By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The crisis plaguing the Congress in Kerala over the Shashi Tharoor issue has deepened with the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, demanding in an un precedented move, ‘appropriate action’ against the high-profile MP from Thiruvananthapuram, for his frequent praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Although the KPCC report has demanded appropriate action against Tharoor, it has not specified the kind of action it […]
By Nora Chopra While Narendra Modi has already held a number of rallies, the central leadership of the Congress is missing from action in both the states of Haryana and Maharashtra. Rahul began his campaign in Maharashtra on 8 October in Mahad in Raigad district and the second rally Ausa in Latur district. With these two rallies he has covered Konkan and Marathwada. He is supposed to […]
A worsening of the domestic political environment in Kuwait is a potential risk for the country, says Moody’s. European Pressphoto Agency A contentious relationship between Kuwait’s government and parliament has hindered development and diversification, while high dependence on volatile oil exports is causing the Arab Gulf state’s economic performance to fluctuate, according to a new Moody’s Investors Service report. It still has a ‘Aa2′ sovereign rating and […]
Gold futures rose for the second straight day as the dollar’s decline boosted the metal’s appeal as an alternative investment. The greenback fell as much as 0.2 percent against a basket of 10 major currencies, erasing earlier gains, as yields eased on Treasury 10-year notes. Yesterday, the dollar slumped 0.9 percent, the most since Sept. 18, 2013, while gold climbed 1.2 percent, the biggest gain in two […]
Hedge funds cut bullish bets on Brent crude to the lowest level in three years amid speculation that Saudi Arabia may refrain from paring output to tackle global oversupply. Speculative bets that prices will rise, in futures and options combined, outnumbered short positions by 36,704 lots in the week to Sept. 30, the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange said today in its weekly Commitments of Traders report. […]
IMF FORECAST: SELECTED MENA ECONOMIES Note: Data for some countries are based on fiscal years. 1Movements in consumer prices are shown as annual averages. 2Percent of GDP. 3Percent. 4Includes Bahrain, Libya, Oman, and Yemen. 5Includes Djibouti and Mauritania. Excludes Syria because of the uncertain political situation. IMF The International Monetary Fund has revised its 2015 economic growth projection downward for the Middle East and North Africa by […]
Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid last year referred to Israeli expats in Berlin as willing to throw Israel “in the garbage” for a cheaper cost of living. Bloomberg News Back in 2011, rising dairy prices sparked a cottage cheese protest in Israel. Now there’s a pudding protest. The first campaign, which called for a consumer boycott of dairy goods, eventually helped bring hundreds of thousands of middle […]
By S. Sethuraman The world economy is yet to make a full exit of the 2008 financial crisis and its recessionary aftermath, so that growth prospects for 2014, the sixth year, have had to be revised down, with the disappointing and uneven recovery, mainly among advanced nations. And geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, with limited impact so far, may hold greater risks […]
IMF’s Christine Lagarde says the fund is already talking with Egyptian officials about its economic outlook and value-added tax policy. Reuters The International Monetary Fund may soon take a thorough look at Egypt’s economy for the first time since its revolution in 2011, potentially paving the way for greater cooperation on President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s reform agenda and renewing talks about long-delayed IMF financing. The IMF […]
|TAP Special| The oil market scene is turning murky, with indications of a price war developing among major producers to defend their market shares. Crude futures tumbled to a 17-month low on signs that global supply is outstripping demand and by all indications, crude oil is poised to extend the biggest slump in more than two years. To make things worse, Saudi Arabia is said to be […]
Dragon Oil (DGO) proposed a 492 million-pound ($789 million) cash offer for Petroceltic International Plc (PCI) to add exploration and output in North Africa and Kurdistan. Dragon Oil, backed by Dubai’s state oil company and with production in Turkmenistan, is in talks on a 230 pence-a-share offer, a 29 percent premium to the last closing price, Dublin-based Petroceltic said today in a statement. The target’s board is prepared to recommend the […]
Discord at OPEC is turning into a price war, loosening the cartel’s grip on the oil market and exacerbating a recent steep selloff. Fissures have widened as Mideast turmoil frays political alliances and producers vie for customers amid a flood of oil from the U.S. and slowing growth in Asia. “No one is telling anyone what they are up to,” one Gulf oil official said. Saudi Arabia […]
| By TAP Staff| A mismatch between buyer and seller expectations is attributed to be one of the main reasons for the signs 0f Dubai property market levelling off, according to analysts. The “over-exuberance” seen in recent months is clearly losing steam and this by itself should ensure that the market does not head towards the traditional crash. The annual price growth in the Dubai property market […]
UAE. A working paper by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for the countries of the GCC to create a dynamic non-oil tradable sector to support sustainable growth. The paper ‘Soaring of the Gulf Falcons: Diversification in the GCC Oil Exporters in Seven Propositions’, authored by Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov, says this strategy should be implemented right away, even for the richest GCC countries. Charles […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Jadwa Investment, the Saudi asset manager focused on Sharia’ah compliant mutual and private equity funds, has just issued its Quarterly Global Oil Market Update (Q3 2014). Summary of the report · The combination of accelerating US supply, weaker than expected global demand, stabilization in geopolitics, and an appreciation of the dollar, led to oil prices dropping by 7.3 percent in Q3 2014, to an average of […]
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA October 3, 2014 The Islamic State has released another video of a beheading — this one of a middle-aged British aid worker, Alan Henning, who was abducted last year from the ambulance he had driven into Syria to offer lifesaving help. As in the previous three execution videos circulated by the extremist group, the victim is shown kneeling in a rocky, desert landscape and is […]
By JEFFREY MARCUS October 3, 2014 After fighters from the Islamic State militant group attacked her village in northern Iraq in August, an adolescent Yazidi girl was abducted, raped several times by different men and then sold in a public market as a sex slave. The episode is one chilling example from a United Nations report released Thursday that details a litany of atrocities committed by Islamic State militants […]
By JEFFREY MARCUS October 3, 2014 After fighters from the Islamic State militant group attacked her village in northern Iraq in August, an adolescent Yazidi girl was abducted, raped several times by different men and then sold in a public market as a sex slave. The episode is one chilling example from a United Nations report released Thursday that details a litany of atrocities committed by Islamic State militants […]
ABU DHABI // Concerns about the UAE’s food security should not be believed, according to the chief executive of a food retail company. Wisal Ahmed, who heads the Alam Group, which owns the eponymous supermarkets, said the country had sufficient resources to take care of any unforeseen circumstances, whether man-made or natural. A UK-based research centre, Chatham House, published a report in November last year in which […]
The planned merger of the United Arab Emirates’ two main stock exchanges, home to the second-best performing share gauge in the world, will take more time to complete, according to a Dubai government official. “It’s still on the table,” Mohammed Al Shaibani, chief executive officer of Investment Corp. of Dubai, the emirate’s main state-owned holding company, said in an interview today at a Dubai conference. “We were […]
DUBAI // The fifth Big Boys Toys arrived in Dubai yesterday, featuring 80 of the fastest and most luxurious products from makers across the globe. From one of the smallest drones to the world’s most expensive bicycle, and with extreme buggies and electronic motorcycles thrown in, there was plenty to keep petrolheads and gadget geeks happy. Hundreds arrived to see what the 65 exhibitors at the three-day […]
If you need to handle massive amounts of computational data faster than you are now, IBM has rolled out new systems just for you. Big Blue’s Power8 portfolio now offers systems that claim to deal with data at nearly 20 percent better price for performance metrics than comparable Intel Xeon v3 processor-based systems. To be sure, IBM is pushing toward the big data computational brink in response […]
Nasser Al Sayer, chairman of NBK NBK to sell IBQ stake to Qatari investors for $538m KUWAIT, 1 days ago National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has agreed to sell its 30 per cent stake in its Qatari associate, International Bank of Qatar (IBQ), to Qatari investors in a transaction worth $538 million (KD155 million), at a $87 million profit. Nasser Al Sayer, chairman, highlighted that this transaction […]
A trading screen on the floor of Dubai Financial Market shows the bid and offer levels for Emaar Malls Group shares. Asa Fitch for The Wall Street Journal Shares of Emaar Malls Group started trading on the Dubai Financial Market on Thursday, marking the first significant new share sale in Dubai since the global financial crisis. Emaar Malls isn’t a big deal globally. But traders here say […]
