The Abu Dhabi government has signed an agreement with a US-based research firm to study the feasibility of a Hyperloop transport system between Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. The Department of Municipal Affairs and Transport (DMAT) announced in a statement on Monday that it had inked a deal with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (Hyperloop TT) – one of several companies working to bring the technology first conceived by […]
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and a number of other prominent figures among the world’s richest people are pledging a $1 billion investment fund for clean energy efforts. The new investment fund aims to help advance clean energy production, which in turn would help fight climate change and the negative impact it has on the environment. Breakthrough Energy Innovations The effort is a multiyear fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which […]
An untold number of Syrians trapped in an ever tightening patch of rebel territory in Aleppo are desperately seeking a way to safety as the opposition’s final foothold in a major city looked on the verge of collapse. The International Committee of the Red Cross called for all sides to urgently agree a deal to evacuate people as it warned that time was running out for trapped […]
Demand for oil will outstrip supply in the next six months as long as Opec and countries outside the cartel can implement a deal signed over the weekend to lower output, according to one of the world’s leading energy forecasters. The International Energy Agency said the planned production cuts, which add up to 1.8m barrels a day, could reduce stockpiles by as much as 600,000 b/d over […]
The battle for eastern Aleppo will be over soon, but tens of thousands of Syrians there will find little peace. The victory for the government of President Bashar al-Assad will open another violent, disorienting chapter in their lives, and a dangerous one for the opposition. Soon, civilians and rebel fighters alike will either be punished or have to flee the city and join the many thousands of […]
December 13, 2016 by: Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Donald Trump is poised to name Rex Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil, as his secretary of state, ignoring criticism that the oil and gas man is too close to Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. Mr Trump tweeted on Monday that he would formally unveil his choice for the high-profile cabinet position on Tuesday morning. US media reported […]
Algebris Investments, a London-based asset manager, is seeking to raise €1bn for a second fund aimed at Italy’s non-performing loans as investors’ interest in what’s been the Achilles heel of the country’s banking sector intensifies. The launch by Algebris, which has $6bn in assets under management, comes amid increased focus by foreign investors on the potential of Italy’s pile of €360bn of problem loans, of which €200bn […]
By Emmanuel Jarry and Andrew Callus | PARIS PARIS France’s far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who wants to become president in next spring’s elections, celebrated Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. “Victory for freedom!” she said on her Twitter page in June after Britons voted for Brexit. “We now need to hold the same referendum in France and in (other) EU countries.” But unlike […]
By the late 1970s, a decade after horrific riots, the Pistons had fallen on hard competitive times, along with the city, and out they went to a charmless football dome in distant Pontiac, Mich., and later to the basketball-specific Palace of Auburn Hills. A team in a sport played increasingly by young black men fled the city while hockey’s white-as-ice Red Wings stored their gloves and sticks […]
By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump will announce Exxon-Mobil Corp’s Rex Tillerson as his choice for secretary of state on Tuesday, a senior transition official said, confident that the oil executive can get past questions about his ties to Russia. Trump is to make the announcement on Tuesday morning, going with a business leader whose experience in diplomacy is from making deals with foreign […]
Michael Moritz – chairman of Sequoia Capital and one of the most successful venture capitalists in history – says a simple vision led him to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in on-demand delivery startups. “The movement of goods and services and people, by easier, more convenient means,” he said in an interview. “That’s a huge trend, enabled by smartphones.” Led by Sequoia and another blue-chip Silicon […]
By Kanupriya Kapoor | JAKARTA JAKARTA A tearful governor of Jakarta denied on Tuesday he had intended to insult the Koran at the start of his blasphemy trial in the Indonesian capital, which is seen as a test of religious freedom in the world largest Muslim-majority nation. Around 100 Muslim protesters calling for the jailing of Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, chanted “God is […]
Here’s a little known fact about supermoons: They’re made up and a complete waste of everyone’s time. Supermoons are a by-product of an always-on media machine that demands a constant stream of things to comment on and—in the absence of actual commentary-worthy items—is more than willing to completely fabricate them. The term “supermoon” refers to a full moon that occurs when the moon […]
After eight years in which interest rates in rich countries have kept close to all-time lows, a change of weather is in the air. Donald Trump’s election as US president and widespread expectations that the Federal Reserve will nudge rates higher this week have made their mark on the markets. The big question is whether short-term pressures for higher US interest rates are strong enough to overturn […]
International heads of state named on the rolls of clandestine companies in tax havens. Canada’s big banks facilitating tax avoidance through thousands of offshore enterprises. Strawmen fronting businesses to mask the identities of the real owners. After a year-long investigation into 11.5 million leaked tax haven documents, the Panama Papers were finally made public last April — and they landed like a bomb. […]
The top Republican in the US Senate has backed an investigation into allegations that the Kremlin engaged in a hacking campaign to influence November’s presidential election. It is the most serious break yet between President-elect Donald Trump and his party’s traditional leaders in Washington. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said that Congress would probe the allegations following the disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency report which […]
Google on Monday signed a deal with Cuba’s state-run telecommunications provider, bringing the Google Global Cache to the communist country. The deal won’t expand internet access in the communist country, but it will give Cubans who already have internet access faster connections to Google-branded content. Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, was in Havana to sign the deal with Mayra Arevich Marin, president of state […]
By Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS European Union leaders will set out plans this week for negotiating Britain’s exit, diplomats said, after national officials met late on Monday to prepare an EU summit statement. After the 28 national leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday, British Prime Minister Theresa May will leave and the other 27 will dine without her and agree principles on how negotiations with London […]
MANAMA, Bahrain — The political shock waves from the American presidential election are being felt here in the Persian Gulf, where diplomats, military commanders and other senior leaders say they are both fearful and excited about which Donald J. Trump shows up after he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20. Will it be, they ask, the President Trump who has vowed to cut off American […]
ABU DHABI // Women members of parliament have an important role in brokering peace in the Middle East and beyond, a conference heard on Monday. About 50 women who preside over parliaments met in Abu Dhabi for the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament. For the first time men were invited to participate, including Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister, who […]
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 are already among the most hotly anticipated smartphones of 2017 and foldable screens could make them worth the wait. Following the disastrous Galaxy Note 7 release this year, which ended up with two recalls and a kill switch to permanently disable it, Samsung has some serious catching up to do and it needs to come up with something big for […]
The murky moral maze of the Middle East’s burgeoning home-help industry comes under the spotlight in A Maid for Each, a stark documentary that had its regional premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival on December 10. Most of this sobering film takes place inside the cramped confines of a small, but thriving, agency in Beirut, Lebanon, that matches well-off families with incoming immigrant workers. The cameras […]
Photo Credit Angie Wang More than 25 years ago, at the height of the effort to pass hate speech codes on college campuses, I wrote a monograph about how to do it without censorship. It began with a quotation from a student who had been bullied because he was Asian-American: “I wish they had hit me.” If he had been beaten, he said, the damage would have […]
Goldman Sachs said the formal agreement by non-OPEC oil producers this weekend in Vienna to help curb output was reached with a goal of “normalization” of inventories and not necessarily just at raising oil prices. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had previously agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), and on Saturday, 11 non-OPEC producers agreed to join the effort […]
