Long before TV presenter Naoufer Ramoul had an apartment to decorate, she had chosen an interior designer. Ramoul, who is the presenter of the weekly political debate show Qabil li Niqash, had come across Harf Noon Design Studio on Instagram, and immediately got in touch with the company’s founder, Nisrine El Lababidi. “Naoufer messaged me and said: ‘Nisrine, I don’t own a house at the moment, but […]
Tesla boss Elon Musk surpassed even his own lofty standards of both hubris and humility on Wednesday, as he looked ahead to a day when the electric carmaker will be worth more than Apple — but also admitted he had confused his customers with a bad product-naming decision. “I want to preface this by saying I could be delusional,” Mr Musk told Wall Street analysts on his […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here The Federal Reserve said it believed the recent slowdown in US growth was likely to prove temporary as it stayed on course for a further increase in short-term interest rates as soon as June. The US central bank kept its target range for the federal funds rate at 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent following its latest two-day meeting. In […]
The US dollar and Treasury yields held on to their gains after the Federal Reserve said the first-quarter growth slowdown is probably “transitory,” potentially setting the stage for a rate rise this summer. The buck was recently up by 0.4 per cent against the Japanese yen, near the highs of the day. Meanwhile, the euro was off by 0.17 per cent against the greenback, close to session […]
While we doubt anything material will emerge for various obvious reasons, the NY Post reports that the DOJ is probing Goldman Sachs for alleged Treasury auction rigging: the charge is that Goldman, one of the 23 US primary dealers, won almost all Treasury bond auctions from 2007 to about 2011 even after the Treasury department established safeguards to maintain competitiveness. The case is said to center on […]
Theresa May has formally launched her election campaign with an attack on “European politicians and officials”, whom she accused of threatening Britain and trying to sabotage her attempt to win re-election. Standing on the steps of Number 10, Mrs May set out to inflame Brexit tensions, claiming that events of recent days showed that “there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed”. […]
“All the Rivers,” the new English title of the book, was published last week in the United States by Random House, and Ms. Rabinyan, 44, seemed a little nervous. She wanted Americans to read the book for what she said it is — a story of a specific love and its boundaries — and not because of the free speech controversy here or the backdrop of a […]
The Abu Dhabi International Book Fair completed its 27th edition on Tuesday. On the surface the event did what it was designed to do. Thousands of books were sold, literary awards were handed out, a new publishing house was announced, publishing deals were signed and authors’ works were snapped up in languages ranging from Chinese to Turkish. But it is only when you spend a serious amount […]
The law justifying Britain’s Brexit bill is hotly contested, the variables in the calculation are legion and the negotiation has yet to start. But there can be no doubt that the EU’s €100bn demand to settle Britain’s exit dues is one of the biggest political dangers in the Brexit process. The Financial Times estimated the bill using the EU’s negotiating guidelines, the more detailed draft mandate for […]
News from the FT that the UK may face an initial Brexit bill of up to €100bn has dented sterling this morning. The currency fell by 0.2 per cent against the dollar to $1.29, nibbling into some of its eye-catching recent gains before recovering slightly. Against the euro, the pound is also down by 0.14 per cent to €1.1823. Broadly, the path for sterling since the general […]
May 3, 2017 by: Jamie Smyth in Sydney New Zealand’s competition watchdog has blocked a merger between the country’s two main newspaper groups in the interests of defending media diversity, shrugging off concerns its decision threatens the groups’ financial viability. Wednesday’s ruling on a proposal from New Zealand Media and Entertainment and Fairfax NZ comes as global regulators face a swath of contentious mergers and growing concentration […]
The OnePlus 5 is among the most hotly anticipated smartphones of this year and the company’s CEO just posted the first teaser, touting a “big surprise.” With the LG G6 and the Samsung Galaxy S8 out of the bag, one of the most rumored smartphones yet to debut is the OnePlus 5, which is expected to hit the scene sometime in the second half of this year. OnePlus […]
Mr. Abbas’s visit to the White House will present Mr. Trump with the Palestinian viewpoint more directly than he has ever heard it as president. But at 82, Mr. Abbas is a weakened political figure facing public discontent and divisions at home. Continue reading the main story His Palestinian Authority operates in the West Bank, while the more militant rival Hamas faction rules in Gaza. Despite an […]
In 2001, “Frontline” aired a documentary by investigative reporting legend Lowell Bergman. The movie, which chronicled the new cowboys of “Energy Alley,” contained never-before-seen interviews with Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and other players in the energy scandal. It was compelling footage. After Enron imploded, filmmaker Alex Gibney bought the video from PBS and used some of it in his 2005 documentary about the scandal, “The Smartest Guys […]
The New Zealand dollar is the best-performing major currency in Asia today in the wake of strong labour market data. The country’s unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent in the three months ended March 31 from 5.2 per cent in the December quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand. This was a better result than the 5.1 per cent economists had pencilled in. It was the equal-lowest […]
If you stand close to one of Marwan Sahmarani’s paintings and examine a small section, you find yourself being pulled into a swirling mass of colour and texture, a seemingly abstract formation of thickly-applied oil paints. It is testament to the Lebanese artist’s mastery of the medium that, as his viewers take in each work as a whole, its stories reveal themselves easily. In his latest show, […]
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed paths towards peace in Syria on Tuesday, in the first sign of practical interaction between the American and Russian presidents since Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, visited Moscow last month. The call, only the second time the two leaders have spoken since Mr Trump took office in January, was the first sign that Moscow and Washington might be acting on […]
Shares in Advanced Micro Devices logged their biggest one-day drop in more than 10 years on Tuesday after the chipmaker posted downbeat first-quarter sales and received an analyst downgrade. AMD was the biggest decliner on the S&P 500, falling 24.4 per cent to $10.30 after the company said net revenues rose 18 per cent from a year ago to $984m but was shy of analysts’ estimates of […]
Republican leaders are battling to avert another healthcare setback for President Donald Trump as they rally support for a second attempt at reform under pressure from the White House. In the latest Trump administration gamble, senior White House officials have predicted a vote to overhaul Obamacare this week even though party chiefs on Tuesday did not have enough support to pass a bill. The White House is […]
Esure hit a record high on Tuesday amid hopes that surging car insurance premiums will translate to fatter dividends. Canaccord Genuity added Esure to its “buy” list as part of a sector review. It forecast motor insurance pricing to keep rising at the current pace until the end of 2017, having jumped 16 per cent year on year in the first quarter, and expected the larger insurers […]
Actor Dev Patel was in Dubai on Tuesday to be honoured as one of the Chivas Icons at the H Hotel venue Play. The 27-year-old has been having a very good year. The Brit earned a best supporting actor Academy Award nomination for his turn in the real-life tale Lion, in which he portrayed Saroo Brierly, who was adopted by an Australian family after he was lost […]
US President Donald Trump said the federal government needed a shutdown this autumn to fix what he called a “mess” in the wake of a Congressional deal that ignored key elements of his budget requests. Taking to Twitter to express his irritation over an agreement sealed on Sunday between the two parties that contained no funding for his border wall, Mr Trump complained that the Republicans had inadequate […]
US wheat prices jumped 8 per cent in two days as worries over the damage caused by a late winter storm prompted a scramble to cover bearish bets. More than 30cm of snow that hit western Kansas, southeastern Colorado and western Oklahoma toppled plants just ahead of the winter wheat harvest. Hard red winter wheat, the high-quality grain that is used to make bread and mainly grown […]
May 2, 2017 by: Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Iran’s hardliners are committed to the nuclear deal with world powers even as they use the accord to attack President Hassan Rouhani ahead of elections this month, a senior hardline politician said. The agreement was a “done deal” and there would be no attempts to sabotage it, said Alireza Zakani, a senior figure in the hardliners’ camp and a […]
