DUBAI // A foundation providing help and shelter for abused women and children has reported a rise of two-thirds in calls to its hotline for the first half of this year. The Dubai Foundation for Women and Children received 2,034 calls in the six months – an increase of 63 per cent – 552 of which were about women and children suffering some form of abuse. Director […]
TEHRAN — For Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter now on trial for espionage in Iran, the incident was extraordinary but still looked like another example of the difficulties in covering the country’s politics. On a spring day in March 2014, his wife and a female photographer were stopped in broad daylight in their car on a busy Tehran highway and taken into a van, where, friends […]
People talk in front of a Baidu’s company logo at Baidu’s headquarters in Beijing January 16, 2014. Reuters/Jason Lee Baidu Inc’s (BIDU.O) quarterly profit missed analysts’ estimates as China’s biggest Internet search company spent heavily to diversify away from its core search advertising business, which is becoming less profitable and more competitive. Baidu’s shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading on Monday after the company’s […]
Dubai Financial Market (DFM), the Gulf’s only listed stock exchange, reported a 48 percent fall in second-quarter net profit on Monday as bourse turnover slumped. The firm, which runs securities trading in Dubai, made a net profit of 132.4 million dirhams ($36.05 million) in the three months to June 30, down from a net profit of 252.5 million dirhams in the year-ago period, a statement said. DFM’s […]
The Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey on Monday. Turkey and the United States agreed on a plan that would create what officials are calling an Islamic State-free zone, which the Turks say could also be a “safe zone” for displaced Syrians. By ANNE BARNARD, MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT July 27, 2015 BAGHDAD — Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, […]
July 27, 2015 Observatory By SINDYA N. BHANOO Farming may have originated 23,000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. Researchers discovered a large number of seeds at an ancient hunter-gatherer site known as Ohalo II on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. Many of the seeds had scars, a mark that distinguishes domesticated species from wild […]
A salesperson cleans next to an iPhone 6 at an Apple store in Beijing, October 17, 2014. Reuters/Jason Lee/Files BEIJING Police in Beijing have busted a factory that produced more than 41,000 fake iPhones worth as much as 120 million yuan ($19 million), including some that reached the United States, and have arrested nine suspects in the counterfeiting operation. Apple is one of the most popular brands […]
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, addresses a gathering during the Internet.org Summit in New Delhi October 9, 2014. Reuters/Adnan Abidi/Files MUMBAI Facebook Inc plans to scale up its service to offer free basic Internet on mobile phones, an executive said, after introducing the application in 17 developing countries over the past year. In a blog post released to mark the first year of the initiative, […]
DUBAI // A leading estate agent and property management company in Dubai has gone out of business with the loss of dozens of jobs. S K Real Estate ceased trading last Tuesday without warning to most of its 70 employees. The glass door to the company’s office on floor 11 of Concord Tower in Media City has been smashed. Staff at neighbouring businesses arrived at work yesterday to […]
ISTANBUL — As Turkish fighter jets pounded Kurdish militia targets in northern Iraq late Friday, the implications of the attack weighed heavily on Turks and Kurds across the border in Turkey, as they faced the prospect of being drawn back into a bloody civil conflict after years of relative peace. In 2013, Turkey brokered a historic settlement with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., vowing to […]
After much hype and an abundance of testing, Windows 10 — the latest version of the Microsoft Windows operating system — begins this week, with release starting July 29. The new OS is scheduled to roll out in phases, going first to Windows Insiders and then being released in waves to users who have made reservations online. Enterprise users will begin seeing Windows 10 on August 1. […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a striking admission, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said on Sunday that the country’s army faced a manpower shortage and had ceded some areas to insurgents in order to hold onto other regions deemed more important. Mr. Assad also acknowledged in a speech televised from Damascus, the Syrian capital, that many Syrians could not watch the address because of the lack of electricity […]
Pearson Plc is in talks to sell its half stake in the publisher of the 172-year-old Economist magazine, marking another step toward the former conglomerate’s transformation to an education company. The Economist is one of the assets that were excluded from London-based Pearson’s agreement this week to dispose of the FT Group to Japan’s Nikkei Inc. Pearson’s 50 percent holding could be valued at as much as […]
JERUSALEM — The two issues with perhaps the broadest consensus and resonance in Israeli politics are opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and support for the release of Jonathan J. Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy, from a North Carolina prison. Now the two could be tied together, as some in Washington appear to be highlighting Mr. Pollard’s likely parole in November in hopes of quieting the vigorous […]
ISTANBUL — Turkish fighter jets, which on Friday attacked Islamic State targets in Syria, have launched a wave of airstrikes in northern Iraq, targeting camps of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the first time in four years, the prime minister’s office said Saturday. The Iraq raids, which began late Friday and continued into Saturday, effectively ended an unstable two-year cease-fire between the Turkish government and the […]
The bargain hunters who thronged Kumar Jain’s jewelry store in Mumbai as gold prices tumbled in 2013 are staying away for now. They’re holding off because they think this week’s collapse to the lowest price in five years has further to run, according to Jain. That’s a view shared with Goldman Sachs. “It hasn’t been anything like what happened two years ago,” Jain said, referring to the […]
REUTERS – Amazon.com Inc’s shares surged more than 20 percent in early trading on Friday, adding more than $46 billion to the company’s market value, after strong growth in the e-commerce giant’s cloud business drove a surprise quarterly profit. The company’s market capitalization soared to more than $270 billion, overtaking that of Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s biggest retailer. Revenue from Amazon’s cloud operations – Amazon Web Services […]
A surge in shares of Amlak Finance since they returned to Dubai’s stock market last month has raised concerns about a new wave of unbridled speculation on one of the region’s biggest exchanges. The Islamic mortgage lender has soared about 150 percent since it restarted trading in early June after a six-year suspension due to debt problems. At its latest close of 2.52 dirhams, the stock is […]
An AT&T Logo is pictured on the side of a building in Pasadena, California, January 26, 2015. Reuters/Mario Anzuoni WASHINGTON The No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier AT&T Inc (T.N) and the biggest satellite-TV provider DirecTV (DTV.O) became the country’s largest pay-TV company on Friday, completing their $48.5 billion merger after receiving final regulatory approval. The newly expanded AT&T leapfrogs the biggest U.S. cable company Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O). […]
Delegates arrives for a special meeting of the General Council Preparatory Committee on Trade Facilitation at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva November 27, 2014. Reuters/Denis Balibouse/Files GENEVA The World Trade Organization finalised a list of 201 information technology products to be freed from import tariffs in a $1.3 trillion deal on Friday, but said it was still short of the critical mass of countries […]
Once Nike bought Converse, this moment was imminent. They’ve updated the iconic Chuck Taylor for the first time in 98 years to include Nike technology. Purists may groan, but the Chuck 2 looks the same as it ever has and now features a Lunarlon outsole, making it much more comfortable & better for your feet. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is […]
ADEN // An Emirati plane landed in Aden at dawn on Friday, bringing humanitarian aid to the southern Yemeni city only hours after its airport came under rocket fire from rebels. In total, four aircraft have arrived at the port city since the symbolic reopening of Aden’s international airport on Wednesday, which followed nearly four months of fierce fighting. The UAE plane delivered medical supplies from the […]
July 24, 2015 By LAILA LALAMI One afternoon last April, I stood in the doorway of my daughter’s room, watching her prepare for a big recital. She was going to perform with her middle-school orchestra in Santa Monica. She packed her violin, rosined her bow, put on a black dress and tamed her wild hair into a bun. ‘‘There,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m ready.’’ How lovely she looked, […]
Video | Kerry Defends Nuclear Deal to Senate Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meeting resistance from Republican members of the group. By JONATHAN WEISMAN and MICHAEL R. GORDON July 23, 2015 WASHINGTON — After four and a half hours of contentious questioning, three cabinet secretaries deployed Thursday by President Obama to the Senate to defend his nuclear deal with […]
