By Kirsti Knolle and Francois Murphy | VIENNA VIENNA Austria’s main parties agreed to hold an early parliamentary election on October 15, Chancellor Christian Kern said on Tuesday, in a vote that might bring the far-right Freedom Party into government. In the autumn of a year that will have seen Dutch, French, British and German general elections, the Alpine republic will decide its future course on immigration, […]
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to guide the messaging platform’s internal culture, as it tries to turn around slow user growth and declining revenue in the face of increased competition. Jack Dorsey, Twitter chief executive and co-founder who returned to try to revive the company almost two years ago, asked Mr Stone back during a relaunch of the company’s weekly Friday afternoon tradition of Tea Time […]
Dubai, 16 May 2017 At ICM Capital LTD, we’re committed to helping our clients transform the way they trade. We know that simply being good for ICM Capital is not enough. We must also be good for our partners and the communities in which we live and work. We’re in a great position to make sure that we set an example in our world of trading. As […]
Europe’s top court has ruled that a key EU-Singapore agreement requires backing by all EU member states — but only for a narrow set of issues — in a decision that could chart the way for a post-Brexit trade accord with the UK. The European Court of Justice ruled that EU member states must sign off on specific areas related to investment in the Singapore trade deal. […]
Is palladium, for the first time in nearly 16 years, about to become more expensive than platinum? The price difference between the two raw materials fell to less than $100 an ounce this month as palladium flirted with its highest price since September 2014 but its cousin eyed its cheapest level in 15 months. Both sometimes can be sensitive to the kind of precious metal cachet afforded […]
Yahoo Inc said on Tuesday it would buy back $3 billion of its common shares, ahead of the company’s pending deal with Verizon Communications Inc. Shares in Yahoo, which has a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, were up 0.6 percent at $50.15 in premarket trading. Yahoo said it would pay between $50.79 and $44.74 per share based on its calculations, Alibaba’s […]
Indian agents have raided the home of the country’s former finance minister as part of an investigation into alleged violations of strict foreign investment rules. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation said it had visited locations in the southern city of Chennai on Tuesday morning, including the home of Karti Chidambaram, which he shares with his father P Chidambaram, a Congress party politician whose most recent cabinet post […]
By Ami Miyazaki and Taiga Uranaka | TOKYO TOKYO Japan’s government said on Tuesday it wanted Toshiba Corp (6502.T) and partner Western Digital Corp (WDC.O) to cooperate, expressing concern about an escalating dispute between the two that threatens to upend the sale of Toshiba’s chip unit. Western Digital sought international arbitration this week to stop Toshiba from selling the unit without its consent, arguing that the Japanese […]
UAE telco du has launched a data-only sim for heavy users who require internet on the go. With up to 50GB for use on devices such as tablets, Mi-Fis, the new iPad and Car-Fis, the the new data sims are available on installment with zero upfront payment, according to du Customers opting for the data sim plans can sign a 12-month contract with du and choose from […]
Halfway through what would be a nine-minute bidding war for a patinated bronze female head by Constantin Brancusi, paddle 281 shot above a standing-room-only crowd at Christie’s in midtown Manhattan. The slow, steady auction for the ovoid sculpture of a sleeping woman’s face turned aggressive when, minutes in, Tobias Meyer, the former chief auctioneer for Sotheby’s, entered a $34m bid with a phone clutched to his ear. […]
JERUSALEM Israel wants the White House to explain why a U.S. diplomat preparing President Donald Trump’s visit to Jerusalem said Judaism’s Holy Western Wall in its Old City is part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an Israeli official said on Monday. Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognised internationally, and the Western Wall – the holiest prayer site for […]
The blockbuster listing of Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, has been put on ice until the end of next year at the earliest, according to bankers. Market players have been counting on Ant, which runs China’s popular Alipay mobile payments service, to be the star in this year’s initial public offerings calendar. It was valued at $60bn in its last financing round in April 2016, […]
Companies hoping to go public are often accused of over-promising would-be investors — especially those that listed in and around the dotcom bubble — but the pledge of one that listed 20 years ago on Monday seems almost positively euphemistic. “Amazon.com intends to use technology to deliver an outstanding service offering and to achieve the significant economies inherent in the online store model,” the company said in […]
Rolls-Royce lagged behind a London market rally on Monday that lifted the FTSE 100 to a fresh record high. Rolls was under pressure after Investec questioned whether management can hit a target of delivering more than £1bn in free cash flow by 2020. The cost of developing a new engine for Boeing could be “a material headwind” to that goal, the broker warned. Boeing is reportedly finalising […]
With the holy month just around the corner, take a look at some of the city’s top iftars and suhoors to try. 1. Al Fanous Lounge: The Dubai Ballroom at JW Marriott Marquis will transform into an oriental lounge designed with lavish white, gold and jewel tones for the holy month of Ramdan. Also lavish at the lounge is the iftar buffet that will consist of over […]
As the UAE Pavilion was readied for the opening of the Venice Biennale, paper aeroplanes were strewn across a brick floor with yellow markings. To the untrained eye, they might have looked like the result of some celebratory fun and games from the young members of staff who had just finished the week-long installation work at the Sale d’Armi (Weapons Room) in the Italian city’s old fort, […]
Criminal hacking groups have repurposed a second classified cyber weapon stolen from US spies and have made it available on the so-called dark web after the success of the WannaCry attack that swept across the globe on Friday. The hacking tool, developed by the US National Security Agency and codenamed EsteemAudit, has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, according to security analysts. As with […]
By Angus McDowall and Ayat Basma | BEIRUT BEIRUT The Middle East’s protracted conflicts have caused a region-wide health crisis that goes beyond war wounds to heightened resistance to antibiotics and a collapse in vaccination drives, leading to a resurgence of diseases tamed in peacetime. Health threats are so varied that one of the Middle East’s main teaching hospitals, the American University of Beirut Medical Center, has […]
Puerto Rico’s once-influential Government Development Bank has won agreement from some of its creditors to cut its debt burden and restructure its obligations. The organisation, which for years acted as the territory’s primary fiscal agent and evolved into a lender of last resort in times of distress, will transfer its assets into a new entity and issue new bonds in a deal that will see creditors take […]
French president Emmanuel Macron has appointed Edouard Philippe, a little-known centre-right politician, as his prime minister in an attempt to build a majority in parliament for his year-old centrist party. Mr Macron’s poaching of Mr Philippe to lead his government was announced on the new president’s first full day in office. Less than a month before legislative elections, it is a new blow to the conservative Republican […]
Hours before Germany formally declared war on France in WWI, Marcel Proust penned a letter to his financial advisor that anticipated the horrors to come. “In the terrible days we are going through, you have other things to do besides writing letters and bothering with my petty interests, which I assure you seem wholly unimportant when I think that millions of men are going to be massacred […]
France has today announced a 31-year government bond, in a sign of further market optimism after the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the recent presidential election. The debt, which is expected to price later this week, had been previously planned as part of the country’s funding programme for the year. The timing of the syndicated deal comes just over a week after Mr Macron’s victory in the […]
The cyberattack crippled IT systems and forced doctors and nurses to work with pen and paper notes. Image: iStock NHS hospitals are still struggling in the fight against a global ransomware attack, with computer systems in several hospitals locked three days after the initial outbreak and previously unaffected hospitals revealed to have fallen to WannaCrypt ransomware. During the weekend more than 200,000 victims in over 150 countries […]
DUBAI // A 23-year-old man stole more than Dh500,000 worth of jewellery from his grandmother, a court was told. “You stole from your own grandmother?” Dubai Criminal Court judge Erfan Atteyah asked the 23-year-old Emirait, who confessed to a theft charge and apologised for his actions. “A mistake, your honour. I have never done it before nor will I do it ever again,” said the defendant. The […]
