News related to
research

HERMEL, Lebanon — For many months, Shiite communities across Lebanon lived in fear as car bombs tore through their neighborhoods, punishing Hezbollah and its supporters for sending fighters to aid President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war in neighboring Syria. But Hezbollah succeeded on the Syrian battlefield in chasing rebels from the border towns where many of the attacks originated. The bombings have since stopped, leaving Lebanon’s […]

BP’s chief economist is jumping ship to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to establish and run a global research team for the sovereign wealth fund. Christof Ruhl is joining the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to establish and run a global research team. Bloomberg News Christof Ruhl, a German academic who specializes in energy economics and has been with BP since 2005, will start at ADIA in July, […]

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, who played a key role in Glencore International Plc’s takeover of Xstrata Plc, is returning to dealmaking a year after his ouster as prime minister and head of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Sheikh Hamad is injecting 1.75 billion euros ($2.4 billion) into Deutsche Bank AG through his Paramount Holdings Services Ltd. investment vehicle, the Frankfurt-based bank said May 18. […]

Dubai’s index makes its one-day decline in eight months on Monday and technical indicators suggest it will fall further, while most other Middle East markets also retreated. Dubai fell 5.5 percent to 4,856 points, its lowest close in a month and biggest one-day loss since Aug. 27. “I think we’ll see more selling – the key is that Dubai broke and then closed below 5,000 points,” said […]

Iran appeared to take a harder line in its nuclear dispute with world powers on Sunday by dismissing as “ridiculous” one idea that could allay Western concerns about a planned atomic research reactor. The fate of the heavy-water reactor at Arak, which has not yet been completed, is one of several thorny issues in talks between Iran and six powers aimed at reaching a long-term deal on […]

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The strike had entered its second day when construction workers at Labor Camp 42 got word that their bosses from the BK Gulf corporation had come to negotiate. Mohammed Amir Waheed Sirkar, an electrician from Bangladesh, scrambled down the stairs to meet them. But when he got to the courtyard, he saw the truth: It wasn’t the bosses who had come. […]

|By TAP Staff| Sunil John, founder and CEO of ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, the region’s leading public relations consultancy, has been awarded the “SABRE Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement”, the first person from the Middle East to be honoured with this prestigious global award. The SABRE Awards, which are presented by The Holmes Group, a leading global public relations publishing organisation, acknowledged John’s position at the “forefront of change” […]

Advertisements

Qatar is pledging labor-law reform in response to what critics have called systemic exploitation that traps thousands of foreign workers in low-wage jobs and squalid living conditions. Construction workers at a building site in Doha, Qatar Getty Images The reforms proposed Wednesday include an abolition of the so-called kafala sponsorship system and removing the need for a visa to exit the country. They come as Qatar prepares […]

Samsung Electronics Co Chairman Lee Kun Hee, who leads Asia’s biggest technology company and helps generate about a quarter of South Korea’s economic output, remains in stable condition after emergency surgery following a heart attack. Lee, 72, is at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul after being resuscitated following an acute myocardial infarction, Rhee So Eui, a spokeswoman for Samsung Group, said in an e-mailed statement. Lee, who […]

If you are looking for an explanation as to why crude oil prices in Asia aren’t lower, then the blame rests squarely with Chinese stockpiling.  China’s record imports of 6.78 million barrels per day (bpd) in April give the impression that oil demand is roaring ahead, but the reality is that almost half a million bpd is being put into storage tanks. The authorities don’t officially disclose […]

Iran’s Supreme Leader described as “stupid and idiotic” Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development, striking a defiant tone ahead of a fresh round of nuclear talks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to mass produce missiles and said the nuclear negotiations were not the place to discuss Tehran’s defense program or to solve the problem of sanctions damaging the Iranian economy. […]

With Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. filing to go public, the biggest winner won’t be founder Jack Ma or his fellow executives or even venture capital backers like Silver Lake Management LLC. It’ll be Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Fourteen years ago, Son’s SoftBank Corp.  started with a $20 million bet on a then-unknown Web portal connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers. That site evolved into China’s biggest Internet shopping […]

|By TAP Staff|Traditionally renowned for its love of fragrances, the Middle East region continues to be one of the key focus areas for international fragrance brands. With research from leading analysts Euromonitor International indicating that per capita consumption of premium fragrances in key markets such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE overshadows that of markets such as the US and the UK, it’s not surprising that the […]

One year into the delivery of Dubai’s ‘Tourism Vision for 2020,’ significant first steps have been taken to achieve the target of attracting 20 million annual visitors by 2020, leading the emirate’s tourism authority to state a new ambition: for Dubai to become the world’s most visited city. If a growth rate similar to that achieved in 2013 is maintained – a 10.6 percent year-on-year increase equating […]

|Andy Greenberg| Just as antivirus researchers congratulated Apple for keeping the iPhone free of nasty apps five full years after its release, spammers seem to have finally tarnished that spotless record. Antivirus researchers at Kaspersky say they’ve spotted an app known as “Find and Call” in both the iPhone App Store and Google’s Play market that secretly uploads all of a user’s contacts to a remote server and then sends […]

|By Nicole Blackmore| Is Dubai the new Spain? Britons are abandoning their place in the Spanish sun for countries with better work opportunities and more stable house prices – and the Middle East is one of several areas attracting growing numbers of emigrants. While Dubai may not be a popular retirement option given the high cost of living, young professionals are moving there in droves. NatWest’s latest […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Trying to become even bigger — and make more money — Facebook will allow users to reveal a little less. The social network announced on Wednesday that when its 1.3 billion users log in to other websites or mobile apps through their Facebook identities, they will be able to limit what they reveal to the site or app to just their email addresses and public […]

With its $2 billion purchase of Oculus Rift, Facebook has made its second bold acquisition of a rising technology star, little more than a month after its $19 billion mega deal with WhatsApp. This time it’s not the price tag surprising everyone, but the strategy. Does Mark Zuckerberg envision a future where strapping a headset to our faces becomes the default route to going on Facebook? It’s left many scratching their heads. Zuckerberg, […]

The U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors Co, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December, according to a government report released on Wednesday. The $11.2 billion loss includes a write-off in March of the government’s remaining $826 million investment in “old” GM, the quarterly report by a Treasury watchdog said. The […]

Twitter Inc on Tuesday reported 255 million monthly active users, up 5.8 percent from the previous quarter but not enough to satisfy investors increasingly concerned about its struggle to gain a mass following. Twitter’s stock fell nearly 10 percent after hours, to below its post-initial public offering low of $38.80 on November 25. The San Francisco-based company also said viewers refreshed their “timelines” – Twitter’s equivalent of […]

A sense of euphoria can be felt as you walk onto the Dubai Financial Market’s (DFM) trading floor. Excited investors sit huddled at tables, eyes fixed on trading screens. Occasionally the floor erupts in applause as certain stocks shoot up to target levels. A local investor in his fifties who gives his name as Abu Hany, dressed in the traditional white robes of the Gulf, describes himself […]

Reuters | Jim Finkle – BOSTON, April 27 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is rushing to fix a bug in its widely used Internet Explorer web browser after a computer security firm disclosed the flaw over the weekend, saying hackers have already exploited it in attacks on some U.S. companies. PCs running Windows XP will not receive any updates fixing that bug when they are released, however, because Microsoft […]

Investors are switching their attention back to developing countries’ debt after flirting with U.S. and European junk bonds during a year of turbulence in emerging markets. A long sell-off in anticipation of U.S. stimulus withdrawal meant emerging sovereign debt posted negative returns last year but the sector has enjoyed one of its best starts to a year in a decade in 2014, investors say, with returns of […]

While World Expo 2020 will be associated with some of the massive multibillion dollar real estate and hospitality projects, Smart City is determined to design and implement cutting edge technology solutions to plan and manage the day to day activities of the Emirate. Hence, it is significant that massive growth and development initiative in Dubai should be backed with a philosophy of sustainability, which can ensure wellbeing […]

VISHNU RAJA
RYO YAMADA
HITORI GOTOH
IKUYO KITA