|By Matein Khalid|“Few individuals alter the course of history. Fewer still change the map of the world. Hardly anyone creates a nation state. Mohammed Ali Jinnah did all three”. Dr. Stanley Wolpert’s words still give me goose pimples two decades after I first read his book. Mr. Jinnah founded Pakistan and was also my ancestral kinsman. I too was born in Karachi, the city by the sea, […]
Saudi Arabia stressed on Monday the importance of co-operation among oil producers to abide by a decision in November to cut production. OPEC agreed in November its first oil output cuts since 2008 after Saudi Arabia accepted “a big hit” on its production and dropped its demand that arch-rival Iran slash output. “The council (of ministers)…asserted the importance of stability and coordination and increased cooperation between member […]
Despite the weakness in ‘hard’ industrial production data, US Manufacturing ‘soft’ survey data from ISM and Markit surged in November and December. PMI rose to 54.3 final for December – a 21-month high – with employment rising and inventory-building. However, stagflation concerns continue to build as new orders declined and input price inflation accelerated. ISM rose to its highest since Dec 2014 with prices paid soaring to […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Big Oil could be in a unique position to protect its interests against a Republican proposal to tax imports, given that President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet is studded with oil champions sensitive to the risk of higher gasoline prices. Trump’s emerging leadership includes Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, former Texas Governor Rick Perry as energy […]
Oman ORIX Leasing Company, a motor vehicle leasing firm, has successfully raised $25 million bilateral term facilities from regional banks. The term facilities were provided by BBK and the National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah and will be used by Oman ORIX to fund its leasing finance business. Alpen Capital, Oman acted as the sole financial advisor to the transaction, a statement said. Shahin Mohammed Ahmed Al […]
Florence Foster Jenkins was a real-life American socialite who billed herself as being a great opera star – but is seemingly the only person who does not realise she is a horrible singer. Nonetheless, she never let small details like the lack of tone and having no descernable musical talent stop her from performing, and became a prominent cult figure in the New York musical scene of […]
Expats living in India are the third-highest paid in the world, according to a survey from HSBC. The average salary of foreigners living in India was $145,057, the poll of almost 27,000 expats in 100 countries showed. Highest paid were foreign workers in Switzerland who got an average salary of $188,275, followed by Hong Kong at $169,756. Like Switzerland and Hong Kong, India has a financial hub […]
Dubai Investments has announced the start of construction of the AED3 billion ($820 milllion) Mirdif Hills project, being developed by its real estate subsidiary Dubai Investments Real Estate Company (DIRC). Mirdif Hills is a mixed-use residential, commercial and retail development spread across 3.9 million square feet and including 1,054 apartments, a four-star hotel, 128 serviced apartments and a 230-bed hospital. The groundbreaking ceremony was held in the […]
LONDON Upbeat data from China helped lift global markets as 2017 trading started in earnest on Tuesday, with the dollar notching its biggest gain in three weeks, oil on a tear and European stocks setting a one-year high. Base metal prices and bond yields also advanced, as the better-than-expected factory growth in China dovetailed with higher inflation data in Europe to give investors a solid start to […]
Security systems can be expensive, so this relatively low-cost modular offering from Blink could fit the bill for some businesses. When I met up with the company, representatives noted that while the system is primarily marketed for home use, it could equally suit a small office. The price is certainly compelling: a one camera setup costs £109.99 (inc. VAT, or $99 in the US). There are […]
It would only take 3,000 Uber cars to usurp regular cab services as the main form of transformation in New York City. That’s suggested by a new study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. New York City’s 14,000 licensed fleet of cabs could be beaten out by a significantly smaller number, that is, if users are willing to share rides through carpooling services Uber and Lyft, […]
Via GEFIRA, The rule of law is often invoked by as a Western value that “populist” movements want to destroy, yet the establishment’s own governments have long suspended that very same rule of law when it comes to immigration. The most evident example of this is the immigration policy started by the Italian Letta government in 2013 and continued since then under the Renzi government. In October […]
Qatar’s budget deficit is set to decline by 38.9 percent from $13bn (QR46.5bn) in 2016 to $7.8bn (QR28.4bn) in 2017 due to a rise in government revenues, according to an economic analysis by Qatar National Bank. However, capital spending is expected to increase in 2017 and remain as the main driver of economic growth in the coming years, revealed The Peninsula Qatar. The decision is aimed at […]
Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) company has revealed that as of October 28, it had four months to shift the 18,847 customers that are still connected to the interim satellite service (ISS) onto its Sky Muster or fixed-wireless services prior to the ISS shutdown at the end of February. NBN revealed when answering Senate Estimates questions on notice that it received 50,134 installation requests for Sky Muster […]
Seven months after the leak of 11.5 million documents from a law firm in an incident that has come to be known as the “Panama Papers”, the world is right to ask what has been done since to fight global tax evasion and promote financial transparency. As president of Panama, and in particular through my interactions with the international community, it is clear that the affair shined […]
JAKARTA Indonesia has penalized JPMorgan Chase & Co after the investment bank’s research arm recommended a smaller exposure to the country’s sovereign bonds, a senior finance ministry official said on Tuesday. “After we did a comprehensive review, we said no need to use JPMorgan’s services as a primary (bond) dealer and a perception bank,” Suahasil Nazara, the head of the ministry’s fiscal policy office, told Reuters. A […]
Funding activity for advertising technology start-ups has crashed to its lowest point in five years, underlining the struggle faced by the ad sector as Google and Facebookbecome dominant. Adtech, an umbrella term for companies that automate and facilitate the buying and selling of digital advertising, rose to prominence over the past five years, but appears now to be on the decline. The number of global adtech venture […]
Saudi Arabia’s Yamama Cement Company has secured 1 billion riyals ($266.6 million) in Islamic financing to partially fund the building of a new factory, it said on Monday. The three-year financing includes 750 million riyals from National Commercial Bank and 250 million riyals from Samba Financial Group, it said in the statement. The company signed a 4.2 billion riyal contract with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions in November […]
Australian Attorney-General George Brandis has extended the deadline for those wanting to make a submission on whether the federal government should prohibit access by parties for civil proceedings to data retained by telecommunications providers under the data retention legislation. Submissions now close on Friday, January 27 — two weeks after the original January 13 submission due date. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) had […]
By Christine Kim | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean authorities said on Tuesday they will proceed with steps to extradite Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of a central figure in a South Korean political scandal that has led to a parliamentary vote to impeach President Park Geun-hye. Chung is being held in Denmark after police there arrested her on Sunday in the northern city of Aalborg. Denmark’s public prosecutor […]
SEOUL Oil prices rose in the first trading hours of 2017, buoyed by hopes that a deal between OPEC and non-OPEC members to cut production, which kicked in on Sunday, will be effective in draining the global supply glut. International Brent crude oil prices LCOc1 were trading up 31 cents, or 0.55 percent, at $57.13 a barrel at 0203 GMT on Tuesday – close to last year’s […]
A stable UAE economy is likely to create “more” employment opportunities in 2017, according to employment website, Monster.com. The company’s statement follows a report issued by London-based Hays Recruiting which says over half of GCC workers were “considering leaving their current employer this year” and 14 percent of UAE employers were “short of the talent required to achieve 2017’s objectives”. Monster.com also referred to another study by […]
Doha, 02 January 2017 The global publishing, research and consultancy firm Oxford Business Group (OBG) has appointed a new team to oversee its latest project in Qatar. Izabela Kruk takes on the role of country director, while Simon Gaillard will be the Group’s editorial manager for The Report: Qatar 2017. Kruk moves into her new post from Nigeria, where she contributed to the Group’s most recent report […]
Statcounter’s graph for desktop operating system market shares in the USA shows Windows 10 climbing rapidly and only just overtaking Windows 7 (yellow line). Image: Screen grab for ZDNet Installation of Microsoft’s Windows 10 slowed dramatically when the free upgrade stopped, but it has still overtaken Windows 7 in the UK and USA, on Statcounter‘s usage-based web monitoring. On Netmarketshare’s numbers, which are based on unique visitors […]
