It has been almost five years to the day since Mahmood Hashim Al Kooheji took over as head of Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, restructuring several investment interests and making other changes to whip the fund into shape after years of losses. It followed a term at Gulf Air in which he managed the national carrier’s controversial restructure that saw 15 percent of its staff, around 600 […]
Last weekend, after looking at the latest H.8 statement by the Fed, we noted something concerning: total loans and leases by U.S. commercial banks were rising at an annual pace of about 4.6%, based on weekly Fed data. That is down from a 6.4% pace for all of last year and peak rates of around 8% in mid-2016. This is the slowest pace of debt creation since […]
(Image: Intel) Intel has taken the wraps off its first Optane 3D XPoint storage product, the SSD DC P4800X, which the company claims can make database transactions up to 10 times faster. Optane will first be available from today to select early customers as a 375GB add-in card, and during the second half of the year will also be available in 750GB, 1.5TB sized cards, and as […]
Cheat days have become a modern phenomenon. A quick scan of social media hashtags such as #cheatday and #cheatmeal, yields over a million photos of freakshakes, oozing cheese burgers and deep fried chicken wings. A few hundred more are posted each weekend in a declaration of freedom from the dieting drudgery suffered during the week. Celebrities, who know a thing or two about restrictive diets, have also […]
By Patrick Markey and John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi army helicopters strafed and fired rockets at Islamic State positions in Mosul’s Old City on Sunday as troops on the ground closed in on the strategic and symbolic prize of the al-Nuri Mosque. Federal Police troops had advanced past the train station in western Mosul closer to the mosque. A police commander said they were […]
Spam emails are often used to distribute malware. Image: Symantec Cybercrimes like phishing and malware distribution could almost be eradicated if organisations took one simple step to actively fight against it, a senior member of the UK’s organised crime fighting operation has claimed. That step, says Paul Edmunds, Head of Technology at the National Crime Agency (NCA) National CyberCrime Unit, is the adoption of an “active defence” […]
KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian police are expected to make a few more arrests, including an “important person”, in connection with the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, state media reported on Sunday. Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar declined to elaborate on details when speaking to the state media, adding that the arrests would be made at the appropriate time. “I […]
By Tracy Rucinski | CHICAGO CHICAGO A U.S. judge formally approved Peabody Energy Corp’s (BTUUQ.PK) plan to emerge from bankruptcy late Friday after the coal producer struck a settlement with the U.S. government over legacy environmental claims at a gold and metal mining subsidiary. Under a last-minute deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Peabody agreed to create a $43 million trust to manage environmental liabilities stemming […]
DevOps is a great concept — but many enterprises are still struggling to get out the starting gate with it. Photo: CERN Press Office That’s the key takeaway from a recent survey of 2,045 IT managers and professionals, released by Quali, an IT automation solutions provider. While most people in enterprises would say at this point that they have DevOps underway in some shape or form, achieving […]
By Abdelaziz Boumzar | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Thousands of Iraqis surged out of western Mosul on Saturday during a lull in heavy fighting in districts around the densely populated Old City where Iraqi forces are facing fierce resistance from Islamic State militants. Five months into the battle to take Islamic State’s last bastion in Iraq, government forces have cleared the east and half of western Mosul, […]
ISTANBUL Turkish authorities have detained 740 people for suspected links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) over the last three days, state media reported on Saturday citing an Interior Ministry source. Authorities carried out 36 raids during the three-day period, seizing equipment, documents and more than a dozen guns, state-run Anadolu Agency said. Turkey faces multiple security threats, including Kurdish militants and Islamic State, both of […]
If you like your crime shows bleak, British and full of David Tennant snapping grumpily at people, then you need to start watching Broadchurch. The ITV drama — which was insanely popular in Britain when the first season was broadcast back in 2013 — has just gotten stuck into its third season. At the time of writing, we’re three episodes in. Every time a new season of […]
AJMAN // Four adventurers drove 1,400 kilometres to a far-flung area of Oman and planted the UAE flag on one of the world’s highest sand dunes. The members of the UAE Adventure Club, a non-profit organisation that teaches people about the desert and off-roading, made the trip to Mazyouna province, in the south of Oman near the Yemen border, aiming to become the first to raise the […]
When Dorian Rogers hosted the first performance poetry night Rooftop Rhythms five years ago at Abu Dhabi’s Cafe Arabia, he expected a few dozen people to show up at best. Fast-forward to today, and Rogers is expecting up to 300 people to turn out for the 47th Rooftop Rhythms at NYU Abu Dhabi on Friday, marking the monthly night’s triumphant fifth anniversary. Drawing on diverse traditions – […]
British gardener Alan Titchmarsh is something of a national treasure in the United Kingdom. He has his own statue at the famed Madame Tussauds waxworks museum in London, which, curators claim, needs to be cleaned twice-weekly because of the lipstick smudges that his amorous fans leave on his likeness. His career in horticulture spans more than half a century and he’s well known to British audiences for […]
By Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Justice Department is developing plans to temporarily reassign immigration judges from around the country to 12 cities to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes, according to two administration officials. How many judges will be reassigned and when they will be sent is still under review, according to the officials, but the Justice […]
By Anna Mehler Paperny | TORONTO TORONTO Canada’s border authorities detained more Mexicans in the first 67 days of 2017 than they did annually in any of the three previous years, according to statistics obtained by Reuters. The spike comes immediately after Canada’s federal government lifted its visa requirement for Mexican citizens in December. Many Mexicans looking north have shifted their focus from the United States to […]
By Lisa Baertlein | LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) investors will vote soon on whether to give the franchisees who operate most of the fast-food chain’s restaurants the opportunity to elect a board member, the proponent of a shareholder proposal said on Friday. The proposal, which faces long odds of success, is believed to be the first of its kind and has attracted great interest […]
Humans, especially Americans, are kind of slobs. We mess up the Earth by throwing out about 4.5 pounds of garbage per person on average every day. Two-thirds of that waste could be composted, but isn’t. And half of the rest of it could be recycled, according to research from the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment, corroborated by studies from the Global Footprint Network and others. Now, […]
Plans have been revealed for the first residential community of private “green” villas and townhouses at Masdar City, Abu Dhabi’s flagship sustainable urban development. LEAD Development and Project Management Consultants (LEAD) and The National Investor (TNI) will build the project, which will also include apartments, and is to be delivered over 250,000 sq m of gross floor area. The freehold real estate development will accommodate around 5,000 […]
By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed | MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD Iraqi forces battling Islamic State in Mosul edged into the Old City and around the al Nuri mosque on Friday trying to seal off a main road to prevent militants sending in suicide bombers to attack their positions. Troops are meeting fierce resistance as militants retreat into the Old City, where street fighting is expected in […]
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, is undoubtedly familiar with “tone at the top,” a term coined by audit firms and drilled home by business ethicists in the wake of financial scandals at Xerox, Enron and Arthur Andersen. When corporate leaders fail to model tone at the top by upholding principles, corners are cut and lapses trickle down and poison institutional culture. And yet […]
By Umaru Fofana | FREETOWN FREETOWN A Christian pastor has found one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds – weighing 706 carats — in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kono region. The stone, a photograph of which was posted on the president’s official website, is being stored in the country’s central bank, government sources said. A local chief from Kono handed the stone to President Ernest Bai Koroma on […]
By John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq After five months of intense fighting, Iraqi forces have begun to drive back Islamic State into the dense and narrow-alleyed Old City of Mosul, with the mosque where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014 firmly in sight. Iraqi leaders say the battle to recapture Mosul is reaching its final stages, trumpeting each gain made against […]
