|By Matein Khalid|So Pearson PLC has sold the FT Group (with its flagship Financial Times newspaper) to Japan’s Nikkei Inc for $1.32 billion. Pearson will use the cash proceeds to increase its investment in education publishing businesses in the US and Canada, now 75% of revenues. This deal is a milestone in the history of newspaper publishing and my own life as an investor/financial journalist. I discovered […]
Gold stocks dropped, erasing most of yesterday’s gains, on concern Chinese buyers are losing their appetite for the metal. Gold Fields Ltd., which owns mines in South Africa and Australia, sank 6.7 percent as of 2:34 p.m. in Johannesburg. Sibanye Gold Ltd. and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. tumbled more than 6 percent. The FTSE/JSE Africa Gold Mining Index fell 5.5 percent and is trading near the lowest since […]
UAE. To preserve economic and social stability and continue with development plans, MENA governments are considering tax measures to broaden their revenue base and increase tax yields. The evolving tax landscape in the MENA region was discussed at the EY MENA Tax Conference held recently in London. The conference was attended by EY Tax specialists and senior finance and tax executives from major European companies with investments […]
TEHRAN — For Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter now on trial for espionage in Iran, the incident was extraordinary but still looked like another example of the difficulties in covering the country’s politics. On a spring day in March 2014, his wife and a female photographer were stopped in broad daylight in their car on a busy Tehran highway and taken into a van, where, friends […]
Beirut Journal A restaurant worker took two bags of trash to add to a giant pile of garbage left uncollected for a week outside a bar named Floyd the Dog in Beirut. By BEN HUBBARD July 27, 2015 BEIRUT, Lebanon — On a normal weekend night, the revelers at Floyd the Dog, a bar in one of this city’s rowdiest party neighborhoods, spill onto the sidewalk, drinks in hand, […]
The Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey on Monday. Turkey and the United States agreed on a plan that would create what officials are calling an Islamic State-free zone, which the Turks say could also be a “safe zone” for displaced Syrians. By ANNE BARNARD, MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT July 27, 2015 BAGHDAD — Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, […]
DUBAI // A leading estate agent and property management company in Dubai has gone out of business with the loss of dozens of jobs. S K Real Estate ceased trading last Tuesday without warning to most of its 70 employees. The glass door to the company’s office on floor 11 of Concord Tower in Media City has been smashed. Staff at neighbouring businesses arrived at work yesterday to […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a striking admission, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said on Sunday that the country’s army faced a manpower shortage and had ceded some areas to insurgents in order to hold onto other regions deemed more important. Mr. Assad also acknowledged in a speech televised from Damascus, the Syrian capital, that many Syrians could not watch the address because of the lack of electricity […]
Pearson Plc is in talks to sell its half stake in the publisher of the 172-year-old Economist magazine, marking another step toward the former conglomerate’s transformation to an education company. The Economist is one of the assets that were excluded from London-based Pearson’s agreement this week to dispose of the FT Group to Japan’s Nikkei Inc. Pearson’s 50 percent holding could be valued at as much as […]
SANA, Yemen — A Saudi-led military coalition announced on Saturday that a five-day humanitarian cease-fire would take effect in Yemen starting Sunday evening at the request of Yemen’s exiled president. Coalition forces have been bombing Shiite Houthi rebels and army forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh since March, aiming to push them back from southern and central areas and restore the country’s exiled president, Abdu […]
JERUSALEM — The two issues with perhaps the broadest consensus and resonance in Israeli politics are opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and support for the release of Jonathan J. Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy, from a North Carolina prison. Now the two could be tied together, as some in Washington appear to be highlighting Mr. Pollard’s likely parole in November in hopes of quieting the vigorous […]
ISTANBUL — Turkish fighter jets, which on Friday attacked Islamic State targets in Syria, have launched a wave of airstrikes in northern Iraq, targeting camps of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the first time in four years, the prime minister’s office said Saturday. The Iraq raids, which began late Friday and continued into Saturday, effectively ended an unstable two-year cease-fire between the Turkish government and the […]
The bargain hunters who thronged Kumar Jain’s jewelry store in Mumbai as gold prices tumbled in 2013 are staying away for now. They’re holding off because they think this week’s collapse to the lowest price in five years has further to run, according to Jain. That’s a view shared with Goldman Sachs. “It hasn’t been anything like what happened two years ago,” Jain said, referring to the […]
UAE. Women are just as likely as men to find employment in small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE, according to the latest research by business intelligence company MEED. Of the more than top 50 SMEs in the Emirates which participated in the study, 50 per cent said they employ an equal number of women and men in their organisations. About 40 per cent even reported having […]
A surge in shares of Amlak Finance since they returned to Dubai’s stock market last month has raised concerns about a new wave of unbridled speculation on one of the region’s biggest exchanges. The Islamic mortgage lender has soared about 150 percent since it restarted trading in early June after a six-year suspension due to debt problems. At its latest close of 2.52 dirhams, the stock is […]
A wounded soldier received treatment in January 2013, at an Egyptian hospital. The poor condition of medical and other public facilities in the country have been illustrated on Facebook pages. By KAREEM FAHIM and MERNA THOMAS July 24, 2015 CAIRO — When the prime minister of Egypt visited two Cairo hospitals last month, he said he was shocked by the disorder and decay he encountered. No one else was. Egyptian doctors […]
An AT&T Logo is pictured on the side of a building in Pasadena, California, January 26, 2015. Reuters/Mario Anzuoni WASHINGTON The No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier AT&T Inc (T.N) and the biggest satellite-TV provider DirecTV (DTV.O) became the country’s largest pay-TV company on Friday, completing their $48.5 billion merger after receiving final regulatory approval. The newly expanded AT&T leapfrogs the biggest U.S. cable company Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O). […]
A redesign of YouTube’s mobile platform was one of a number of key announcements made by Susan Wojcicki (pictured), the company’s CEO, yesterday. Wojcicki gave the keynote address at VidCon in Anaheim, Calif., for the second straight year. She was greeted as a hero at the annual online video conference, receiving numerous rounds of applause during her talk. She said mobile video is the top priority for […]
ADEN // An Emirati plane landed in Aden at dawn on Friday, bringing humanitarian aid to the southern Yemeni city only hours after its airport came under rocket fire from rebels. In total, four aircraft have arrived at the port city since the symbolic reopening of Aden’s international airport on Wednesday, which followed nearly four months of fierce fighting. The UAE plane delivered medical supplies from the […]
July 24, 2015 By LAILA LALAMI One afternoon last April, I stood in the doorway of my daughter’s room, watching her prepare for a big recital. She was going to perform with her middle-school orchestra in Santa Monica. She packed her violin, rosined her bow, put on a black dress and tamed her wild hair into a bun. ‘‘There,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m ready.’’ How lovely she looked, […]
Video | Kerry Defends Nuclear Deal to Senate Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meeting resistance from Republican members of the group. By JONATHAN WEISMAN and MICHAEL R. GORDON July 23, 2015 WASHINGTON — After four and a half hours of contentious questioning, three cabinet secretaries deployed Thursday by President Obama to the Senate to defend his nuclear deal with […]
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, right, and Gen. Taleb Shegati al-Kenani, second from right, commander of Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Service, reviewed maps at the joint operations center in Baghdad on Thursday. By HELENE COOPER July 23, 2015 BAGHDAD — Around 3,000 newly American-trained Iraqi troops, along with 500 trained Sunni tribal fighters, have been deployed to help in an expected government offensive to retake the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi […]
UAE. Wermuth Asset Management has announced its expectation that, given the availability of solar power at $4 cents/kWh, a price with which crude oil could only compete if offered below $7/barrel, the ‘carbon bubble’ will burst and that it will have profound implications for the Middle East’s oil producing countries, global financial markets and the world economy. If COP21 leaders this year commit to a global 2⁰C […]
INTERNATIONAL. In my “Net Assessment of the World,” I argued that four major segments of the European and Asian landmass were in crisis: Europe, Russia, the Middle East (from the Levant to Iran) and China. Each crisis was different; each was at a different stage of development. Collectively the crises threatened to destabilize the Eurasian landmass, the Eastern Hemisphere, and potentially generate a global crisis. They do […]
