A week after a gunman killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub, the suspected assailant remains at large and secular Turks are feeling under attack. ISIS claimed the shooting, calling it an assault on what it called “a pagan holiday.” The government’s pledge to defend all lifestyles hasn’t kept an atmosphere of fear from descending on some of Istanbul’s secular neighborhoods. By way of contrast, some Turks […]
UK taxpayers are facing a £24bn bill for decommissioning oil and gasfields in the North Sea — threatening to wipe out remaining tax revenues from an industry that has been among the Treasury’s most reliable cash cows for the past four decades. The new estimates show how the North Sea oil industry risks becoming a net drain on UK resources as it enters its sunset years and […]
Yet many Western analysts believed that he sought a less confrontational relationship with the United States than other powerful figures in the Iranian hierarchy, for whom hostility toward Washington was a touchstone of ideological purity. Continue reading the main story Mr. Rafsanjani, for instance, was credited with suggesting that “Death to America” be dropped from the litany of slogans at Tehran’s Friday prayers, a weekly moment of […]
CHICAGO A push by Washington for more business-friendly regulation and fiscal support for the economy could improve America’s mix of policies which in recent years have relied too much on the Federal Reserve, Fed Governor Jerome Powell said. Powell, speaking on Saturday at a conference, did not mention the incoming Trump administration by name but his comments suggest some Trump policies will be welcomed by U.S. central […]
All of the podcasts below are easily acquired by clicking ‘subscribe’ on iTunes or on Stitcher or any other podcast-delivery platform. New episodes are automatically downloaded, ready for listening Revisionist History With the tagline “because sometimes the past deserves a second chance”, author Malcolm Gladwell visits moments and episodes from history, looking at stories or ideas that might have been misunderstood or overlooked – there’s always a […]
Banks and petrochemicals stocks could be relative strong performers in the GCC in 2017 thanks to benchmark interest rate rises and a recovery in the global crude oil price, although slowing economic growth may weigh on regional markets. Both sectors have suffered in the last couple of years due to the dramatic oil price decline. The knock-on effect of lower investment and economic growth hit banks, with […]
Here are the big questions for investors ahead of the coming trading week. What impact will Donald Trump’s press conference have on markets? “I will be having a general news conference on JANUARY ELEVENTH in N.Y.C. Thank you.” That was how the president-elect last week [3] tweeted news of what is surely the first big market-moving event of the year — if it takes place. Mr Trump […]
Along with most of his Wall Street peers, BofA’s Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett flipped his outlook on risk assets shortly after the election, turning from quietly bearish to vocally bullish and forecasting a substantial rise in US equities, and even more substantial bounce for Japanese, European and UK stocks as well as oil. So far, Hartnett has been correct, and according to recent fund flows, much […]
Descriptive analytics — looking into what has happened in the past — is commoditized. Traditional BI, reports, and dashboards are well understood and used in one way or another across a wide spectrum of organizations to keep an eye on their operations. Predictive analytics — trying to predict what will happen in the future — is in the limelight. Today many organizations are scrambling to utilize predictive […]
Last year was truly unforgettable. It is the year we celebrated Mara’s 20th anniversary and launched three new businesses: an infrastructure investment vehicle for Africa; an online jobs portal, Mara Jobs; and a last-mile delivery business, Mara Xpress. It is also the year we launched the inaugural Ashish J Thakkar Global Entrepreneurship Index 2016 to better understand entrepreneurial environments around the world. But perhaps what will stick […]
The Matrix PowerWatch is charged by body heat. The market for wearable devices grew steadily in the past year, but one category of wearables — fitness bands — overwhelmingly dominates the market. Within that segment, Fitbit is the clear leader. Yet exhibitors and hosts at CES 2017 sounded optimistic that there will soon be plenty of room in the marketplace for more than just Fitbit. More than […]
A predicted collision of two stars may just give us a spectacular show in the year 2022. A thorough observation that began in 2013 led Larry Molnar, a Calvin College Professor, along with his students and his colleagues Karen Kinemuchi and Henry Kobulnicky to predict that a binary star is most likely going to collide and explode into a red nova in 2022, give or take a […]
In October 1938, the one-hour adaptation of H G Wells’s The War of the Worlds, directed by Orson Welles, was broadcast on CBS Radio in the United States. A story of aliens invading rural New Jersey rendered as news broadcasts and authentic-sounding updates, it was a little too convincing. There are legends of panic in the streets, mass hysteria and heart attacks. That may have been the […]
Our round-up of the week’s best comment and analysis from the Financial Times focuses on debunking misleading parallels between Reaganomics and Trumponomics and what changes the new US president’s policies will force in investor behaviour. The selection is taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, written by industry contributors and FT commentators. The world is too different from the 1980s for Donald Trump to achieve […]
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. Even when it comes to brutality, little is left to the media imagination these days. The latest example of the decline in consensus about the acceptable involves the Facebook video of a mentally disabled Chicago man who was attacked and […]
How’s your weekend going? Redditor, Law School Graduate, and nimble navigator William Craddick (/u/PleadingtheYiff / brand new Twitter handle @williamcraddick) has made quite the name for himself on Reddit’s “The_Donald” forum. In just three short months, Craddick has managed to rack up over 153,000 “post karma” and 48k “comment karma,” which (if you’re not familiar) is impressive. The guy is an incredibly effective dot-connector, perhaps owing it to his legal training – often posting lengthy reads that […]
Uncover some of the cool new features hidden in iOS 10. It’s been nearly 10 years since I camped out in the rain to purchase the original Apple iPhone. We’ve seen the iPhone go from a MP3 player feature phone to a full blown handheld computer that is finding its way throughout the enterprise market. At my engineering consulting firm, we have a BYOD policy with IT […]
The reputation of the main hospital in Iten was so bad that the only people who went there were those who wanted to “die quickly”, says Alex Tolgos, the county governor. But four years since Kenya started what the World Bank calls “one of the most rapid and ambitious devolution processes” on the planet, the hospital in the western Kenyan town has been transformed. More than half the […]
Inventor and CEO of Hoverboard Technologies, Robert Bigler unveils his GeoBlade transporter at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6, 2017 in Las Vegas Hoverboards are aiming for a comeback after a series of debacles and recalls for the quirky wheeled personal transport devices. A handful of new self-balancing skateboard-like gadgets made their appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. These personal […]
Photo The Raiders’ Connor Cook, the first quarterback in N.F.L. history to make his first start in a playoff game, was hit by Jadeveon Clowney. Credit Eric Gay/Associated Press HOUSTON — Brock Osweiler redeemed himself after last month’s benching. Jadeveon Clowney established himself as a postseason force. And the Houston Texans got their first playoff victory since the 2012 season, beating the Oakland Raiders, 27-14, on Saturday. […]
Oil started the first week of 2017 with a bang but ended it with a whimper, as the Opec fireworks that dominated the last quarter gave way to the more mundane reality of monitoring if the cartel will make good on its pledged cuts. Brent crude oil briefly touched an 18-month high above $58 a barrel on the first day of trading but there was little fresh […]
On the heels of Czech President Milos Zeman’s warnings of a possible “super-Holocaust” carried out by Muslim terrorists, urging citizens to arm themselves, WaPo reports the country’s interior ministry is pushing a constitutional change that would let citizens use guns against terrorists if police are delayed or unable to make their way to the scene of an attack. Czech president Milos Zeman had previously proposed that economic […]
Qualcomm At CES 2017, Qualcomm has demonstrated a number of ways its technology will support the 5G future, from powering autonomous drones to connected health care. Giving weight to its investments and innovations, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf on January 6 shared new research commissioned by Qualcomm to show the impact 5G will have on the future economy. By 2035, when 5G’s full economic benefit should be realized, […]
Powerful solar storms can charge up the soil in frigid, permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles, and may possibly produce ‘sparks’ that could vaporize and melt the soil, perhaps as much as meteoroid impacts, according to new research. This alteration may become evident when analyzing future samples from these regions that could hold the key to understanding the history of the moon and solar system. (via […]
