In 2009, my TV cable bill went over $100 a month, and I decided enough was enough. I cut my cable. It wasn’t easy then. The internet streaming devices were primitive, and my choices were few. Today, Netflix is more popular than conventional TV, more teenagers watch YouTube than the networks, and rival streaming services Amazon Video, Hulu, and Sling TV are growing by leaps and bounds. […]
By Laila Bassam, Lisa Barrington and John Davison | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT The evacuation of the last opposition-held areas of the Syrian city of Aleppo was suspended on Friday after pro-government militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two Shi’ite villages being besieged by rebel fighters. The second day of the operation to take fighters and civilians out of Aleppo’s rebel enclave […]
General Motors seems determined not to get sidelined by the recent flurry of announcements in the self-driving car category such as those issued by Waymo and Uber. GM’s Chairman and CEO Mary Barra presided a rare press conference last Dec. 15 to declare that GM’s autonomous vehicle called Chevrolet Bolt is now prowling the streets of southeast Michigan. Fleet of self-driving Bolts have already been unleashed in San Francisco […]
Last year, I left work in the UAE to study Arabic full-time in Oman. After almost two decades in the Arabian Gulf, I decided it was time. When I first arrived from Canada at the age 13, Arabic wasn’t offered to me at school. I was told I was too old to learn the language and I should focus on GCSE French. I didn’t mind. I only […]
15 December 2016 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — As a strategic step towards the development of the small-to-medium-sized enterprises (or “SMEs”) in Saudi Arabia, the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), a member of the Islamic Development Bank Group, and Catalyst Group inked an Engagement Agreement to commence ITFC’s KSA SME Program to boost the SME Trade development. Through this partnership, ITFC will be piloting a SME Trade […]
By Andrew Osborn and Nick Tattersall | MOSCOW/ISTANBUL MOSCOW/ISTANBUL President Vladimir Putin said he and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are working to organise a new series of Syrian peace talks without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations. In a snub to Washington, Putin made clear on Friday that the initiative was the sole preserve of Moscow and Turkey and that the peace […]
A drone pilot has captured rare footage of several killer whales ganging up on a single shark and devouring it while it was still alive. Slater Moore was touring California’s Monterey Bay with the Monterey Bay Whale Watch (MBWW) on Tuesday, Dec. 13, when they came across two adult killer whales and two calves at sea. The sea creatures appeared to be busy eating something, so Moore decided […]
ABU DHABI // Forecasters warned the public not to venture into the sea until Monday owing to rough weather and strong winds. According to the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology, strong north-westerly winds will blow through the country from early Friday morning until Monday. Strong winds may pick up blowing dust and sand, reducing visibility on motorways. A significant fall in temperatures across most areas of […]
The Abu Dhabi Childhood Obesity taskforce has announced the launch and immediate implementation of a comprehensive plan to address the growing health issue in the emirate. The plan which focuses on six key categories, is a result of a cross-sector evaluation that assessed existing efforts to fight childhood obesity, challenges and opportunities, in addition to benchmarking against World Health Organisation recommendations, news agency WAM reported. The focus […]
India is set to get more Trump-branded projects as local developers seek to capitalize on the brand. A story from The Wall Street Journal Friday took a look at the many projects around the world connected to the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, including those in India. Unimark Group, a developer based in Kolkata, has tied up to rebrand a previously planned residential apartment building in the eastern […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 16, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Abu Dhabi Festive fun Visit Al Maryah Island for the Winter Wonderland, featuring cosy cottages hosting activities including bauble-decorating, cracker-making and gingerbread-house-decorating. Plus there’s a skating rink and snow park, and live performances of […]
Allergic reactions to peanuts cause around 500 hospitalizations and even some deaths in the United States each year. Food that contains trace amounts, because it was produced with factory equipment or kitchen tools that came into contact with peanuts, can prove fatal for allergic individuals who consume it unsuspectingly. Accidentally ingesting as little as a third of a single peanut — about 70 milligrams — can send […]
Airbus, the manufacturer of the A380 aircraft, has presented Etihad Airways with the award for Top Operational Excellence for A380 operations in 2015-2016. The Etihad Airways A380 fleet recorded a 99.63 percent operational reliability between January 2015 and October 2016, the highest of all 13 airlines which operate the Airbus A380 aircraft. Etihad Airways has eight Airbus A380s in service, with two more scheduled for delivery. The […]
Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org, The US and its terrorist-sponsoring partners are seeing their criminal regime-change project in ruins, as the Syrian army and its allies win a spectacular victory to retake the strategically important city of Aleppo. Western governments and their flunkies at the UN are cynically, perversely decrying a «meltdown of humanity». Closer to the truth is their own «meltdown of sanity». This is […]
Almost a quarter of Americans acknowledged sharing fake news political news online, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The report, which is based on a telephone survey of more than 1,000 people, showed that 23 percent of respondents shared fabricated stories. In that group, 14 percent said they knew the story was fake at the time they shared it. Nearly a quarter of […]
Latest asset of Abu Dhabi’s cruise tourism sector set to change face of ‘winter sun’ tourism in Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi-UAE: December 15, 2016 Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler’s Representative in the Western Region, Abu Dhabi Ports today has officially opened Sir Bani Yas Cruise Beach, offering cruise ship passengers a new beach destination with unmatched tourism experiences. […]
Friday 02:10 GMT Overview The US dollar has climbed to a 14-year high in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision this week to lift interest rates, putting pressure on Asian currencies and prompting caution among traders of regional stocks. Hot topic The dollar has been one of the biggest stories of the December quarter thanks to a more robust outlook for US inflation and growth. That […]
It has been touted as one of the most exciting Dubai mega-projects of recent years and has now come to fruition. The $735m Dubai Water Canal — carved out of land between Business Bay and Jumeirah — opened to the public last month, creating a water-bound ‘mini-Manhattan’ that flows from Downtown Dubai to the ocean. The 3.2km-long canal is the final segment of the Dubai Creek extension, […]
The Australian government has tweaked its digital transformation agenda in a new digital roadmap for 2017, which will see the enhancement of services such as myGov, reforms to health and aged care, improvements to its service delivery, and a whole-of-government approach to IT. According to the government’s roadmap, its vision for digital transformation starts with user needs. It explained this will see a layer of user-geared services […]
By Joseph Menn The U.S. agency charged with ensuring that voting machines meet security standards was itself penetrated by a hacker after the November elections, according to a security firm working with law enforcement on the matter. The security firm, Recorded Future, was monitoring underground electronic markets where hackers buy and sell wares and discovered someone offering log-on credentials for access to computers at the U.S. Election […]
LONDON // Doctors have declared that infertility caused by treatment for inherited blood disorders affecting thousands of Gulf Arabs may at last be wiped out. In a medical breakthrough, Emirati Moaza Al Matrooshi, a 24-year-old from Dubai who was born with the fatal blood condition thalassaemia, this week became the first patient to give birth to a healthy baby after herself being cured of the disease. Thanks […]
A one-two punch of a surging US dollar and rising interest rates sent the price of gold tumbling to its lowest level since February on Thursday, hurting the shares of miners and spurring hefty liquidations of exchange traded funds that track the metal. The price of gold in New York fell as much as 1.8 per cent to $1,122 an ounce, as the dollar rose across the […]
What’s the story behind your business? Our story is a typical start-up story. We began 15 years ago with six people, and at the time we operated out of our chairman’s extra bedroom in Jumeirah. We started the agency with the philosophy of changing the rules of advertising across the region. At the time, people thought we were a bit crazy – they said everything had already […]
By Greg Lacour | CHARLESTON, S.C. CHARLESTON, S.C. A jury on Thursday found avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof guilty of federal hate crimes resulting in the deaths of nine black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year. Jurors also said Roof, 22, was guilty of firearms violations and obstructing the exercise of religion for those he shot and killed during a Bible study […]
