ABU DHABI // Five people died on Saturday when two four-wheel-drive vehicles collided head-on at Al Razeen, near Al Raha beach in Abu Dhabi. One of the vehicles caught fire in the crash, which happened at about 10am. All five of the dead were Emirati. Police and civil defence emergency teams rushed to the accident and tackled the fire. Investigations are under way to determine the circumstances […]
A sign in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, calls for a boycott of products from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. By RICK GLADSTONE June 5, 2015 South Carolina has become the first state to enact legislation aimed at thwarting an international pro-Palestinian economic and disinvestment campaign intended to penalize Israel. Illinois will soon become the second, and advocates say plans are underway for similar laws in 18 more […]
|By Rashidul Bari|One may expect the title “Grameen and Muhammad Yunus” to reflect Yunus’ founding of the Grameen Bank (which won the Nobel Prize in 2006) in 1983 to provide miniature loans to the poor—especially women who were trapped in an endless cycle of poverty. Why then does the title involve John Nash, a math genius who won the Nobel Prize in 1994, instead of Yunus? Does […]
By DIAA HADID June 5, 2015 RAMALLAH, West Bank — France is “firmly opposed” to a boycott of Israel, the French foreign minister said Friday, after the partly state-owned French telecommunications company Orange said it would seek to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market. The company’s decision was seen in Israel as the latest in a rapid succession of blows meant to isolate and punish the country over […]
U.S. Government Suffers Massive Cyberattack The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is reporting a cybersecurity incident that affects its systems and data. The breach may have compromised the personal information of 4 million current and former federal workers. “Within the last year, OPM has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its networks,” according to a statement on […]
UAE. The Global Economic Conditions Survey for the first quarter of 2015, carried out by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants) also shows that while lower oil prices have helped oil-importing nations such as the USA and Europe, they have undermined performance in many net oil-exporting regions such as Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Confidence has dipped in […]
QATAR. Risk, governance, globalization and technology are among the many risks currently facing companies. Internal Audit plays a critical role in addressing these issues while contending with the challenge of complying with the updated Committee of Sponsoring Organizations’ (COSO) Internal Control-Integrated Framework, which is a widely used framework around the world, in which internal control is broadly defined as a process, effected by an entity’s board of […]
President Obama met with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq in April at the White House. By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS June 4, 2015 WASHINGTON — President Obama will meet on Monday with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq to discuss the military campaign against the Islamic State, White House officials said on Thursday, as the militant group continues to make gains despite an American-led counteroffensive. The two men met at the […]
By ISABEL KERSHNER June 4, 2015 JERUSALEM — A growing global pro-Palestinian movement to boycott Israel instantly created a national furor on Thursday after the top executive of Orange, a leading French telecommunications company, said he would withdraw from the Israeli market if he could. The Facebook page of an Israeli company, Partner Communications, which has a license to use the Orange brand, was filled with customer complaints demanding […]
By RICK GLADSTONE June 3, 2015 The adjourned espionage trial of Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent incarcerated in Tehran since last July, will resume on Monday, Mr. Rezaian’s brother said Wednesday. The brother, Ali Rezaian, confirmed via email a report by the Iranian Students’ News Agency quoting the defense lawyer, Leila Ahsan, as saying that said she had been informed of the date for the next hearing in […]
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting with Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Fellows (YSEALI) at the White House in Washington June 1, 2015. Reuters/Kevin Lamarque WASHINGTON President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday legislation passed by Congress earlier in the day reforming a government surveillance program that swept up millions of Americans’ telephone records. Reversing security policy in place since shortly after […]
UAE. In a report released today by A.T. Kearney the UAE is ranked as the seventh most-attractive country in the Global Retail Development Index (GRDI), marking the eighth year in a row that the country has been globally ranked in the top 10. The UAE’s retail market continues to grow steadily with retail space growing by 7 percent in 2014 to reach 1.6 million square meters and […]
ABU DHABI // The director of A Place Called Home believes his film is an insight into “the full spectrum of expatriate life in the UAE”. The documentary, produced by Abu Dhabi Media, which also publishes this newspaper, is available to watch in full on The National’s website from today. Director John Sammon said the film “shines a light on some of the harsh realities of people’s […]
Shares in Dubai Islamic mortgage provider Amlak Finance fell sharply as they resumed trading on Tuesday after being suspended for nearly six years. The stock tumbled as much as 23.5 percent shortly after opening but then pared losses to 14.7 percent. It topped trading volumes on the emirate’s bourse, whose main index slipped 0.2 percent. Trading in Amlak, part-owned by Dubai’s biggest developer Emaar Properties, was halted […]
World Briefing By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK June 2, 2015 LONDON — Two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr, were arrested this week in a suburb of Cairo after evading the police for nearly two years, security officials said Tuesday. Reports of the arrests came the same day that an Egyptian court postponed a session that was expected to confirm a death sentence against the […]
Intel Corp (INTC.O) agreed to buy Altera Corp (ALTR.O) for $16.7 billion as the world’s biggest chipmaker seeks to make up for slowing demand from the PC industry by expanding its line-up of higher-margin chips used in data centres. By combining with Altera, Intel will be able to bundle its processing chips with the smaller company’s programmable chips, which are used, among other things, to speed up […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
|By Fiona Maharg-Bravo |Big Oil is too confident about crude prices. After a 40 percent rally from January’s six-year low, the momentum has been on the upside. But the current prices – $65 a barrel for Brent and $60 for WTI – look more like a ceiling than a floor. That is not what many insiders seem to think. Some oil service companies expect mid-$70s Brent by […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
NORWICH, UK // A former UAE teacher has published a book on Islamic art for children that she hopes will help to improve perceptions of the Muslim world. Mary Beardwood spent six years researching and writing Discovering Islamic Art, the second book she has written about the culture and traditions of the region. A retired teacher who worked at Jebel Ali Primary School, Rashid School for Boys […]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 30, 2015 BEIRUT — Syrian Army airstrikes killed at least 70 people, most of them civilians, and wounded scores in attacks on Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo. Activists said that civilian areas, including a packed market in a town held by the Islamic State group, were hit. The deaths occurred in two separate strikes when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels. One barrel hit the […]
Pakistani volunteers tried to identify the bodies of some of the 22 people killed Friday night in attacks in Baluchistan. By SALMAN MASOOD and ZIA ur-REHMAN May 30, 2015 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Tensions were running high on Saturday in southwestern Pakistan after dozens of heavily armed gunmen, wearing the uniforms of security forces, stopped two buses, singled out ethnic Pashtuns and fatally shot at least 22 of them on Friday night. […]
Diane Foley in August after ISIS beheaded her son, James. She has taken part in a review of government policy on hostages. By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS May 29, 2015 WASHINGTON — When President Obama met recently with the mother of James Foley, the American hostage beheaded last August by the Islamic State, she said, he told her that freeing her son and the other American hostages held with him had […]
UAE. The depressed oil prices predominant since late last year could herald a lasting trend if, as evidence suggests, we are now facing the low-price segment of an oil ‘super cycle’, according to the latest paper from global strategy and management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. This new situation would pose both challenges and opportunities to Middle East companies and countries. There is still much volatility in the […]
