|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
WASHINGTON — The United States formally suspended talks with Russia about the protracted Syria conflict on Monday because of the Russian military’s role in the assault on the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo. The United States also shelved plans with Russia for the joint military targeting of jihadists in Syria, the State Department said in a statement. The American step reflected aggravated tensions with Russia on a […]
By HWAIDA SAAD and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE September 30, 2016 BEIRUT, Lebanon — An array of groups allied with the Syrian government pressed an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Friday, as the World Health Organization said heavy bombardment of the area by Russia and Syria had killed 338 people in the last week, including more than 100 children. With more of the city’s already limited hospitals destroyed in the latest offensive, […]
Two years ago, Meitha Al Mazrooei and Rand Abdul Jabbar, two young architects, decided to form a partnership. The decision was born of frustration. Both had spent years studying their profession, Al Mazrooei at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and Abdul Jabbar at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and Columbia University in New York, but given their views on the way that architecture is understood and […]
By ERIC SCHMITT, MICHAEL R. GORDON and SOMINI SENGUPTA September 20, 2016 Russia was probably responsible for the deadly bombing of a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in Syria, American officials said Tuesday, further shredding what remained of a severely weakened agreement between the United States and Russia aimed at halting the war. Aghast at the attack on Monday night, United Nations officials on Tuesday suspended all aid convoys in Syria, describing the […]
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG September 20, 2016 WASHINGTON — If there is a single link between the wars fought by the United States in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it is the long list of errant airstrikes carried out by American warplanes. Weddings, funerals, hospitals and friendly forces have been mistakenly attacked, with each strike prompting fresh outrage. While most of those killed have been civilians — in Afghanistan alone, […]
WASHINGTON — The United States’ accidental bombing of Syrian troops over the weekend has put it on the defensive, undercutting American efforts to reduce violence in the civil war and open paths for humanitarian relief. The United States had thought that if a deal to ease hostilities in Syria, struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart in Geneva nine days ago, fell apart, […]
TEL AVIV — Eight months after the attack, the killer’s face hovered over Dizengoff Street again, full of menace and malevolence. On a giant outdoor screen, the killer, Nashat Melhem, talked about death and cursed the Jews as evening strollers passed by, a chilling voice from beyond the grave that was taped on his mobile phone before he opened fire on the crowds gathered here on New […]
MOSCOW — Russia launched a fleet of bombers bound for Syria on Tuesday from an Iranian air base, becoming the first foreign military to operate from Iran’s soil since at least World War II. Russian use of the base, with Iran’s obvious support, appeared to set back or at least further complicate Russia’s troubled relations with the United States, which has been working with Russia over how […]
The long hindwing tails sported by many moths have long been suspected as a strategy to confound predators. The moths are active mainly at night, so they don’t need a visual disguise — they need to avoid nocturnal hunters that navigate by sound. Researchers at the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University took a detailed look at the acoustics of the common luna moth, to see […]
A new research replication project, involving 24 labs and over 2100 participants, failed to reproduce findings from a previous study that suggested that self-control is a depletable resource. The findings are published as part of a Registered Replication Report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Over the last twenty years, numerous studies have provided evidence supporting the idea that our […]
A federal judge sentenced a man to six months in federal prison Thursday for hacking into hundreds of Apple and Google accounts and stealing scores of personal photos, including some belonging to celebrities. U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt also issued a $3,000 fine to Andrew Helton, who pleaded guilty to a federal hacking charge in February, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Helton, […]
BAGHDAD — As Britain on Wednesday looked back on its decision to go to war in Iraq 13 years ago, Thamir al-Shemmary went to the funeral of his brother and two nephews, killed over the weekend in Baghdad’s deadliest terrorist attack since that war began. Mr. Shemmary had a question for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister whose decision to join the invasion came under critique […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The coordinated militant attack on the eve of Eid is the biggest challenge yet to Saudi Arabia’s internal security since it crushed an al-Qaeda insurgency a decade ago, according to Bloomberg. With no claims of responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Islamic State, which has vowed to overthrow Gulf rulers they see as betraying Islam. One of the bombings on Monday, near the Prophet’s Mosque […]
|By Matein Khalid| David Cameron, Wall Street’s elite, Mutti Merkel, Obama, the Eurocrats of Brussels, the great and the good of the City and the IMF’s Lady Christine all got it so horribly wrong. I slept Thursday night with sterling at 1.50 on New York and awoke to see it trade at 1.34 on Friday, a 30 year low before the Plaza Accords. Britain has voted to […]
|By Matein Khalid| Sterling sell off in the world currency markets and the sheer populist appeal of Boris Johnson suggests the world should not rule out a geopolitical shock that will unnerve financial markets and lead to the mother of all rate cuts at the Bank of England. If Britain votes to leave the EU, the only currency I want to own is the Swiss franc and gold, […]
Iran has reached an agreement with the Boeing Company for the acquisition of new passenger planes to help modernize its outdated fleet, state-run Iranian news media reported on Tuesday. Such an agreement, if completed, would potentially be worth many billions of dollars to Boeing and amount to the most prominent commercial transaction between an American company and Iran since sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program were lifted […]
PARIS — With the Obama administration having effectively given up on negotiating a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, France tried its hand on Friday at making Middle East peace but ended the day with little to show for its efforts. Even before President François Hollande convened diplomats from 29 countries for the session — including Secretary of State John Kerry but no representatives of either […]
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund made its highest-profile deal, investing $3.5 billion in U.S. ride-share company Uber Technologies Inc. as the country seeks to diversify its assets with more overseas acquisitions. Yasir Alrumayyan, managing director of the Public Investment Fund, will take a board seat at the San Francisco-based company after the deal, which values Uber at $62.5 billion, the company said in a statement. It’s the biggest […]
YISHUV HADAAT, West Bank — With shoulder-length hair tumbling from beneath his knit skullcap, Hanamel Dorfman, a radical young Israeli settler, explains matter-of-factly on camera how hilltop settlement outposts like his own will continue to proliferate across the West Bank. From there, he says bluntly, Israelis will cross the Jordan River and start building on the other side. Reminded that beyond the river there is another sovereign […]
A security guard keeps watch as he walks past a logo of Google at an exhibition stage during the 4th China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair 2016 in Shanghai, China, April 21, 2016. Reuters/Aly Song WASHINGTON Google has no plans to expand its partnership with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to create a self-driving car, the program chief at the Alphabet Inc unit said on Thursday, affirming that the […]
In 1900, John and Horace Dodge founded the Dodge Brothers Company in Detroit, Michigan. They jumped into the mix of a budding automotive industry, attracting the attention of Olds Motor Vehicle Company and Ford. The Dodge bothers later became an exclusive supplier to Ford but that relationship was never meant to be. “I am tired of being carried around in Henry Ford’s vest pocket,” declared John Dodge […]
|By Matein Khalid| It is no coincidence that the most profitable hotels on the planet are located in Makkah, the holiest city of Islam as the site of the Grand Mosque and the Kaaba. For fifteen centuries, Muslims have traveled to Makkah from all over the world for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages, making the city the highest source of inbound foreign visitors in Saudi Arabia. Makkah is […]
|By Matein Khalid| The global credit cycle has an immediate impact on the UAE via oil prices, the US dollar peg, cross border bank credit flows, Federal Reserve monetary policy and world trade. The IMF has cut its 2016 growth forecast to 2.6%, the lowest since 2010. A leading developer just booked a 20 fold rise in penalties from walkaway offplan home buyers. Banks hire “loan rangers” […]
