitTorrent is publicly releasing a version of Bleep, its new peer-to-peer messaging system aimed at eliminating any potential snooping middlemen. BitTorrent, the San Francisco-based company behind the peer-to-peer protocol of the same name, began pre-alpha, invite-only testing of Bleep in late July. On Wednesday, senior product manager Jaehee Lee announced in a […]
‘Yes’ supporters demonstrate outside BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow, calling for the sacking of the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson Photo: Rex Features The significance of tomorrow’s referendum on Scottish independence is impossible to exaggerate. Scots will be faced with a choice whose consequences will echo down the ages – namely, whether to break apart a Union that has stood for more than 300 years, and instead become […]
A rush by Dubai’s retail investors to take part in the initial public offer of Emaar Properties’ malls unit put pressure on the emirate’s stock market on Tuesday, while successful fund-raising for the Suez Canal expansion lifted stocks in Egypt. Emaar said late on Monday that institutional investors had committed to buying all the shares offered to them in the flotation of its shopping malls business, only […]
Arabtec Holding said on Tuesday it was unaware of any stake sale agreement between its largest shareholders following reports that the company’s former chief executive was about to sell at least part of his stake. Arabtec “does not have the information” on such a deal, it said in a bourse statement. Shares in Arabtec jumped 3.7 percent to 4.77 dirhams on Monday following a report that its […]
A new solid state drive (SSD) from Micron Technology promises to be the company’s highest performing drive to date. The M600 SATA SSD, shown here, will boast improved power efficiency, better performance, and increased durability and lifespan. The drive also comes with 256-bit hardware encryption and will be available with capacities ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB. The new drive is being positioned on the high-end […]
A Palestinian family looks from a window at the rubble of a collapsed tower following Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City in a Aug. 26 file photo. Associated Press The outlook for Gaza’s economic recovery is “bleak” after a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas unless there is “a fundamental change of the political status quo”, according to a sobering International Monetary Fund report released Tuesday on the […]
Boom and bust – two words that are regularly heard when the property market in the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, is discussed. But that theme appears to be changing. At least that’s what some industry experts are indicating. The property market, after rebounding sharply since early 2013 from the global financial crisis-induced crash, is now showing signs of stabilising – with the pace of growth in […]
Savola Group, a Saudi Arabian food producer, hired JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) to advise on a potential bid for the operator of KFC restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. Non-binding bids for the $4.3 billion Kuwait Food business, known as Americana, are due next month, the people said, asking not to be identified as the […]
UAE. Two-thirds (66 percent) of millennial high-frequency travellers rate “unique rewards” as an important factor when choosing a hotel loyalty program, compared with just 43 percent of their older counterparts, according to a new Deloitte study, “Winning the Race for Guest Loyalty”. “Our study indicates that customers are waiting to see which program will provide them with the greatest relevant rewards before they commit to a brand, […]
INTERNATIONAL. With momentum building for international military action against Islamist extremists in Syria, the United States reiterated Friday it will not coordinate with strongman Bashar al-Assad in the effort. “The answer to the security challenges is not the Assad regime,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. “They have created this security vacuum. We are not going to be working with them in this fight,” she […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Banks with experience arranging Islamic bond sales may stand to benefit from the potential opening of Saudi Arabia’s debt market to foreign investors, according to the investment banking unit of Mashreqbank PSC. (MASQ) “There’ll be a lot of potential for non-Saudi banks to get involved on the advising and arranging side,” Abdul Kadir Hussain, who oversees about $700 million as chief executive officer of Mashreq […]
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “extremely encouraged” by pledges of military assistance against Islamic State militants by countries inside and outside the Middle East and that some nations had offered ground troops. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to try to secure backing for U.S. efforts to build a coalition to fight the Islamic State militants who have grabbed territory in Syria […]
Secretary of State John Kerry and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, in Cairo. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK September 13, 2014 CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no public commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq […]
