|By Tyler Durden| Back in June 2013, when Deutsche Bank opened a gold vault in Singapore which could hold up to 200 metric tons, the German bank was euphoric about the prospects for storing physical gold: “Gold has traditionally been stored in London, Zurich and New York, but there is a serious shift in dynamics going on as the global financial crisis continues to evolve,” Mark Smallwood, […]
Saudi Arabia is considering its own Big Bang. The world biggest crude exporter is considering selling a stake in its state-owned company, which controls more than a tenth of the global oil market. A potential initial public offering is under review for Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Aramco, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince, said in an interview with The Economist. A decision […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE’s non-oil private sector ended the year on a low note, with business conditions improving at the slowest rate in 40 months, the headline Emirates NBD UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index for December showed. A key factor weighing on the sector as a whole was relatively muted growth of new work – the pace of expansion was the weakest since August 2011. Output, […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Etihad Airways will replace the leased Jet Airways Boeing 777-300ER aircraft for its daily flight to and from San Francisco with its own Boeing 777-200LRs from April 25, 2016. The daily EY101 flight from Abu Dhabi to New York’s JFK airport and the return EY100 service will also see leased Jet Airways Boeing 777-300ER aircraft replaced by Etihad Airways Boeing 777-300ERs from June […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE insurance industry has recently started to show signs of impact due to lower oil price and the challenging economic environment. The shifting regulatory landscape, increased competitiveness and light regulatory enforcement were some of the key topics of discussion at the recent Business Breakfast organized by EY, attended by key insurers and market players in the UAE insurance industry. “The UAE insurance […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Etihad Airways launched fresh legal action in a bid to overturn a German court’s decision to revoke the approval for 29 of its codeshare flights with airberlin. Last week, the Administrative Court of Braunschweig decided that the German Ministry of Transport was entitled to reject the 29 Etihad Airways – airberlin codeshares, which had been approved only until 15 January 2016. As the […]
Ride-sharing app company Lyft today announced that it has raised $1 billion in new funding, including a $500 million investment from General Motors. The additional funds bring to $2 billion the total amount of capital the firm has attracted since it was founded in 2012. Under the new arrangement, Lyft and GM [Image credit: General Motors] will work together to build a network of on-demand, self-driving cars […]
A Samsung logo is seen at Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, December 18, 2015. Picture taken on December 18, 2015. Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji SEOUL South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it expects a difficult business environment in 2016 due to weak global economic conditions and heightened competition in key businesses including memory chips and smartphones. In a statement on Monday, Samsung said Chief […]
Emaar Properties PJSC slid the most in more than two weeks, leading a decline in Dubai stocks, on concern a fire that ripped through its hotel on New Year’s Eve will curb earnings. Abu Dhabi shares also fell. Emaar dropped as much as 4.4 percent, before paring its slide to 3.5 percent at 10:31 a.m. local time. The developer of the world’s tallest tower was the biggest contributor […]
|By K Raveendran| Given Dubai’s fame as one of the most happening cities of the world, the international media attention to the New Year-eve fire at the Address Hotel was quite natural. At the same time, it did not escape the attention of the discerning that some sections of the media lost no opportunity to use the unfortunate incident to show things in a rather poor light. […]
|By Matein Khalid| Emerging markets were an entirely predictable horror story once again in 2015. The oil/mining bust, currency meltdowns, China’s hard landing, sovereign credit downgrades, banking system crises, corruption scandals and geopolitical crises from Ukraine to Syria, the Black Sea to the South China Sea devastated investor wealth in emerging markets. India’s Sensex and Nifty were down 9% while the rupee has depreciated to 66 […]
As of next week, AT&T customers who want new cellphones will have to update their devices by paying the full retail prices upfront or through monthly installment plans. That’s because the carrier is doing away with its previous program that offered new phones to customers who signed two-year contracts for AT&T service. First reported by Engadget yesterday, the change was confirmed today by an AT&T spokesperson who […]
As of next week, AT&T customers who want new cellphones will have to update their devices by paying the full retail prices upfront or through monthly installment plans. That’s because the carrier is doing away with its previous program that offered new phones to customers who signed two-year contracts for AT&T service. First reported by Engadget yesterday, the change was confirmed today by an AT&T spokesperson who […]
Construction sites and buildings are pictured amid heavy smog, on the third day after China’s capital Beijing issued its second ever ”red alert” for air pollution, in Beijing, China, in this December 21, 2015 photo. Reuters/Jason Lee BEIJING Air pollution in China could be big business. Two of the world’s largest technology firms, IBM and Microsoft, are vying to tap the nascent, fast-growing market for forecasting air […]
Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia’s subsidy scheme is poised for a change as the country announced that they would be reviewing government support for energy, water and electricity prices in the next five years. A 2016 budget document by the Ministry of Finance said that reviewing government support is aimed at achieving efficiency in energy use, conserving natural resources, stopping waste and irrational use, and minimising negative effects […]
Dubai plans to raise state spending by 12 percent in 2016 as it invests in infrastructure to sustain economic growth, but an equal rise in revenues will allow the emirate to balance its budget, the government said on Sunday. The Dubai budget for next year envisages spending of 46.1 billion dirhams ($12.6 billion), up from 41.2 billion dirhams in the 2015 budget plan. The 2015 budget featured […]
|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, the last six years were a unique period in global central banking, an epic monetary experiment that averted a Great Depression after Lehman’s failure and interbank/credit contagion plunged the world into recession in 2008-9. Yet the Fed (and later Bank of Japan, ECB and even PBOC) quantitative easing also led to asset bubbles, credit market excesses, currency wars and the mispricing of […]
A Samsung logo is seen at Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, December 18, 2015. Picture taken on December 18, 2015. Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji SEOUL Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will start making new chips for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc next year, South Korea’s Electronic Times reported on Tuesday citing unnamed sources. The paper said Samsung’s foundry business and Globalfoundries will jointly start producing a […]
TOKYO Japan’s Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said on Monday it will cut nearly 7,000 consumer electronics jobs after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, in an overhaul that will streamline the sprawling conglomerate into a company focused on chips and nuclear energy. Toshiba also said it would sell its television manufacturing plant in Indonesia, and that eventual job cuts spanning the entire PC-to-nuclear company could be over 10,000 including […]
Almost every Middle Eastern stock index declined after oil, the region’s main source of income, sank to the lowest in seven years, damping the outlook for government spending. Dubai’s DFM General Index ended its longest winning streak in almost three months, sliding 1.5 percent, the most in a week, to close at 3,026.05. Emirates NBD PJSC’s 4 percent retreat was the biggest contributor. The Tadawul All Share […]
MAMATA WOOING CONGRESS AGAIN
By Ashis Biswas
For the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal, the theme song could well be akla chalo re: Ironically, as the weakest opposition party in West Bengal, the BJP alone is not contemplating any alliance, with only a few months left before the 2016 Assembly polls.
Among other parties, the usually derided, much weakened Congress has emerged as the prime choice as an alliance partner both for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the CPI(M). Interestingly, the Left camp remains divided over the question of political alignments. For instance, the CPI a firm ally of the Congress during the seventies, has put its foot down to any linkage with it, as have smaller parties like the SUCI or the CPI(M-L). The CPI’s logic: it points to its own remarkable decline over the years, which it sees as a consequence of its earlier reliance on
The sign outside the Target store is seen in Arvada, Colorado in this January 10, 2014 file photo. Reuters/Rick Wilking/Files Target Corp (TGT.N) is in the early stages of developing its own mobile wallet, three people familiar with the matter said, joining Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) in posing a threat to recent entrants like Apple Pay. The fourth-largest U.S. retailer has not committed to launch the product, […]
After inking an enhanced deal with Salesforce earlier this week, Box has also expanded its strategic alliance with IBM. Box, which lets enterprise users access and manage information in the cloud, announced the move today. Apparently, the initial tie-up between Big Blue and Box was so successful that the companies decided to press the go-to-market and sales pedals a little harder. Under the revamped deal, the companies […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is asking several mobile carriers to provide it with more information about how their free-data streaming offers relate to the agency’s goal of “maintaining a free and open Internet.” The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunication Bureau sent inquiry letters yesterday to AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile. All three companies have been promoting programs whereby customers can stream some video and other content without having that […]
