AL AIN // The country’s oldest university must change if it is to keep up with the economy, academics say. UAE University in Al Ain climbed from the 101-to-110 bracket in the Times Higher Education Asia rankings last year to 83 this year, but vice chancellor Professor Mohammed Albaili said this was “not sufficient for the UAE, so we have to work together to advance the university”. […]
BlackRock and Pimco are refusing to take part in the first bond sale by a Portuguese bank in more than a year, because of a legal battle with the country’s central bank over losses sustained in 2015. Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the state-owned Portuguese bank, is this week courting investors in London and Paris, as it seeks to sell a €500m subordinated bond, in what would be […]
Instagram is already doing a lot to spot and censor posts that violate its community guidelines, like outright porn, but now it’s also taking steps to block out potentially sensitive material that might not technically run afoul of its rules. The social network is adding a blurred screen with a “Sensitive Content” warning on top of posts that fit this description, which basically means posts that have […]
The man who killed three people and injured at least 40 in the terror attack on Westminster was British born and has previously been investigated by MI5, Theresa May said on Thursday. Although the attacker, who was fatally shot by police, was known to the domestic security service, it is believed he acted alone and was “not part of the current intelligence picture”, the prime minister said. […]
The optimistic but eerie calm that had settled over the US stock market since the US election ended abruptly this week, as the longest streak of trading days without a 1 per cent decline in more than two decades finally snapped. Equities clawed back some of their losses on Wednesday but investors remain on edge. The post-election stock market rally has been largely powered by hopes the […]
Fans of “Shark Tank” might recall a recent episode in which a startup company called Sand Cloud won a deal with shark Robert Herjavec. The company’s business success to date–which helped it land the deal on the show–stems largely from how its technology strategy aligns with its target audience of millennials, according to co-founder Brandon Leibel. “Embracing technology helped us to grow enough to get on Shark […]
By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices recovered on Thursday from losses chalked up the session before, but the market remained under pressure as bloated U.S. crude inventories and rising output dampen OPEC-led efforts to curb global production. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, were at $50.82 per barrel at 0807 GMT, up 18 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their last close. That came […]
It is officially Lü Siqing’s year. “2017 is the Year of the Rooster,” says the celebrated violinist, proudly pointing at the Chinese calendar. Some might argue that the 48-year-old’s “year” could also be described as 1987, the year Siqing reached international prominence as the first Asian winner of the Paganini Competition – a global contest held in honour of the late Italian virtuoso Niccolò Paganini. Such an […]
The legendary Breitling DC-3 aeroplane has landed in Dubai as part of its record-breaking world tour. This historic aircraft, which is aiming to become the oldest plane to circumnavigate the globe, arrived at Jetex FBO Terminal, Dubai World Central on Tuesday (21st March) ahead of the next leg of the trip which will take it to Karachi, Pakistan. Having crossed the Gulf from Qatar, flying low over […]
Newfound volatility and jitters ahead of a key healthcare vote in Washington have sapped enthusiasm for corporate bonds, forcing several companies to pay up to borrow through debt capital markets and sending others to the sidelines to await market calm. Goldman Sachs and Santander were forced to offer more attractive new issue premiums to draw investors amid the subdued market conditions, as several recent bond offerings sold […]
By Nick Kounis of ABN Amro Euro Rates Watch – Will the TLTRO spark carry trades? The last of the ECB’s TLTRO-II operations is expected to have a big take up, with the market expecting EUR 125bn, and some forecasts as high as EUR 300bn From a rates perspective, what matters is whether these funds will trigger flows into the bond or swap markets as banks set […]
DUBAI: Social media users made fun of Syrian First Lady Asma Al-Assad being named as the “Mother of the Nation.”In comments replete with derision and taunts, they said it was galling on her part to be called the “Mother of the Nation” after having overseen the murder of nearly 400,000 of her compatriots since the 2011 revolution.Almost 5 million people have fled Syria since the beginning of […]
ANKARA One Turkish soldier was killed and four were wounded in an armed attack by Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeastern province of Hakkari, the Turkish military said on Thursday. Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast has been ravaged by violence, as the outlawed militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has targeted security forces since abandoning a 2-1/2-year ceasefire in July 2015. In a statement released on Thursday, the military said […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks, taking some cues from a steady Wall Street, edged up on Thursday while the path for the dollar, which crawled up from a four-month low, remained clouded by concerns about the prospects for U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-growth agenda. Sterling GBP=D3 was steady at $1.2483 following a decline of as much as 0.4 percent on Wednesday, after an attack […]
Two-and-a-half years ago, Nathan Law took to the streets of Hong Kong with tens of thousands of fellow students, demanding Beijing give them the right to vote for the leader of their own city government. This Sunday Mr Law will have that opportunity — but not in the way he envisaged during the “Umbrella Revolution” protests. When he was voted on to the city’s Legislative Council in […]
“Reflecting on the past year or so, we should be encouraged by the significant progress we as a coalition are making,” Mr. Tillerson said. Continue reading the main story Mr. Trump has long insisted that citing “radical Islamic terrorism” is key to defeating the Islamic State. “You can’t solve a problem if you refuse to talk about what the problem is,” he said in November 2015. Yet […]
March 23, 2017 by: Peter Wells in Hong Kong Thursday 02.15 GMT Overview Asian markets were in a more subdued mood and making a tentative recovery from a midweek sell-off in which many global stock markets suffered their worst session since the US presidential election. A terror attack in London on Wednesday also kept investors in a cautious mood. Hot topic A jolt to global financial markets […]
On Monday night, travelers flying to the US from eight Muslim-majority countries started receiving warnings that they’d need to pack all electronics larger than cell phones into checked luggage; that means no laptops, no tablets, and no cameras (among other things). By Tuesday, Britain followed suit with a similar (but more forgiving) policy. Included on the do-not-fly-with-gadgets list are passengers heading directly to the US from Abu […]
By Patricia Zengerle and Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee set off a political firestorm on Wednesday when he said the communications of members of Donald Trump’s transition team were caught up in incidental surveillance targeting foreigners. Representative Devin Nunes said at a news conference that it was possible President Trump’s own communications were also intercepted and […]
By Andrea Hopkins | OTTAWA OTTAWA Canada’s Liberal government unveiled a stay-the-course budget on Wednesday that targeted export growth and some measure of tax reform but did little to whittle away at deficits even as it backed off from an explicit pledge to improve the debt outlook. Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s second budget contained few surprises, in line with expectations that Ottawa wants to wait to see […]
DUBAI // Drop-in nannies specialising in babies are increasingly being used by new mothers who want to climb back on to the career ladder weeks after giving birth. One Dubai company has offered qualified nurses to more than 1,000 families since starting up in 2013, a trend largely driven by the scant maternity leave on offer for women wishing to return to work. Although government workers can […]
SEOUL Five South Koreans were injured near the British parliament on Wednesday in what UK police called a “marauding terrorist attack,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in Seoul. The five were injured in the chaos that ensued when the attacker ploughed into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Three women and one man in their 50s and 60s suffered injuries including […]
Britain’s Houses of Parliament came under attack on Wednesday from a knife-wielding assailant who ploughed a vehicle through throngs of people on Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a police officer. In the largest-scale terrorist incident in London since suicide bombers killed 52 people in July 2005, at least five people died, including the attacker. A further 40 were injured, according to police. The attack paralysed the heart […]
Photo A poster in Istanbul of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in advance of a referendum seeking to grant him more power. Credit Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images KASTAMONU, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey warned Europeans on Wednesday that they would no longer be able to walk safely in the street if Western politicians continued with perceived provocations against Turkish leaders. Mr. […]
