Some patients recalled seeing a bright light; a golden flash or the Sun shining Photo: Rex “To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream – aye, there’s the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come …” So says Hamlet, pondering his own mortality in perhaps the most famous soliloquy Shakespeare ever wrote. The question “Is there life after death?” has fascinated human […]
By Amulya Ganguli Even as the secular – sorry, “sickular” – brigade is upset over the live telecast of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s speech on Doordarshan, they seem to have missed a few tell-tale omissions in his address to the Hindu nation. For instance, there was no mention of the Ram temple or love jehad or conversions – issues that have agitated the saffronites for years […]
IMF’s Christine Lagarde says the fund is already talking with Egyptian officials about its economic outlook and value-added tax policy. Reuters The International Monetary Fund may soon take a thorough look at Egypt’s economy for the first time since its revolution in 2011, potentially paving the way for greater cooperation on President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s reform agenda and renewing talks about long-delayed IMF financing. The IMF […]
|TAP Special| The oil market scene is turning murky, with indications of a price war developing among major producers to defend their market shares. Crude futures tumbled to a 17-month low on signs that global supply is outstripping demand and by all indications, crude oil is poised to extend the biggest slump in more than two years. To make things worse, Saudi Arabia is said to be […]
Dragon Oil (DGO) proposed a 492 million-pound ($789 million) cash offer for Petroceltic International Plc (PCI) to add exploration and output in North Africa and Kurdistan. Dragon Oil, backed by Dubai’s state oil company and with production in Turkmenistan, is in talks on a 230 pence-a-share offer, a 29 percent premium to the last closing price, Dublin-based Petroceltic said today in a statement. The target’s board is prepared to recommend the […]
Remember BadUSB? If you use a USB device to move digital files from one machine to another, you need to know the latest news on this flaw in design specs that could put your computers at risk. Attack code for this flaw, which is impossible to patch, is now public. Security researchers Brandon Wilson and Adam Caudill released two patches to existing firmware for the Phison 2251-03, […]
ABU DHABI // Concerns about the UAE’s food security should not be believed, according to the chief executive of a food retail company. Wisal Ahmed, who heads the Alam Group, which owns the eponymous supermarkets, said the country had sufficient resources to take care of any unforeseen circumstances, whether man-made or natural. A UK-based research centre, Chatham House, published a report in November last year in which […]
Regal position: escorting the Queen to Ladies Day at Royal Ascot Photo: Rex Features Forget Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs. This week, we have had a glimpse behind the scenes of a real-life royal household, with the news that The Queen has been advertising for someone to remove chewing gum from the floors and furniture at Holyrood House. Her Majesty’s chosen cleaner must be available to prise pink […]
By Kalyani Shankar While there could be debate about the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five day visit to the US this week, there can be no doubt that he had conquered the 3 million strong Indian American community. The Madison square garden rock show on Sunday was a shining example to prove this. Although his meeting with the US President Obama was spent on substantive […]
Gulf banks are feeling the pinch of rapidly shrinking corporate loan margins, with some predicting a bounce in lending rates as soon as the first half of 2015 as the escalating price war bites into profitability. Lenders are being forced to cut rates and loosen lending terms to secure business as local banks, flush with cash as their balance sheets recover from the global financial crisis, seek […]
Participants at a microfinance conference in Dubai this week. Sanabel Microfinance has blossomed in recent years, helping fill a funding need for businesses too tiny and risky for traditional banks. Curiously perhaps, while microfinance has been a big hit across parts of Asia and South America, its start in the Middle East and North Africa hasn’t been as auspicious. Microfinance institutions have existed in the Middle East […]
| By TAP Staff| A report titled Future of Travel by flight comparison website Skyscanner predicts that Lebanon will be the ‘new Dubai’ in a decade’s time. The report looks at how hotel rooms and holiday destinations could change over the next decade. It lists 50 destinations that could emerge as holiday hotspots over the next 10 years, ranking them according to the projected growth per annum […]
Cisco is adding some muscle and money to its Intercloud skeleton, signing over 30 new partners to its worldwide network of interconnected clouds. The new alliances add 250 data centers in 50 countries to Intercloud. Cisco Capital,a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has also earmarked $1 billion in financing to the effort, providing the money so Cisco customers and partners can more quickly adopt the Cisco technologies […]
By S. Sethuraman Tamil Nadu, noted for stability and good governance through decades, may be in for political uncertainty, without a robust leader at the helm like Ms. Jayalalithaa, the convicted and jailed Chief Minister. But this is dependant on the outcome of the 2016 assembly elections. Meanwhile, her ruling AIADMK will hold the fort firm. The space for political rivalry may open wide especially if […]
BlackBerry Ltd Chief Executive Officer John Chen said he wants to return to the consumer market someday, though it’s too soon right now. The smartphone maker is focusing on business users, Chen told reporters yesterday at BlackBerry headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. Already, the new Passport device for professionals has surpassed his expectations, selling 200,000 units since it was unveiled two days ago, according to Chen. “Over time […]
ACT I. SCENE ONE A hotel in Northern England. Late morning. Ed, a 44-year-old politician, is posing for informal, behind-the-scenes photographs with his wife, Justine. He is due to make a speech in three hours’ time. It is being billed as the most important of his career. ED (talking like a ventriloquist, without moving his lips): Stop staring at my teeth, it’s making me feel self-conscious. JUSTINE […]
While security researchers are still talking about the Home Depot breach — Jimmy John’s is reporting a possible security breach at the popular submarine sandwich chain. Recently, Home Depot confirmed that a data breach put about 56 million customer credit and debit cards at risk. In its official statement, Jimmy John’s revealed its breach involved both credit and debit card data captured at some of its corporate-owned […]
Call it a case of “now you see it, now you don’t.” Apple on Wednesday released iOS 8.0.1, hoping to appease users encountering problems after downloading iOS 8, including fast-draining batteries, Wi-Fi connection problems and crashing apps. But the tech giant quickly pulled the update after users reported even more glitches such as non-working SIM cards, i.e., not being able to connect to cellular networks, and broken […]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index is the only stock market index that covers both the second and the third industrial revolution. Calculating share indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and showing this index in a historical graph is a useful way to show which phase the industrial revolution is in. Changes in the DJIA shares basket, changes in the formula and stock splits […]
Just when you thought the drama was over. Apple is taking the iCloud hack that revealed naked selfies of celebrities seriously, adding new security tools to keep its cloud safe. But there’s still fallout from the early-September iCloud hack. Indeed, headlines report a new wave of naked photographs of celebrities leaked online. This wave includes movie star Gabrielle Union, pop star Rihanna, Disney Channel star Vanessa Hudgens, […]
|By TAP Staff| Confirmation of Dubai residential market rents cooling off came on Sunday when real estate consultancy CBRE reported that Dubai’s residential rents recorded the first drop after ten consecutive quarters of consistent increase. The drop has been attributed to an increase in new stock combined with the traditionally slow festive and holiday period. However, the agency pointed out that the transaction market retained some momentum […]
A lead-alloy pilgrim badge found in the mud near London Bridge in 1982 shows John Schorne grasping the bat-winged Devil Mudlarks and enthusiasts with metal‑detectors sometimes turn up little scraps of lead, fretted and bent at the edges, perhaps with a face recognisable and not much else. These can end up in the scrap bucket, but with luck they add to the growing scholarly knowledge of pilgrims’ […]
Ortolans are trapped and put, alive, into a vat of Armagnac before they are cooked Photo: MaxPPP The customary way of eating ortolan, a delicate songbird, involves the diner covering his or her head with a large napkin. Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God’s eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act. But if a clutch of leading French chefs have […]
In a move to beef up its Intercloud strategy, Cisco is acquiring a privately-held company called Metacloud. The firm deploys and operates private clouds for global organizations with an OpenStack-as-a-service model. Metacloud’s model stands out in the industry because it both delivers and remotely operates production-ready private clouds in a customer’s data center. Cisco figures the platform will accelerate its strategy to build the world’s largest Intercloud. […]
