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By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT June 19, 2015 WASHINGTON — Iran continued its “terrorist-related” activity last year and also continued to provide broad military support to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the State Department said Friday in its annual report on terrorism. The State Department’s assessment suggests that neither the election of President Hassan Rouhani nor the prospect of a nuclear accord with the United States and its negotiating partners […]

Mohamed Alsawafiri, the presenter of  “The News Program,” playing with a prop on the set last month. By DIAA HADID and MAJD AL WAHEIDI June 19, 2015 GAZA CITY — Men and women stood with suitcases at the port, waiting for a boat. Suspicious, Tarek, a 13-year-old tea seller, wandered over and asked, “Are they really leaving?” He had never seen anyone leave Gaza before, he explained. As it turned out, his […]

Yemenis waited to buy food and water in Taiz on Friday. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has appealed for a two-week humanitarian truce in honor of Ramadan, which began this week. By SOMINI SENGUPTA June 19, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations mediator for Yemen peace talks said on Friday that four days of discussions had ended with no agreement for even a brief pause in […]

SANTIAGO, Chile — A haunting, yellowish glow radiates from the tiny section of empty wooden benches and crumbling concrete behind the north goal at Estadio Nacional. All around this space there is noise: 47,000 soccer fans screaming and jumping in delight as Chile’s national team plays Ecuador in the opening game of the Copa América. But no one sits on those wooden benches. They are reserved in […]

Trevor Tasin with three of his sons: John, 11; Ben, 13; and Dominic, 2. Mr. Tasin, a pilot who retired as a major in 2014 after flying Predator drones and training new pilots. By CHRISTOPHER DREW and DAVE PHILIPPS June 16, 2015 CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — After a decade of waging long-distance war through their video screens, America’s drone operators are burning out, and the Air Force is being […]

UAE. Private wealth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) showed solid growth in 2014 (8.4 percent), according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Growth Game, being released today. In the UAE, the growth of private wealth was driven mainly by equities. After all, between 2013 and 2014, the amount of wealth held in equities rose by 13.8 percent […]

INTERNATIONAL.  Oil production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) totaled 31.11 million barrels per day (b/d) in May, up 180,000 b/d from April and the group’s highest monthly volume since October 2012, according to the latest Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials and analysts. “OPEC’s communique after the June 5 meeting mentioned that members had been urged to adhere to its production […]

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By CHARLIE SAVAGE June 13, 2015 WASHINGTON — The United States has transferred six lower-level detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where each had been held for more than 13 years, the military announced early Saturday. The departures, to Oman, were the first from the prison in six months and reduced the inmate population there to 116 prisoners. The six men are all Yemenis and have each […]

By CHARLIE SAVAGE June 12, 2015 WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday threw out the conspiracy conviction of a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, ruling that bringing the charge before a tribunal was unconstitutional because an international war crime was not alleged. In a blow to the military tribunal system, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the […]

Some things can’t be summed up in 140 characters. Twitter Inc’s (TWTR.N) announcement that Dick Costolo would exit as CEO on July 1 was long on plaudits but offered few clues on how the company will tackle its biggest problem: user growth. Twitter’ shares were down 0.6 percent in early afternoon trading on Friday, after rising much as 3.9 percent just after the opening, as investors assessed […]

UAE. Dubai private sector companies indicated a modest rebound in output growth from the 18-month low recorded during April, according to the latest Emirates NBD Dubai Economy Tracker™ report. The latest survey also pointed to a slightly faster expansion of incoming new work, while modest job creation and positive sentiment regarding the business outlook was sustained. Of the three key sub-sectors monitored by the survey, construction was […]

WASHINGTON — In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province and send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi. Although a final decision by the White House has yet to be announced, the plan follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently […]

WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized the deployment of up to 450 more American troops to Iraq to train and assist the Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State, the White House announced on Wednesday, signaling a major shift of focus in the fight against the Sunni militant group. The United States forces will use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar […]

Tech giant Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicked off Monday at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco with the headlining keynote address. Among the topics discussed during the address were new capabilities for OS X, updates coming to iOS, native apps for the Apple Watch, a streaming music service, and a new version of the watchOS operating system. At the event, Apple also introduced […]

|TAP Special| Sections of public opinion in the Arab Gulf see anti-Arab bias and the grudge in losing the bid  for hosting World Cup as the main motivation for the campaign against Qatar in the award of 2022 tournament. As it becomes increasingly clear that the corruption scandal can have very negative implications for the hosting of the tournament, the Arab public opinion is also becoming more […]

ABU DHABI // Want to save the environment? Start by cleaning your plate. That’s the message dozens of youngsters heard yesterday as part of United Nations World Environment Day activities hosted by Tadweer at Yas Mall. The theme set by the UN for this year’s edition of the annual international campaign, which was commemorated around the world on Friday and aimed at raising awareness and action towards […]

QATAR. Risk, governance, globalization and technology are among the many risks currently facing companies. Internal Audit plays a critical role in addressing these issues while contending with the challenge of complying with the updated Committee of Sponsoring Organizations’ (COSO)  Internal Control-Integrated Framework, which is a widely used framework around the world, in which internal control is broadly defined as a process, effected by an entity’s board of […]

By MERNA THOMAS and ALISON SMALE June 3, 2015 CAIRO — In an unusual daytime attack near Egypt’s most visible tourist attraction, gunmen shot and killed two police officers on Wednesday, a few hundred yards from the pyramids of Giza, security officials said. Tourism is a vital source of foreign currency for the government, and a pillar of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s plan to revive Egypt’s battered economy. The years of […]

My wedding day was the first best day of my life. I could not have ordered a more perfect day if I had had a menu of choices in front of me. The marriage to my best friend was what I was really looking forward to. I wanted to settle down and start a family and that’s what we did. Our ideal world was lost on Sept. […]

Mena M&A value rises 9pc to $8.9bn in Q1 DUBAI, 23 days ago Announced deal value in Mena increased to $8.9 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015 from $8.2 billion during the same period last year, marking an increase of 9 per cent, a report said. In Q1 2015, 90 deals were announced as compared with 89 deals in Q1 2014, according to the Q1 […]

By SAM BORDEN and JODI RUDOREN May 28, 2015 ZURICH — The protesters outside the arena where FIFA staged the opening ceremony for its annual congress Thursday held Palestinian flags and blunt banners. “Red Card Israel Apartheid,” one read. “Occupation = Segregation,” another said. “EXPEL Israel, Say NO to racism and discrimination.” But as the congress convened, the Palestine Football Association’s proposal to oust its Israeli counterpart from FIFA, soccer’s international […]

UAE. Fifty-seven percent of global financial services executives believe regulation has enabled growth of their business, according to the results of Deloitte’s Staying Ahead of the Pack survey.  In addition, half of executives expect much more regulation in the near future, with 69 percent feeling prepared for it. The survey of 200 executives at banking, securities, insurance and investment management firms around the world was conducted to […]

Dubai Islamic Bank has priced a $750 million sukuk with a five year lifespan, a document from arranger banks said on Wednesday, with the cost of borrowing reduced by significant investor demand. The wakala-structured deal, in which one party manages assets on behalf of another, was completed at a spread of 125 basis points over midswaps and carried a profit rate of 2.921 percent, the document said. […]

JORDAN.  Technology will be a “game changer” in tackling youth unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa’s emerging Digital Economy, but only if the government, private, and people sectors collaborate effectively, according to a new report released on the eve of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) 2015. The report “Re-Dynamizing the Job Machine: Technology-Driven Transformation of Labor Markets in […]

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