OPEC has seemingly dropped any attempt at trying to fulfill its founding mission and manage the global oil market. For Saudi Arabia’s Ali al-Naimi, the most powerful and longest-serving of the group’s oil ministers, it may have seemed like history was repeating itself. There are several striking parallels between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ current situation and the period from 1997 to 1999, when the group lost […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Opec’s ability to control the oil market suffered its worst debacle when the organization failed to agree on a ceiling for production. This meant that Saudi Arabia prevailed over other members to continue the policy of excess production as to force non-OPEC players, such as the US and Russia, out of the market by making their output uneconomical. “Lots of people said that […]
This has never happened before. The global smartphone market is posting its first single-digital growth year on record. That’s according to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker from market research firm IDC. The firm predicts worldwide shipments will grow 9.8% to hit 1.43 billion units this year, thanks in part to slowing growth in Latin America, Western Europe and the Asia Pacific. The slower-than-expected growth actually […]
In a move to help more companies adopt hybrid cloud infrastructures, IBM is beefing up its Direct Link service that allows customers to set up dedicated network connections from their IT infrastructures to the SoftLayer private network and cloud services. Big Blue just inked new collaboration deals with a number of new partners, including Equinix, Verizon and Digital Realty. IBM is focusing on the bigger picture: Organizations […]
Chinese electronic toymaker (pictured: VTech Tote ‘n Go Laptop) VTech, has been hacked, revealing the information of 5 million customers. The database of the company’s Learning Lodge app store, which allows customers to download apps, e-books and learning games, was breached on November 14 HKT (Hong Kong Time). The hack was discovered on November 24 and customers were notified on November 27. The customer database holds a […]
|By Lawrence Williams| Let’s face it, the gold price seems to bear little correlation to global physical metal demand. In the face of reducing supply (low gold prices keep scrap sales depressed, new mined gold supply is plateauing and beginning to fall and sales out of the big gold ETFs this year are a fraction of those seen back in 2013) and increasing demand – China, India […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Zurich announced that it will begin a phased closing to new retail and small business customers in its general insurance business in the Middle East. Subject to an assessment of contractual obligations, existing portfolios in this business will be put into run off. This means that Zurich will effectively exit its general insurance businesses by the end of 2016 or as soon as […]
Israel will establish a diplomatic office in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, global Jewish lobby group AJC announced. An Israeli diplomat will be accredited to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a new UN agency based in Abu Dhabi. Israel is one of IRENA’s 140 members. Israeli officials, including Cabinet ministers, have openly participated in IRENA meetings in the UAE since the organization’s founding […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| It is a double whammy for gold this Thursday. The metal was trading near its lowest in nearly six years while Reuters reported from Mumbai that third-quarter gold buying in India, the world’s biggest consumer, is likely to fall to the lowest level in eight years. Gold is hurt by poor investment demand as the dollar held at multi-month highs after U.S. economic […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| House prices in Dubai will bottom out towards the end of next year, real estate consultancy Cluttons said in its Dubai 2015/16 Winter Residential Property Market Outlook. House prices are expected to fall another 3-5 percent over the next 12 months. The report said values for both apartments (-0.8%) and villas (-0.5%) dipped marginally during the third quarter of this year, marking the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Masdar announced the start of the operational stage of its pilot programme in Ghantoot, Abu Dhabi, which will see 1,500 m3/day of potable water produced over the next 15 months using four unique technologies that demonstrate commercially-viable and energy efficient solutions for renewable-powered desalination. After launching the programme in 2013, Masdar partnered with four global industry leaders – Abengoa, Suez, Sidem (Veolia) and […]
/By Larry Loeb/Microsoft and Volvo Friday announced a new partnership that aims to redefine the car-buying experience using Redmond’s HoloLens augmented reality headset. The two companies conducted a demonstration of the holographic computer powered by Windows 10 at Microsoft’s global headquarters to show off how HoloLens can be used by consumers to configure cars in three dimensions, and examine the interior of a car, or look at […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Participants at the World Strategy Summit in Abu Dhabi emphasized the importance of establishing an international platform for strategy, leadership, and innovation. This platform would contribute to building governmental and business sector leadership and would be based on a comprehensive vision to understand the nature of future opportunities and challenges. The platform could then be used to create measurable scientifically-based strategies that are […]
In the wake of the ISIS terror attacks in Paris, many technology companies are looking ahead and preparing for the worst. Disaster recovery is a new focus for some, while others have had their eye on the target for much longer. IBM, for example, announced a contest today that gives developers access to its cloud to encourage disaster response-related app development. Just days after Friday evening’s attacks […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The United Arab Emirates may cut government spending as a result of the slump in oil prices, Central Bank Governor Mubarak Rashed Al Mansoori indicated. The decline in the government’s oil revenue “may trigger further fiscal consolidation, albeit at a gradual pace, to preserve priority spending in support of non-oil growth,” Al Mansoori said at a conference in Dubai on Monday. Oil accounted […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Young people in the UAE have revealed what they want for, and from, the future of major events in an international study launched ahead of the Host Cities 2015 summit. It finds young people in Dubai are most confident globally in their city’s readiness to host a major event and will overwhelmingly back a ‘home bid’ – with the FIFA World Cup their […]
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, the most deadly violence to strike France since World War Two, world leaders are convening on Sunday and Monday for the G20 summit in Turkey. The meeting, whose agenda now includes the attacks and their aftermath, will also focus on the migrant crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and could thus become one of the most important G20 summits since […]
|By Arabian Post staff| The rise of intelligent machines represents the evolution of the next industrial revolution, which will bring about a paradigm shift in the way we live and work, a special report on the subject by BankofAmerica-Merrill Lynch says. Robots and AI are becoming an integral part of our daily lives as providers of labour, mobility, safety, convenience, and entertainment. The year 2014 was the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai’s external debt continues to be at tight spreads, given still high leverage and refinancing challenges but this is somewhat offset by certain positive aspects, a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch research report said. The positives include still solid local bid on the shorter end of the curve and its low-beta defensive status within an emerging markets context. The Iran nuclear deal is another […]
Gunmen and bombers attacked restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium at locations across Paris on Friday, killing at least 120 people in what a shaken President Francois Hollande called an unprecedented terrorist attack. A Paris city hall official said gunmen systematically slaughtered nearly 100 people attending a rock concert at the Bataclan music hall. Anti-terrorist commandos eventually launched an assault on the building, killed the […]
|By TAP Staff| Total gold demand in Q3 2015 stood at 1,121 tonnes , an increase of 8% compared to the same period last year, according to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends report. Q3 2015 consisted of two distinct halves. In the first part, a number of factors, including ETF outflows, contributed to a price dip which buoyed consumer demand around the world. A shift […]
|By TAP Staff| Orbital ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, announced today the establishment of a jointly-owned subsidiary in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to support the company’s growing regional presence. The primary focus will be to strengthen Orbital ATK’s existing alliances in the country and collaborate with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to help it realize its self-sufficiency objectives in national security, […]
The European Court of Justice had declared the Safe Harbor provision that allowed transfer of personally identifiable data (PII) between Europe and the USA as invalid. This left a huge public policy question hanging: Is it legal for companies doing business on the web to store the PII data of European citizens on servers based in the USA? Does this ECJ decision open the door to companies getting […]
|By TAP Staff| Standard Chartered cut 11 sales and trading jobs in Dubai, including four managing director roles, it was reported. According to Bloomberg, the exits include those of Vikrant Bhansali, regional head of institutional sales; Farhan Aziz, head of credit solutions and Jillian Correa, regional head of flow. Standard Chartered has “acted to reduce management layers at a global level, and as a result, will have […]
