DUBAI // A leading estate agent and property management company in Dubai has gone out of business with the loss of dozens of jobs. S K Real Estate ceased trading last Tuesday without warning to most of its 70 employees. The glass door to the company’s office on floor 11 of Concord Tower in Media City has been smashed. Staff at neighbouring businesses arrived at work yesterday to […]
ISTANBUL — As Turkish fighter jets pounded Kurdish militia targets in northern Iraq late Friday, the implications of the attack weighed heavily on Turks and Kurds across the border in Turkey, as they faced the prospect of being drawn back into a bloody civil conflict after years of relative peace. In 2013, Turkey brokered a historic settlement with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., vowing to […]
After much hype and an abundance of testing, Windows 10 — the latest version of the Microsoft Windows operating system — begins this week, with release starting July 29. The new OS is scheduled to roll out in phases, going first to Windows Insiders and then being released in waves to users who have made reservations online. Enterprise users will begin seeing Windows 10 on August 1. […]
JERUSALEM — The two issues with perhaps the broadest consensus and resonance in Israeli politics are opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and support for the release of Jonathan J. Pollard, the convicted Israeli spy, from a North Carolina prison. Now the two could be tied together, as some in Washington appear to be highlighting Mr. Pollard’s likely parole in November in hopes of quieting the vigorous […]
Tech giant Google said it has reduced transcription errors by 49 percent with the latest improvements it’s rolled out to Google Voice and Project Fi. The search giant’s researchers and engineers achieved the performance upgrade using something called a “long short-term memory deep recurrent neural network.” Combined with content provided by Google Voice users, that network enabled researchers to find a way to improve the accuracy of […]
ISTANBUL — Turkish fighter jets, which on Friday attacked Islamic State targets in Syria, have launched a wave of airstrikes in northern Iraq, targeting camps of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the first time in four years, the prime minister’s office said Saturday. The Iraq raids, which began late Friday and continued into Saturday, effectively ended an unstable two-year cease-fire between the Turkish government and the […]
The bargain hunters who thronged Kumar Jain’s jewelry store in Mumbai as gold prices tumbled in 2013 are staying away for now. They’re holding off because they think this week’s collapse to the lowest price in five years has further to run, according to Jain. That’s a view shared with Goldman Sachs. “It hasn’t been anything like what happened two years ago,” Jain said, referring to the […]
INTERNATIONAL. On the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Kenya for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, GeoPoll, the Global Entrepreneurship Network and the U.S. State Department released a survey of 1,000 business owners throughout sub-Saharan Africa on entrepreneurship in their countries. GeoPoll surveyed 200 entrepreneurs per country in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, asking them what resources are most needed […]
UAE. Women are just as likely as men to find employment in small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE, according to the latest research by business intelligence company MEED. Of the more than top 50 SMEs in the Emirates which participated in the study, 50 per cent said they employ an equal number of women and men in their organisations. About 40 per cent even reported having […]
ADEN // An Emirati plane landed in Aden at dawn on Friday, bringing humanitarian aid to the southern Yemeni city only hours after its airport came under rocket fire from rebels. In total, four aircraft have arrived at the port city since the symbolic reopening of Aden’s international airport on Wednesday, which followed nearly four months of fierce fighting. The UAE plane delivered medical supplies from the […]
July 24, 2015 By LAILA LALAMI One afternoon last April, I stood in the doorway of my daughter’s room, watching her prepare for a big recital. She was going to perform with her middle-school orchestra in Santa Monica. She packed her violin, rosined her bow, put on a black dress and tamed her wild hair into a bun. ‘‘There,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m ready.’’ How lovely she looked, […]
By HELENE COOPER and CEYLAN YEGINSU July 23, 2015 AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and Turkey have reached an agreement for manned and unmanned American warplanes to carry out aerial attacks on the Islamic State from two Turkish air bases, Obama administration officials said Thursday. The agreement on the bases, Incirlik and Diyarbakir, was described by one senior administration official as a “game changer” that would significantly strengthen the American […]
A zoomed image of a computer screen showing the Amazon logo is seen in Vienna November 26, 2012. To match Special Report TAX-AMAZON/ Reuters/Heinz-Peter Bader Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) swung to an unexpected quarterly profit on higher sales in North America, its popular Prime subscription service and growing demand for its Web services, sending the online retailer’s shares up more than 17 percent. Amazon also forecast third-quarter revenue […]
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, right, and Gen. Taleb Shegati al-Kenani, second from right, commander of Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Service, reviewed maps at the joint operations center in Baghdad on Thursday. By HELENE COOPER July 23, 2015 BAGHDAD — Around 3,000 newly American-trained Iraqi troops, along with 500 trained Sunni tribal fighters, have been deployed to help in an expected government offensive to retake the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi […]
UAE. The current shortage of middle income housing is one of the greatest challenges facing the real estate industry in the Middle East, said Craig Plumb, Head of Research at JLL MENA. “With a shortage of housing for those families earning salaries around the UAE average, it is important that we address some of the best practice initiatives and developments that have been launched in the Emirates, […]
INTERNATIONAL. Africa continues to remain vastly unexplored, and making Africa’s most remote regions accessible for trade will not only promote prosperity in those regions, but also elevate the continent’s continued growth path. This is according to Charles Brewer, Managing Director of DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa, commenting on The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty report, jointly written by the World Bank Group and World Trade Organisation, recently released by […]
The IBM logo is seen outside the company’s offices in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv October 24, 2011. Reuters/Nir Elias International Business Machines Corp’s (IBM.N) revenue fell for the 13th consecutive quarter and missed the average analyst estimate, as it continued to shed low-margin businesses and the strong dollar weighed on Big Blue’s results. Shares of the world’s largest technology services company fell about 5 percent in […]
WASHINGTON — The Islamic State’s reclusive leader has empowered his inner circle of deputies as well as regional commanders in Syria and Iraq with wide-ranging authority, a plan to ensure that if he or other top figures are killed, the organization will quickly adapt and continue fighting, American and Iraqi intelligence officials say. The officials say the leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delegates authority to his cabinet, or […]
ABU DHABI // Drivers of silver taxis are crying foul over what they call unfair competition from unlicensed cabs offering cheaper fares. Taxi drivers are under immense pressure to meet their targets, often working 12 to 14 hours every day. They say the increasing number of uninsured and unregulated cabs has made it harder for the city’s 10,000 drivers to find customers. Owners of private vehicles are […]
DUBAI // A woman whose brother suffered a severe brain injury after a car crash has launched a campaign against tailgating. In August 1990, Nikki Carroll was living and working in Paris when her brother James, who had just received his A-level results, was a passenger in a car being driven in Dublin, Ireland, by a friend who was a newly qualified driver. “Due to high speed […]
ABU DHABI // It has gone so fast – and so far, so good. It’s already the third anniversary of work starting on the UAE’s first nuclear power plant at Barakah, near the border with Saudi Arabia. And it is still on budget and set to go live in late 2017, ultimately providing a quarter of the Emirates’ energy needs. But becoming the first new member to […]
Microsoft is touting the latest update to its operating system, due for release starting July 29, with the line, “It’s the Windows you know, only better.” Underscoring the distance that Microsoft wants to put between the new OS and the previous version is the fact that it’s named Windows 10 — there will be no “9” to succeed the less-than-beloved Windows 8. Windows 10 will also be […]
A logo of Toshiba Corp is seen next to an advertisement board for its Regza television in Tokyo, Japan, June 25, 2015. Reuters/Yuya Shino TOKYO A panel investigating an accounting scandal at Toshiba Corp has found that top executives were involved in improper practices, confirming the institutional nature of the abuses, a person directly involved in the investigation said on Friday. Improper accounting, extended across virtually all […]
INTERNATIONAL. Global investors have raised their holdings of cash significantly in response to a weaker global economic outlook, particularly in China, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for July. Overall, equity allocations are unaffected by the higher risk aversion, however. • Confidence in the global economy falls sharply: 42percent of investors expect strengthening over next year, down from 55 percent a month ago.• China heads concerns: […]
