Books of The Times By MICHIKO KAKUTANI The title of Janine di Giovanni’s devastating new book, “The Morning They Came for Us,” refers to those terrible moments in ordinary Syrians’ lives when the war in their country becomes personal. Those moments when there is a knock on the door and the police or intelligence services take a family member away. Those moments when a government-delivered barrel bomb […]
UAE. According to EY’s latest Global Fraud Survey, Corporate misconduct – individual consequences, only 29% of executives in the Middle East recognize cybercrime risk, compared to 47% globally. T he survey found that many respondents maintain the view that fraudulent activity is not their problem, despite recognizing the prevalence of the issue in their own countries. Michael Adlem, EY’s MENA Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services (FIDS) Leader, […]
INTERNATIONAL. Global inclusion in the internet could bring seven percent of the world’s population – 500 million people – above absolute poverty levels, and add US$6.7 trillion (£4.6 trillion) to global economic output, according to a new study by Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business. The study, for Facebook, encompassed 120 countries over a 10-year period and examines how barriers to accessing the internet could be removed, and […]
ABU DHABI // Solar Impulse 2 landed Sunday morning in Dayton, Ohio, the birthplace of the legendary aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright. The solar-powered plane took off from Tulsa, Oklahoma on the third leg of its journey across the United States on Saturday afternoon. Pilots Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard have been taking turns flying the craft since the mission began in Abu Dhabi in March […]
By HELENE COOPER May 21, 2016 WASHINGTON — An American drone strike targeted the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, United States officials said on Saturday, in the most significant American incursion inside Pakistan since Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, in 2011. In a statement issued on Saturday, Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said the […]
By DECLAN WALSH, NOUR YOUSSEF and KAREEM FAHIM May 21, 2016 CAIRO — In an eerie coincidence, the EgyptAir jetliner that plunged into the Mediterranean on Thursday was once the target of political vandals who wrote in Arabic on its underside, “We will bring this plane down.” Three EgyptAir security officials said the threatening graffiti, which appeared about two years ago, had been the work of aviation workers at Cairo Airport. Playing […]
Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Al Nahda was able to survive in Tunisia despite initial conflict with secularists Tunisian President Beji Qaid Al Sebsi (right) and Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Al Nahda wave to the audience during an Al Nahda congress in Tunis on May 20. Tunis: Tunisia’s Islamist party Al Nahda will separate its political and religious work, its chief said on Friday, moving […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo LONDON/CHICAGO Shortly after 7 p.m. on January 12, 2015, a message from a secure computer terminal at Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador instructed San Francisco-based Wells Fargo to transfer money to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Wells Fargo complied. Over 10 days, Wells approved a total of at least 12 […]
A new developer portal and Android SDK (software developer kit) for SoftBank’s robot platform are aimed at convincing developers to build apps for the Pepper humanoid robot. Although the platform was first announced two years ago, the decision to open it up to Android apps should help greatly expand the base of app developers working on Pepper programs. “By making Pepper compatible with Android, Android application developers […]
It was the early to mid 1980s, and everybody was having fun. But some of us Datsun Nissan fans couldn’t afford a 280Z or 300ZX, yet we wanted a sporty ride. What to do, oh, what to do. Enter the first generation Pulsar NX into the American market in 1983. Its timing was superb, since the Sentra Sport Coupe was still a few years away, and a […]
|By Matein Khalid| If ever there was a year to win or lose money big time in emerging markets, 2016 was it. As an investor in the world’s dark alleys (the Third World rebranded as EM!), I am forced to dissect geopolitical, government/monetary policy, foreign exchange, flows, positioning and current account, volatility and credit cycle trends across emerging markets to develop money making strategies. It helps that I […]
The Firefox Web browser has overtaken both of Microsoft’s browsers put together when it comes to market share, according to a new report. That’s the good news for Mozilla, which develops Firefox. The bad news is that Google’s Chrome browser is leaving both Mozilla and Microsoft in the dust. According to the latest figures from Statcounter, 60.5 percent of worldwide users opted for Chrome as their browser […]
Since shortly after Twitter launched in 2006, users of the microblogging site have generally been limited to tweets of no more than 140 characters each. However, the company is reportedly considering a change to eliminate images and links from that limit. The length restriction on tweets made sense in the pre-smartphone era, when SMS text messages had to abide by similar limits. But today’s much more powerful […]
Tripoli: Libya’s new unity government said Tuesday it wants warplanes and helicopters to fight terrorists as it hailed international support for lifting a longstanding embargo on weapons sales. International backing to lift the embargo, in place since 2011, is “fundamental to the creation of a strong army… capable of fighting the jihadist Islamic State group and other extremist groups”, Deputy Prime Minister Mussa Al Kony said. On […]
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) revealed a more than $1 billion stake in Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in a rare foray into the technology sector, which Buffett has largely shunned apart from a poorly performing investment in IBM (IBM.N). Shares of Apple rose 3.7 percent on the news, closing up $3.36 at $93.88. Berkshire made its investment in the first quarter, before the iPhone maker in April […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia ranks among the top dozen foreign holders of U.S. debt, the Treasury Department disclosed, breaking its silence on the issue for the past four decades. “The stockpile of the world’s biggest oil exporter stood at $116.8 billion as of March, down almost 6 percent from a record in January, according to data the Treasury disclosed Monday in response to a Freedom-of-Information […]
They hog resources, take too long to load and are often embedded with malware. That’s why Google is planning to phase out Adobe Flash videos in its Chrome Web browser by the end of this year. Google disclosed its plan to ditch the multimedia player in a proposal that was published on its Chromium-dev Google Groups page last week. Instead, Chrome will transition to HTML5 as its […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Emirates Islamic and French financial institution Natixis announced the completion of a US$50 million Collateralised Murabaha deal on the Nasdaq Dubai Murabaha Platform. It is the largest collateralised Murabaha transaction closed by Emirates Islamic this year, and the first of its kind executed on the Nasdaq Dubai Murabaha Platform. A joint initiative between Nasdaq Dubai and Emirates Islamic, Nasdaq Dubai’s Murabaha platform provides […]
A security guard keeps watch as he walks past a logo of Google at an exhibition stage during the 4th China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair 2016 in Shanghai, China, April 21, 2016. Reuters/Aly Song LONDON Google faces a record antitrust fine of around 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) from the European Commission in the coming weeks, British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph said. The European Union […]
Reuters/Denis Balibouse/File photo SAN FRANCISCO Warren Buffett struck media gold with a 2012 investment in debt-laden Media General Inc. Now the famed investor may try to reprise that success by supporting a bid for Yahoo Inc’s Internet assets. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman is backing a consortium that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, that is seeking to buy Yahoo’s online portfolio, Reuters reported […]
Reuters/Ralph Orlowski/Files FRANKFURT The European Central Bank will set up a database to register incidents of cyber crime at commercial banks, aiming to create an early warning and analysis system for big lenders, it told a German newspaper on Thursday. Attackers earlier this year stole $81 million from a Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Fed in one of the biggest-ever cyber […]
UAE. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region witnessed only two IPOs raising US$615.0m in Q1 2016, representing another quarter with limited IPO activity, according to EY. Capital raised through MENA firms in Q1 2016 increased by 141%, while the number of IPOs were consistent (2 IPOs), compared with Q1 2015. Phil Gandier, MENA Transactions Leader, EY, says: “Q1 2016 witnessed limited IPO activity, in line […]
|By Matein Khalid| The April payrolls data demonstrated that US economic growth has hit a soft patch. The US economy only added 160 jobs in April, less than the expected 203,000 average in the first three months of 2016. One disappointing data point does not imply a macroeconomic trend reversal since the US economy added 2.8 million jobs between March 2015 and March 2016. Statistical and measurement errors […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks on stage during the Facebook F8 conference in San Francisco, California April 12, 2016. Reuters/Stephen Lam A U.S. Senate committee launched an inquiry on Tuesday into how social media website Facebook selects its news stories after a report that company employees blocked news about conservative issues from its “trending” list. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asked Facebook […]
