Apple Inc., which has been working secretly on a car, is pushing its team to begin production of an electric vehicle as early as 2020, people with knowledge of the matter said. The timeframe — automakers typically spend five to seven years developing a car — underscores the project’s aggressive goals and could set the stage for a battle for customers with Tesla Motors Inc. and General […]
Orascom Construction has started proceedings for the demerger of the company’s units with its engineering and construction business to be listed on exchanges in Egypt and Dubai, the Amsterdam-listed firm said on Monday. The demerger of the engineering and construction business from its fertilisers and chemicals’ unit will take place on March 7, the company forecast in a statement. Orascom Construction will re-list on Egypt’s bourse, having […]
|By Sarosh Zaiwalla| Towards the end of last year, it was announced that the UAE’s long anticipated insolvency reform bill was reaching its final stages prior to implementation. The legal framework was drawn up following the establishment of the Dubai World Tribunal that resulted from the entity’s inability to pay its creditors in November 2009. The case cast a spotlight on the UAE, which until today does […]
Fast-growing Gulf Arab banks plan to bolster their reserves by issuing capital-boosting bonds, but uncertainty over regulation and ultra-tight pricing increase the risks for issuers and investors. Basel III standards, now being phased in around the world, will require banks to hold more capital. While Gulf banks have very high capital adequacy ratios, their rapid expansion, and the fact they operate in emerging markets with lower sovereign […]
Dubai Investments PJSC, the company with interests in real estate and manufacturing, will buy a 60 percent stake in investment bank Al Mal Capital PSC as part of a plan to boost financial services assets. The company will pay about 150 million dirhams ($41 million) for the stake and expects to complete the purchase by March 15, Chief Executive Officer Khalid Jassim Kalban said in a phone […]
Video | Israel Remembers Jewish Paris Victims The Israeli president, the prime minister and the wife of one of the four Jewish victims in a Paris kosher market attack spoke at the burial ceremony for the slain men in Jerusalem. By JODI RUDOREN January 13, 2015 JERUSALEM — They were buried Tuesday not in the land where they had made their homes but in what was described as their […]
|By Florence Tan and Henning Gloystein|Even as Saudi Arabia and its Gulf OPEC allies appear united in their refusal to cut output to boost global oil prices, they are becoming locked in an increasingly fierce battle to secure market share in Asia. Oil prices have slumped below $50 a barrel, the weakest since 2009, triggering a price war between producers to secure customers in Asia. And the […]
Op-Ed Contributor By MORIEL ROTHMAN-ZECHER January 11, 2015 TEL AVIV — “WHAT are you,” he asked, “a leftist?” We were both wearing the surplus United States Marines uniforms given to prisoners at Israeli Military Jail No. 6. “It depends how you define ‘left,’ ” I said. “Don’t get clever with me. Why are you here?” “I didn’t want to be part of a system whose main task is the violent […]
|By Andrew Torchia| It’s a weekend morning at the Dubai Mall, a glitzy complex with 1,200 stores, and the shoppers are pouring in. A traffic jam has formed in the basement parking area. With passenger arrivals at Dubai’s airport at record highs, retailers expect a good month. The 55 percent plunge of oil prices since last June might be expected to usher in an age of austerity […]
By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:31pm IST U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the French hostage situation during his visit to Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee, January 9, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Related Topics Dozens of world leaders lead hundreds of thousands of French citizens in an unprecedented march. Pics WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will highlight plans next week to […]
|By James G. Neuger |The bodies haven’t been buried and the killers are on the loose, but that didn’t prevent anti-Islam politicians across Europe from seizing on the Jan. 7 massacre in Paris. The rhetoric varied in intensity across the European Union’s 28 countries, each with its own religious and social phobias, many gripped by an economic recession that makes convenient scapegoats out of immigrants — especially […]
The Jetsons probably had no idea how soon the average American would see robots become a reality. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, a number of devices showed the futuristic concept is here and now. Robotics exhibits at CES grew 25 percent from last year’s show, according to the event’s organizers. “It speaks to the category’s growth and ability to disrupt and transform […]
If you don’t visit Facebook at least once a day, you’re in a dwindling minority. Facebook still remains the most popular social media site by far, according to a new survey by Pew Research. While its growth has slowed as other social sites continue to grow in popularity, the level of user engagement on Facebook has increased nonetheless. Facebook membership numbers since 2013 have been mostly static, […]
Dubai Islamic Bank will reopen the Gulf bond market next week with a capital-boosting sukuk, the region’s first debt offering in two months as financial markets there wobbled under the impact of falling oil prices. A successful offering would not just bolster reserves at DIB, the largest Islamic bank in the United Arab Emirates, but also pave the way for others who may have been waiting to […]
Oil extended losses below $48 a barrel amid speculation that U.S. inventories will expand, deepening a global supply glut that’s driven prices to a five-year low. Futures declined for a fourth day. Stockpiles in the world’s biggest oil-consuming country probably rose by 700,000 barrels last week, a Bloomberg News survey showed before a government report tomorrow. Oil slumped almost 50 percent in 2014, the most since the […]
Camp Taji Journal American military personnel, recently deployed to Iraq, found remnants of the previous United States military presence, mostly untouched since their comrades left Camp Taji three years earlier. By TIM ARANGO January 6, 2015 CAMP TAJI, Iraq — The calendar on the wall reads November 2011. On the ground is a half-filled tin of Copenhagen smokeless tobacco. Scattered here and there are bottles of Gatorade, cans of […]
UAE. Dubai announced Saturday adoption of a balanced budget for 2015, the first time there has been no shortfall since the global financial crisis. Spending and revenues are both projected at 41 billion dirhams ($11.2 billion), according to an official statement cited by the official WAM news agency. Spending is set at 9.0 percent higher, while revenues are projected to be up 11 percent. Dubai is one […]
INTERNATIONA. Oil fell in 2014 by the most since the 2008 global financial crisis as U.S. producers and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries ceded no ground in their battle for market share amid a supply glut. The U.S. benchmark ended at a five-year low yesterday, capping a 46 percent drop in 2014, as stockpiles of crude oil and gasoline reached seasonal record highs and as OPEC […]
Wanted: Ched Evans is set to join League One side Oldham Photo: PA By Rowan Pelling 6:01AM GMT 05 Jan 2015 It’s been 13 years since John Leslie waved goodbye to his TV career. Some readers may be scratching their heads, as they try to remember his original claim to fame and what led to his downfall. Then they might gradually recall how the former Blue Peter and […]
Op-Ed Contributor By DENNIS B. ROSS January 4, 2015 WASHINGTON — THE president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, insists on using international institutions to pressure Israel, even after he was rebuffed in the United Nations Security Council, where he sought a resolution mandating Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Mr. Abbas has now announced that he will turn to the International Criminal Court — a move […]
Falling world oil prices will hurt countries across the Middle East unless Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, takes action to reverse the slump, Iran’s deputy foreign minister told Reuters. Hossein Amir Abdollahian described Saudi Arabia’s inaction in the face of a six-month slide in oil prices as a strategic mistake and said he still hoped the kingdom, Tehran’s main rival in the Gulf, would respond. […]
Gulf stock markets rose on Sunday despite oil’s weakness as Saudi Arabia’s plan to maintain government spending at a high level boosted investor confidence. The Saudi government released a 2015 state budget last Thursday that provides for a 0.6 percent increase in spending from this year’s plan. That cheered the retail investors who dominate Gulf stock markets; they had feared falling oil revenues would trigger spending cuts […]
Gulf stock markets rose on Thursday as Saudi Arabia released a 2015 state budget that will keep spending high, reassuring the region that economic growth is unlikely to be hurt much by the plunge of oil prices. The Saudi budget envisions state spending at a record 860 billion riyals ($230 billion) next year, up 0.6 percent from the 2014 budget plan. That would be the smallest rise […]
Saudi authorities pledged to curb wages and push ahead with investments next year as the world’s largest oil exporter seeks to counter the effect of tumbling crude prices on the economy. The government said it expects the budget deficit in 2015 to widen to 145 billion riyals ($39 billion), from 54 billion riyals this year, the Finance Ministry said today. That amounts to about 5 percent of […]
