CAIRO — The Benghazi militant group Ansar al-Shariah is under attack by a renegade former general trying to rid Libya of political Islam. But in response, the militia has taken aim squarely at Washington. “We remind America of their defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia,” Mohammed Ali al-Zahawi, the leader of Ansar al-Shariah, declared this week in a videotaped statement, warning that the United States would face […]
WASHINGTON — A United States citizen working in Syria with a militant group backed by Al Qaeda conducted a suicide bombing there Sunday, in what is believed to be the first time an American has been involved in such an attack, American officials said Wednesday. The suicide attack first surfaced on Tuesday in Twitter messages from the Nusra Front, an Islamist extremist group in Syria aligned with […]
ABU DHABI // An impoverished farmer in India whose son was one of 13 workers killed in the Dubai bus crash spoke on Tuesday of his family’s grief, their shattered dreams and his struggle with debt. Ramchand Gupta, 50, borrowed money from relatives to send his son Sanjay to the UAE four months ago in the hope of a better life. The plan was that he would […]
DAMASCUS, Syria — For Younes al-Nasr, a lifelong train lover, the Hejaz railway station here in the heart of the Syrian capital is a repository of shelved ambitions. Every day, Mr. Nasr, 68, a Transportation Ministry employee, pads around his offices in the Ottoman-era building, where light filters through red, yellow and blue stained glass. He imagines the past — the few short years a century ago […]
Elaine Paige: ‘I do regret the fact that I never married and had a family of my own,’ she said. ‘But I’m of the belief that you can’t have it all’ Photo: David Rose When I heard what actress Elaine Paige said earlier this week, it struck a chord with me. “I do regret the fact that I never married and had a family of my own,” she […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Government forces broke through a protracted rebel siege of one of Syria’s largest prisons on Thursday, dealing yet another blow to their opponents and highlighting the suffering that the country’s war has brought to those caught between the warring parties. Islamist rebels, including members of the Nusra Front, Syria’s Qaeda affiliate, surrounded the Aleppo central prison more than a year ago and had repeatedly […]
Middle Eastern pay-television operator OSN has “no current plans” for a stock market flotation, its chief executive said on Sunday, following comments from its parent company that an initial share sale was expected to happen this year. OSN has operations across the Middle East and North Africa and annual revenue currently around $700 million. Last year, brokerage Arqaam Capital valued the company at $4.3 billion. Kuwait Projects […]
Damac Real Estate Development Ltd. (DMC) is bolstering Dubai’s drive to lead the global Islamic economy with serviced apartments that are Shariah-compliant from their financing to their restaurants and saunas. Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC (ADIB) is managing the project’s funding as Damac, which issued its debut sukuk last month, sells the certified Islamic residences, Niall Mc Loughlin, the Dubai-based developer’s senior vice president of communication, said […]
Gold fell to its weakest in a week early on Monday as the euro hovered near a one-month low on fears of policy action from the European Central Bank, but the metal recovered some losses on safe-haven demand over escalating violence in Ukraine. Spot gold eased 0.2 percent to $1,286.40 an ounce by 0313 GMT, after dropping to a one-week low of $1,279.60 earlier in the session. […]
Gold was steady on Friday after two consecutive sessions of losses, but the metal was headed for its second weekly drop in three on growing optimism about the U.S. economy and selling in the top bullion-backed exchange-traded fund. Spot gold was flat at $1,283.66 an ounce by 0034 GMT, after falling 0.6 percent in the previous session. The metalis down 1.6 percent for the week. Silver, with […]
With its $2 billion purchase of Oculus Rift, Facebook has made its second bold acquisition of a rising technology star, little more than a month after its $19 billion mega deal with WhatsApp. This time it’s not the price tag surprising everyone, but the strategy. Does Mark Zuckerberg envision a future where strapping a headset to our faces becomes the default route to going on Facebook? It’s left many scratching their heads. Zuckerberg, […]
The group is on the verge of selecting a producer, plans to tour the US after its completion |ANDY GREENE| It’s been nearly six years since Metallica last released a studio album, but as they gear up for a run of summer festivals in Europe, the band is also putting together material for a new LP. “We’re going through the grind,” says Lars Ulrich. “We’re in there doing riffs and […]
Hedge funds lowered bullish bets on gold for a fourth week, the longest streak this year. The net-long position contracted to the lowest since mid-February as speculators sold bullion on signs of accelerating U.S. economic growth. The investors more than doubled bets on lower prices in the past month while reducing wagers on a rally in six of the past seven weeks. Prices fell 7.6 percent since […]
Vodafone Group Plc said it expected to close on Friday a deal to buy an 11 percent stake in its Indian business from minority partner Piramal Enterprises Ltd, giving it full ownership. Piramal said on Thursday it had agreed to sell its 11 percent stake to the British group for 89 billion rupees. A Vodafone spokesman separately said the group had already completed a transaction to buy […]
Commodity futures trading volumes in India fell 40.49 percent in the year to March 2014, its second straight year of decline, the market regulator said on Tuesday. In value terms, futures trading at commodity exchanges fell to 101.44 trillion rupees in the first twelve months from April 2013 from 170.46 trillion rupees a year ago, the Forward Markets Commission said in a statement on its website. Trading […]
Asian shares rose in early trade on Wednesday after Wall Street reversed a three-day losing streak, but Japanese stocks dropped sharply after the yen surged on fading hopes of near-term stimulus from the Bank of Japan. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.9 percent, taking heart from a recovery in U.S. stocks overnight. Japanese stocks, on the other hand, had a tough day on […]
Gold ticked higher on Tuesday to within a whisker of the $1,300-an-ounce level, regaining ground from overnight losses as weaker equities increased its safe-haven appeal. * Spot gold rose 0.2 percent to $1,298.11 an ounce by 0026 GMT. It fell 0.5 percent in the previous session as a short-covering rally after U.S. jobs data fizzed out. * Holdings of the world’s largest platinum-backed exchange-traded fund, Johannesburg’s NewPlat […]
The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) is planning to launch agricultural commodities contracts in the first quarter of 2015, the bourse’s chief executive officer said on Monday. “That’s something we really want to do, as we want to be able to diversify the products that we list on the exchange,” Gary Anderson told Reuters on the sidelines of a precious metals conference in Dubai. “We have […]
Dubai’s gold trading centre said it would tighten supervision of how the metal is sourced after reports in the British media alleging it ignored international guidelines designed to prevent human rights abuses and underground trade by African warlords. In February, Britain’s Guardian newspaper and the BBC said the Dubai-based Kaloti Group, a major gold refiner and jeweller, had failed to examine suspicious deals, accepting for example 2.4 […]
Dubai will compete with London for a share of Islamic banks’ liquidity management business by offering a new platform for murabaha trading. Many Islamic banks around the world manage their short-term funds with murabaha, in which one bank acquires merchandise and another agrees to buy it at a mark-up. Traditionally, banks from the Gulf and as far afield as southeast Asia use commodities traded on the London […]
A year after Citigroup Inc. declared the decade-long run of commodity gains over, wacky weather, dead piglets and Vladimir Putin have gotten in the way. While Citigroup rang “death bells” in April 2013 for the synchronized super cycle fueled by economic growth in China, extreme weather and supply squeezes led to surprise rallies in 2014’s first three months. Coffee hit a two-year high, cattle and hogs rose […]
Gold imports by India, the second-biggest consumer, will rebound in the second half as a new government may ease trade curbs while festivals and weddings spur demand, said billionaire jeweler T.S. Kalyanaraman. The pickup in shipments from mid-year will help overseas purchases over 2014 match the 825 metric tons imported in 2013, Kalyanaraman, chairman of the Thrissur-India based Kalyan Jewellers Ltd., said in an interview. The curbs […]
When a scrap metal dealer from U.S. Midwest bought a golden ornament at a junk market, it never crossed his mind that he was the owner of a $20 million Faberge egg hailing from the court of imperial Russia. In a mystery fit for the tumultuous history of Russia’s ostentatious elite, the 8-cm (3-inch) golden egg was spirited out of St Petersburg after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution […]
Investors seeking a hedge against a waning U.S. economic recovery and escalating conflict in Ukraine made twice as much money buying gold-mining shares rather than the metal the companies produce. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF climbed 25 percent this year, more than double the 12 percent advance for the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded product backed by bullion. This is the first quarter the company […]
