By ERIC SCHMITT November 6, 2016 A joint Kurdish-Arab militia has begun a new phase in the operation to dislodge the Islamic State from its stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, moving to encircle the city and largely cut off the resupply of arms, supplies and fighters, American military officials confirmed on Sunday. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Sunday that he welcomed the start of the militia’s operation. “The […]
|By Matein Khalid| The fall in oil prices since 2014 has triggered a liquidity crunch and higher funding costs in the UAE banking system. EIBOR is almost double the London interbank rate LIBOR. Non-performing loan (NPL) have begun to rise as property prices have fallen 20% from their peak and corporate/SME borrowers are hit by a sharp downturn in the business cycle. DIB shares reflect these macro […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
WASHINGTON — The United States formally suspended talks with Russia about the protracted Syria conflict on Monday because of the Russian military’s role in the assault on the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo. The United States also shelved plans with Russia for the joint military targeting of jihadists in Syria, the State Department said in a statement. The American step reflected aggravated tensions with Russia on a […]
The Interpreter By AMANDA TAUB It is a truth universally acknowledged by every war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars, like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much ignored conflict, do not. Some of the reasons are obvious; the scale of Syria’s war is catastrophic and much worse than Yemen’s. […]
SHARJAH // Two men drowned while five others had to be rescued at sea in two separate incidents off the coast of Sharjah on Friday. The body of one of the men, a Somali in his twenties, was recovered by search and rescue teams on Saturday morning. He had gone missing while swimming with an Egyptian friend, who had been rescued after the incident was reported off […]
By HWAIDA SAAD and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE September 30, 2016 BEIRUT, Lebanon — An array of groups allied with the Syrian government pressed an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Friday, as the World Health Organization said heavy bombardment of the area by Russia and Syria had killed 338 people in the last week, including more than 100 children. With more of the city’s already limited hospitals destroyed in the latest offensive, […]
By PETER BAKER and RANA F. SWEIS September 20, 2016 AMMAN, Jordan — At the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ali Abu al-Sukkar’s telephone would not stop ringing Tuesday. It was Election Day, the first time the Islamist organization had taken part after nearly a decade of boycotts, and Mr. Sukkar found himself in demand. The deputy secretary general of the Islamic Action Front, the brotherhood’s political wing, Mr. Sukkar listed the […]
By ERIC SCHMITT, MICHAEL R. GORDON and SOMINI SENGUPTA September 20, 2016 Russia was probably responsible for the deadly bombing of a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in Syria, American officials said Tuesday, further shredding what remained of a severely weakened agreement between the United States and Russia aimed at halting the war. Aghast at the attack on Monday night, United Nations officials on Tuesday suspended all aid convoys in Syria, describing the […]
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG September 20, 2016 WASHINGTON — If there is a single link between the wars fought by the United States in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it is the long list of errant airstrikes carried out by American warplanes. Weddings, funerals, hospitals and friendly forces have been mistakenly attacked, with each strike prompting fresh outrage. While most of those killed have been civilians — in Afghanistan alone, […]
WASHINGTON — The United States’ accidental bombing of Syrian troops over the weekend has put it on the defensive, undercutting American efforts to reduce violence in the civil war and open paths for humanitarian relief. The United States had thought that if a deal to ease hostilities in Syria, struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart in Geneva nine days ago, fell apart, […]
The Interpreter By MAX FISHER You could be forgiven, after five years of Syria’s war dominating front pages, for feeling lost. It is easy to track the war’s toll: It has killed 400,000 people, displaced millions, opened space for the Islamic State, and sucked in foreign powers, including the United States. It is harder to keep track of the how and why. The basics can seem even […]
|By Matein Khalid|I had written a column two weeks ago outlining my view that US equities faced a dangerous autumn and the S&P 500 index was set for a fall of 150 points. However, even I did not expect the S&P500 index to fall 52 points on Friday (the Dow dropped 394 points and NASDAQ 133 points), its worst performance since the Brexit shock. It was even […]
|By Steve Austin| At first sight it appears that low oil prices are good for society. A low oil price helps us save dollars at the pump, acts as an economic catalyst making exchanges cheaper and thereby stimulating the economy. However, there are downsides as well, often out-of-sight-out-of-mind and we will address these today. Change in economic model For the first time we have entered an era […]
Despite dark conspiracy theories in Turkey linking the United States government to the military coup attempt on July 15, Turkish leaders see no signs of American complicity with the plotters, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Tuesday. But Mr. Kurtulmus also said it was “the expectation of the people of Turkey” that the American judicial process would lead to the extradition of the person they regard […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — As Muslims from around the world head toward Mecca for the annual hajj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia and Iran have escalated their sectarian rivalry over which country represents the true Islam. Iran unleashed the first barb Monday, when the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused Saudi Arabia of deliberately killing pilgrims during last year’s hajj. He called for the world’s Muslims to reconsider Saudi […]
DUBAI// An investor who embezzled more than Dh8.4 million from the Dubai Economic Department (DED) by tampering with online transactions has been jailed for two years In March last year, the 30-year-old Egyptian forged e-transactions after claiming to clients he could arrange discounts on issuing licences. He was aided by four other men, three Egyptians and one Syrian. He denied charges of forgery and fraud while the […]
/By Matien Khalid/I have been bullish on emerging market debt as an asset class since last autumn. Even though the Chinese yuan devaluation was toxic, this asset class is up 12% in 2016, thanks to almost $5 billion in cash inflows. The tax amnesty in Indonesia, the political changes in Brazil after President Dilma’s impeachment, the election of a center-right pro-business government and $16 billion sovereign debt […]
MOSCOW — Russia launched a fleet of bombers bound for Syria on Tuesday from an Iranian air base, becoming the first foreign military to operate from Iran’s soil since at least World War II. Russian use of the base, with Iran’s obvious support, appeared to set back or at least further complicate Russia’s troubled relations with the United States, which has been working with Russia over how […]
By HWAIDA SAAD and ROD NORDLAND August 14, 2016 BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fighting in Aleppo, Syria, killed dozens of civilians over the weekend, a high toll even for a city that has been the scene of intense fighting recently, a monitoring group said on Sunday. Government and Russian airstrikes and artillery bombardment of opposition neighborhoods and the outskirts of the city on Saturday killed 46 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory […]
ABU DHABI // The rising cost of living is preventing many parents from buying school equipment for the new term as well as gifts for their children for Eid Al Adha. Parents say that because of increases in the cost of school supplies and school fees, buying Eid treats will have to be put on hold and in some cases postponed indefinitely. “This month is going to […]
SHARJAH // More than 1,100 fines were issued to taxi drivers in the emirate in the first six months of the year for offences such as failing to turn the meter on and poor personal hygiene. The Sharjah Road and Transport Authority levied 1,179 fines between January and June, up from 801 for the same period last year. Cabbies’ offences included improper parking, dirty uniforms, and failing […]
By ROD NORDLAND and ERIC SCHMITT August 13, 2016 CAIRO — American military drones monitored Islamic State militants loading up hundreds of cars, buses and trucks with fighters and civilians and fleeing the city of Manbij, Syria, on Friday, as Syrian rebels advanced and the extremists lost yet another stronghold. On Wednesday, the Libyan city of Surt, held by the Islamic State for more than a year, also fell to pro-government […]
INTERNATIONAL. The future for many young people across the Middle East and North Africa looks bleak. The World Bank records that 54% of the working age population in the Middle East and North Africa is unemployed with little prospect of any positive immediate change. An average of 28.7% of 15 to 24-year-olds in the Middle East and 30.6% of those in North Africa are unemployed according to […]
