ABU DHABI // Dealing with Iran, the conflict in Yemen and finding a viable outcome to the Syrian crisis are the main challenges the United States will face in the Middle East this year, according to a report by an American think-tank. The 2017 Global Forecast by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies found that the US will also have to work on rebuilding its partnerships […]
After December’s No vote in the Italian referendum, the rise of Donald Trump and the British vote to leave the EU, it appears that the political landscape of the developed world is being redesigned by the victims of globalisation and technological change. Anger towards political elites is pervasive. Yet a few rage-free zones remain, of which Japan is the most conspicuous. How come this country, whose economy […]
BEIJING A joint venture between Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (2354.TW), known as Foxconn, and Sharp Corp (6753.T) plans to build a 61 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) factory in China to produce liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). Sakai Display Products Corp’s plant will be a so-called Gen-10.5 facility specializing in large-screen LCDs and will be operational by 2019, the company said at a signing event with local officials in […]
Towards the end of October 2016, several Indian banks announced they would be recalling millions of debit cards in the wake of a data breach that affected the backend of software that powered an ATM network there. It was a situation that could have been better mitigated; a government-sponsored organization tasked with sharing information about data breaches completely missed the warning signs that a breach was taking […]
BEIJING Heavy smog in northern China on Sunday caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled and highways to shut, disrupting the first day of the new year holiday. Large parts of the north were hit by hazardous smog in mid-December, leading authorities to order hundreds of factories to close and to restrict motorists to cut emissions. The latest bout of air pollution began on Friday and is […]
Under the five-year contract, Bee’ah will provide integrated waste management services to Dubai Refreshments – the bottling company of Pepsi in Dubai Sharjah, UAE, 29 December 2016 Bee’ah, the leading integrated environment and waste management company in the UAE, has been awarded a five-year contract by Dubai Refreshments (DRC) – the publicly traded distributor of Pepsi in Dubai. As Bee’ah’s first Food & Beverages (F&B) commercial contract, […]
Dubai-UAE: 29 December, 2016 As the New Year approaches, it brings with it new expectations, new aspirations and new resolutions. Along with shedding a few kilos, picking up a new skill or travelling to a faraway land, it’s also time to get a handle on your finances. Here are a few questions for your bank as a first step in this direction. Ask all the usual questions, […]
Dubai’s state utility company has announced that more than 80 percent of the second phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is complete. The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is the largest single-site solar park in the world based on the Independent Power Producer model (IPP). The second phase is the first and largest of its kind in the UAE and will […]
It has been a bad year for numbers. At the start of 2016, Howard Wainer, a much revered Princeton-educated statistician, eulogised that “prediction models combined with exit polls let us go to sleep early with little doubt about election outcomes”. By the end of a year in which data — in the shape of facts, polls and forecasts — struggled to deal with an uncertain world, Mr […]
By Lewis Krauskopf and Chuck Mikolajczak | NEW YORK NEW YORK After a late-year rally fueled by the U.S. election pushed stocks to surprising new peaks, investors are wary that the market could be primed for a spill to start 2017. The benchmark S&P 500 .SPX is set to post a roughly 10 percent price gain for 2016 and around 12 percent on a total return basis, […]
First Avenue, the new mall and hotel project planned for Motor City in Dubai, has signed up a raft of high-profile food and beverage brands. Krispy Kreme, Costa Coffee, London Diary and Mikel Coffee are among those to have signed up and will join a total of 15 food and beverage outlets at the new motoring-themed mall, co-located with a four-star 150-room Park Inn by Radisson hotel, […]
Globalization, the path that the world economy has largely followed for decades, took some hefty blows in 2016. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union have raised questions over the future of tariff-free trade and companies’ freedom to move production to lower-cost countries. Borders are back in vogue. Economic nationalism is paying political dividends. “We […]
Newly formed alliance to play key role in enhancing innovative leadership and provide essential support for emirate’s efforts to maintain global competitiveness December 29, 2016 Sharjah Tatweer Forum and Sharjah eGovernment have recently signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signalling the start of a strategic new partnership aimed towards further promoting the Sharjah Leadership Program (SLP), an initiative aimed towards developing leaders who are well informed […]
China, the world’s largest ivory consumer, will implement a comprehensive ban on the controversial trade by the end of 2017, in a move hailed by conservationists. The announcement by the State Council on Friday night follows through on a commitment made in September 2015 during a meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Barack Obama. The US enacted regulations banning the trade in July. […]
A Dubai outpost of the five-star luxury London brand Dukes opened this week on the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. While the British hotel is in a historic building in London’s Mayfair, the brand-new Dubai hotel aims to offer “the best of British in the UAE”. Located on the west trunk of The Palm, the hotel has 273 guestrooms and 64 suites, including a ladies-only floor and 227 […]
Angela Merkel is to call on Germany to withstand the test of Islamist terrorism by countering the militants’ “hatred” with “humanity” and “unity,” days after the truck attack on a Christmas market. In her New Year’s address, the chancellor will condemn the Berlin attack in which 12 people were killed. It is believed to have been carried out by Anis Amri, a Tunisian who was killed in […]
DUBAI – Dec. 30, 2016 Global developer Emaar Properties and Twitter announced today that they are partnering to live stream the New Year’s Eve firework displays in Dubai to a global Twitter audience. This is the first live streaming deal Twitter has announced with a partner based in the MENA region. The live show will air on New Year’s Eve, from Downtown Dubai at 11:30pm GST/11:30am PST […]
Social media firm Snap Inc may be the highest profile tech IPO planned for 2017, with the potential to raise billions. But more than a dozen expected stock offerings of relatively obscure software firms targeting business customers – little-known names such as Apttus, Tintri and Okta – could be just as important in thawing a long-frozen IPO market, according to investment bankers and advisers who work on […]
BEIJING There is no space for Hong Kong independence in the “one country, two systems” agreement under which Beijing governs the former British colony, but there can be tolerance for differences in their systems, a senior Chinese official said. Chinese leaders are increasingly concerned about a fledgling independence movement in Hong Kong, which returned to mainland rule in 1997 with a promise of autonomy known as “one […]
By Sam Forgione | NEW YORK NEW YORK The U.S. dollar slipped on Friday but notched its fourth straight year of gains against a basket of major currencies. The dollar index .DXY, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, gained about 3.7 percent for the year. The index rose about 7.1 percent during the fourth quarter, more than half that gain coming since […]
Investors’ positions fluctuated wildly this year after unexpected election results in the UK and US upended markets, ultimately propelling a global stock rally and selling of government bonds as portfolio managers readied for the arrival of fiscal stimulus and inflation. A $66bn rotation into US stocks over the past eight weeks reflects expectations for faster global growth and inflation in the wake of Donald Trump’s surprise US […]
Here’s something you don’t hear enough: Journalists, you’re doing a good job. Chances are good that you learned a new skill this year and put it into action. Maybe 2016 was the year you started using Snapchat to tell global stories. Perhaps you figured out how to use GIFs, or augmented your reporting with data. It’s also possible that you unleashed some bots upon the world. In […]
Oil prices were on track for their biggest annual gain since 2009 after the OPEC grouping and other major producers agreed to cut crude output to reduce a global supply overhang that has depressed prices for two years. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slipped 12 cents to $53.62 a barrel by 1400 GMT on Friday, while Brent front-month March crude futures were down 19 […]
Panama Papers: Panama’s revolving door shows global challenge of offshore reformCaribbean News Now (press release) (blog)One offshore middleman who frequently did business with Mossack Fonseca, the Panama law firm at the centre of the so called Panama Papers documents leak, described how his firm, based in the British Channel Islands, had helped high earners frustrate … and more » (via Google News)
