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Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways are reviewing their workforce as overcapacity and a stronger dollar put pressure on earnings. The cutbacks show how the Gulf airlines’ rapid expansion of the past few years is slowing down against a more challenging economic backdrop. Dubai-based Emirates has offered redundancies to staff working in accounting, finance, IT and other departments in its head-office, sources […]

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS African states narrowly failed on Monday for a second time to halt the work of the first U.N. independent investigator appointed to help protect gay and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. The attempt was voted down in the U.N. General Assembly 84 to 77 with 16 abstentions, a month after African states made a similar unsuccessful move […]

Yoga Book (Credit: Lenovo) As Microsoft prepares once again to embrace ARM processors in the name of thinner and lighter computing devices, the Lenovo Yoga Book may be a hint of things to come. In some ways, the device — available in Android and Windows versions and coming soon in a Chromebook variant — represents a hybrid between the original Yoga and the original Surface. True to […]

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously called for U.N. officials and others to observe the evacuation of people from the last rebel-held enclave in Aleppo and monitor the safety of civilians who remain in the Syrian city. The 15-member council overcame long-held divisions – that have pitted Syrian ally Russia and China against western powers over the […]

Most players will tell you that the back-to-backs add up to more fatigue and more risk for injury. They have also become a marketing problem for the league, because coaches sometimes bench their stars for one of the games. Continue reading the main story Just last week the Cleveland Cavaliers left LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love at home when the team visited the Memphis Grizzlies […]

In this Sept. 5, 2014, file photo, the Apple logo hangs in the glass box entrance to the company’s Fifth Avenue store in New York. Ireland is appealing the European Union’s landmark order to collect 13 billion euros ($14 billion) in taxes from Apple. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Ireland will appeal the European Union’s landmark order to collect a record 13 billion euros ($14 billion) in taxes […]

Soaring price growth in China’s top cities has slowed almost to a standstill, as government measures to cool the overheated property market take hold. Price growth of newly built homes in China’s “first tier” cities of Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Guangzhou slowed to 0.1 per cent in November compared with the previous month, the National Statistics Bureau said on Monday — well below month-on-month growth of 3-4 […]

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Cloud accounting software firm Reckon has recently expanded its product scope, offering up finance for Australian small to medium business in a bid to remove red tape and give SMEs cashflow within hours. According to Reckon COO Dan Rabie, the move into the small business lending market was almost a natural progression. “We’ve been selling accounting software to small businesses for many, many years and a lot […]

Federer landed on his still-fragile left knee, which in February had required him to have surgery for the first time in his career, keeping him out for more than two months. Though he got up slowly at Wimbledon and finished the match, he did not finish the season. He even missed the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, which had long been one of his major late-career […]

In this Dec. 8, 2016 photo, Steve Burke and Jim Besha of Albany Engineering Corp. stand at the site of an abandoned iron mine in the Adirondacks, in Mineville, N.Y., where they’re seeking a federal permit to build an underground hydroelectric pumped storage project. The hills behind them are “tailings” leftover from crushing ore to extract iron from the mine that closed in 1971. (AP Photo/Mary Esch) […]

While an overseas buying spree by Chinese companies has grabbed headlines, more mundane activity such as trade finance and corporate cash management are a much bigger strain on China’s foreign exchange reserves, analysis of official data shows. The dominance of bank lending and portfolio investment as a source of Chinese capital outflows casts doubt on whether Beijing’s recent clampdown on big-ticket foreign deals by the likes of Dalian […]

Sunday, 18 December 2016 – Today, Phidar Advisory released its Dubai residential research note with November data, which is now reported using a 3-month moving average. The report shows that residential rents continue to decline and projects further declines. “The risk in the residential market remains on the downside,” said Jesse Downs, Managing Director of Phidar Advisory. “Weak investment demand and softening rents will push rates down […]

A series of big events shaped financial markets in 2016. Here is a selection of FT analyses and commentary, alongside charts, highlighting a tumultuous year. The new year rout January proved brutal for investors. After just 10 trading days, global equity markets had lost more than $4tn of value, with sentiment hammered by fears about China’s economic slowdown and a depreciating currency. In turn, bond markets were […]

By Lisa Barrington and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hopes to resume the evacuation of civilians and wounded from the Syrian enclave of east Aleppo on Sunday, a spokeswoman said. Thousands of people are left in Aleppo, some sleeping on the streets in freezing temperatures, after the evacuation of the rebel-held areas ground to a halt on Friday following […]

Venezuelans are bracing for Christmas without cash after the country’s highest denomination banknote was withdrawn from circulation with new larger bills not due until January, as many fear that the country is spiralling towards hyperinflation. Embattled President Nicolás Maduro this week announced plans to scrap the ubiquitous 100 bolívar bill, which makes up about half the country’s banknotes but is increasingly worthless as annual inflation is forecast […]

Settling into an interview with Marwan Bin Jassim Al Sarkal, the man in charge of luring foreign investors to Sharjah, it becomes evident that both tensions and ties bond the emirate with neighbouring Dubai. On the one hand Sharjah is cast into the shadows, often overlooked by businesses and visitors. On the other hand, the bigger brother’s international standing is helping the emirate of 1.5 million people […]

It was a clear and chilly afternoon in Moscow – March 18, 2014 – when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the documents to formally annex the Crimean Peninsula away from Ukraine. Frustrated Western governments soon began rolling out the only response they could agree on to Mr. Putin’s brazen redrawing of Europe’s borders: economic sanctions. Over the next two days, the United States would designate 27 individuals […]

Ghost sharks, officially called chimaeras, have been living in the deep sea swimming at great depths of about a mile and half below the ocean long before the time of the dinosaurs. These prehistoric marine creatures, however, are rarely seen and scientists know little about them. Now, the world has a chance to see this rare deep-sea shark as a video of this creature has finally been […]

Shock is a matter of perspective and expectation. Imagine a time traveller stepped through the door a year ago and said the UK would vote to leave the European Union, a presidential candidate who advocated debt renegotiation would be headed for the White House, and Italy would reject the reforms of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Who would have predicted a worldwide bull market for stocks and bonds? […]

Toronto worker Kristy Milland looks for data jobs that she can pick up to make ends meet. Image: Sam Santos/George Pimentel Photography This article originally appeared on TechRepublic. Each morning when she wakes up, Kristy Milland powers up her home computer in Toronto, logs into Amazon Mechanical Turk, and waits for her computer to ding. Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), which has been around for over a decade, […]

If there was a way to end the year on a bright note for as many businesses as possible, a deal to cut oil production was probably the most likely news to hit the spot. Of course, there will be some sectors not sharing in the joy – those that rely heavily on oil to fuel, such as aviation, manufacturing and agriculture, may be dreading increased costs. […]

ABU DHABI // The UAE has­­ ­appointed its first Ambassador to a Baltic nation. Hanan Al Alili will become Ambassador to Latvia when the UAE Embassy opens in the capital, Riga, next month. Inara Murniece, Latvia’s speaker of parliament, was in Abu Dhabi for the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament when the announcement was made. “It is important to have ­women in key positions in […]

By Karolina Tagaris and Renee Maltezou | ATHENS ATHENS Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems determined to go down in history as a leader who tried to save Greece’s most vulnerable from austerity. But the crowd of pensioners in Athens on Thursday night was cynical about his promise to placate them with a one-off Christmas bonus. “We are living in misery and we won’t tolerate being fooled […]

By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices were stable on Friday as evidence increased that producers in the Middle East were informing customers of upcoming supply cuts as part of a coordinated effort to drain a global glut. But since any production cuts will only hit markets early next year and Iraq is still raising sales to Asia, analysts at Goldman Sachs said that the price […]

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RYO YAMADA
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