Tech giant Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicked off Monday at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco with the headlining keynote address. Among the topics discussed during the address were new capabilities for OS X, updates coming to iOS, native apps for the Apple Watch, a streaming music service, and a new version of the watchOS operating system. At the event, Apple also introduced […]
In an image taken from a video on a militant website, the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, addressed followers last year in Mosul, Iraq. New insights yielded by a seized trove of materials in Syria include how he operates and tries to avoid being tracked by coalition forces. By ERIC SCHMITT June 8, 2015 WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have extracted valuable information about the Islamic State’s leadership structure, financial […]
Video | Libya: Wake Up, Benghazi! On June 25, 2014, Salwa Bugaighis was shot dead in her home by unknown militants, marking a new milestone in the country’s descent towards anarchy: the first female political assassination. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK June 7, 2015 Scores or perhaps hundreds of killings remain unsolved in Benghazi, Libya, since the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly four years ago. But no victim has symbolized […]
Video | Syria: Brides of Peace The sisters Kinda and Lubna Zaour walked through the main souk in Damascus dressed as brides, a symbol of love and peace. They were arrested almost immediately. By ANNE BARNARD June 7, 2015 BEIRUT — The blurry pictures circulating on social media showed several women in white, dressed as brides, standing shoulder to shoulder in a covered market in the old city of […]
Plastic caution tape marks a small construction area on the exterior of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington May 27, 2015. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst WASHINGTON A massive breach of U.S. federal computer networks disclosed this week is the latest in a flood of attacks by suspected Chinese hackers aimed at grabbing personal data, industrial secrets and weapons plans from government and private computers. The Obama […]
BAHRAIN. Fitch Ratings has downgraded Bahrain’s Long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating(IDR) to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BBB’ and Long-term local currency IDR to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB+’. The Outlooks are Stable. The issue ratings on Bahrain’s senior unsecured foreign and local currency bonds have also been downgraded to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BBB’ and ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB+’, respectively. The agency has simultaneously affirmed Bahrain’s Country Ceiling at ‘BBB+’ and Short-term foreign […]
UAE. Consumers are keener than ever to shop around for a good deal when it comes to their finances, you just need to look at the rise of personal finance sites like Money Saving Expert to see that. Armed with smartphones and 4G, they compare everything from the cheapest travel insurance to the best credit card rate, and are not afraid to do their research in order […]
ABU DHABI // Five people died on Saturday when two four-wheel-drive vehicles collided head-on at Al Razeen, near Al Raha beach in Abu Dhabi. One of the vehicles caught fire in the crash, which happened at about 10am. All five of the dead were Emirati. Police and civil defence emergency teams rushed to the accident and tackled the fire. Investigations are under way to determine the circumstances […]
Tariq Aziz, left, in 1992 at the United Nations as deputy prime minister of Iraq, talking with Chinmaya Rajaninath Gharekhan, the Indian delegate, at a meeting of the Security Council. By ALISSA J. RUBIN June 5, 2015 Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister who for decades was the most public face of Saddam Hussein’s government on the world stage, died on Friday in Nasiriya, Iraq, where […]
By ALISSA J. RUBIN June 5, 2015 Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister who for decades was the most public face of Saddam Hussein’s government on the world stage, died on Friday in Nasiriya, Iraq, where he had been imprisoned. He was 79. Adel Aldikhaly, the deputy governor of Nasiriya, said Mr. Aziz had had a heart attack after “a long-term incurable disease” and was transferred […]
June 4, 2015 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY While many Israelis were enraged by comments from the chief executive of the French telecommunications company Orange, who told journalists in Egypt that he would like to cut ties to an Israeli cellphone service provider that operates in the occupied West Bank, pro-Palestinian activists working to isolate Israel argued that the statement was insufficient. The Orange chief executive, Stéphane […]
By MERNA THOMAS and ALISON SMALE June 3, 2015 CAIRO — In an unusual daytime attack near Egypt’s most visible tourist attraction, gunmen shot and killed two police officers on Wednesday, a few hundred yards from the pyramids of Giza, security officials said. Tourism is a vital source of foreign currency for the government, and a pillar of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s plan to revive Egypt’s battered economy. The years of […]
The logo of Alibaba Group is seen inside the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province early November 11, 2014. Reuters/Aly Song/Files BEIJING/SHANGHAI Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will invest in financial media outlet China Business Network in a deal set to be announced on Thursday, Chinese media reported on Wednesday. The investment in China Business Network, part of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), will be worth […]
By SHUAIB ALMOSAWA June 2, 2015 SANA, Yemen — Warplanes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes Tuesday in Yemen that killed at least 16 fighters allied with the Saudi-led group, witnesses said. The victims were fighters supporting President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was forced into exile by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year. Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive against the Houthis in late […]
UAE. According to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the UAE outperforms the GCC and the rest of the world in most dimensions – including income, employment, health, education, infrastructure, income equality, civil society, governance, and environment – when it comes to its current-level Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) scores. Across these dimensions, the UAE topped the average scores of both the GCC and […]
Shares in Dubai Islamic mortgage provider Amlak Finance fell sharply as they resumed trading on Tuesday after being suspended for nearly six years. The stock tumbled as much as 23.5 percent shortly after opening but then pared losses to 14.7 percent. It topped trading volumes on the emirate’s bourse, whose main index slipped 0.2 percent. Trading in Amlak, part-owned by Dubai’s biggest developer Emaar Properties, was halted […]
World Briefing By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK June 2, 2015 LONDON — Two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr, were arrested this week in a suburb of Cairo after evading the police for nearly two years, security officials said Tuesday. Reports of the arrests came the same day that an Egyptian court postponed a session that was expected to confirm a death sentence against the […]
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR June 2, 2015 WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official held talks last week with the Houthi rebels of Yemen, opening a new round of diplomacy aimed at persuading the warring factions in that country to participate in a peace conference in Geneva, American officials said Tuesday. The meetings came just before the release on Monday of Casey L. Coombs, an American freelance journalist who had […]
By ANNE BARNARD June 2, 2015 ISTANBUL, Turkey — Syrian insurgents rushed reinforcements into combat on Tuesday against rival Islamic State militants who have seized crucial territory near the northern city of Aleppo in recent days, building on the momentum the group has achieved in other battlefield successes in Syria and Iraq. Amid increased fears that Aleppo could be the next big prize to fall to the Islamic State […]
Men stood on a building damaged during Hamas’s last war with Israel. Gaza’s unemployment rate has risen to 44 percent, the highest in the world. By DIAA HADID and MAJD AL WAHEIDI June 1, 2015 GAZA CITY — On a street here crammed with glittery clothing and electronic shops, Mahmoud Matar flipped through the receipt book for his appliance store, much of it blank: His lone sale that day was a $7 […]
Intel Corp (INTC.O) agreed to buy Altera Corp (ALTR.O) for $16.7 billion as the world’s biggest chipmaker seeks to make up for slowing demand from the PC industry by expanding its line-up of higher-margin chips used in data centres. By combining with Altera, Intel will be able to bundle its processing chips with the smaller company’s programmable chips, which are used, among other things, to speed up […]
Shreyas Shipping & Logistics, part of Dubai headquartered global conglomerate Transworld Group, posted impressive results for last year. For the financial year ended 31st March, 2015, Shreyas posted a consolidated turnover of Rs.5.45.billion as against Rs.4.87 billion for the year ended 31st March, last year. Profit After Tax was recorded at Rs.617.5 million, compared to a loss of Rs.43.2 million last year. This is the company’s best ever performance till […]
FUJAIRAH // Devastated shop owners are counting the cost of a fire that tore through Masafi’s Friday Market at the weekend. The blaze, which destroyed 13 carpet and furniture shops and 16 fruit and vegetable outlets, broke out about 5pm on Saturday. No injuries were reported. But business owners say they face ruin because insurers do not recognise them as shops Carpet shop owner Bustan Jalil, 68, […]
Mohammed Soltan is pushed by his father during a court appearance in Cairo on March 9. By KAREEM FAHIM May 30, 2015 CAIRO — Mohamed Soltan, an American citizen who spent nearly two years in an Egyptian prison on charges that he supported an Islamist protest, has been released by the Egyptian authorities and flew back to the United States on Saturday, his family said in a statement. Mr. […]
