|By Arabian Post Staff| The total value of international trade through Dubai’s free trade zones recorded 22 percent jump to US$107.35 billion (Dh394 billion) in the first nine months of 2018, according to a latest report. This represents 41 percent of the emirate’ total trade of the first nine months. Imports amounted to 54.5 percent at Dh215 billion, while exports and re-exports reached 45.5 percent at Dh179 billion. Overall, […]
|By Raj Samani |As 2018 draws to a close, we should perhaps be grateful that the year has not been entirely dominated by ransomware, although the rise of the GandCrab and SamSam variants show that the threat remains active. Our predictions for 2019 move away from simply providing an assessment on the rise or fall of a particular threat, and instead focus on current rumblings we see […]
By K Raveendran Shashi Tharoor has just been beaten in his own game by another smart alec, who has outsmarted the sesquipedalian, probably without his even knowing about it. Yes, some people are capable of devouring their victims without them being aware until they are about to be digested. A new word has been added to Urban Dictionary to denote how lovers of jabberwocky like Tharoor dig […]
|By Allan Leinwand| According to a recent research report from PwC, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expected to account for approximately 13.6% of the United Arab Emirates’ GDP in 2030. However, AI is seen by many as being either a hero or a villain. On one hand, AI is currently driving nearly every CIO’s agenda because it intelligently automates work processes, making it possible to do things that have never been […]
By James M. Dorsey The failure of Western allies to rally around Canada in its dispute with Saudi Arabia risks luring the kingdom into a false belief that economic sanctions will shield it from, if not reverse mounting criticism of its human rights record and conduct of the war in Yemen. It also risks convincing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that acting with impunity will not impinge on […]
By James M. Dorsey Message to Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Tel Aviv: Not to worry, US President Donald J. Trump has no intention of meeting his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, unconditionally. On the contrary, Mr. Trump’s surprise announcement that he is willing to talk to Mr. Rouhani is likely part of a plan formulated almost a year before he returned to government service by his national security advisor John […]
By James M. Dorsey China appears to be shifting gears in its multi-billion dollar Belt and Road initiative. Long projected as driven by economics and the benefit of infrastructure linkages, China appears to be increasingly adding a security component to the initiative against the backdrop of President Xi Jinping positioning of his country as a superpower rather than a developing nation. The emergence of a security component […]
By James M. Dorsey This month’s inauguration of a fibreoptic cable linking Pakistan with China could prove to be a double-edged sword. Constructed by Chinese conglomerate Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, the cable is likely to enhance both Pakistan’s information communication technology infrastructure as well as the influence of Chinese authoritarianism at a moment that basic freedoms in Pakistan are on the defensive. The $44 million, 820-kilometre underground Pak-China Fibre […]
By James M. Dorsey A look at a decade of failed social, economic and political reform in Jordan goes a far way to explain recent mass anti-government protests demanding the resignation of the government. The protests, prompting concerns about the survival of the Hashemite dynasty, also bear witness to the fallout of the region’s epic power struggles and the pitfalls of government failures to respond to long-standing […]
By James M. Dorsey A recent upsurge in insurgent activity in Kashmir likely explains Pakistani and Chinese reluctance to crackdown on internationally designated militant Hafez Saeed and the network of groups that he heads. So does the fact that Mr. Saeed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outlawed, India-focused ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim group widely seen as one of South Asia’s deadliest, have assisted Pakistani intelligence and the military in countering […]
Etisalat Digital announced that it has signed strategic partnerships with four scale-ups as part of the ‘Dubai Future Accelerators Program,’ the world’s largest governbment supported accelerator. The 4th cohort of the ‘Dubai Future Accelerators’, launched in March this year with the participation of Etisalat Digital and other government bodies and in cooperation with the world’s most innovative companies, came to a close on xx May. The program […]
By James M. Dorsey Ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif kicked up a storm when he earlier this month seemingly admitted that Pakistan had supported militants who attacked multiple targets in Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people. Mr. Sharif’s admission, which he has since tried to walk back, put a finger on Pakistan’s controversial policy of selective support of militant groups at a sensitive time. Pakistan is gearing up for elections that […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had written an article titled “six reasons to be bullish Saudi equities in 2018, published in the KT on January 28. Yet I was surprised to see Saudi Arabian equities become the world’s second best performing stock market in 2018 after Egypt. The Saudi equity index fund (KSA) I recommended in my column is up 18% at a time when the MSCI emerging markets […]
By James M. Dorsey Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s investment of $1 billion and option to pump a further $480 million into Richard Branson’s ventures in space, confirmed during the prince’s recent visit to the United States, was more than just another headline-grabbing move. By focusing on space sciences, long a field rejected by ultra-conservative Islamic scholars, some of whom insist that the earth is flat, Prince […]
By James M. Dorsey Twin attacks earlier this week on Pakistani security forces in the troubled province of Balochistan cast a light on a sustained and violent campaign against police and paramilitary units as well as Shiite and Christian minorities. The attacks by groups, some of which have had links to Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence apparatus as well as Saudi Arabia, spotlight the Pakistani state’s inability to […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saal, an innovative technology company based in Abu Dhabi, has launched saal.ai – a revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) framework, an enabler, ready to transcend and redefine current practices across industries and fuel economic and social growth. Capable of cognitive tasks such as reasoning, inference and retrieval, using data collected from multi-modal sensor inputs, saal.ai uses advanced computing and machine learning techniques to perform actions in the AI […]
By James M Dorsey The Middle East has a knack for sucking external powers into its conflicts. China’s ventures into the region have shown how difficult it is to maintain its principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. China’s abandonment of non-interference is manifested by its (largely ineffective) efforts to mediate conflicts in South Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan as well as between Israel and Palestine and even between Saudi […]
While there are many ways in which medical science is using digital techniques and artificial intelligence (AI) to make life-saving decisions., the science and art of animation holds the potential to help revolutionize healthcare. Once the province of movies and cartoons, more realistic computer-generated imagery in medical science is providing solace to patients undergoing harsh treatments. And at the meeting point of movies and medicine, doctors are […]
|Mark Ackerman| Automation has the ability to transform society for the better. Every day I see the powerful impact it can have, revolutionising the way business and everyday tasks are done, saving time, money and delivering game-changing economics. It will increase productivity, which is essential for future growth and prosperity. It will also see the end of employees spending time on mundane, repetitive tasks, instead freeing up […]
|By Matein Khalid| When I first started on a Treasury bond futures trading desk in New York fresh out of Wharton, a senior mentor once advised to keep track of the four heartbeats of gold finance in real time. The price of money (interest rates), the price of currency (the US dollar), the price of oil and the price of gold. The price of money can be […]
|By Matein Khalid|The rise in Brent crude to $60 a barrel and the trade volume ballast generated by the world’s first post Lehman synchronized economic recovery is hugely positive for UAE economic growth in 2018. After all, the UAE is unique because Abu Dhabi’s 100 billion barrels of proven oil reserves is complemented by Dubai’s role as the Gulf’s financial, logistics, aviation, shopping and services hub. The […]
|By Matein Khalid|I am often asked by investors to articulate my “philosophy” of real estate investing. Tough question. My ideal deal is one where it is possible to buy brick and mortar assets at 60 – 70% of replacement cost. This usually occurs in the aftermath of a banking crisis or economic shock. This was the case in Florida homes in 2009 or Spanish office space in […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|ADNOC plans to explore and appraise Abu Dhabi’s unconventional gas resources, as the company seeks to enable future value creation from its untapped gas resources, the company announced. ADNOC will spend over AED 400 billion over the next five years, as it embarks on its Upstream and Downstream expansion and growth projects, the company announced. The Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) approved ADNOC’s key strategic […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Saudi Arabia is holding one of its most important investment summits ever, named the Future Investment Initiative (FII), considered to be game-changing forum in Riyadh. The landmark event is being attended by more than 2,500 delegates and internationally-renowned business and investment leaders from over 60 countries. The three-day event will explore new trends, opportunities, challenges and emerging industries that will shape the world economy and […]
