A $100 million fund has been launched in Bahrain to invest in the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The initiative has been unveiled by the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), the private sector arm of IDB Group, in partnership with Ibdar Bank, and Labour Fund Tamkeen. The Bahrain SME Fund is a Shariah compliant mezzanine private equity fund which will target […]
WILMINGTON, Del. A judge effectively killed off any practical chance of Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) merging with Cigna Corp (CI.N) on Thursday as he declined to order Cigna not to terminate the deal. Judge Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery denied Anthem’s request for a preliminary injunction but stayed implementation of his ruling until noon on Monday to give the insurer time to decide if it will […]
The future of the popular Hitman video game franchise seems uncertain for now, as Square Enix just announced that it has dropped developer IO Interactive. Square Enix broke the news upon announcing that it has booked an “extraordinary loss” in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2017 and as a result, it’s rethinking its strategy going forward. Square Enix Drops IO Interactive: What Now? Moving […]
Scientists unveiled a lightweight, robotic, outer “skeleton” Thursday that can detect when someone loses their balance, correct their gait, and prevent their fall. Designed to limit stumbles among the elderly, the device has sensors that can discern in real time when a limb starts to buckle or flail, and lightweight motors which exert instant force on both legs to restore balance. “Wearable machines that enhance your […]
Authored by Whitney Webb via TheAntiMedia.org, When the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 as part of its newly launched “war on terror,” it set the stage for the explosive growth of Afghanistan’s dying opium industry. A few short months before the invasion took place, the Taliban made headlines for having “dramatically ended the country’s massive opium trade” after the leader of the fundamentalist […]
By Ben Blanchard | BEIJING BEIJING When leaders of 28 nations gather in Beijing next week for a summit to map out China’s ambitious new Silk Road project, one question is likely to be on attendees’ minds – what exactly is the Belt and Road Initiative? Proposed in 2013 by President Xi Jinping to promote a vision of expanding links between Asia, Africa and Europe underpinned by […]
By Nandita Bose | WHEATON, Ill. WHEATON, Ill. German grocery chain Aldi Inc is trying to beat the world’s biggest retailer at its own game: low prices. Already with 1,600 U.S. stores, Aldi has set a minimum target of selling groceries at a 21 percent discount to its U.S. rivals, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), Chief Executive Jason Hart told Reuters. His strategy, previously unreported, centers on […]
A consortium led by Macquarie Group is buying a controlling stake in one of Australia’s biggest public energy companies in a deal that will deliver a A$7.6bn windfall to the New South Wales government. The sale of a 50.4 per cent stake in Endeavour Energy to the Advance Energy consortium completes a trio of energy sales in NSW under an “asset recycling” policy, which the US administration […]
Abu Dhabi // The president of the UAE, Sheikh Khalifa, has been invited by Saudi King Salman to attend talks in Riyadh later this month with the US president. The ruler of Abu Dhabi was invited to both the US-GCC talks as well as the summit expected to be held a day later, on May 21, between Donald Trump and leaders from more than a dozen of […]
Nike’s VP of digital design transformation, Ken Black, has put his company’s competitors on notice, revealing the sneaker giant is aggressively pursuing any environment in which it can innovate. “We have the best athletes, best designers, best data; we’re going to use technology to enable us to move faster,” Black explained. “One of the things I love the most is when you really boil it down to […]
The lead characters are a Norwegian couple who had Middle East experience and thought they might be able to broker an agreement. This was high-octane audacity. Yet the two of them — Terje Rod-Larsen, a social scientist, and his wife, Mona Juul, an official in Norway’s foreign ministry — pulled it off. Continue reading the main story The play’s Mr. Larsen, portrayed by Jefferson Mays, seems a […]
Jonathan Hunt, Vox Media’s former vice president of international operations, has left the digital news publisher for a job leading National Geographic’s audience development and digital strategy. Hunt’s hire is part of an expansion of National Geographic’s digital team. Also new at National Geographic will be Marcus East, formerly the digital director at retail company Marks and Spencer, who will be executive vice president of product and […]
10 May 2017 BP today announced that it has started gas production from the first two fields, Taurus and Libra, of the West Nile Delta development in Egypt. The project was delivered eight months ahead of start-up schedule and under budget. First gas was exported to Egypt’s national grid on 24 March 2017 and the commissioning of all nine wells of the development’s first two fields and […]
Microsoft, whose campus is shown in this 2014 picture, has told developers at its annual Build conference it wants to bring artificial intellience into the mainstream Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled new tools intended to democratize artificial intelligence by enabling machine smarts to be built into software from smartphone games to factory floors. The US technology titan opened its annual Build Conference by highlighting programs with artificial intelligence […]
Manama, 10 May 2017 GFH Financial Group (GFH) announced today that Islamic International Rating Agency (IIRA) has upgraded its national scale ratings by a notch to ‘BBB-(bh)/A3(bh)’ (TripleB Minus/ A Three) with a ‘Stable’ outlook and maintained its international scale ratings at ‘BB/B’ (Double B / Single B), 1`. According to the agency’s report, the rating action recognizes recent positive developments that have reinforced the Group’s balance […]
The Indian government issued an ordinance at the end of last week laying out some new powers for the Reserve Bank of India, powers which are aimed at chipping away at the country’s mammoth and thoroughly discussed bad loan problem. Here’s CreditSights with a brief explanation: In essence, two additional sections 35AA and 35AB were introduced into the Banking Regulation Act. 35AA will allow the government […]
By Girish Gupta and Christian Veron | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s opposition protests on Wednesday may be the messiest in a six-week wave of unrest as demonstrators prepare to throw faeces at security forces, adding to the customary rocks, petrol bombs and tear gas. The new tactic has been dubbed the “Poopootov” in a play on the Molotov cocktail often seen at streets protests in Venezuela. “They have […]
By Sue-Lin Wong | HUNCHUN, China HUNCHUN, China In August, 2014, planners in the northeastern Chinese city of Hunchun argued in state media that it should be included in the “One Belt, One Road” project, Beijing’s vision laid out the previous year of a new Silk Road across Asia to Europe. In 2015, the official Xinhua news agency ran stories about how Hunchun was accelerating its “OBOR” […]
Microsoft is continuing to tweak its Windows as a Service updating and patching strategy. Company officials announced some of the latest adjustments during last week’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) about Windows as a Service on the Microsoft Tech Comunity site. Microsoft officials have been hinting that the company is working to align the patching and updating strategies for Windows 10 and Office, moving forward. It turns out […]
09 May 2017 136,200 sqm City Centre Al Zahia will serve the shopping and leisure needs of more than 1.9 million people by 2020 Strategically located and easibly accessible from all directions, City Centre Al Zahia is also adjacent to Al Zahia, Sharjah’s award-winning, master planned community developed by Sharjah Holding PJSC, a strategic partnership between the Government of Sharjah and Majid Al Futtaim Properties Strategically located at […]
Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com, Recently, I published the comment that, when the present debt bubble eventually pops, “governments will lose the economic power to continue their advance against economic freedom.” The immediate reaction from one reader was, “What could we expect next?… The governments and Deep State aren’t going to ‘just go away.’” An excellent question—one which deserves an answer. We won’t need a crystal […]
Thanks to a shoutout from John Oliver, the election of President Trump, an insult from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and, oh yeah, its journalism, ProPublica is enjoying a pretty good run. Just how good was disclosed on Friday, when the nonprofit investigative outlet put out its quarterly report to stakeholders. The report, which contains updates on ProPublica’s strategy and journalistic output, included a by-the-numbers page […]
Deloitte has announced that it has acquired Strut Digital, a Sydney-based professional and managed services firm, to fill the DevOps gap in its cloud implementation service. Kevin Russo, lead partner in Deloitte’s Technology, Strategy, and Architecture division, told ZDNet that Strut was the next logical acquisition for Deloitte, complementing the purchases of Plenary Networks, Sixtree, and Cloud Solutions Group over the last couple of years. He added […]
By Tom Hals and Diane Bartz | WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON Health insurer Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) asked a Delaware judge on Monday to give it more time to try to win approval for a merger with rival Cigna Corp (CI.N), which is seeking to end the deal and collect a $1.85 billion break-up fee. Anthem asked Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery to grant […]
