Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, launched on Saturday the UAE Soft Power Council, which aims to reinforce the country’s status and reputation in the world. The Council will define a comprehensive strategy to consolidate the UAE’s values of respect and appreciation with governments and citizens across the world, state news agency WAM reported. The UAE […]
April 29, 2017 by: Rochelle Toplensky in Brussels Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban left Brussels on a defiant note on Saturday, in spite of promising European colleagues he would “behave” and settle a stand-off with the European Commission. Mr Orban came under heavy pressure from leaders of his centre-right EU group amid growing impatience and concern across the bloc over Budapest undermining independent universities and mounting a […]
By Foo Yun Chee and Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Several EU leaders took advantage of a Brexit summit on Saturday to finalise deals settling various thorny issues as part of a strategy to present a united front ahead of tough negotiations with Britain on its withdrawal from the bloc. With discussions with Britain due to take place over the next two years, the European Union is […]
Combining digital and analog components in nonlinear, chaos-based integrated circuits can improve their computational power by enabling processing of a larger number of inputs, new research shows. (via WSJ)
Dubai-based Emirates NBD has become the first bank in the world to pilot KinTrans, a technology that enables easy two-way communication between sign language communicators with hearing disabilities, and people who use spoken languages. The bank said in a statement that its commitment to people with disabilities supports the ‘#MyCommunity’ initiative launched by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, that aims […]
ISTANBUL Turkish authorities have expelled more than 3,900 people from the civil service, military and gendarmerie, the government said in its Official Gazette on Saturday, in what appears to be the latest large-scale purge related to last year’s failed coup. The expelled included prison guards, clerks, academics, and employees of the religious affairs ministry, all of whom were suspected of links to “terrorist organisations and structures presenting […]
Authored by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners, Back on March 10, the New York Fed’s attempt at real-time GDP forecasting predicted that the Q1 2017 estimate would be 3.2%. That would have qualified as another decent quarter, the second out of the past three and somewhat in keeping with “reflation.” As we know today, the advance figure calculated by the Commerce Department amounted to just 0.69% […]
(Image: Genesis Robotics) Despite major advancements in robotics and the huge potential it has to make our lives easier, robots are still mostly stuck in industrial settings. We have seen a few robots enter homes, healthcare, and other work settings, but for the most part, they are still a novelty. In order for robots to become as ubiquitous as the other technology that consumers have recently embraced, […]
By Giselda Vagnoni and Agnieszka Flak | ROME/MILAN ROME/MILAN Italians are watching their flag carrier Alitalia go into yet another financial tailspin, and a growing number of them believe it would be better for the country if it crashed. Outraged at repeated state bailouts that have cost taxpayers more than 7 billion euros ($7.62 billion) over a decade, many Italians are taking to social media to urge […]
This story was originally published on Medium and is being republished here with the permission of its author. Two years ago in Hong Kong, I sat around a conference table with some of the finest journalists to have worked in the Chinese media in the past two decades. Left and right of me were reporters who had broken major stories of corruption, malfeasance and cruelty, and who […]
A new use for the ubiquitous PowerPoint slide has now been discovered: Producing self-folding three-dimensional origami structures from photocurable liquid polymers. (via WSJ)
By Andrew Osborn and Svetlana Reiter | MOSCOW MOSCOW Several hundred Russians lined up in central Moscow on Saturday under the gaze of riot police to hand over handwritten appeals for President Vladimir Putin to quit, as similar protests took place in other cities. Putin, who has dominated Russian politics for 17 years, has not said whether he will run in presidential elections in March 2018. But […]
What we really want: Alone time and sleep. Getty Images/iStockphoto Mother’s Day is once again upon us. I’m a mom and survey (of my mom and non-binary parent friends) says that what most of us want is more sleep and/or alone time. Equal pay and compensation for emotional labor would be great too, but please, for the love of all things holy, at least give us more […]
A theory building momentum among Game of Thrones fans is that Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) may in fact kill his twin sister and lover, Cersei (Lena Headey). Coster-Waldau weighed in on the theory earlier this week while doing press for his upcoming Netflix film Small Crimes, and while he can’t confirm or deny it, he does seem to have thought it out quite a bit. “I mean […]
By Drazen Jorgic | ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday sacked one of his special advisers and sanctioned another bureaucrat after an inquiry into a newspaper leak, but the country’s powerful army rejected Sharif’s directive as “incomplete”. The report’s findings and recommendations threaten to reopen a rift between the army and the civilian government at a time when relations between the two have been […]
It has a granite fountain and a bosque of shade trees. And to some rightwing Americans, the new headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a monument to all that went wrong under eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. The budget for the refurbishment of the Washington DC building, at about $363 a square foot, makes it more expensive than the Venetian hotel in Macau or […]
By Matthias Blamont and Simon Carraud | PARIS PARIS French far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen on Saturday chose defeated first-round candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan as her prime minister, a bid to attract his voters and help her to victory over centrist favourite Emmanuel Macron. Dupont-Aignan is a nationalist whose protectionist economic policies are close to those of the National Front’s Le Pen and who, like her, wants […]
BEIRUT Fighting between rebel groups in the biggest insurgent stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus entered a second day on Saturday, while government forces pressed an offensive against the besieged enclave, a war monitor said. The clashes broke out in part of the densely-populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta which has been besieged by Syrian government forces since 2013. The Syrian Observatory […]
Bret Stephens made his debut in the pages of The New York Times opinion section today with a column defending climate change skepticism in the face of scientific surety, a take that didn’t sit well with many of his colleagues in the newsroom. Stephens, a 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winner who joined The Times earlier this year after critiquing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for The Wall Street Journal’s opinion […]
When it comes to repackaging bad loans in the eurozone, 2017 has been a tale of two peripheries. While global investors who had been hoping to buy debt backed by Italy’s non-performing loans have been left disappointed, in Ireland deals are gathering momentum. Lone Star this week priced its latest securitisation of Irish mortgages, with the US private equity firm selling €420m of bonds backed by distressed […]
Acer just announced two new 2-in-1 devices that’ll widen its Switch product lineup: the Switch 5 and the Switch 3. The company bills its new machines as having “versatile, highly-mobile designs for work, school and fun.” Acer Switch 5: Specs, Price, Release Date The Switch 5 is the top-of-the-line model of the two, featuring a fanless cooling system, its own stylus, a fingerprint scanner, and latest Intel Kaby […]
SHARJAH // Internet safety and giving back to the community were among the pressing issues on the agenda at Sharjah Children’s Shura Council. Children aged 10, 11 and 12 discussed the need for greater smartphone awareness and more giving initiatives, in line with the Year of Giving. The Council was attended by 66 young council members, Brig Saif Al Zari, director of Sharjah Police, and Marwan Al […]
Emerging from an Hermès store in Shanghai with a shiny new watch costing “tens of thousands” of renminbi, Zhao Feifei is emblematic of a younger generation of Chinese consumers driving a rebound in sales of European luxury brands. “I’m earning more than before so I’m more willing to spend,” says Ms Zhao, who works in an internet finance company. The 30-year-old is one of the many customers […]
In our latest Taxcast, we talk to the journalists who got the scoop on the Panama Papers last year. Plus: we discuss the raid on Credit Suisse, and new data exposing the profit shifting shenanigans of the EU’s biggest banks. Featuring: The Panama Papers scoop journalists and Pulitzer Prize winners Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier of the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, and John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. […]
