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Middle East

3 March 2017, Dubai Safwa Marine, Abu Dhabi Ship Building’s arm dedicated for yacht sales, service and management, has announced a partnership with Dutch marine communications specialist Radio Holland, on the sidelines of the Dubai International Boat Show. Under the terms of the partnership, the two companies will offer yacht and leisure boat owners in the Middle East a one-stop-shop solution for all their retrofit, overhauling and […]

Souq.com, the Middle East’s largest online retailer, has announced the launch of a book store featuring more than six million books. In a move similar to Kindle books on global e-commerce giant Amazon, Souq.com’s Global Bookstore will make books more accessible to the region and supports the UAE government’s Year of Reading initiative, a statement said. The Global Bookstore features all book classifications including culture, children, family, […]

Beijing is banning Chinese tour groups from visiting South Korea, the latest retaliation against the planned Korean deployment of the US-built Thaad missile shield, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. Wang Ki-young, a director at South Korea’s culture ministry, said on Friday that Chinese authorities had ordered tourism agencies in Beijing to halt tours to South Korea from mid-March. Mr Wang said the move […]

03 March 2017 Kuwait City, Kuwait: Ooredoo, Kuwait’s fastest network, attended a number of important meetings during the company delegation’s visit to the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona earlier this week. The company’s delegation, headed by CEO Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani, included a number of the company’s senior managers and chief officers. During the visit, Ooredoo CEO and delegation visited Huawei’s pavilion, which displayed […]

Good news to fossil fuel companies. Bad news to advocates of the environment. The agency tasked to provide regulation and environmental protection on Thursday scrapped the order that requires oil and gas operators to report on their equipment and level of methane emissions. The order, issued in May 2016 by the Environmental Protection Agency, was one of the major actions of the Obama administration to combat climate […]

Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for March 3, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. Ellen Fortini rounds up 10 things to do today in the UAE. Want to see your event listed here? Email us with the details and contact information at listings@thenational.ae newslide Abu Dhabi Yoga class Start […]

Core inflation has returned to Japan for the first time since 2015, with consumer prices excluding fresh food rising by 0.1 per cent in January over the same month a year earlier. The return to positive territory was driven by energy — petrol prices jumped 9.2 per cent year-on-year after big drops in 2016 — but the rise will be welcome news for the Bank of Japan. […]

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Palmyra, the storied ancient city that was among prewar Syria’s leading tourist attractions, swung back under government control on Thursday, state media reported, as soldiers and their allies evicted Islamic State militants who had made a sport out of pilfering the city’s antiquities. This was the fourth time in the past two years that control of Palmyra, a Unesco World Heritage Site, changed hands between government forces […]

There was no mistaking the arrival of King Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia and his entourage in Malaysia on Sunday morning. Traffic stood still for 30 minutes as we waited for the 600-strong royal party to make their way from the airport to the centre of Kuala Lumpur — a near-endless stream of limos, lorries, outliers and ambulances, sirens screaming. This is King Salman’s first trip […]

Via Michael Snyder of The End of The American Dream blog, If current trends continue, Islam is on track to become the largest religion in the entire world by the end of this century according a stunning new report that was just released by the Pew Research Center. While it is true that Christianity is still growing on a global basis, it is not growing nearly as […]

Roche Holding AG the Swiss-based multinational health care company recently conducted a clinical trial with breast cancer patients using its new Perjeta drug in combination with Herceptin and chemotherapy. The trial yielded positive results on the patients. Researchers at the company believe that this success in trial may help them in elevating the sales of its new Perjeta drug and will also help in dealing with the […]

The widow of the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida must remain in jail after prosecutors argued that she was a threat to the community and a flight risk, a U.S. judge on Thursday ordered. The federal judge in Florida stayed another judge’s order issued on Wednesday that would have released Noor Salman, 30, from a California jail. He put the release […]

China’s 200 richest lawmakers are worth more than $500bn, according to the Hurun Report, which tracks the fortunes of the country’s wealthiest people. The Communist party officially welcomed private-sector business people into its fold in 2002, when the Chinese economy was the world’s sixth-largest. Their wealth has since soared in tandem with the Chinese economy, which is now second only to that of the US.  According to […]

In a rash moment of generosity amid the euphoria of victory, he snipped off a negative and gave it to an army spokesman, who promptly handed it to the Israeli Government Press Office. In his 2007 autobiography, “Israel Through My Lens,” written with Ruth Corman, Mr. Rubinger recalled that the press office “in turn made prints and started distributing them to all and sundry for a dollar […]

The last thing many people before they do before they go to sleep is browse through their social media feeds until their eyes get too tired and they eventually turn in for the night–probably with their smartphone in or next to their bed. While they are shutting down for the day, chances are they aren’t powering down their phones. And the first thing they do when they […]

Uber’s US rival Lyft is seeking $500m in a new fundraising round to provide fresh ammunition as the transportation company takes its fight with Uber to a growing number of US cities, according to two people close to the process. The fundraising comes at a time when Uber has been struggling with a series of public relations crises, including allegations of sexual harassment and a video of […]

Photo Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, was taken back to a military hospital in Cairo on Thursday after a court session. Credit Mohamed Hossam/European Pressphoto Agency CAIRO — Egypt’s top appeals court cleared former President Hosni Mubarak of any responsibility for the killing of hundreds of people during the 2011 protests that ended his 30-year rule, sweeping away the final legal hurdle to Mr. Mubarak’s […]

The US broke its long drought of hot technology initial public offerings on Thursday as shares in Snap soared more than 40 per cent in their market debut despite questions about corporate governance and profitability at the owner of vanishing messaging service Snapchat. A pack of traders huddled around the desk of Snap’s designated market maker for more than an hour after the opening bell at the […]

She was arrested and charged with supporting terrorism, not because of her novels but as a result of her affiliation, as an adviser, with a newspaper linked to the Kurdish movement that has since been shut down. She still faces a trial that could land her back in prison, and with that hanging over her, she has been living with her mother, sleeping late, not writing much […]

Fact-finding mission or junket? Some lawmakers are bewildered that the groups that paid for their trips are now swept up in Turkey’s current political turmoil. “I can’t imagine what they would have wanted out of the North Dakota state Legislature,” said former North Dakota state Rep. Ben Hanson, a Democrat who went on a trip sponsored by a Gulen group in 2013 with six other lawmakers from […]

ADEN: Two US drone strikes killed at least four suspected Al-Qaeda members in southern Yemen on Thursday, security officials said, barely a month after a controversial US commando raid against the jihadists.The first strike targeted the home of a known Al-Qaeda member in the Yashbum Valley in Shabwa province, a provincial security official told AFP.Four suspected militants who had been standing outside the house were killed, he […]

Jeff Sessions, the US attorney-general, failed to disclose during his confirmation hearings that he twice met the Russian ambassador while acting as a close adviser to Donald Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. Mr Sessions met Sergey Kislyak on September 8 in the then senator’s private office in the US Capitol building, after having spoken with him briefly two months earlier at an event sponsored by the […]

WASHINGTON — The United States conducted airstrikes overnight Thursday against several suspected Qaeda targets across south-central Yemen, according to American and Yemeni military officials, the first American attacks in the country since an ill-fated Special Operations raid in January. The coordinated series of attacks against Qaeda militants occurred in three Yemeni provinces that have been areas of suspected terrorist activity — Abyan, Shabwa and Baydha — according […]

Middle East fund managers have turned more bullish towards Saudi Arabian equities on hopes that corporate earnings may finally have bottomed out after a slide due to low oil prices, a monthly Reuters poll found. The poll of 13 leading fund managers, conducted over the past week, also found they had become very bearish on Qatari and Egyptian shares. The poll found 62 percent of managers expect […]

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