Excerpted from today’s Blain’s Morning Porridge by Bill Blain of Mint Partners Over weekend drinks, dinners, very good lunches and rugby banter I was repeatedly told by my chums with real jobs in Industry, Services and Government how terrible this Trump fellow is turning out. It’s terribly liberal of us all to be illiberal about him. A couple of times I tried to respond in rational terms […]
Paraphrasing Garrison Keillor, it’s been a quiet week in the Apache Spark community – at least compared to last year, where the definitive Spark 2.0 was unveiled. Last week, Spark Summit pulled into Boston, and so did one of those nor’easters that make Boston so alluring in February. And so the Spark project, for now, is engaging in the blocking and tackling chores of cleaning up or […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Major Garrett of CBS News is rising to the defense of the extravaganza that is the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner — and he is nearly convincing. Garrett is a very good, no B.S. reporter who adeptly made the print-to-TV […]
By Angus McDowall | ALEPPO, Syria ALEPPO, Syria In the rubble-strewn square outside Aleppo’s ancient citadel and under the scorched vaults of its covered souk, workmen are starting to mend the destruction of a war that has shattered the Syrian city’s priceless historical heritage. About 20 volunteers sorted through the debris in Khan al-Gumruk, one of the souk’s great medieval inns, piling up the stones from a […]
Markets have started this week feeling much relieved, notes Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow, as the understandable fears that U.S.-Asia strategy might continue their lurch toward direct economic confrontation were given a respite. The phone call with Chinese President Xi went better than feared. And once the picture of the Japanese Prime Minister and American President high-fiving on the golf course was passed around, the sighs of relief were […]
DUBAI// Schools are likely to face higher operating costs, lower profit margins and a scramble for the best teachers, according to education experts. An extra 175,000 school places are expected to be created in the UAE by 2020, 90 per cent of which will be in the private sector. The findings from the PwC Middle East published Understanding the GCC Education Sector, Country Profile: UAE report, states […]
La La Land was the big winner at the 70th British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) film awards on Sunday night, the last big awards ceremony before the Oscars on February 26. The main Bafta nominations closely followed the Oscars’ list, with La La Land leading the pack with 11 nods (compared with 14 at the Oscars). Arrival had nine nods and Manchester by the […]
Jeb Hensarling did not hold back last week, when asked on CNBC about the flaws of Dodd-Frank. “It clogs the arteries of capitalism in our system. It hurts working people. It hurts consumers. It needs to go,” said the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, about the signature piece of financial regulation of the Obama era. “You can’t get a healthy economy as long as you […]
Photo The Jewish settlement Ma’ale Adumim, in the West Bank. Credit Dan Balilty for The New York Times WASHINGTON — President Trump, who presented himself as a staunch supporter of Israel during last year’s campaign, took a harder line on settlements in an interview published on Friday and indicated that he was rethinking his promise to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem. Mr. Trump told an […]
The cost to upgrade the US electrical grid so it could cope with peak demands may be on the order of $180 billion, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences As the planet warms due to climate change and hot days become more common, the US electrical grid could be unable to meet peak energy needs by century’s end, researchers warned Monday. […]
It’s old news by now that way more than half of digital traffic comes through the side doors of social media and search rather than a reader selecting from a home page menu. That’s OK, the theory goes, because at least readers are exposed to the content and will take note of the source. But that brand-building effect may be much weaker than supposed, a new Pew […]
By Jamie McGeever | LONDON LONDON World stocks and bond yields rose on Monday, lifted by a re-emergence of so-called “Trump trades” as investors bet that the U.S. president’s tax reform plans will boost economic growth and corporate profits. Following on from Friday’s record high closes on Wall Street, Asian stocks rallied to 1-1/2-year peaks and European stocks rose for the fifth consecutive session on Monday, their […]
Health regulators have given their approval for the drug deflazacort for patients suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Available Overseas For $1,200 The steroid treatment has long been available outside United States but it was only last week that it received the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare and incurable disease that most often affects boys and typically leads to […]
Copper prices in China rose as much as 7 per cent on Monday to their highest level in more than two years amid continued upward pressure from a strike at the world’s largest copper mine in Chile. The price of copper contracts on the Shanghai Futures Exchange leaped as high as Rmb50,300 ($7,306.79) per tonne in Monday Asia trading, the highest level since May 17, 2014. Workers […]
Submitted by Nick Kaman of Letters from Norway Introduction: Norwegians are just now starting to grapple with the effects of their “single cylinder” economy, mostly dependent on oil and gas (ca. 60% of exports). Despite optimism about $50-$70/barrel oil, American crude output is surging, on track to be the highest ever, since 1970, while cracks start to form in OPEC’s latest agreement. In addition to the oil […]
Compliance with a global supply cut deal by OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers is expected to improve over the next months, the UAE Energy Minister said on Sunday. OPEC has delivered more than 90 percent of pledged oil output curbs in January, according to figures the exporter group uses to monitor its supply seen by Reuters, making a strong start to implementation of its first production cut […]
SEOUL North Korea said on Monday it had successfully test-fired a new type of medium- to long-range ballistic missile a day earlier, claiming further advancement in a weapons programme it is pursuing in violation of United Nations resolutions. North Korea fired the ballistic missile on a high arc into the sea early on Sunday, the first test of U.S. President Donald Trump’s vow to get tough on […]
An award-winning Arabic-language film, Hedi, will be released with Arabic subtitles in the UAE, and across the region, as the local industry looks at ways to boost the popularity of Arab films in cinemas. This was one of a raft of measures to improve the popularity of Arab cinema, in the region and globally, discussed during a panel talk – New Prospects: Challenges and Opportunities in the […]
“Throughout the entire length of the battle for Aleppo, there have been multiple claims of violations of human rights and multiple denials,” said Eliot Higgins, a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council. Continue reading the main story “What we have been able to present now is a wealth of evidence confirming the targeting of civilian structures, namely hospitals, which in certain […]
Monday 04:15 GMT Overview Equities climbed and the yen softened after Japan reported gross domestic product figures for the final quarter of 2016 that suggested any monetary policy settings will remain on hold for now. Hot topic Japan’s economy closed out 2016 with growth of 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter, below estimates of 0.3 per cent despite a boost to exports from a weaker yen […]
By David Alire Garcia | MEXICO CITY MEXICO CITY Thousands of protesters in more than a dozen Mexican cities took to the streets on Sunday to express their fierce opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump, portraying the new leader as a menace to both America and Mexico. Waving Mexicans flags and hoisting anti-Trump signs in both Spanish and English, some vulgar, many protesters also heaped scorn on […]
Top White House aide and policy adviser, Stephen Miller, sidestepped repeated chances during Sunday news shows to publicly defend embattled National Security Adviser Michael Flynn following reports that he engaged in conversations with Russian diplomat(s) about U.S. sanctions before Trump’s inauguration. The uncertainty came as Trump was dealing with North Korea’s apparent first missile launch of the year and his presidency, along with visits this week from […]
Bleak about the future of journalism? Here are some encouraging statistics: In 2015, ProPublica ended the year with $450,000 in small donations (contributions less than $10,000 that weren’t individually solicited). In 2016, that amount was $2.9 million. So far this year, that number is already more than $600,000. ProPublica received $4,500 from monthly recurring donations in the month of October. By January, that number had increased to […]
“She’s a spokesmodel for their hairless dog line,” Young-Johnson said. Then there are the Chinese cresteds, the Rodney Dangerfields of the dog world. The lack of respect is probably related to the nakedness of their often-freckled bodies, thrown into vivid relief by the fright-wig-like hair on their heads and the fluffy fur around their feet, giving them a frantic, slightly unhinged appearance. Continue reading the main story […]
