Hedge funds cut bullish bets on Brent crude to the lowest level in three years amid speculation that Saudi Arabia may refrain from paring output to tackle global oversupply. Speculative bets that prices will rise, in futures and options combined, outnumbered short positions by 36,704 lots in the week to Sept. 30, the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange said today in its weekly Commitments of Traders report. […]
IMF FORECAST: SELECTED MENA ECONOMIES Note: Data for some countries are based on fiscal years. 1Movements in consumer prices are shown as annual averages. 2Percent of GDP. 3Percent. 4Includes Bahrain, Libya, Oman, and Yemen. 5Includes Djibouti and Mauritania. Excludes Syria because of the uncertain political situation. IMF The International Monetary Fund has revised its 2015 economic growth projection downward for the Middle East and North Africa by […]
For the second time since June, AT&T has acknowledged that it has been hit by an insider data breach. The telecom giant is warning consumers that an employee, who has since been fired, illegally accessed the personal information of some of its users, making off with Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. In a letter sent to the Vermont attorney general earlier this month, AT&T officials […]
Remember BadUSB? If you use a USB device to move digital files from one machine to another, you need to know the latest news on this flaw in design specs that could put your computers at risk. Attack code for this flaw, which is impossible to patch, is now public. Security researchers Brandon Wilson and Adam Caudill released two patches to existing firmware for the Phison 2251-03, […]
A Luxembourg court on Friday rejected a request by two holding companies of Portugal’s Espirito Santo family for “controlled management”, a sort of bankruptcy protection from creditors. Espirito Santo Financial Group (ESFG) and its subsidiary Espirito Santo Financiere SA still have the right to appeal, and the court has yet to decide on two other holding companies controlled by the family. ESFG is Banco Espirito Santo’s largest shareholder, and […]
Abu Dhabi e-govt showcase solutions at Gitex ABU DHABI, 3 days ago Twenty-two Abu Dhabi Government entities will showcase their latest innovative IT solutions, product apps and software offerings, all under the theme, “Towards a Digital Abu Dhabi’, at Gitex 2014, Dubai. UAE. The apps have been designed specifically to strengthen customer service and enhance the customer experience. Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (Adsic) will host […]
Officials at the announcing of the Gitex Technology Week 2014 Mideast ICT market to hit $20bn, outpacing global average DUBAI, 3 days ago The Middle East region’s information and communication technology (ICT) market is set to jump from a projected $15 billion this year to $20 billion in 2020, outpacing the global average, according to market intelligence firm IDC. The growth is being buoyed by region-wide investment […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Jadwa Investment, the Saudi asset manager focused on Sharia’ah compliant mutual and private equity funds, has just issued its Quarterly Global Oil Market Update (Q3 2014). Summary of the report · The combination of accelerating US supply, weaker than expected global demand, stabilization in geopolitics, and an appreciation of the dollar, led to oil prices dropping by 7.3 percent in Q3 2014, to an average of […]
The planned merger of the United Arab Emirates’ two main stock exchanges, home to the second-best performing share gauge in the world, will take more time to complete, according to a Dubai government official. “It’s still on the table,” Mohammed Al Shaibani, chief executive officer of Investment Corp. of Dubai, the emirate’s main state-owned holding company, said in an interview today at a Dubai conference. “We were […]
If you need to handle massive amounts of computational data faster than you are now, IBM has rolled out new systems just for you. Big Blue’s Power8 portfolio now offers systems that claim to deal with data at nearly 20 percent better price for performance metrics than comparable Intel Xeon v3 processor-based systems. To be sure, IBM is pushing toward the big data computational brink in response […]
People frequently use Facebook to update friends and loved ones about health issues. Now Facebook is looking for a way to make health care an integral part of the social media site. Following on the heels of Samsung and Apple, Facebook is planning to create a group of online support communities that would connect Facebook users that suffer with various afflictions. However, the online support communities are […]
|By K Raveendran| The run-away success of Alibaba’s blockbuster IPO is seen inspiring other online players to take similar routes. Among the probable candidates is leading online trading and investment entity Saxo Bank. “The IPO is one of the options the management has under consideration,” Jakob Beck Thomsen, CEO of Saxo Bank Dubai, told The Arabian Post. But he refused to commit himself on a specific time […]
Nicolas Parasie for The Wall Street Journal In the past six months, the United Arab Emirates’ official credit bureau has ramped up its efforts to procure information: it collected two years of financial records for every single retail customer of each financial institution in the country. That process involved digesting some 100 million transactions, half of which are now fully uploaded into the bureau’s data vault. Marwan […]
Gulf banks are feeling the pinch of rapidly shrinking corporate loan margins, with some predicting a bounce in lending rates as soon as the first half of 2015 as the escalating price war bites into profitability. Lenders are being forced to cut rates and loosen lending terms to secure business as local banks, flush with cash as their balance sheets recover from the global financial crisis, seek […]
|By TAP Staff| Following the huge success of Emaar’s malls IPO, Chairman Mohammed Alabbar indicated the possibility of floating the group’s hotel business, which includes the signature Armani Hotel. Meraas Holding, a Dubai government-controlled developer, has picked banks to manage the IPO of its theme park unit, three people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month. The company’s IPO is planned for the fourth quarter, […]
Qatar… construction activity jumps 14.5 per cent Qatar’s economic growth edges up to 5.7pc in Q2 DUBAI, 4 hours, 21 minutes ago Qatar’s economic growth picked up slightly to 5.7 per cent on an annual basis in the second quarter of this year as robust non-oil activity outweighed a decline in the hydrocarbon sector, official data showed on Tuesday. Real gross domestic product growth accelerated from a […]
By S. Sethuraman The Reserve Bank of India’s Fourth Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement on September 30 does not offer any hint of monetary easing in the near future, again citing risks to lowering at present the policy lending repo rate from 8 per cent it has maintained since April, in the current fiscal year. This leaves all other policy rates and reserve ratios unchanged, (reverse […]
Barjeel Data Centre…IT hub for operations Mercury Mena wins data centre project in Abu Dhabi MANAMA, 7 hours, 15 minutes ago Mercury Middle East and North Africa, a leading mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) company, has won a deal to provide the turnkey solutions for the new data centre for the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD). The Barjeel Data Centre will service as the information technology […]
Security experts are keeping an eye on the Shellshock vulnerability, also known as the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, as a focus for malicious scanning and at least one botnet. They warn, though, that hackers haven’t even begun to test the limits of the vulnerability. The Shellshock vulnerability, also called the Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) bug, could be even an even greater threat than the Heartbleed bug. Disclosed in […]
Cisco is adding some muscle and money to its Intercloud skeleton, signing over 30 new partners to its worldwide network of interconnected clouds. The new alliances add 250 data centers in 50 countries to Intercloud. Cisco Capital,a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has also earmarked $1 billion in financing to the effort, providing the money so Cisco customers and partners can more quickly adopt the Cisco technologies […]
Dubai’s stock market looks set to see an influx of cash this week when Emaar Malls Group returns to investors the surplus funds from subscriptions to its initial public offer, which could boost the prices of other stocks. EMG, a subsidiary of Dubai’s largest listed developer Emaar Properties, closed subscriptions last Friday and will announce the final offer price on Monday, according to its prospectus. Sources familiar […]
By BRUCE WEBER September 27, 2014 Michael Harari, an Israeli intelligence agent who led the hit squad that was sent to avenge the murders of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, died on Sept. 21 in Tel Aviv. He was 87. His death was reported by The Associated Press, citing a statement by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who called Mr. Harari […]
By DAVID E. SANGER and ANNE BARNARD September 27, 2014 WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said on Saturday that it had conducted its first strikes against Islamic State targets in a besieged Kurdish area of Syria along the Turkish border, destroying two armored vehicles in an area that has been the subject of a weeklong onslaught by the Islamic State. The action around Kobani, where at least 150,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey, appeared to signify the opening of […]
Turkish Kurds watched Kurdish forces battle with Islamic State militants across the border in Syria on Saturday. Turkey fears the fight against the Islamic State may embolden Kurdish separatists. By ANNE BARNARD and MARK LANDLER September 27, 2014 KARACA, Turkey — No American ally is closer to the threat of the Islamic State than Turkey, and no country could play a more important role in a coalition that President Obama is […]
