INTERNATIONAL. Oilprice.com recently spoke with Carl Larry, Director of Oil and Gas at Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy that conducts research on oil and gas markets, to get his thoughts on the state of oil in 2016. Oilprice.com: I saw that you were on Bloomberg in December, and you said that you thought oil would go to the low $30s per barrel, which was a good call […]
Senior Saudi and Iranian figures clashed behind closed doors at a private meeting convened by the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to try to promote peace in Syria, participants said. The barbed exchange between Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at an invitation-only meeting on Wednesday underlined the hostility between the two Gulf rivals, who are waging proxy wars in Syria, […]
With Star Wars: The Force Awakens being the biggest in the series, it’s gotten me thinking about the influence of this incredible franchise on our lives. It defined a movie genre, of course, and no doubt inspired many a young kid to want to become a pilot or astronaut (me included, even if NASA still won’t return my calls). And just think how many cultural references we have […]
Reuters/Daniel Munoz/Files BEIJING China will maintain plans to gradually phase out subsidies for green energy vehicles until they are fully eliminated in 2021 and allow the market to determine the direction of green car development, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said on Saturday. But auto executives speaking alongside Lou at an industry conference in Beijing laid out differing visions as to which technology the market will […]
Ford Motor Company has announced it will include Auto Start-Stop on all Ford F-150 EcoBoost trucks, starting in 2017. Auto Start-Stop is exactly what it sounds like: the engine shuts off when stopped and when the brake is released, the engine quickly restarts. The transition is seamless. Although it depends on how a person drives, overall the feature contributes to better fuel mileage while reducing emissions. It should be noted, Auto Start-Stop does […]
Details about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone emerged this week in advance of its anticipated release. A Hungarian Android blog reported benchmark scores for the single-core and multi-core versions of the phone, which are significantly higher than those of last year’s Samsung Galaxy S6. The scores come from Geekbench, a cross-platform processor benchmark whose scoring system separates single-core and multi-core performance. The single-core version of the […]
The removal of sanctions on Iran may trigger at least $50 billion a year in foreign investment to finance a rebound in an economy hit by the oil slump, the country’s central bank governor said. “Our country can absorb a great deal of foreign investment, considering its potential,” Valiollah Seif said in an interview Wednesday at his office in Tehran, days after the trade and financial curbs […]
Iran’s release from sanctions testifies to its new relationship with the United States as it moves from pariah state to regional power, a status that could come at the cost of Saudi Arabia, Washington’s chief Arab ally. Enemies and allies alike must adjust to Iran becoming an uninhibited power broker in the Middle East after its nuclear deal with world powers and Saturday’s lifting of sanctions that […]
After a decade of unprecedented economic sanctions, Iran is about to be back in business. The Islamic Republic curbed its ability to make a nuclear bomb as required under a deal with world powers, clearing the way for it to resume global commerce, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday. The European Union, United Nations and U.S. agreed in July to lift sanctions simultaneously once compliance was verified. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| A leading player in the Dubai real estate market has predicted a correction in the rental market at a rate faster than expected in 2016 as thousands of new apartments and villas enter the new supplies. Real estate consultancy JLL predicted that average housing rents in the city would continue to fall by as much as 10 per cent over the coming 12 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai-headquartered private equity investment group Abraaj announced another investment in India to buy a majority stake in Quality CARE India Ltd, which runs CARE Hospitals from global PE firm Advent International. CARE, which operates a multi-specialty chain of 16 hospitals across nine cities, plans to expand in “underpenetrated” regions of India, as well as enter other markets where Abraaj operates, the Dubai firm […]
|By Matein Khalid| This was the ghastliest week for global risk assets since September 2011. Not even 290,000 new US jobs in December could negate the raw fear on Wall Street generated by the 10% fall in Shanghai, a yuan depreciation, market meltdowns of 6 – 7% in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Mumbai and New York. Four months ago, I had published a KT article titled “History’s […]
|By Dr Alaa Alghamdi| In a modern, largely secular world, it is remarkable to observe how strongly the interplay between the original ‘big three’ Abrahamic religions, many hundreds of years old and stemming from a common root, still affect world affairs and attitudes toward them. To cite a somewhat whimsical analogy, Rick Riordan’s series of books about a character named Percy Jackson posits that the Greek gods […]
Saudi Arabia is considering its own Big Bang. The world biggest crude exporter is considering selling a stake in its state-owned company, which controls more than a tenth of the global oil market. A potential initial public offering is under review for Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Aramco, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince, said in an interview with The Economist. A decision […]
Saudi Arabia’s move to isolate Iran raises the specter of deepening conflicts in the volatile Middle East after the biggest meltdown in relations between the two regional powers in almost three decades. The Saudi government and staunch ally Bahrain severed diplomatic ties, giving Iranian ambassadors 48 hours to leave after protesters set the Saudi embassy in Tehran on fire over the weekend following the execution of Saudi cleric […]
Lower power. Longer range. That’s the story behind Wi-Fi HaLow, a new technology the Wi-Fi Alliance has just introduced to help tap into the momentum around low power Wi-Fi solutions that cater specifically to the Internet of Things (IoT). The Wi-Fi HaLow designation, which aims at products leveraging IEEE 802.11ah technology, works at and below the one gigahertz frequency band without sacrificing range. In fact, HaLow promises […]
Oil gained for a second day as Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran a day after its embassy in Tehran was attacked to protest the Saudis’ execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. Futures rose as much as 3.5 percent in New York, extending Thursday’s 1.2 percent advance. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of repercussions and protesters armed with rocks and firebombs attacked the Saudi embassy […]
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saudi rulers will face repercussions after the kingdom executed an outspoken Shiite cleric. “The divine hand of revenge will take the Saudi politicians by the throat,” Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, said on Sunday. Cleric Nimr al-Nimr “was neither encouraging people to armed protests, nor plotting secretly, all he did was to openly criticize,” said Khamenei, who frequently lashes out at […]
|By Matein Khalid| Emerging markets were an entirely predictable horror story once again in 2015. The oil/mining bust, currency meltdowns, China’s hard landing, sovereign credit downgrades, banking system crises, corruption scandals and geopolitical crises from Ukraine to Syria, the Black Sea to the South China Sea devastated investor wealth in emerging markets. India’s Sensex and Nifty were down 9% while the rupee has depreciated to 66 […]
Saudi Arabia released a more tightfisted budget for 2016, reflecting scaled-back revenue expectations and lower spending on subsidies because of sinking oil prices and its involvement in the war in neighboring Yemen. Here are some key points in the first spending plan under King Salman, released on Monday by the Ministry of Finance: DEFICIT The government forecasts the deficit will narrow to 326.2 billion riyals ($87 billion) […]
|By Hannah Elliott| Want to see the future? Drive a BMW 7-Series sedan. It’s the car Bimmer uses as a medium for unleashing its newest and best technological offerings on the rest of the world. IDrive made its debut here, as did ABS and the active body control systems that monitor the movement of the car in relation to the road. Now those are de rigueur on all BMW […]
Construction sites and buildings are pictured amid heavy smog, on the third day after China’s capital Beijing issued its second ever ”red alert” for air pollution, in Beijing, China, in this December 21, 2015 photo. Reuters/Jason Lee BEIJING Air pollution in China could be big business. Two of the world’s largest technology firms, IBM and Microsoft, are vying to tap the nascent, fast-growing market for forecasting air […]
Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia’s subsidy scheme is poised for a change as the country announced that they would be reviewing government support for energy, water and electricity prices in the next five years. A 2016 budget document by the Ministry of Finance said that reviewing government support is aimed at achieving efficiency in energy use, conserving natural resources, stopping waste and irrational use, and minimising negative effects […]
Gulfnews.com A convoy of ambulances carrying more than 125 fighters from the besieged rebel-held Syrian town of Zabadani arrive at the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, December 28, 2015. Beirut: A rare UN-backed deal between Syria’s warring sides saw hundreds of fighters and civilians evacuate three towns on Monday, as bomb blasts in the regime-held city of Homs killed at least 14 people. President Bashar […]
