SANA, Yemen — The Houthi movement and its allies formed a new government in Yemen on Monday, a surprise that angered their Saudi-backed rivals and complicated United Nations efforts to end a conflict that has ravaged the Arab world’s poorest country for much of the past two years. The announcement of the new government, reported by the Houthi-run state television and Saba news agency, said it was […]
Private equity firm Gulf Capital plans to sell some of its investments towards the end of 2017 and early 2018 as market sentiment and the regional economy improve, its chief executive told Reuters. Karim El Solh declined to say which stakes the Abu Dhabi-based company, one of the biggest private equity firms in the region, was considering offloading but said that they would be appealing to global […]
Disaffected Hillary snowflakes at colleges and universities all around the country, many of whom surely cried themselves to sleep last night, woke up this morning to some of the best news they’ve received in weeks. According to a new study by the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy, white people are dying off faster than ever in the U.S. Moreover, the biggest declines are […]
The U.S. Transportation Department said on Friday it granted flying rights to Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA’s (NWC.OL) Irish unit, setting the stage for a new battle among airlines for leisure travelers across the Atlantic. The order finalized a tentative ruling the department made in April and came days after the European Commission formally filed for arbitration over Norwegian’s request, which had languished for three years. U.S. airlines […]
SHARJAH // Hundreds of residents decorated their cars and played traditional Emirati songs while roaming the streets of Sharjah to celebrate National Day. Naser Hammad, 39, from Al Dhaid, said that many people, Emiratis and residents alike, wait for this day to come together and celebrate the union. “It’s a day to celebrate the progress of this great nation, which is home to hundreds of nationalities all […]
By Chiekh Sadibou Mane and Thierry Gouegnon | BANJUL BANJUL Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh, who once vowed to rule the tiny West African nation for “a billion years”, said he had accepted his shock election defeat on Friday, 22 years after seizing power in a coup. Voting on Thursday against Jammeh was a rare show of defiance against a leader who has ruled by decree and who […]
Everyone wants to know when fully self-driving cars will be ready for the road. The companies developing the technology usually give a timeline of several years to decades away. Automotive parts manufacturer Delphi and Mobileye are no different, and during a media roundtable this week in San Francisco, Delphi’s VP of services, Glen DeVos, envisioned a long-term timeframe for the widespread use of the technology. […]
Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz’s decision to step down is unlikely to hamper growth at the world’s biggest coffee chain as his successor Kevin Johnson is well suited to take the helm, analysts said. Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Thursday that Schultz would step down as CEO on April 3 to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to Chief Operating Officer Johnson, a […]
DUBAI An American-Iranian dual national and his wife have been in detention in Iran without charge or access to lawyers since their arrest by elite Revolutionary Guards in July, a New York-based rights group said on Friday. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) said Karan Vafadari and his wife Afarin Niasari, who run an art gallery in Tehran, were being held in Tehran’s Evin […]
Donald Trump has named Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, as chairman of a new council of strategic advisers, capping a week that has seen Wall Street veterans installed at the heart of the incoming US administration. The president’s strategic and policy forum, which will meet for the first time in February, also includes JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, founder of BlackRock, among […]
UAE rulers gathered together on Friday to open Dubai’s new $136 million museum, launched as part of the country’s 45th National Day celebrations. Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan were joined by leaders from the other emirates at the Union House, in the same hall where the UAE’s founding fathers gathered 45 years ago. […]
By Parisa Hafezi | ANKARA ANKARA Iran threatened on Friday to retaliate against a U.S. Senate vote to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years, saying it violated last year’s deal with six major powers that curbed its nuclear programme. The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran’s energy industry and deter its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The extension was […]
The notion of machine-powered facial recognition is one that predates today’s actual technology for it by many years, thanks to robot POV shots from sci-fi films such as The Terminator and Robocop. But while many advances have been made, facial recognition software is far from infallible, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University recently found. Here are the details from a report in Quartz: Researchers showed they could […]
Credit: Yale University On the wall of Aaron Dollar’s office is a poster for R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play that gave us the word “robot.” The story ends with the nominal robots seizing control of the factory of their origin and then wiping out nearly all of humanity. Dollar, fortunately, has something more cheerful in mind for the future of human-robot relations. He sees […]
By Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Islamic State will attack Europe again, security chiefs warned on Friday, and may add car bombs, cyber and chemical warfare to its local arsenal as European militants drift home after reverses in Syria and Iraq. Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, said it was impossible to know for sure how many militants were already in Europe plotting. A report […]
Fitch Ratings-Moscow/London-01 December 2016 OPEC’s agreement to cut production by 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, and the potential agreement to cut with non-OPEC countries, should help accelerate market re-balancing and increases the chances of more rapid oil price recovery than previously expected, says Fitch Ratings. But implementation risks remain, including OPEC’s adherence to the agreement and the willingness of other participants, notably Russia, to co-operate […]
Mr. Mater is now publishing these photos, and more than 600 others, in a book that aims to showcase often-hidden aspects of the holy city. Continue reading the main story The book, “Desert of Pharan: Unofficial Histories Behind the Mass Expansion of Mecca,” provides an unvarnished photographic catalog of the city: labor camps for foreign workers; slums where undocumented residents live; aerial views of scores of construction […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. employers boosted hiring in November and the unemployment rate dropped to a more than nine-year low of 4.6 percent, making it almost certain that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this month. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 178,000 jobs last month after increasing by 142,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. The solid employment gains likely reflect […]
When Dala Farouki Kakos was a child, her parents invested in three Syrian chests, with matching mirrors, in the traditional sadaf style – on the understanding that they would be passed on to Kakos and her two siblings once they were grown up and had homes of their own. Beautifully embellished with mother of pearl, Kakos’s set has accompanied her on her travels around the world, and […]
By Amr Abdallah Dalsh | SHIBIN EL KOM, Egypt SHIBIN EL KOM, Egypt Mohamed Hagras stands barechested as dozens of honeybees congregate around his face, eventually forming what he calls the “Beard of Bees”. To attract the insects he has a box housing their queen’s hormones strapped to his chin. The 31-year-old engineer-turned-beekeeper has been doing this for years both competitively – he fondly recalls a Canadian […]
December 2, 2016 by: Maggie Fick, West Africa correspondent Voters in the tiny nation of Gambia appear to have unseated their president of more than two decades, who had pledged to rule for “a billion years”, an unexpected result after a year of elections that have cast doubt on the state of democracy in Africa. The Gambian electoral commission on Friday declared that Adama Barrow, the main […]
By Ahmed Elumami | TRIPOLI TRIPOLI Rival armed factions battled overnight and into Friday in the worst outbreak of fighting in the Libyan capital Tripoli for more than a year. Black smoke rose into the sky and explosions reverberated around the Abu Salim and Hadba districts, and an eyewitness said a major road nearby had been blocked off with shipping containers. Gunfire echoed across several other neighbourhoods. […]
The threat of disruption means CIOs and their c-suite peers are under more pressure than ever before to develop creative solutions to business challenges. Almost three quarters (73 per cent) of companies around the world believe they are exposed to digital disruption today, according to Tech Research Asia. Such is the threat of change that 61 per cent of these firms are taking affirmative action and trying […]
December 2, 2016 by: Mamta Badkar in New York The US economy added 178,000 jobs in November while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2007, suggesting the US Federal Reserve is on track to raise interest rates this month. The jobs tally was just shy of economists’ expectations for 180,000. That compared to the 142,000 jobs it created in October. While the data showed […]
