By Daniel R Moore: I finally gathered the most recent data reported by the Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (NYSE:CHKR) to perform a quarterly financial review. Honestly I did not find any surprising new information within the financial statements. The Trust still deserves a junk rating at best, and the bad news has been public for over a year. The issues facing the Trust are best summarized in […]
LEBANON. Byblos Bank issued today, in cooperation with the American University of Beirut through the Olayan School of Business, the results of the Byblos Bank/AUB Consumer Confidence Index for the first half of 2014. The results show that the Byblos Bank/AUB Consumer Confidence Index improved marginally in January and February, picked up pace in March and April, and regressed in May and June 2014. The Index reached […]
UAE. Dubai World, the state-owned company at the center of the emirate’s 2009 financial crisis, reached a deal with its main creditors to extend the repayment of $10.3 billion of debt, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The group, which owns the world’s third-largest ports operator, agreed with its creditor committee to repay in 2022, four years later than previously agreed on, the people said, […]
“We have to be honest, we weren’t able to finish it the way we wanted,” said Kassem Eid, a Syrian rebel who has joined the opposition in exile. By ANNE BARNARD August 29, 2014 BEIRUT, Lebanon — As he rode onto the base of the Fourth Division, the formidable Syrian Army unit that had been starving and bombarding his town near Damascus for months, Kassem Eid prepared for a […]
By Brad Thomas: One of the most frequent questions that I hear today from retail investors is “why are REITs critical to your investment portfolio?” That’s a logical question to ask, especially for investors who owned REITs during the Great Recession. The purpose of this article will be to answer that question but also to provide meaningful insight into the potential impact of REITs and rising interest […]
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE August 29, 2014 GENEVA — The number of refugees from the Syrian civil war has risen above three million, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday, calling the crisis “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.” More than a million people have fled in the last 12 months alone, the refugee agency said, counting only those who registered as refugees. The total number is believed to […]
A cluster bomb was spotted at the Taftanaz air base in Syria after rebels seized the site last year. By RICK GLADSTONE August 27, 2014 Cluster bombs, outlawed munitions that kill and maim indiscriminately, have caused more casualties in the Syrian civil war than in the 2006 Lebanon conflict, when Israel’s heavy use of the weapons hastened the treaty banning them two years later, a monitoring group said Wednesday. […]
First-time sellers of bonds that adhere to Islam’s ban on interest are poised to revive an industry suffering its worst quarter in more than four years. Luxembourg and Hong Kong aim to market debut offerings of sukuk next month, while Kenya, South Africa, Bangladesh and Tatarstan have announced plans for maiden issues. Islamic bond sales have fallen 82 percent to $2.6 billion this quarter compared with the […]
Two months ago, the U.K. became the first Western nation to sell Islamic bonds. But missing from the list of advisers and arrangers on the £200 million transaction were any of the country’s six shariah-compliant banks. One of them, Bank of London and the Middle East, doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about it and applauds the rise in sovereign sukuks as they will help accelerate […]
West Texas Intermediate traded near the lowest closing price in seven months after speculators cut bullish bets and as supply rises in the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer. Brent was steady in London. Futures were little changed in New York after falling 0.3 percent yesterday. Crude inventories probably shrank by 1.8 million barrels to 360.7 million last week, a Bloomberg survey shows before an Energy Information Administration […]
A revival of international bond issues from the Gulf is set to draw heavy demand from local and foreign investors, despite the latest geopolitical upheavals in the Middle East and the approach of higher U.S. interest rates. Gulf bond issuance has dried up since early July, because of a traditional summer lull in local investor activity as well as global market instability due to the crisis in […]
MUMBAI: Deposit growth at Indian banks has picked up pace after remaining subdued for two consecutive months. Latest data from the RBI show that bank deposits rose close to 14% yearon-year in the fortnight to August 8 as investments in mutual fund products flowed to term deposits. A strong deposit growth may encourage banks to lower deposit rates and may, subsequently, lead to lower lending rates, too. […]
It’s slim, sleek, black and silver, and comes with Bluetooth. But unlike the latest mobile phone, you won’t be showing off the Black Pro 6500 to anyone outside your bathroom. This hi-tech gizmo from Oral-B – which has its own app – is the latest in toothbrush technology, and has a £250 price tag to match. It claims to be able to strip 100 per cent more […]
QATAR. International food prices have been declining in recent months, reflecting record harvests and weak global demand. Declining food prices have in turn contributed to lower inflation in the Eurozone, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). This trend, coupled with a weak Eurozone recovery and mixed economic data in the US, suggests that the risk of global deflation remains high. As such, we expect […]
The execution of U.S. journalist James Foley by someone with a British accent has sparked soul-searching in the U.K. as to how and why the country has become an exporter of extremists to the Middle East. Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to redouble efforts to stop radicalized Britons traveling to Iraq and Syria to “take part in extremism and violence.” “The fundamental problem is as long as […]
By IMD: By IMD Professor Arturo Bris In the summer of 2008, the US financial sector suffered one of the most damaging events in its history. The volatile stock market, induced by the subprime market, led to the default of Lehman Brothers, and subsequently to a massive global crisis. We are now in a post-crisis period. Yet, looking back to between 1945 and 2008, we see that […]
Letter From Europe Britons, including Anglican clergy members worried about the plight of beleaguered Iraqi Christians, accuse Prime Minister David Cameron of incoherence. By ALAN COWELL August 21, 2014 LONDON — For a century and more, Iraq has been the graveyard of Western dreams, often literally, from the defeat of British colonial forces in the First Battle of Kut in 1916 to the bloodshed that flowed from the American-led […]
Here’s one of the usual everyday life frustrations if you live in Saudi Arabia: You want to eat cereal. You open the fridge and realize you’re out of milk. You get dressed, get in your car and drive to the supermarket. Then the moment your reach the supermarket, they close for prayer. The kingdom is the only Muslim country in the world where all businesses must be […]
People watched as rescue workers searched for victims under the rubble of a house in Rafah that witnesses said was destroyed on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike that killed three senior Hamas military commanders. By JODI RUDOREN and FARES AKRAM August 21, 2014 JERUSALEM — Israeli airstrikes killed three senior commanders of the armed wing of Hamas early Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, Israeli and Palestinian officials […]
By RAVI SOMAIYA and CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY August 20, 2014 Islamic extremist fighters forced a freelance reporter, James Foley, to read propaganda celebrating their cause, and then beheaded him in a Middle Eastern desert. Another American journalist is next, they warned. In Iran, Jason Rezaian, a reporter for The Washington Post, was snatched by men waving an arrest warrant in late July. He has not been heard from since. In Afghanistan, Matthew […]
Op-Ed Contributor By MICHAEL SINGH August 19, 2014 WASHINGTON — President Obama surprised many recently when he diagnosed the crisis gripping Iraq as partly an economic one, noting that Iraqi Sunnis were “detached from the global economy” and thus frustrated in achieving their aspirations. While Iraq’s chaos has many sources, the president is nevertheless on to something; and it’s not just Iraqi Sunnis, but the entire Middle East that […]
Militant Group Says It Killed American Journalist in Syria James Foley, in a photo from the website FreeJamesFoley.org, in Aleppo, Syria, in November 2012, the month he disappeared. By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI August 19, 2014 The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria posted a video on Tuesday that it said showed the beheading of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago, according to […]
August 19, 2014 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY After St. Louis county police officers in full battle gear trained sniper rifles on peaceful protesters in the suburb of Ferguson last week, and then proceeded to douse the streets in tear gas and round up journalists, a Russia analyst named Mark Adomanis observed that images of a crackdown on dissent in the United States would make life easier […]
A year after a $920 million payment default at a spot commodities bourse cut trading from gold to soybeans futures, jolting India’s biggest brokerages, investors are returning as newer regulations buoy confidence. The volume of commodities traded on the Multi Commodity Exchange Ltd. (MCX), India’s biggest commodity bourse, has rebounded from a five-year low after the regulator tightened warehousing and shareholding norms in response to the payment […]
