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Generali, Italy’s largest insurer, has bought voting rights amounting to 3.01 per cent in Intesa Sanpaolo in a defensive move designed to block a mooted takeover bid by the country’s largest bank. The move came after shares in the insurer rose nearly 4 per cent on Monday following a report in Turin-based newspaper La Stampa suggesting Intesa was considering a takeover bid in tandem with Germany’s Allianz. […]

The lead government negotiator, Bashar al-Jaafari, speaking to reporters after the opening session, responded by calling the opposition delegation “armed terrorist groups,” and accused them of “impertinent” and “provocative” behavior. Continue reading the main story The tension demonstrated the challenges that remain for Russia, the Syrian government’s most powerful backer, as the Russian government tries to show its approach can accomplish more than the largely fruitless efforts […]

By Michael Georgy | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Mohamed Mahmoud is relieved he no longer has to watch Islamic State militants hang corpses from electricity poles, now that Iraqi forces have cleared the group from his east Mosul district. But he still fears for his safety. Like other Iraqis, he worries that destructive forces like sectarianism, which already provoked one civil war since the fall of Saddam […]

US President Donald Trump has just days after taking office signed an executive order signalling that America will back-out of the Pacific trade pact that was a key tenet of Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia. Mr Trump had vowed on the campaign trail to dismantle the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the billionaire businessman-cum-politician has argued is bad for US workers and companies. The move is the administration’s first […]

Photo The Roman amphitheater, left, in Palmyra, Syria, in 2016. Satellite pictures on the right show the structure before it was damaged, above, and after. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times Islamic State militants have destroyed the facade of a second-century Roman amphitheater and another ancient monument in the historic city of Palmyra, Syria, the Syrian state-run news agency reported on Friday. The news agency, […]

President Donald Trump addresses business and trade issues on Monday. Highlights of the day follow: BUSINESS Trump meets with a dozen prominent American manufacturers at the White House, promising to cut regulations and corporate taxes but warning them of penalties if they move production outside the country. TRADE Trump could sign an executive order on Monday intended to renegotiate the free trade agreement between the United States, […]

The Syrian government and rebels opened talks in Kazakhstan on Monday as part of a Turkish and Russian-backed effort to end the Arab state’s near six-year civil war. It is the first time the warring parties have held negotiations in a year, and if successful could mark a turning point in a conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people, while also underlining the increasing roles of […]

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“I hope the American administration will act on two levels: one, to not discuss moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and second, for the administration to lead negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis with the aim of achieving a political settlement,” Mr. Abbas said. Continue reading the main story The Israeli news media was filled with speculation on Sunday that the Trump administration would immediately announce the embassy […]

A billionaire Chinese hedge fund manager has been jailed for five-and-a-half years for market manipulation in one of the country’s highest-profile financial crimes prosecutions since a market rout in 2015. Xu Xiang, an investment guru who used to be compared with Carl Icahn, led a loose-knit group of hedge fund managers from the port city of Ningbo known as the “Limit-up Kamikaze Squad” because of their penchant for […]

Photo Credit Celia Jacobs/ArtCenter ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — “My grandmother told me that the man is the head and the woman is the neck,” said an East European student in my class. “It makes me so mad. I don’t want to be the neck.” The other students in the class, all women, and none of them from the same country (and none from the United […]

January 23, 2017 by: Michael Peel in Manila Business from the US has driven a long boom in the Philippines’ flagship outsourcing industry, but potential political threats to ambitious growth plans now loom in both countries.  Global companies are scrambling to work out whether tough talk from Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump, the Philippine and US presidents, will mean trouble if they run operations in the Philippines.  […]

RIYADH/ADEN: King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) on Sunday dispatched a convoy loaded with 17 containers of medical supplies and equipment to Yemen, Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, Royal Court and KSrelief Supervisor, said Sunday. The convoy consisted of 11 containers carrying 279 types of medical supplies to the Republican Hospital in Aden and 25 types of medical equipment and supplies for the central medicinal and pharmacology storage […]

PayTM, the Alibaba-backed Indian smartphone payments platform, plans to enter the asset management market a month before it begins banking operations in the country. The group, which has attracted more than 170m users since it started seven years ago, told the FT that its aggressive strategy to disrupt traditional finance will soon extend to loans, wealth management and mutual fund products. The move could give PayTM an even […]

SANA, Yemen — Renewed fighting in the Yemen conflict killed about 75 people on Saturday and Sunday, some of them in the first drone strikes launched during the new administration of President Trump, according to Yemeni news reports. Two drone strikes in the central Yemeni province of Bayda on Saturday killed 10 militants with Al Qaeda, three of them hit while riding on a motorcycle and the […]

Sorry, Faraday Future fans. Tesla Motors has officially ended Faraday Future‘s celebration, and the FF91’s dream of racing past the Model S isn’t happening. The Model S P100D’s Ludicrous+ Easter Egg was included in the vehicle’s Over-the-Air software update on Jan. 12. Tech Times reported that some owners and speed enthusiasts have powered up with the Ludicrous+ Easter Egg. YouTube user Tesla Racing Channel has just validated the possibility that […]

A ship capable of breaking through thick Arctic ice to deliver Russian liquefied natural gas to Asia is due to begin trials, marking an important step towards completion of a $27bn LNG project championed by president Vladimir Putin. The tanker is the first of a new class of icebreaking LNG carriers that will open an export route from Siberia to the Pacific — reducing Russia’s dependence on […]

By Warren Strobel and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The White House said on Sunday that it is only in the early stages of talks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an action that would likely spark anger in the Arab world. “We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” White […]

In one of the first international phone conversations by the new US president since his inauguration, Israel PM Netanyahu is set to call Trump on Sunday afternoon: the civil war in Syria, the Palestinians and the nuclear agreement with Iran will be on the agenda Netanyahu told his weekly Cabinet meeting. PM Netanyahu: This evening there will be a telephone conversation between President Trump and myself. — […]

Once known as the “ships of the desert”, camels are a feature of Rolls-Royce’s new special edition, which has just arrived in the UAE. Abu Dhabi Motors has taken delivery of the Rolls-Royce Ghost Oasis Edition, a special commission developed by the marque’s Bespoke department to be presented to the brand’s patrons in the Middle East only. The two-tone exterior in Aurum and Desert Dune Metallic carries […]

Britain’s security co-operation with EU countries will be on the table as part of the Brexit negotiations, Theresa May has said as she prepares to become the first world leader to meet new US president Donald Trump. The prime minister plans to discuss British-US co-operation on terrorism and Nato at the meeting in Washington on Friday, the prime minister said on Sunday — and sent a signal […]

|By Arabian Post Staff| Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways are together poised to expand their fleet by almost 650 new planes, according to an expert in aviation inspection, safety and maintenance systems. “If you include Turkish and Iran Air, the order book comes to a massive 1,058 passenger aircraft,” said Maurice Faber, Regional Managing Director of Olympus Middle East and Africa. Mid-December 2015, Iran announced a fresh […]

After more than 10 years, how did “An Inconvenient Truth” change the conversation on climate change? Tech Times looks back at the climate crisis in the decade that followed the award-winning film.  ( Christopher Furlong | Getty Images ) When the documentary first premiered, An Inconvenient Truth presented data and information that were, in fact, inconvenient. The world back then was complacent about the massive usage of fossil […]

The world’s largest pension fund, Japan’s GPIF, is under intensifying pressure to draw a “line in the sand” on corporate governance standards in the country as other investors rail against a controversial takeover deal. The imbroglio centres around Panasonic’s proposed purchase of PanaHome. Investors say it represents one of the sternest tests to date of Japan’s stewardship and governance codes, guidelines introduced in 2014 as part of the “Abenomics” drive to […]

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Washington and other major US cities in one of the biggest US political demonstrations in recent memory and a stark rebuke to Donald Trump at the start of his presidency. More than half a million protesters are estimated to have descended on the US capital to take part in the Women’s March on Washington, according to event organisers, […]

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