After a two-year experiment with free markets, the pain of low oil prices forced the world’s biggest producers to join forces in 2016 and tackle a global supply glut. Saudi Arabia-led Opec and non-member countries, primarily Russia, agreed after months of discussion and back channel diplomacy to cut production for the first time since the global financial crisis. Prices look set to end the year in the […]
Dubai, UAE, 27 December 2016 HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has opened the Dubai Future Accelerators workshop organised by the Dubai Government Excellence Program on 27 December 2016 at Jumeirah Emirates Towers. In his keynote speech, Al Tayer emphasised that the UAE is an active key player in shaping the future through accelerators, innovation, and adopting scientific […]
A Kingdom of Oil From the beginning, the social contract between commoners and royals constituted a trade-off: a share of the country’s wealth in exchange for absolute rule by the Saud monarchs. A Life magazine correspondent visiting in 1943 described how, as King Abdulaziz waited on a roadside while a flat tire was fixed on his Packard, he gave a shepherd passing on camelback several gold pieces. […]
Global debt sales reached a record in 2016, led by companies gorging on cheap borrowing costs that are now threatened by Donald Trump’s pledge to fire up the US economy. The bond rally that dominated the first half of the year helped entice borrowers that issued debt via banks to take on just over $6.6tn, according to data provider Dealogic, breaking the previous annual record set in […]
The software behind the exposure of a financial scandal was supplied by an Irishman’s firm, writes Joe Leogue. It may now seem like a lifetime ago, but before Trump and Brexit stole the limelight, the revelations contained within the Panama Papers were early contenders for the story of 2016. The reports that emerged from the huge cache of leaked documents showed the world how the rich exploited […]
The stadium lights ripped the darkness over an empty field. They weren’t supposed to be on. The lights at Princeton University’s stadium, recently upgraded, should have followed an automated cycle, reducing the need for human oversight. Instead, the… Date published 27 December 2016 Towards the end of October 2016, several Indian banks announced they would be recalling millions of debit cards in the wake of a data […]
DUBAI // A chance encounter with a badly disfigured stray cat during a visit to a park spurred a family to help find new homes for the emirate’s unwanted animals. Sajid Shafique, his wife Iram and their daughter Miriam came across the scruffy feline on a trip to Creek Park. It was in such a bad condition that they decided to nurse it back to health. “It […]
In order to meet this demand for fresh content — a demand created by the process that supplies it — Jukin scales idle browsing to industrial proportions. A researcher, on average, watches 200 clips daily. That’s a thousand videos each week, or 50,000 per year, give or take. The company’s research is aided by proprietary software called Riff, which generates feeds based on niche viral keywords. Maybe […]
The low-for-long era is over. Central banks, fiscal activism and populism pricked the bond bubble in 2016. Next year will be a lot worse for bond investors, and the aftershocks of the burst will spread across many other assets. Since the crisis, investors have been buying bonds for capital gains and equities for yield, trusting in the holding hand of easy monetary policy. However, today the central […]
Submitted by Alice Salles via TheAntiMedia.org, The end of the year is approaching, and data concerning government abuses of power has begun pouring in. According to Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report, government’s requests for Facebook account data rose 27 percent in the first half of 2016. Facebook’s official announcement explained that requests for user data went from 46,710 in the last half of 2015 to 59,229 in […]
By Patrick Graham | LONDON LONDON Share prices inched higher on Tuesday as trading in some of the world’s major financial markets resumed after a Christmas break, with oil and the dollar also rising marginally. Concerns about Italian banks, Chinese growth and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist bent look set to keep investors on edge into the start of 2017. But expectations the new administration will splash […]
Abu Dhabi’s stock market plans to introduce covered short-selling in the first quarter of 2017, its chief executive said on Monday, as it seeks to boost liquidity and attract more foreign investors. In covered short-selling, investors borrow shares and sell them in the expectation of repurchasing them later at a lower price. Regulators in the Gulf have until now shied away from allowing the practice because of […]
Since achieving global fame in 2000, Coldplay have elicited devotion and derision in equal measure. The question, then, is whether the British four-piece are one of the best bands of their generation – or the most overrated? Rob Garratt and Saeed Saeed state their cases. They are overrated Coldplay produce quintessentially mundane muzak for the masses. They are utterly innocuous, bitterly anodyne and completely forgettable audio dishwater, […]
By Anuradha Nagaraj CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Housemaids, brick makers, labourers, textile workers, fleeing migrants and children risking their lives in mica mines. These were the faces of modern day slavery in 2016 when the world saw a renewed resolve to combat all forms of human bondage. An estimated 45.8 million people globally live in some form of slavery, either trafficked into forced labour, sold […]
Saudi Arabia expects oil revenue to jump by 46 percent next year following the deal between the kingdom and other producers to curb output and drive up global prices. The world’s top oil exporter expects to collect SR480 billion ($128bn) from oil sales in 2017, compared with SR329 billion ($87.67 billion) this year, the finance ministry said in a budget statement last week. Non-oil revenue will climb […]
In 2016 it was all about Panamagate. But by retaining Konrad Mizzi in his executive and Keith Schembri besides him in Castille, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat stubbornly failed to recognise the extent of the public outrage at these revelations Jurgen Balzan 27 December 2016, 7:20am Joseph Muscat stood by his men and by his own admission, he evidently considers himself unable to complete the energy plans without […]
George Michael, the British pop superstar who reached early fame with WHAM! and went on to a solo career lined with controversies and chart-topping hits that blended soul and dance music with social commentary, has died, his publicist said Sunday. He was 53. Michael passed away at his home in Goring, England. According to a statement to Billboard magazine, manager Michael Lippman said he died of “heart […]
By Osamu Tsukimori | TOKYO TOKYO Oil prices were little changed on Tuesday in light pre-New Year holiday trading with markets adopting a wait-and-see stance less than a week before the first output cut deal agreed between OPEC and non-OPEC members in 15 years is scheduled to kick in. London Brent crude for February delivery LCOc1 was down 1 cents at $55.15 a barrel by 0335 GMT […]
Chinese retail investors may be able to dream of Picasso while hanging share certificates on their walls. A Singapore-based Chinese billionaire investor, who this year acquired stakes in peer-to-peer group Lending Club, Legg Mason, the fund manager and Sotheby’s, has proposed “securitising” the artist’s work to create fractional ownership and tap a wider market in Asia. Chen Tianqiao and his wife Chrissy Luo, co-founders of investment group […]
The adoption of cloud technology, for an organisation like Jurlique, can have enormous business benefits, extending well beyond the bottom line. It can also extends into the workplace culture and brand perceptions. (via PCMag)
Did the Russians really rig the 2016 US election? The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Blair exposes ‘the truth’ – You bet they did! Secret documents recently discovered in a bin behind a Kremlin-district 24-hour cabbage and tobacco store reveal for the first time the devious extent of Russian interference. These plans were decades in the making. Read on, as never-before-seen communiques between Russian agents Sergei Potrov and Dimitri […]
Infrastructure works for two new berths at King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Economic City will be finished in the next few weeks, significantly boosting capacity. Berths 5 and 6 are part of the port’s expansion plan, which aims to significantly uprate the port’s capacity, thus boosting its standing in the maritime industry, both regionally and internationally, a statement said. “With the two new berths, […]
26 December 2016 Middle East Payment Services (MEPS) – a leading, innovative payment services provider in the Middle East – has formally activated its acceptance of UnionPay cards at points-of sale (POS) across the Kingdom. This step follows the signing of a partnership agreement between MEPS and UnionPay International (UPI), a leading global payment services provider. Under the terms of the agreement, MEPS will not only accept […]
What a year it was for television. The idea that this is a golden age for small-screen entertainment has become almost a cliché, but there is no denying we have never had so much high-quality TV entertainment to choose from – so much so, it is tough to keep up. We have limited our best-of list to just five, which means we had to reluctantly leave out […]
