When the Nasdaq Composite index first spent two days above the 5,000 mark, it signalled the last gasp of a spectacular bull market. Confidence in internet companies’ power to change the world and mint fortunes was about to collapse. Seventeen years later the market has hit a milestone of 6,000, part of a run of record highs for global equity markets. While stocks have again been rising […]
US hotel giant Hilton has announced that it has more than 16,000 rooms under construction in the Gulf region which will open by 2020. Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta underlined the importance of the region to his company’s ambitious expansion plans. He said Hilton has a total of over 21,000 rooms in its pipeline across the Gulf, with the six markets of the GCC contributing more than a […]
North Korea tested a ballistic missile on Saturday morning local time, in a provocative move that came just hours after Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, called on UN member states to impose “painful” sanctions on the regime in Pyongyang. US Pacific Command, which oversees US forces in Asia, said North Korea launched a missile at 5.03am local time on Saturday from a location near Pukchang airfield, […]
BAGHDAD Four Iraqi traffic policemen were killed on Friday when a suicide car bomb blew up outside their station, close to a street where several foreign media have offices in Baghdad, a security spokesman said. Five people were also wounded by the blast on Abu Nawas street, which runs alongside the east bank of the Tigris river, he said. The French embassy is located in the same […]
Nobody should ever attempt to judge an investment over a period of just 100 days. It is far too short a time to assess the quality of performance and far too prone to random effects. And in any case, most of us need results over very much more than 100 days. It is therefore a little random to be judging the Trump presidency’s impact on investors after […]
28 April 2017 Beirut, April 27, 2017 US$ 43.9 billion of assets US$ 36.0 billion of customers’ deposits US$ 17.0 billion of loans to customers Advertisement US$ 3.8 billion of shareholders’ equity US$ 110 million of net profits in the first quarter of 2017, of which 23% from Odea Bank and 10% from Bank Audi Egypt, raising the contribution of entities abroad to consolidated net profits to […]
By Girish Gupta | LOS TEQUES, Venezuela LOS TEQUES, Venezuela Hundreds of activists marched on Friday to the hilltop jail of Venezuela’s best-known detained opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in the latest of a month of protests against the socialist government. Security forces blocked access to the decrepit-looking penitentiary next to a slum in Los Teques, an hour’s drive from the capital Caracas, as the demonstrators shouted “Leopoldo!” […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for April 29, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. Ellen Fortini rounds up 10 things to do today in the UAE. Want to see your event listed here? Email us with the details and contact information at [email protected] newslide Abu Dhabi Film screenings Register […]
‘Demagogic’ populism does not help cause of peace. The pope invoked Egypt’s “glorious history” as an ancient cradle of civilization to argue on Friday that the delivery of a more peaceful future required a new civility that appreciated differences, resisted the violent path of close-minded absolutism and condemned extremists who camouflage terror in religious language. Continue reading the main story “An education in respectful openness and sincere […]
I’m a PC gamer who hasn’t owned a home video game console in five years. I don’t mention that to obnoxiously flex my PC Master Race muscles or look down upon filthy console peasants. Instead, it’s to highlight how thoroughly done I am with those generic black boxes that sit in entertainment centers and simply…exist. I may not be the most hardcore PC gamer, but […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. economy likely hit a soft patch in the first quarter as an unseasonably warm winter and rising inflation weighed on consumer spending, in a potential setback to President Donald Trump’s promise to boost growth. Reduced business investment in inventories and government spending cuts also crimped gross domestic product growth. A Reuters survey of economists conducted last week forecast GDP […]
Emerging market equities have been the darling asset class de jour in 2017, mainly in Asia and Latin America, despite the March FOMC rate hike, a US Dollar Index at or above 100 and a mini-swoon in crude oil after a Saudi-Russian output cut spat. Earnings growth (India/Thailand) a stabilized currency (China), policy reforms (India, Brazil, Indonesia) local interest rate cuts (Brazil) and lower US protectionist policies […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday spurned the Taiwanese president’s suggestion that the two leaders hold another phone call, saying he did not want to create problems for Chinese President Xi Jinping when Beijing appears to be helping efforts to rein in North Korea. In a White House interview, Trump brushed aside the idea after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told Reuters on Thursday she would not […]
By Manolo Serapio Jr | MANILA MANILA Philippine police sacked the chief of a Manila police station on Friday and launched an investigation after a human rights group responding to a tip-off found a secret cell that was illegally holding drug suspects without charge. The discovery of the cell will raise more questions about the Philippine National Police (PNP), which is coming under intense criticism for a […]
That small drama points to the bigger issue confronting Francis as he lands in Cairo against a backdrop of swirling anxiety and turmoil. Christians across the Middle East are under intense pressure. After years of persecution by Islamist militants, half of Iraq’s Christian population has fled, and a lonely beach in Libya was the setting for the 2015 beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in orange jumpsuits. Continue […]
By Jennifer Ablan and Stephen Nellis | NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO Growing tensions with North Korea should worry global electronics firms such as Apple Inc as they source key parts from South Korea, but investors are brushing off such concerns and snapping up shares in key exporters, heartened by robust earnings and big investment plans. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday in an interview […]
Drone maker DJI has issued a software update intended to frustrate Isis terrorists who have been using low-cost “quadcopters” to drop improvised bombs in Syria and Iraq. The move to create new “no fly zones” for its products across Iraq and Syria is DJI’s first admission, albeit a tacit one, that its products have been commandeered by terrorists. It is also the latest sign of tension between […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump complained on Thursday that the United States was being unfairly treated in the Paris Climate Agreement and told Reuters he would announce a decision in about two weeks on whether Washington would remain in the accord. The Republican Trump, elected in November, had vowed during his campaign to withdraw from the Paris accord within 100 days of becoming president, part of a broader […]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that has a long standing tradition in the realm of science-fiction, popularized by Hollywood movies and iconic writers such as Isaac Asimov. However, AI has also received increased attention in recent years following news of progress in the field and the prospect of new, tangible, innovation such as self-driving cars. The Internet has played an important role in these developments, particularly […]
British police said officers shot a woman and arrested four other people in London and nearby Kent during a counter-terrorism investigation on Thursday. All four people were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts, metropolitan police said in a statement, adding that the incident was not connected to the arrest in Whitehall, where a man carrying knives near Prime Minister Theresa May’s […]
The FCC has made its initial proposal as to how it intends to do away with net neutrality — and despite what leadership there has said, that’s definitely how the document reads. You are free to make your thoughts known on the notice of proposed rulemaking, as it’s called, and here’s how to do it. Because millions of commenters nearly crashed the entire system when net neutrality […]
The Israeli agency that liaises with the Palestinians on civilian affairs, known as Cogat (an acronym for Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), said Israel supplies Gaza with 30 percent of its total electricity needs at a monthly cost of about $11 million. Continue reading the main story Israel did not immediately cut off the supply, apparently hoping that international donors would step in and pay. […]
By Idrees Ali | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON As President Donald Trump’s administration drafts an Afghanistan policy, U.S. officials are seeking a way to reverse gains by militant groups without wading deeper into a 15-year-long war that has no end in sight. In the past month, three U.S. service members have been killed in operations against Islamic State militants near Afghanistan’s porous border with Pakistan, where armed groups still […]
By Phil Stewart and Yara Bayoumy | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON When U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis greeted Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister at the Pentagon last month, the first thing he did was joke about the time “the Iranians tried to murder you.” Mattis’ reference to a foiled 2011 plot, denied by Iran, was a telling sign of how much more aligned President Donald Trump’s administration is with Gulf […]
