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Dennis Lockhart, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, spoke to the American Business Council of Dubai on Sunday. Reuters Large Middle Eastern holders of U.S. Treasuries shouldn’t worry about the stability of their investments especially as the U.S. economy shows more signs of improvement following the worst recession in a generation, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said on Sunday. U.S. government debt has long been a key […]

The fallout from the Syrian war continues to weigh on Lebanon’s economy and fiscal stability with long-needed structural reforms now more challenging to implement, an International Monetary Fund mission visit to the country found after routine consultations with local authorities. A political impasse “has amplified the microeconomic imbalances,” a mission report summary said, in a country with one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world. Here […]

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways on Sunday said its strategy of buying stakes in European airlines was bringing fresh competition to the region, despite close scrutiny by regulators over whether its investments comply with European ownership rules. State-owned Etihad is building up a network of minority stakes in airlines around the world as it seeks to drive traffic to its Abu Dhabi hub. “We are bringing competition in […]

|Andy Greenberg| Just as antivirus researchers congratulated Apple for keeping the iPhone free of nasty apps five full years after its release, spammers seem to have finally tarnished that spotless record. Antivirus researchers at Kaspersky say they’ve spotted an app known as “Find and Call” in both the iPhone App Store and Google’s Play market that secretly uploads all of a user’s contacts to a remote server and then sends […]

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 U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors Co, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December, according to a government report released on Wednesday. The $11.2 billion loss includes a write-off in March of the government’s remaining $826 million investment in “old” GM, the quarterly report by a Treasury watchdog said. The […]

Dubai’s main airport attracted 2 million more passengers than London Heathrow in the first quarter, with only work on the Gulf hub’s runways likely to stop it becoming the busiest international crossroads this year. Dubai International, home base to Emirates, already the top airline by cross-border traffic, handled 18.4 million travelers in the period, beating Heathrow in each of the three months as the runway-restricted London hub […]

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Reuters | Jim Finkle – BOSTON, April 27 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is rushing to fix a bug in its widely used Internet Explorer web browser after a computer security firm disclosed the flaw over the weekend, saying hackers have already exploited it in attacks on some U.S. companies. PCs running Windows XP will not receive any updates fixing that bug when they are released, however, because Microsoft […]

While World Expo 2020 will be associated with some of the massive multibillion dollar real estate and hospitality projects, Smart City is determined to design and implement cutting edge technology solutions to plan and manage the day to day activities of the Emirate. Hence, it is significant that massive growth and development initiative in Dubai should be backed with a philosophy of sustainability, which can ensure wellbeing […]

Oman’s plan to build a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline from Iran is the latest sign that Saudi Arabia is failing to bind its smaller Gulf neighbors into a tighter bloc united in hostility to the Islamic Republic. The accord was signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Oman last month, and marks the first such deal between Iran and a Gulf Cooperation Council state in more […]

The masterplan for the $1.6bn Bluewaters Island project off the coast of Dubai’s Jumeirah Beach Residences is to undergo a redesign. The island, which is being developed by government-owned developer Meraas, is currently split into three zones. One contains the Dubai Eye – the world’s tallest, 210m-high Ferris Wheel – and is surrounded by other retail and leisure units. A second zone, facing out onto the Arabian […]

A drop in OPEC production came just as refineries began looking for supply, helping boost bullish speculative bets on crude last week by the most since July. The group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil, reduced output to the lowest for March since 2011 as a standoff between the Libyan government and rebels kept exports near the lowest level since Muammar Qaddafi was driven […]

General Motors engineers were well aware of serious problems with ignition switches in GM small cars, but rejected several opportunities to make fixes, according to dozens of confidential documents released on Friday by a Congressional committee investigating the deadly defect. Parts supplier Delphi Automotive also repeatedly tested switches and found they did not meet GM specifications, according to emails and other memos. The internal documents from GM, […]

|By TAP Staff| New studies are intensifying medical concerns about malignant brain tumors from cell phone use. According to the BioInitiative Working Group, evidence for health risk from wireless tech is growing stronger and warrants immediate action. The Group released a mid-year update covering new science studies from 2012 to 2014. “There is a consistent pattern of increased risk for glioma (a malignant brain tumor) and acoustic […]

The U.S. government warned banks and other businesses on Friday to be on alert for hackers seeking to steal data exposed by the “Heartbleed” bug, as a German programmer took responsibility for the widespread security crisis. On a website for advising critical infrastructure operators about emerging cyber threats, the Department of Homeland Security asked organizations to report any Heartbleed-related attacks, adding that hackers were attempting to exploit […]

Gold extended gains to a third session on Thursday, scaling fresh two-week highs, after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting showed that officials were not keen on increasing interest rates anytime soon. Gold prices came under pressure last month after Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the U.S. central bank would probably end its massive bond-buying programme this fall and could start raising interest rates around six […]

When Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi gave a speech on the virtues of smaller government and privatization on April 8 last year, supporters called him an ideological heir to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died that day. Modi, favorite to form India’s next government after elections starting on Monday, has yet to unveil any detailed economic plans but it is clear that some of his […]

U.S. stocks fell, with the Nasdaq Composite Index sliding the most in two months, after large technology stocks from Google Inc. to Yahoo Inc. plunged as investors sold the bull market’s biggest winners. Google Class A shares sank 4.6 percent in the biggest drop since October 2012. Facebook Inc. lost 4.6 percent, bringing its two-day slide to 9.5 percent. Yahoo Inc. declined 4.2 percent to the lowest […]

The U.S. stock market is rigged in favor of high-speed electronic trading firms, which use their advantages to extract billions from investors, according to Michael Lewis, author of a new book on the topic, “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.” High-frequency trading (HFT) is a practice carried out by many banks and proprietary trading firms using sophisticated computer programs to send gobs of orders into the market, […]

Saudi Arabia’s leaders hope U.S. President Barack Obama and their King Abdullah understand each other better after talks and can stabilise a close regional security alliance after months of rockiness over Middle East policy, diplomats said. Friday’s two-hour exchange at Abdullah’s desert camp did not yield a shared statement or any evidence of policy changes, leading some Saudis to question whether differences over Syria’s war or Iran’s […]

|By TAP Staff| Fitch Rating sees RAKBANK’s viability rate (VR) constrained by its fairly small franchise rising credit risk exposure due to its expansion in unsecured SME lending and pressure on liquidity from a wide asset-liability maturity mismatch. The bank accounts for only 2 percent of the UAE banking assets, it notes. According to Fitch, RAKBANK’s viability rating could be negatively affected if the bank’s expansion in […]

Qatar Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said he’s pursuing acquisitions after reviving an investment strategy that saw the company offered stakes in carriers including Italy’s Alitalia SpA. The second-biggest Gulf airline is “actively discussing opportunities” with other passenger carriers, Al Baker said in an interview, without specifying where talks are focused. “I would not like to pre-empt our decision,” he said. “We would rather […]

Qatar’s financial regulator has reprimanded Royal Bank of Scotland for insufficient training of its branch staff, it said on Tuesday. “Although RBS QFC had a programme in place, it was deficient in a number of material respects and it fell short of the standards expected of authorised firms,” the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority (QFC RA) said in a statement. “The QFC has accepted an enforceable undertaking […]

Rifts over foreign policy will likely make it harder for Arab leaders meeting at a summit this week to forge a common stand on regional challenges, including what many of them see as a threat from Iranian-U.S. rapprochement. And while the Arab League meeting may agree more humanitarian action in response to Syria’s war, any communique calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad will not reflect […]

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