LONDON The World Health Organization (WHO) is to launch a pilot project this year to assess cheap copies of expensive biotech cancer drugs in a bid to make such medicines more widely available in poorer countries. The U.N. agency said on Thursday it would invite drugmakers in September to submit applications for prequalification of so-called biosimilar versions of two such drugs on its essential medicines list, Roche’s […]
HSBC has beaten analysts’ expectations for its first-quarter results as strong trading conditions, rising interest rates and a weaker dollar lifted earnings, bringing welcome relief from its heavy miss at the end of last year. Pre-tax profits, adjusted for one-offs and currency moves, reached $5.9bn, surpassing consensus forecasts of $5.3bn. Shares opened up 3.4 per cent in London trading, hitting 668.30p. Europe’s biggest bank by assets, which […]
By Michael Holden | LONDON LONDON There is no cause for alarm about the welfare of Queen Elizabeth or her husband Prince Philip after all senior royal staff were summoned to a meeting at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, a well-placed source told Reuters. The Daily Mail newspaper had reported that senior aides from across the country had been called to the palace for an emergency meeting, leading […]
Etihad Airways has expanded its services to the southern Indian state of Kerala as it celebrates 10 years of flying to the popular destination. The airline said it has launched a fourth daily non-stop service between Kozhikode and its Abu Dhabi hub, taking to 63 the total number of weekly services between the UAE capital and its three Kerala gateways of Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. This represents […]
What are the major drivers of Twitter take-up, in Australia and elsewhere? Do we connect around shared interests, shared location, or pre-existing offline relationships? And when, in the eleven-year history of the platform, did these structures form? These are the questions that guided a new, long-term study of the Australian national Twittersphere that my colleagues and I have undertaken. Drawing on , a major multi-institutional facility for […]
Or at least not just about the Panama Papers. This election is about saving journalists their jobs. You see, the thing is, this really was the government that kept on giving. And I’m not referring to the just announced minimum wage increase which we will get in two years time, nor the hundreds of employees who have just started working with government and have been immediately given […]
ABB string inverters deliver power for the residents of Dubai’s first all-electric city. 04 May 2017 Dubai’s first city to be powered completely by solar energy relies on ABB string inverters to harness the power of the sun for residents. Inverters convert the direct current (DC) output from the panels in to the alternating current (AC) needed in homes. ABB has supplied 400 string inverters to […]
BEIJING A dust storm enveloped a swathe of northern China on Thursday dragging down air quality and visibility and prompting warnings for children and old people to stay indoors. Spring is China’s dust-storm season, when winds whip across the Gobi Desert picking up fine sand and dust particles and dumping them along a belt of heavily populated land further south. The official People’s Daily said the worst […]
Optus has announced that it will be wholesaling its 4G network to niche mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Moose Mobile for the next five years. Moose Mobile said it targets the youth market by selling refurbished iPhones and Android phones at low prices — pricing the iPhone 6 at AU$369, the iPhone 5s at AU$225, and the iPhone 5c at AU$199 — and has now become a […]
BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraq’s armed forces opened a new front against Islamic State in Mosul on Thursday, advancing on the militants’ enclave from the northwest, a military commander told Reuters. The army’s 9th Armoured Division and the Rapid Response units of the Interior Ministry were headed towards the city, he said. The attack would help the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and Interior Ministry Federal Police troops who were painstakingly […]
By Rishika Sadam and David Ingram Facebook Inc reported surging quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday, helped by its fast-growing mobile ad business, but its shares dipped from a record high in after-hours trading as investors showed some nervousness about future earnings. The world’s biggest online social network, which is nearing the five-year anniversary of its initial public offering, is searching for new types of advertising features […]
Samsung’s Bixby is out to compete with other AI assistants in the market. Its cred? Rapping. In Korean, at least. A video posted online showed the Galaxy S8‘s much-hyped AI assistant with a female voice rapping. The three-minute clip of Bixby rap was also discovered to contain a shoutout to Apple Siri. Bixby was baked into the Galaxy S8 when it was launched on March 29, with the […]
ABU DHABI // More than 300,000 people visited the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair this year for its 27th edition. The week-long event ended on Tuesday. Books worth more than Dh35 million were sold, and 1,320 exhibitors from 65 countries attended, organisers said. It was organised by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi […]
HONG KONG Hong Kong’s next leader, Carrie Lam, vowed on Thursday to heal political and social divides, pledging to return the global financial hub to its “normal course of development”. Lam takes office on July 1 after being selected in March amid widespread concern that Beijing’s meddling had sealed her victory and denied the freewheeling former British colony a more popular leader. The former civil service chief […]
The biggest names of the Indian film industry will be walking the red carpet in Abu Dhabi for this year’s South Indian International Movie Awards. Last year’s event was held in Singapore, while the event in 2015 was held in Dubai. This marks a first for the ceremony to be held in the capital. The award celebrations will be held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre […]
Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are poised for a high-stakes vote on healthcare reform on Thursday that could decide whether the president will achieve one of the key elements of his domestic legislative agenda following a rough first 100 days in office. After three months of roller-coaster efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — the healthcare law known as Obamacare that was […]
Freight volumes of Middle East carriers increased by more than 16 percent in March on a year-on-year basis, according to new figures released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). IATA said that while capacity increased 2.7 percent, international freight volumes increased 16.4 percent year-on-year in March – the fastest pace since June 2015. Seasonally-adjusted freight volumes maintained their upward trend as the year-on-year growth rate recovered […]
Intel has shuffled its executive ranks again, announcing that long-time executive Diane Bryant is stepping down from her role as GM of the Data Center Group (DCG). Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said in an email to employees that Bryant would be stepping away for six to eight months to tend to a personal family matter. Navin Shenoy, formerly GM of the Client Computing Group (CCG), will be […]
By Michel Rose and Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron clashed over their vision of France’s future, the euro and ways of fighting terrorism in an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday before Sunday’s run-off vote for the presidency. The two went into the debate with opinion polls showing Macron, 39, with a strong lead of 20 percentage points over […]
It’s not often that a fall saves someone’s life. Helen Powell, 74, says that was the case for her. A computerized tomography scan that followed her fall revealed a cancerous brain tumor that led her to surgery using first-in-the-world technology. (via WSJ)
By Jeff Mason and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to do “whatever is necessary” to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians as he hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, but offered no sign of how he could revive long-stalled negotiations. In their first face-to-face meeting, Trump pressed Abbas and other Palestinian leaders to “speak in a unified […]
Digitization identified as key for region to retain leadership in global logistics landscape Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 4 2017 Supply chain optimization took center stage at the ninth GPCA Supply Chain Conference, which took place between 2-4 May 2017 at the Rosewood Hotel in Abu Dhabi. During the event, speakers highlighted logistical efficiency as a top industry priority in the GCC as traditional supply chains across […]
A crack that could create an iceberg the size of Delaware — and destabilize one of the largest ice shelves in the Antarctic — has branched out and begun to widen more quickly, a scientist said on Wednesday. The new fissure has turned toward the shelf’s ocean edge, potentially speeding up the iceberg’s process of breaking off, said Dan McGrath, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks retreated on Thursday, taking their cues from a subdued session on Wall Street, while the dollar retained gains made after the Federal Reserve delivered a hawkish policy statement. At the end of its two-day meeting, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate steady as expected, but downplayed weak first-quarter economic growth and emphasized the strength of the labor market, […]
