|TAP Special| Singapore’s importance as an oil trade centre has received further boost with Platts adopting e a new system from next month for determining oil product values with reference to loadings out of the city state as well as Malaysia. This is expected to encourage use of regional oil storage facilities. According to Reuters, the change in how fuel oil, diesel, jet fuel and gasoline are […]
Few events will be as significant for the world in the next 15 years as China opening its capital borders, a shift that economists and regulators across the world are now starting to grapple with. With China’s leadership aiming to scale back the role of investment in the domestic economy, the nation’s surfeit of savings — deposits currently stand at $21 trillion — will increasingly need to […]
Networking company Netgear just made a big move in the cable modem router world. So big, in fact, that high-speed Internet users on home fronts everywhere have good reason to rejoice. The firm just rolled out the industry’s fastest-ever cable modem router. It’s the first router in the Nighthawk line and it aims at cable Internet subscribers who have an extreme need for broadband speed. The Nighthawk […]
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Friday signed a treaty with the “state of Palestine,” a development that the church hopes will lead to improved relations between Israel and the Palestinians. The accord, the result of 15 years of negotiations, covers “essential aspects of the life and activity of the Catholic Church in the State of Palestine,” the Vatican said in a statement. The Vatican’s foreign minister, […]
UAE. Female CIOs expect to increase their budgets by 2.4 percent in 2015, whereas male CIOs report average increases of just 0.8 percent, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. The worldwide survey included responses from 2,810 CIOs, representing more than $397 billion in CIO IT budgets in 84 countries. Among the respondents to the 2015 Gartner CIO Agenda survey, 13.6 percent were women. “For a second […]
Five former members of President Obama’s inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem Iran’s nuclear program “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal. Several of the senior […]
As the civil war in Yemen continues, many families say they are living in constant fear. Parents say that their older children have been wetting their beds at night, and that younger ones are so traumatized that they are sent running for cover by the sound of a door slamming. The fighting between Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces has displaced a million people, destroyed cultural heritage […]
SANA, Yemen — For nearly three months, Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, has been bombing Yemen, its southern neighbor, hoping to force the retreat of Shiite rebels who have seized major cities and to return the country’s president from the Saudi guest mansion where he lives to the presidential palace. So far, it has not worked. The rebels, known as the Houthis, have gained ground, more […]
A BlackBerry Passport smartphone is shown at its official launching event in Toronto, September 24, 2014. Reuters/Aaron Harris/Files WATERLOO, Ontario BlackBerry (BB.TO) shares fell on Tuesday as doubts surfaced about the sustainability of the sharp growth the former smartphone pioneer reported in crucial software revenues, an area BlackBerry’s CEO said he will augment via acquisitions. The company’s shares were down 3.5 percent in afternoon trading. They had […]
BAGHDAD — When Umm Ahmed returned to her Iraqi hometown, Tikrit, in recent days she found a city devastated by fighting with militants from the Islamic State: buildings burned, shops looted, schools shuttered and hospitals inoperable. Still, it was home, and it was good to be back. “Today, I am in the middle of Tikrit,” Umm Ahmed, 39, said last week, preferring to be identified by her […]
|By TAP Staff| The English High Court has ruled in favour of Iran’s Bank Mellat in a dispute with HM Treasury and the decision clears the way for bank to pursue its claim of £2.3 billion in damages against the Treasury. According to a statement by Zaiwalla & Co. Solicitors, the law firm acting on behalf Bank Mellat, the Treasury plead as a preliminary issue whether, in […]
Many reporters have developed an ad hoc system of using Google-related tools in their work. Now the tech giant wants to consolidate those tools and make them easier for journalists to use. On Monday, the company announced the launch of a new site called News Lab, which intends to connect journalists with programs, data and other resources — all from Google — to help in their reporting. […]
Containers have quickly become crucial tools for rapid-scale application development, and a new project aims to protect their usefulness by establishing common standards for software containers. Among the companies joining forces for the Open Container Project announced today are Docker, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, EMC, Google, Microsoft and VMware. The Open Container Project will be run under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. Docker called the effort […]
Windows users, rejoice. Over the weekend, Microsoft announced that its latest operating system, Windows 10, will be free for anyone who wants it. Previously, the company said that it would make the new OS available as a free upgrade, but only to certain users who were currently running Windows 7 or 8. That arrangement would have excluded anyone still running Windows XP, Vista, or even Windows 7 […]
Saudi leaders, whose portraits are displayed at the stock exchange in Riyadh, have not confirmed the leak’s authenticity. By BEN HUBBARD June 20, 2015 BEIRUT, Lebanon — It seems that everyone wants something from Saudi Arabia. Before becoming the president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi wanted visas to take his family on a religious pilgrimage. A Lebanese politician begged for cash to pay his bodyguards. Even the state news agency […]
A map of China is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen showing binary digits in Singapore in this January 2, 2014 photo illustration. Reuters/Edgar Su/Files SINGAPORE Security researchers have many names for the hacking group that is one of the suspects for the cyberattack on the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management: PinkPanther, KungFu Kittens, Group 72 and, most famously, Deep Panda. But to […]
Guards stand near an entrance to Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, May 18, 2015. Reuters/John Ruwitch/Files BEIJING China will increase support for cross-border e-commerce as the world’s second-largest economy shifts from manufacturing to higher-value services, the government said. China’s e-commerce industry has been booming in recent years, with companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.com Inc benefiting from a rising middle class with more […]
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT June 19, 2015 WASHINGTON — Iran continued its “terrorist-related” activity last year and also continued to provide broad military support to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the State Department said Friday in its annual report on terrorism. The State Department’s assessment suggests that neither the election of President Hassan Rouhani nor the prospect of a nuclear accord with the United States and its negotiating partners […]
Mohamed Alsawafiri, the presenter of “The News Program,” playing with a prop on the set last month. By DIAA HADID and MAJD AL WAHEIDI June 19, 2015 GAZA CITY — Men and women stood with suitcases at the port, waiting for a boat. Suspicious, Tarek, a 13-year-old tea seller, wandered over and asked, “Are they really leaving?” He had never seen anyone leave Gaza before, he explained. As it turned out, his […]
UAE. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been ranked as the 23rd and 33rd most expensive cities to live in (respectively) according to Mercer’s 2015 Cost of Living Survey. The two cities have experienced a significant jump compared to 2014, with Dubai soaring 44 places from last year’s position at 67 and Abu Dhabi going up 35 places 68th in 2014. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the most […]
SANTIAGO, Chile — A haunting, yellowish glow radiates from the tiny section of empty wooden benches and crumbling concrete behind the north goal at Estadio Nacional. All around this space there is noise: 47,000 soccer fans screaming and jumping in delight as Chile’s national team plays Ecuador in the opening game of the Copa América. But no one sits on those wooden benches. They are reserved in […]
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change, as his much-awaited papal encyclical blended a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action. The vision that Francis outlined in the 184-page encyclical is sweeping in ambition and scope: He described a relentless […]
By RICK GLADSTONE June 17, 2015 The monitoring group overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical arms stockpile said Wednesday that almost all effluent from the neutralized weapons had been eliminated, portraying the progress as a great success in the nearly two years since Syria agreed to relinquish its arsenal. But the news from the group, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was partly overshadowed by outrage over […]
Logistics … only 18 per cent of all new productsachieve their profit targets. Logistics suffering price pressure, product flops BONN, Germany, 1 days ago The logistics sector seems to have a hard time when it comes to raising prices in their customer base, a report said, noting that only 18 per cent of all new logistics products and services are successful. Logistics firms succeed with only 40 […]
