Wireless carrier Sprint is launching an aggressive pricing strategy aimed at pulling wireless customers away from Verizon and AT&T. Under a program that kicks off Friday, Sprint is offering to cut in half the monthly rates paid by customers currently with those competing carriers. And it appears Sprint’s offer is not just a come-on gimmick. Those half-off rates are “not just a promotion. This will be the […]
When it comes to smartphone sales, the growth is still there — but it’s slowing. Smartphone sales growth will continue at nearly 10 percent each year through 2018, well off the pace of recent years, according to a new mobile phone forecast from International Data Corp. (IDC). Worldwide smartphone shipments will reach a total of nearly 1.3 billion units in 2014, an increase of 26.3 percent over […]
Deloitte LLP may be blocked from auditing companies in Saudi Arabia after the country’s market regulator told firms registered in the kingdom to stop using its local services, according to a circular obtained by Bloomberg. The Capital Market Authority said in the circular dated Nov. 27 that publicly traded companies it regulates should avoid working with Deloitte’s Saudi Arabian practice as of June 1. The ban could […]
Plunging stock markets in the Gulf show investors are panicking about the prospect of $70 oil next year. But heavy state spending means most firms in the region, with the big exception of petrochemical producers, are likely to do just fine. The main Saudi stock index sank 4.8 percent on Sunday, bringing its losses from its September peak to 23 percent. Dubai’s index is down 21 percent […]
Voters today rejected a referendum requiring the Swiss National Bank hold at least 20 percent of its 520-billion-franc ($540 billion) balance sheet in gold. Had it been approved, it would have led to purchases of at least 1,500 metric tons over five years. With lower oil prices reducing costs for consumers and the U.S. considering raising interest rates, demand is fading for hedges against inflation such as […]
Middle East fund managers expect to put money back into Gulf stock markets in coming months once the shock of the plunge in oil prices fades, the latest Reuters survey of regional asset managers shows. The slide of Brent crude to $70 a barrel last week,from around $115 in June, has shifted the outlook for the oil-exporting Gulf economies. This has caused Gulf equities to underperform after […]
Herman von Rumpuy Photo: REX Tomorrow, Herman Van Rompuy (which, lest we forget, rhymes with ‘Pumpy’) steps down as President of the European Council. He may look like Sven-Göran Eriksson’s less exciting older brother, but for five years this unelected eminence very grise has dominated European politics. So what do you know about this human riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a bland, Belgian enigma? 1 The man […]
OPEC’s decision to cede no ground to rival producers underscored the price war in the crude market and the challenge to U.S. shale drillers. The 12-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries kept its output target unchanged even after the steepest slump in oil prices since the global recession, prompting speculation it has abandoned its role as a swing producer. Yesterday’s decision in Vienna propelled futures to the […]
Arch Capital Group Ltd. (ACGL) agreed to take complete ownership of Gulf Reinsurance Ltd. after losses on a venture that was backed by oil-producing nations. Arch will also take on liabilities from insurance contracts written in prior periods, the Bermuda-based company said yesterday in a statement that didn’t disclose terms. Gulf Re’s financial strength rating was placed under review, with negative implications, by A.M. Best in September. […]
State-owned conglomerate Dubai World will meet with its creditors next week to formally present revisions to its multi-billion-dollar debt restructuring terms, three sources aware of the matter told Reuters on Thursday. Meetings will take place in London on Dec. 1 and Dubai on Dec. 8 to put a new debt proposal to all creditors, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the information is not […]
The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has said EU migrants should only be able to claim out-of-work benefits after three months By Raziye Akkoc 8:55AM GMT 27 Nov 2014 Follow The Deputy Prime Minister has waded into the argument about EU migrants on benefits by giving his support for “ensuring that EU jobseekers cannot claim out-of-work benefits from day one”. Nick Clegg, in an op-ed for the […]
|By TAP Staff| Within the tech industry this year, several companies from Amazon to Facebook to Twitter have publicly released their workforce diversity demographics. A Glassdoor report based on its salary and company ratings database on comparison of compensation and employee satisfaction between men and women at a sample of 25 of the largest tech companies shows that at most of these companies, men report earning a higher base salary than […]
|By TAP Staff|Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud secured a London court ruling in his favour in a defamatory suit against Forbes for an article carried by the magazine on him in April 2013. Alwaleed maintained that Forbes defamed him by falsely accusing him of defaulting on important contractual obligations, dishonestly manipulating the share price of Kingdom Holding Company, and firing KHC’s auditor […]
FlyDubai’s debut Islamic bonds are signaling growing appetite for sukuk from aviation companies in the Gulf as they spend on airports and fleet expansion. The budget carrier raised $500 million this month in the first sale of the debt by a regional airline after Emirates, the world’s largest operator of A380 superjumbo planes. The issue received bids for more than six times the amount offered. Gulf cities […]
I recently reached out to my Twitter followers, asking “What can I, as a VOA reporter in Washington, write about that you need/want to know?” The responses were varied and interesting, but one topic dominated: U.S. policy in Syria. Why hasn’t the U.S. done more to help the Syrian people? “There is lot of frustration with the Obama’s administration’s ambiguous, vague and often incoherent strategy regarding dealing […]
Saudi Arabia’s shares retreated to the lowest level since March as the nation’s oil minister said no one should cut output to stem falling crude prices. Dubai’s measure declined. The Tadawul All Share Index (SASEIDX) lost 1.7 percent to 9,081.27 at the close in Riyadh, the lowest since March 3 and about 162 points away from entering a bear market. Samba Financial Group led the decline with […]
Just one week after announcing a new search partnership with Yahoo, Mozilla is rolling out a new Firefox interface that will enable one-click searches for an array of specific search engines. In addition to a set of pre-installed search engines, the new interface will also allow users to specify other search engines for one-click queries. Following the recent expiration of a 10-year agreement with Google, Mozilla announced […]
Jersey Finance, the island’s financial centre which acts as custodian of 1.2 trillion pounds ($1.88 trillion), is in talks with a dozen banks from China, India and the Gulf about obtaining a licence in Jersey, its deputy chief executive said. Situated between France and Britain in the Channel, Jersey is a British Crown dependency outside of the United Kingdom and the European Union. It is jostling with […]
As so often in Britain, the Dutch case involves the system colluding with a dysfunctional and absent father Photo: ALAMY Anyone wishing to see just how shocking the behaviour of our “child protection” system can be should watch an utterly chilling video on YouTube (see below: “Kidnap of children from their mother by Dutch social services…”). It shows 11-year-old twins screaming in protest as they are seized by […]
Dubai Festival City, which owns the district that’s home to Ikea and Hard Rock Cafe in the emirate, is seeking a $1.1bn loan to repay debt and help fund expansion, two people with knowledge of the deal said. The company owned by Dubai’s Al-Futtaim Group plans to raise a 10-year, amortising facility from about eight to 10 banks, said the people, asking not to be identified because […]
By Nantoo Banerjee War is not all about attack. History has shown that tactical retreat as a war strategy had succeeded in winning more wars by entrapping advancing enemy than the show of blind belligerence by a brigade. Unfortunately, the use of tact is not a very strong point of this last Lok Sabha poll defeated Sonia-Rahul led Congress party. Its leaders are speaking in babel of […]
NEW DELHI: The T S R Subramanian committee, constituted about three months ago to review laws related to environment and forest protection, has recommended some big-ticket changes to the rules and legislation. These include a complete overhaul of certain laws, special fast-track dispensation for power, mining and linear projects, self-certification of compliance by industry and diluting the powers of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The committee’s […]
NEW DELHI: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Thursday approved an outlay of Rs 43,033 crore to fund an ambitious initiative to supply electricity through separate feeders for agricultural and rural domestic consumption, aimed at providing round-the-clock power to village households. In addition, the cabinet also approved spending Rs 32,612 crore on an integrated power development initiative, which involves strengthening sub-transmission and distribution systems, according […]
New Delhi: India has signed a euro 13 million deal with Airbus Defence and Space for the delivery of a dedicated facility in the country for the maintenance and repair its submarine fleet periscopes. The project is due to be completed in September 2016. “When a product is serviced, a lot of time is lost during the transport between different facilities. Once maintenance work can be […]
