Infrastructure of Berth 5 and Berth 6 at final stages of this year’s strategic expansion 21 December 2016 King Abdullah Economic City, The infrastructure works for Berth 5 and Berth 6 are about to be finished in a few weeks, King Abdullah Port announced on Wednesday. The two berths are part of the port’s strategic expansion plan, which aims to significantly uprate the port’s capacity, thus boosting […]
BEIJING China will ban imports of poultry and related products from countries where there are outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird flu, the agency that oversees safety of the country’s imports said on Wednesday. China has already banned poultry imports from more than 60 countries. The statement, sent by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine to Reuters, comes as South Korea battles its worst-ever outbreak […]
ZURICH Swiss biotech group Actelion’s (ATLN.S) shares rose by more than 3 percent on Wednesday following a report that talks with Sanofi (SASY.PA) are making progress, increasing optimism that the two will strike a deal. Reuters reported late on Tuesday that discussions between the Swiss and French companies are progressing, despite investors’ fears that the Swiss biotech firm’s chief executive and founder might not want to sell. […]
A group of lawyers has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government for failing to prevent the severe smog that has covered the north over the past week, underlining the discontent voiced by tens of millions of citizens online. Beijing and many other cities in north China are entering their sixth day running of pollution “red alerts”, which have closed down schools, roads and factories. More than 350 […]
Photo A Turkish honor guard with the coffin of Andrey Karlov, the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey, at a ceremony Tuesday at an Ankara airport. Credit Emrah Gurel/Associated Press For the moment, the most important thing to say about Monday’s dramatic assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey by a lone gunman is that it has not ruptured relations between the two countries. It might have, given past […]
This year could go down as the one that turned everything on its head, India’s popular central bank governor Raghuram Rajan was ejected from his post, Prime Minister Narendra Modi voided 86% of the country’s currency overnight and Donald Trump became U.S. president elect. India Real Time’s most-read stories show what readers were looking at as they tried to make sense of it all. Any insight into […]
BERLIN German police on Wednesday intensified a manhunt for the driver of a truck, who killed 12 people when he mowed into a Berlin Christmas market, and said they were following a number of good leads. After releasing a Pakistani asylum-seeker arrested near the scene, authorities warned that the attacker is on the run and may be armed. They have also said it is unclear if the […]
Submitted by a Zero Hedge reader who wishes to remain anonymous: OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER-PRESIDENT SEEHOFER(Sent before the carnage in Berlin’s Christmas market) Dear Minister-President Seehofer, I would like to commend you on your opposition to mass uncontrolled immigration into Europe. One would think that it would be trivial to praise politicians – who are elected to uphold law and order, meaning our culture and values – […]
By Thanarith Satrusayang | BANGKOK BANGKOK Thailand and China are in talks about building military production facilities in Thailand, a Thai defense ministry spokesman said on Wednesday, the latest sign of warming relations between China and America’s oldest ally in Asia. Relations between Thailand and the United States cooled following a May 2014 military coup that the Thai military said was necessary to end months of unrest, […]
By Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL South Korea on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for a daughter of the woman at the centre of President Park Geun-hye’s corruption scandal and investigators raided the National Pension Service over possible links to the scandal. A special prosecutor’s investigation started on Wednesday into the influence-peddling scandal that threatens to make Park, 64, the first democratically-elected leader to leave office early […]
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is reviewing its strategy of investing in European airlines and is seeking an exit in a shake-up that could lead to the departure of CEO James Hogan, company and industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Etihad saw a strategy to take equity stakes in carriers like Air Berlin, Alitalia and Air Serbia as a way to expand its European network but losses have mounted with Air […]
When mandatory telecommunications data retention legislation was first introduced — the so-called “metadata” retention laws — Australia’s favourite Attorney-General Senator George Brandis QC stressed that it wouldn’t be used to chase copyright infringers. “They can’t be and they won’t be,” Brandis said of the laws on ABC TV’s Q&A in November 2014. “The mandatory metadata retention regime applies only to the most serious crime, to terrorism, to […]
SYDNEY The U.S. dollar held near 14-year peaks on Wednesday as global yield spreads moved inexorably in its favor, while a falling yen lifted Japanese shares to a one-year top. The Nikkei .N225 added 0.3 percent in thin trade, while Australia’s main index climbed 0.6 percent to its highest in 17 months after Wall Street racked up more records. Japan’s government upgraded its overall assessment of the […]
Distant galaxies can be seen as they were when most of today’s stars were being born, report scientists, answering longstanding questions about mechanisms of star formation billions of years ago. (via WSJ)
JAKARTA Indonesian anti-terrorism police killed three suspects after a gunfight at a house south of the capital, Jakarta, where a bomb was found, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. The raid came soon after Indonesian police had said they were interrogating 14 suspects after a series of arrests relating to planned suicide attacks in the capital, Jakarta, and elsewhere. “During the raid, we tried to be careful […]
A draft law to approve the federal budget for next year – which estimated expenditure for the year at Dh48.7 billion and revenue at Dh47.696 billion – was passed by the FNC on Tuesday. Before going through the law’s details, members of the council voiced their concerns over some issues, among them that 85 to 90 per cent of one of the sub-budgets was allocated to employee […]
Australia’s corporate regulator has ordered Slater & Gordon to produce documents in relation to an investigation into the accuracy of its financial records, sending shares in the beleaguered law firm down more than 6 per cent. S&G has faced a string of issues with authorities in the UK and Australia following its disastrous 2015 acquisition of the professional services arm of UK-based Quindell, now known as Watchstone […]
But by the time Mr. Trump is sworn in next month, such safe zones may be irrelevant, if the evacuation of Aleppo and political negotiations proceed. Continue reading the main story More than a year after launching the air campaign that remade the battlefield in Mr. Assad’s favor, Russia appears to be looking for a way out of the war. Analysts say that Moscow sees in the […]
Wednesday 02:10 GMT Overview Stocks across Asia were on the rise, with sentiment buoyed by continued gains for Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes in on 20,000 points for the first time. Hot topic The Dow Jones rose 0.5 per cent overnight in New York to close a mere 25.4 points shy of the 20,000-point milestone, while the S&P 500 added 0.4 per cent […]
World’s leading hotel operator AccorHotels announces first Mercure brand in the country Muscat, Oman, 20 December 2016 AccorHotels, one of the world’s leading hotel operators announces the opening of Mercure Sohar in Oman. Blending the best of business and leisure, this new hotel pays tribute to its environment with an authentic offering reflective of genuine Omani warmth and hospitality. Nestled between Al Hajjar Mountains and the Sea […]
SHANGHAI Northern China was shrouded in smog for a fifth straight day on Wednesday as citizens complained that the state’s emergency measures were still not being implemented properly. Residents in Shijiazhuang, the capital of heavily industrialised Hebei province that surrounds Beijing, complained that schools were still open even though the city remained on red alert with air pollution levels close to record highs. Media reports in central […]
By Sue-Lin Wong | YANJI, China YANJI, China The brightly coloured packages advertising “Walleye Pollock” at the West Market in Yanji, a Chinese city near the border with North Korea, say the fish came from China. But 15 vendors interviewed at the market say the fish came in from North Korea to be processed, packaged and mostly sold in China. They say they buy the […]
Queensland-based image-recognition startup TrademarkVision has landed the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) as the first customer of its new deep learning algorithm. Following a successful beta trial, the EUIPO will now be integrating TrademarkVision’s new deep learning algorithm into its eSearch platform to cut down the time it takes to search EU image trademarks. Previously, trademark searches and monitoring required the use of descriptive — and […]
A Middle Eastern investment banking fee bonanza should extend into 2017, spurred by a combination of bond and share sales and mergers and acquisitions as the region adjusts to lower oil prices, bankers say. Deals such as Saudi Arabia’s $17.5 billion debut international sovereign issue and the sale of a majority stake in retailer Kuwait Food Co (Americana) to Gulf-based Adeptio have helped banks’ earnings, off-setting falls […]
