|By Matein Khald| During the 2008 post-Lehman financial meltdown, home prices in Dubai fell by 60-70 per cent and a generation of offplan flippers and leveraged investors/buyers (a mortgage, by definition, is a highly leveraged and speculative financial product. There is a reason the word “mortgage” derives from the French “mort” or death!) were wiped out. However, the Arab Spring, global liquidity and the successful debt restructuring […]
An employee stands in front of the Apple flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York April 22, 2015. Reuters/Brendan McDermid/Files WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO U.S. government antitrust regulators are looking into claims about whether Apple’s treatment of rival streaming music apps is illegal under antitrust law, according to three industry sources. Apple recently launched a new music streaming service, Apple Music. It also provides the App Store platform […]
Mobile application developers will be able to test the quality of their apps through a new service — AWS Device Farm — unveiled by Amazon Web Services. The announcement was one of several made during the AWS Cloud Summit taking place Thursday at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Other new developments announced during the event included Amazon API Gateway, a managed service designed to […]
Dubai has overtaken other financial centres in listing Islamic bonds on its exchanges, and is mounting a global drive to attract more listings while developing new channels to trade sukuk, the chief executive of Nasdaq Dubai said. “Demand for Islamic financial products still exceeds supply — there are very few financial products for which this is true,” said Hamed Ahmed Ali. The exchange is working on ways […]
SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft Inc’s (MSFT.O) future in mobile devices likely hinges on the software maker’s ability to convince developers to create apps for the phone version of Windows 10 after its ill-fated Nokia acquisition helped trigger 7,800 layoffs. The job cuts announcement is an acknowledgement that its 2013 $7.2 billion purchase of Nokia was never going to help paltry sales of its Windows Phone, and that it […]
UAE. The representation of women on corporate boards continues to increase, but the number of women leading boards still remains low globally. Overall, women now hold 12 percent of seats worldwide with only 4 percent chairing boards, according to the fourth edition of the Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective, report by Deloitte. The report outlines the efforts of 49 countries to increase the number of […]
ABU DHABI // The New York Times bestselling author Dan Buettner’s secrets to a long and healthy life transfixed the audience, which included members of the Royal Family, at the fifth Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Ramadan Majlis on Wednesday night. Buettner provided some surprising revelations in his tips on how to live a grand life to the age of 100 in his talk Blue Zones: Secrets of […]
Redmond is cleaning house. Microsoft just announced plans to restructure its phone hardware business to better focus and align resources. Part of that alignment translates to layoffs. Microsoft will cut up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business. The result: an impairment charge of about $7.6 billion related to assets connected to its Nokia Devices and Services business acquisition. That’s on top of a restructuring charge […]
China’s biggest stock-market rout since 1992 has done nothing to erode the bullish outlook of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Kinger Lau, the bank’s China strategist in Hong Kong, predicts the large-cap CSI 300 Index will rally 27 percent over the next 12 months as government support measures boost investor confidence and monetary easing spurs economic growth. Leveraged positions aren’t big enough to trigger a market collapse, Lau […]
An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 28, 2015. Reuters/Mike Brown/Files CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla SpaceX is still homing in on why its Falcon 9 rocket exploded after liftoff last week, unable to resolve conflicting data radioed back to the ground before the explosion, CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday. “It’s a huge blow to SpaceX. We take these missions incredibly […]
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, has reaffirmed the UAE will spare no effort to create a supportive environment for women to fulfil their roles as key partners in building the future of the nation. “Emirati women have proved their competence in all fields and we are proud of every achievement they made,” Sheikh Mohammed said at the first meeting of the UAE […]
Oil price flux unlikely to hit long-term sector growth BEIRUT, 13 hours, 17 minutes ago The cyclicality of the oil and gas industry is unlikely to impact the long term trajectory of the sector, a report said, noting that the current fluctuations may speed up some of the trends that were already unfolding. The new report entitled “Oil and Gas Reality Check 2015” released by Deloitte, a […]
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and THOMAS ERDBRINK July 5, 2015 VIENNA — Secretary of State John Kerry warned Iran on Sunday that hard choices were still needed to seal a landmark nuclear accord, and that the United States was prepared to walk away if a sound agreement could not be reached. “We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues,” Mr. Kerry said in a […]
A ball boy holds a ball on Court 18 at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, July 3, 2015. Reuters/Henry Browne Deep in the bowels of the All England Club, an army of employees from one of the world’s technology giants are teaching a computer named Watson to master tennis. Seven-times Wimbledon champion Roger Federer can relax though. A silicon-chipped cyborg is not about to wreak havoc […]
A supporter of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange holds a placard with his mouth during a gathering outside the Ecuador embassy in London, Britain June 19, 2015. Reuters/Stefan Wermuth PARIS France swiftly rejected on Friday a request for asylum by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The founder of the transparency website had appealed directly to President Francois Hollande, days after Wikileaks published documents showing the United States had spied […]
Innovation key to globalize for top Chinese firms BEIJING, 17 hours, 1 minutes ago Leading Chinese companies are making innovation a strategic priority in their business models to stay competitive in global markets, according to a new report. The Emerging Best Practices of Chinese Globalizers: Develop the Innovation Models report by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Strategy& (a part of the PwC network) was based […]
UAE. According to EY’s report ‘How will the GCC close the skills gap?’, employers struggle to retain nationals due to high salary expectations; however, these employers rank young people’s lack of work experience (53%), communications skills (36%), and required skills and qualifications (22%) as further challenges to retention in the private sector. Three quarters of GCC employers feel the education system doesn’t know what skills employers need. […]
UAE. John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, London Business School, comments: “As in most places, the best thing regional governments can do to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses in the Middle East is to not over-engineer their efforts to assist. A key strategy to adopt is to focus on nurturing local talent by encouraging professional development through education and apprenticeships, rather than […]
|TAP Special|Emirates has released a point-by-point rebuttal of subsidy allegations, asserting that the US legacy carriers got the facts wrong, got the law wrong, and set their sights on an outcome that will be wrong for American consumers, communities and the national economy. This is the airline’s response to allegations of subsidy and unfair competition leveled by the “big three” US legacy carriers – Delta, United and […]
ABU DHABI // Dr Anwar Gargash has responded to the spate of terrorist attacks across the Arab World in the past week. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs tweeted about the threat of extremism and its effect on the region. He said the Arab Spring “revolution has failed” and called for a clear vision to fight extremism. His tweet read: “Many Arab states scarred by Spring’s […]
An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 28, 2015. Reuters/Mike Brown WASHINGTON The failure of a SpaceX rocket over Florida on Sunday should not lead U.S. officials back to Russia to look for a rocket engine that can get military equipment into space, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said on Monday. “This mishap in no way diminishes the […]
TEHRAN — Persian carpets were rolled out in the Beit-e Rahbar, the downtown Tehran offices of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday, a sign that important guests were on their way. One by one, members of Iran’s establishment, politicians, clerics and commanders filed in, many exchanging the perfunctory greetings of committed rivals. They sat cross-legged and waited anxiously, knowing a crucial week of nuclear negotiations […]
DUBAI // Mahra Mustafa has been surprised and delighted by the reaction from visitors to the UAE Pavilion at the Milan Expo. The Emirati actor, 9, who stars as Sara in The Family Tree – a short film on the UAE’s heritage being screened at the pavilion – has become an instantly recognisable face at the Expo. “At first I was scared because I didn’t know if […]
