April 28, 2017 by: Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong Friday 05.00 BST Overview Equities fell on Friday in Asia as the region’s markets took their cues from an underwhelming session on Wall Street, while currencies pared earlier rises amid mixed signals on the future of Nafta. Hot topic Asia-Pacific equities were choppy after Wall Street investors on Thursday digested the prospects of the Trump administration’s proposed tax […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump complained on Thursday that the United States was being unfairly treated in the Paris Climate Agreement and told Reuters he would announce a decision in about two weeks on whether Washington would remain in the accord. The Republican Trump, elected in November, had vowed during his campaign to withdraw from the Paris accord within 100 days of becoming president, part of a broader […]
Global energy markets are heading to a rebalancing in the next years after oil prices fell to historic lows due to oversupply, Qatar’s energy minister said Thursday, praising OPEC members for their adherence to a “successful” November deal to cut production. Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry Mohammed Saleh Abdullah Al-Sada told the Atlantic Council summit in Istanbul that a decade of high oil prices had led […]
By Julia Love and Rishika Sadam Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) posted a surge in profit and revenue on Thursday as its core advertising business continued to grow at an extraordinary rate and problems such as an advertiser boycott of YouTube had little impact. Alphabet’s profit beat Wall Street estimates and rose 29 percent to $5.43 billion, a performance that analysts called exceptional for a company so […]
DUBAI// With barely a second to take in a gulp of air, professional wrestling hopefuls were trained to run the ropes, hit the mat and take knocks under the watchful eyes of talent spotters. Forty men and women from across the Middle East and India are being pushed to their limit and beyond this weekend as part of a global search by WWE at Dubai Opera House. […]
The FCC has made its initial proposal as to how it intends to do away with net neutrality — and despite what leadership there has said, that’s definitely how the document reads. You are free to make your thoughts known on the notice of proposed rulemaking, as it’s called, and here’s how to do it. Because millions of commenters nearly crashed the entire system when net neutrality […]
By Idrees Ali | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON As President Donald Trump’s administration drafts an Afghanistan policy, U.S. officials are seeking a way to reverse gains by militant groups without wading deeper into a 15-year-long war that has no end in sight. In the past month, three U.S. service members have been killed in operations against Islamic State militants near Afghanistan’s porous border with Pakistan, where armed groups still […]
By Phil Stewart and Yara Bayoumy | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON When U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis greeted Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister at the Pentagon last month, the first thing he did was joke about the time “the Iranians tried to murder you.” Mattis’ reference to a foiled 2011 plot, denied by Iran, was a telling sign of how much more aligned President Donald Trump’s administration is with Gulf […]
By Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The United States issued about 40 percent fewer temporary visas in March to citizens of seven countries covered by President Donald Trump’s temporary travel bans than it did in an average month last year, according to a Reuters analysis of preliminary government data released on Thursday. At the same time, the data showed that the total of U.S. non-immigrant visas issued […]
Two Saudi soldiers were killed Thursday in a rocket attack near the border with war-torn Yemen, the interior ministry said. They died in a simultaneous landmine explosion and rocket attack while on duty patrolling the border around Jazan, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. Saudi Arabia leads a Gulf coalition that has battled Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen for two […]
The Nintendo Switch launched just recently and it’s already off to a strong start, with 2.74 million units sold to date. This is the first official figure that Nintendo released for Switch sales, and the console units sold also fueled good game sales. Nintendo made the disclosure in its new earnings report [PDF] for the fiscal year 2016, released on Thursday, April 27. The total Nintendo Switch sales […]
Two acclaimed authors made an appearance on the second day of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Held at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) until May 2, the 27th edition of the event welcomed Abbas Beydoun, author of The Autumn of Innocence, on Thursday. The first prize winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the literature category, the novel’s theme of tyranny was discussed at […]
A brick made of Martian soil simulant compacted under pressure. The brick was made without any additional ingredients and without baking. Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego Explorers planning to settle on Mars might be able to turn the planet’s red soil into bricks without needing to use an oven or additional ingredients. Instead, they would just need to apply pressure to compact the soil—the equivalent […]
SKOPJE Protesters stormed into Macedonia’s parliament and the leader of the Social Democrats was injured in a fistfight on Thursday after his party and ethnic Albanian allies voted to elect an Albanian as parliament speaker, witnesses said. Live television footage showed Zoran Zaev with blood trickling from the left side of his forehead, not long after he announced that the majority coalition led by his party had […]
There’s rich material to be mined from the premise of The Circle, a new thriller set in the offices of a tech giant that’s like Google, Facebook, and Apple all rolled into one. Unfortunately, the film has neither the patience nor the insight to dig very deeply at all. Instead, it blows the whole concept to rubble and pats itself on the back for having the insight […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON New orders for U.S.-made capital goods rose less than expected in March, but a second straight monthly increase in shipments suggested business investment accelerated in the first quarter amid a recovering energy sector. While other data on Thursday showed a bigger-than-expected increase in first-time applications for unemployment benefits last week, the trend in claims remained consistent with tightening labor market conditions. […]
Would you like an always-ready smart speaker with a camera and a microphone in your bedroom? That’s what Amazon’s new Echo Look is all about. The original Amazon Echo was already always-listening so it wouldn’t miss any voice command, but adding a camera too is a whole different matter, especially since the new Echo Look is designed for the bedroom. Amazon Echo Look Purpose First things first: for […]
Investigators discovered that the suspect, using a false identity, registered in December 2015 with German officials in Giessen, about 40 miles north of Frankfurt, as a Syrian refugee. It was not clear what steps officials took to verify his claim, given that he appeared to speak no Arabic, Ms. Niesen said. Continue reading the main story “Why that did not catch their attention, I am not able […]
A recent Saudi government and security shake-up aims to strengthen King Salman’s increasingly powerful son against a royal rival and to bolster ties with Washington, analysts and diplomats say. Royal decrees at the weekend saw a number of allies of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman moved into key positions and another son of the king named as ambassador to Washington. The goal, a foreign diplomat told […]
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and later led to the creation of both PBS and NPR, also recognized the importance of archiving public broadcasting material in the United States. It stipulated that CPB should: …Establish and maintain, or contribute to, a library and archives of noncommercial educational and cultural radio and television programs and related materials and develop […]
ROME Italy’s justice minister said on Thursday it was “a lie” to paint humanitarian ships saving migrants in the Mediterranean as criminals, responding to a Sicilian prosecutor who has repeatedly suggested some are colluding with Libyan smugglers. Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor of the Sicilian port city of Catania, has said he has evidence of phone calls between people smugglers and aid groups, but he has not […]
The UAE’s telecoms regulator has said that roaming charges incurred by UAE customers who travel to other Gulf countries have fallen by 18 percent this month. The Telecommunication Regularity Authority (TRA) has announced the implementation of price caps for intra-GCC roaming services by UAE-based mobile operators. As a result, average international roaming prices for UAE customers fell by 18 percent since April 1, state news agency WAM […]
Since at its core, yesterday’s 1-page “tax plan” was a Goldman creation, who better to explain what Trump offered than Goldman Sachs itself, which it did overnight in a far lengthier note from its chief Washington analyst Alec Phillips. Here is Goldman with an elaboration of the handful of bullet points contained on the much anticipated one page, extended to 6 pages. Q&A on the President’s Tax […]
Integrated lifestyle development establishes a new benchmark for experiential travel in the region Dubai, UAE – 27 April 2017 – Majid Al Futtaim, the leading shopping mall, communities, retail and leisure pioneer across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, together with Marriott International (NASDAQ: MAR) today announced plans to launch the region’s first cinema-themed concept at Aloft Dubai City Centre Deira. The concept will feature a unique […]
