|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, 2016 will go down in German political and economic history as a significant game changer, on the scale of 1989 (fall of the Berlin Wall), 1990 (reunification) and 1999 (the Euro), even 1945 (launch of Deutschemark), 1945 (Third Reich surrenders), 1943 (Stalingrad) and 1933 (Hitler elected). Chancellor Merkel, renamed Mutti Multi kulti, allowed a million migrants to settle in Germany. The far right […]
Sources tell Gulf News media reports have exaggerated the reasons behind the lay-offs Dubai: The Saudi-owned pan-Arab Al Arabiya has fired dozens of employees in a restructuring move. Saudi Akhbaar24 broke the story claiming fifty employees had been let go, among them some well-known and long-serving staffers. A trusted source, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the news to Gulf News but […]
A pedestrian walks past an Apple iPhone 6 advertisement at an electronics store in Mumbai, India, July 24, 2015. Reuters/Shailesh Andrade/File Photo NEW DELHI India has said Apple Inc must meet a rule obliging foreign retailers to sell at least 30 percent locally-sourced goods if it wishes to open stores in the country, a senior government official told Reuters. Apple is hoping to expand its retail presence […]
When the 1986 Taurus hit the market, it turned car styling on its head. Gone instantly were straight line creases and wedgie shapes. Curves were now in, and oh yeah, were they! This second generation Pulsar NX followed the trend, and looked so much better with a reskin. It also offered more FUN things like T-Tops and a removable hatch panel that left flying buttresses for strength. […]
Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe’s existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns […]
DUBAI // Parents are struggling to pay for their children’s education, with employers cutting or doing away with allowances as school fees rise along with the wider cost of living. And there are fears that cutting those allowances will make it harder to attract the best and brightest from overseas to work here, at a cost to the economy. “This year in Abu Dhabi there will be […]
Tech giant Microsoft said today that it has awarded grants to entrepreneurs who want to expand Internet access across the world, especially in less prosperous areas that lack affordable access. The company’s Affordable Access Initiative awards grants to startup companies that are developing new technologies to improve Internet access to communities. The goal of the initiative is to “democratize access to the Internet through grants, commercial partnerships, […]
ABU DHABI // Hospitals in Abu Dhabi that provide inadequate treatment or fail to meet quality targets will have their funding cut. The rules will affect all 41 public and private hospitals in the emirate. Funding cuts will be applied directly to public hospitals, and may be applied to private hospitals by reducing their grants or holding their payments from health insurers. “We want to create a […]
Humans have changed the world’s oceans in ways that have been devastating to many marine species. But, according to new evidence, it appears that the change has so far been good for cephalopods, the group including octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid. The study shows that cephalopods’ numbers have increased significantly over the last six decades. (via WSJ Blogs)
This is the age of the disgruntled — in domestic politics and foreign affairs alike. Anti-establishment sentiment within countries is somehow echoed by the way the rule book of international relations is being torn up. These dynamics feed on each other. They are at play in America (the rise of Donald Trump), Europe (growing populism) and Asia (nationalism and an arms race). Finding a way to […]
ABU DHABI // Car dealers are looking to the traditionally busy holy month to recoup on poor sales this year – so don’t be afraid to squeeze them, an industry insider advises. With low oil prices hitting the economy and job losses in major sectors, some dealers are reporting sales 25 per cent lower than normal for the first five months of the year. “Car sales across […]
ABU DHABI // A Dh21.3 million fund has been launched to save the endangered dugong and its seagrass ecosystems across the Indian and the Pacific oceans. The Mohammed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund will launch 38 projects in Indonesia, East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Madagascar, Mozambique and Vanuatu, the state news agency Wam reported. “The presence of dugong and seagrass in a marine ecosystem […]
ABU DHABI // The Armed Forces team that reached the summit of Mount Everest this week has arrived back safely at base camp. The 13-strong group of soldiers raised the UAE flag on top of the world’s highest mountain on Thursday morning, having received a message of goodwill from Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the previous night. Ahead of the final […]
From David Bowie’s We Are the Dead to Katy Perry’s Firework, art imitates art in this selection of literature-inspired songs Katy Perry performs at the Odyssey Arena, Belfast. Do you know which book inspired her song Firework? Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush is inspired by Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Perhaps the most famous song with literary references, Kate Bush’s […]
Despite the plethora of graphic design tools available to organizations, creating good visual content is often a labor-intensive process requiring many hours of work by highly trained professionals. A new suite of software by Adobe, however, is hoping to change that. The platform, called Adobe Spark, is designed to help non-professional designers create their own visual content. Besides being a fun tool for students and individuals, the […]
|By Matein Khalid| If ever there was a year to win or lose money big time in emerging markets, 2016 was it. As an investor in the world’s dark alleys (the Third World rebranded as EM!), I am forced to dissect geopolitical, government/monetary policy, foreign exchange, flows, positioning and current account, volatility and credit cycle trends across emerging markets to develop money making strategies. It helps that I […]
Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma attends the opening ceremony of the second annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen town of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, December 16, 2015. Reuters/Aly Song/Files SHANGHAI Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s chief Jack Ma has cancelled a speech at an anti-counterfeiting conference in the United States after the trade group behind it suspended the e-commerce giant’s recently gained membership. Alibaba has been dogged for […]
The Westminster School in Ghusais area, Dubai. The School is hiking fees. Dubai: A Dubai school’s decision to hike its tuition fees by 27 per cent has left parents fuming over what they claim goes against the Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s (KHDA) fee framework, which depends on school ratings. However, KHDA has said that one-time increases exceeding normal yearly increases can be granted when schools apply […]
The Firefox Web browser has overtaken both of Microsoft’s browsers put together when it comes to market share, according to a new report. That’s the good news for Mozilla, which develops Firefox. The bad news is that Google’s Chrome browser is leaving both Mozilla and Microsoft in the dust. According to the latest figures from Statcounter, 60.5 percent of worldwide users opted for Chrome as their browser […]
Ministry has been also taking steps to intervene in the market on time so that consumers are not affected by price rise New Delhi: Keen to prevent a repetition of last year’s skyrocketing prices of onions and pulses, the union Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry is taking steps to prepare timely import plans and also set up buffer stocks of these items, official sources said here on […]
Concerns about identity theft, financial fraud and business or government tracking are creating a “chilling effect” on online commerce and free expression, according to analysis of data from a 2015 survey of Internet use conducted for the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Of the 41,000 households asked about privacy and security in the July 2015 U.S. Census Bureau survey for the NTIA, 19 […]
…at least not without saying something about it. I thought this pet peeve belonged just to me, but apparently there are quite a bunch of folks that hate this. And it’s not often that one sees a disguised “colorful” metaphor in the title of a Car Lust post. But if there’s one method of bad driving that gets my blood boiling… it’s people that think they have […]
Reuters/Denis Balibouse/File photo SAN FRANCISCO Warren Buffett struck media gold with a 2012 investment in debt-laden Media General Inc. Now the famed investor may try to reprise that success by supporting a bid for Yahoo Inc’s Internet assets. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman is backing a consortium that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, that is seeking to buy Yahoo’s online portfolio, Reuters reported […]
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have proved useful for things like tracking inventory, but they haven’t worked in games and other applications that require fast information processing — until now. A team of researchers from Disney and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a way to use RFID tags for near-real-time interactions with a wide variety of objects. The new system, called RapID, uses probabilistic models to enable computers […]
