By Rodrigo Campos | NEW YORK NEW YORK The year-end stocks rally on the heels of the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president was built on expectations of reduced regulations, big tax cuts and a large fiscal stimulus. Now signs are emerging from the Trump camp that harsher trade policies that could jeopardize the honeymoon are likely in the offing, and investors would be well advised […]
Last-minute trawls round malls or petrol-station flowers aside, it’s probably time to accept that it’s getting a tad late for thoughtful festive presents this year. But for car-idolising types who get the best gift of all this Christmas – cash, obviously – there are plenty of, err, wheely great gifts to splurge on from around the world. Innovative toys A few months ago, we reviewed the impressively […]
UNITED NATIONS: In a striking rupture with past practice, the United States allowed the UN Security Council on Friday to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law. In doing so, the outgoing Obama administration brushed aside Donald Trump’s demands that the US exercise its veto and provided a climax to years of icy relations with Israel’s leadership.The […]
Porsche has won a key victory in its efforts to dismiss claims against the company for billions of euros of damages relating to its failed takeover of Volkswagen in 2008. Porsche Automobil Holding SE said on Friday that Germany’s federal court of justice, the country’s highest civil court, had dismissed a claim for €1.2bn brought by 19 hedge funds. When Porsche revealed in 2008 that it owned […]
“The boundaries of uncertainty have increased [for fixed-income markets],” says Dan Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, the bond specialist that invests more than $1.5tn. “Rates certainly can go higher.” What is clear for bond investors is that they face a true test of their convictions in 2017 after an end to 2016 that challenged the consensus of low inflation and rates that, at one point, drove […]
A recent want ad for a job at a professional services companies had this interesting description: Photo: Joe McKendrick “Robotic Process Automation Analyst: Key responsibilities include: work with business teams to simplify and improve operations by analyzing as-is processes and create end-to-end automation solution designs… Work with process owners/SMEs and technology teams to analyse and assess automation feasibility… Document business requirements, processes and work instructions…. Operate as […]
On April 7, 14 large blue letters quietly disappeared from the outer walls of an office building in an exclusive neighborhood in northern San Salvador. One by one, the letters came down from the blue and beige stucco walls, leaving behind faint traces of the name of the law firm that had been working there just days before: M-O-S-S-A-C-K-F-O-N-S-E-C-A. Employees of the El Salvador branch of Mossack […]
Weakening encryption is against US nation interests, says a congressional working group. Image: iStockphoto Any attempt to weaken encryption is against the national interest, a group of US lawmakers has warned. The widespread use of strong encryption has lead to complaints from law enforcement agencies that they are unable to access to communications of criminals – the so-called ‘going dark’ issue. This has lead to calls for […]
A hundred years ago, an arms race between the dominant global superpower the (British Empire) and a rising power (Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany) culminated in the mass slaughter of World War One. The deep mistrust between the United States and the People’s Republic of China has all the potential to spawn a traumatic chapter in international relations. Despite its “pivot” to Asia, the Obama White House was cautious […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|A Booz Allen Hamilton report discusses how the global retail sector is changing in the face of an unprecedented shift in customer behavior, fueled by advanced technology and wider acceptance of online shopping and ecommerce. The report titled ‘Next Generation Retailers: Power Up Your Analytics’ has found that investing in customer analytics offers exciting opportunities for the growth and development of the regional retail […]
The renminbi’s seemingly endless grind lower against the US dollar has been one of the financial stories of 2016, triggering a wave of capital outflows from China that Goldman Sachs estimates may have totalled $1.1tn since August 2015. The once closely controlled Chinese currency has tumbled 6.5 per cent to an eight-year low of Rmb6.945 against the greenback this year, taking its slide since August 2015 to […]
Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org, Understanding the objectives and logic that accompany the expansion of nations or empires is always of paramount importance in helping one draw lessons for the future In this series of four articles I intend to lay a very detailed but easily understandable foundation for describing the mechanisms that drive great powers. To succeed, one must analyze the geopolitical theories that over […]
To most, it is sacrosanct; the idea of not playing on Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and various points in between is seen as somewhere between anathema and heresy. Photo Fabian Delph of Manchester City during his team’s Premier League match at home against Sunderland on Dec. 26, 2015. Credit Jan Kruger/Getty Images The week’s popularity bears that out: Even in the Premier League, where most seats […]
IDC predicts that 35 percent of leading organizations in logistics, health, utilities, and resources will explore the use of robots to automate operations by 2019. What does the future hold for robotics? It’s hard to say, given the rapid pace of change in the field as well as in associated areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. But one thing seems certain: Robots will play an […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia unveiled a $237 billion budget for 2017, an 8 percent increase from 2016, with projections of a record 33 percent decrease in the Kingdom’s national deficit. “Our economy is firm and it has sufficient strength to cope with the current economic and financial challenges,” said King Salman bin Abdulaziz.. “We have sought through this budget and its programs to improve the […]
By Melissa Fares and Andrew Osborn | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW U.S. President-elect Donald Trump upped the stakes on Friday in a back-and-forth exchange with President Vladimir Putin over nuclear weapons that tested the Republican’s promises to improve relations with Russia. Offering a glimpse of how he might conduct diplomacy after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump reportedly welcomed a nuclear arms race […]
If any global sound is on the verge of blowing up in 2017, it’s the pan-African mélange known as afrobeats. Or, depending on who you ask, afropop, afrofusion or afropolitan – but not to be confused with political Fela Kuti-style afrobeat (singular), nor with any of the traditional music that has tended to find its way into the “world music” section of western music shops. Rather, this […]
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Israel stop building settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, after the US abstained in spite of ferocious criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The resolution was passed with 14 votes from the 15-member security council, hours after a senior Israeli official accused US President Barack Obama of working “behind Israel’s back” to cook up the resolution, in […]
Just over six years ago, in December of 2010, we wrote “Charting America’s Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society“, in which we predicted – and showed – that in light of the underlying changes resulting from the second great depression, whose full impacts remain masked by trillions in monetary stimulus and soon, perhaps fiscal, America is shifting from a traditional work force, one where the majority of […]
Using a novel approach involving a key enzyme that helps regulate global nitrogen, molecular biologists have discovered an effective way to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide that can be adapted for commercial applications like biofuel synthesis. (via WSJ)
By Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was unfazed by President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to boost the U.S. nuclear arsenal, praising Trump for being in touch with U.S. public opinion while branding the Democrats sore election losers. Speaking at his annual news conference in Moscow, the Russian president said earlier comments he had made about his country’s own […]
Christmas is almost here (and so is Hanukkah), and so it is time for the Long View to revisit the offices of Hindsight Capital LLC once more. Hindsight Capital, for the uninitiated, is the hedge fund that beats all others year in and year out because it is endowed with 20/20 hindsight; it can see the future. The returns to clairvoyance are potentially infinite, so it has […]
Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), a developer of large-scale solar power plants and part of Saudi-based Abdul Latif Jameel Energy, has been awarded a 30-year 300MW solar project in Mexico. With this build-operate-own agreement, FRV said it is extending its global footprint into the Mexican market at a rate of $26.99/MWh for the first 15 years of the project. The construction of the plant will begin in mid-2018 […]
For 15 years, Chandran Nair led a top Asian environmental consultancy that was active in China. In 2006, he founded the Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Hong Kong think tank focused on a shift of global power from the West to Asia, at a time when China’s rise is changing the geopolitical balance. Mr. Nair, who was born in Malaysia to a large South Indian family, is the […]
