By Gavin Jones | ROME ROME Italians vote on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform which will decide the political future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has promised to resign if he loses. Financial markets and Europe’s politicians fear victory for the opposition ‘No’ camp could trigger political instability and renewed turmoil for Italy’s battered banks, pushing the euro zone towards a fresh crisis. Polls […]
On April 7, 14 large blue letters quietly disappeared from the outer walls of an office building in an exclusive neighborhood in northern San Salvador. One by one, the letters came down from the blue and beige stucco walls, leaving behind faint traces of the name of the law firm that had been working there just days before: M-O-S-S-A-C-K-F-O-N-S-E-C-A. Employees of the El Salvador branch of Mossack […]
By Francois Murphy | VIENNA VIENNA Austria will provide a new gauge of the populist wave sweeping Western democracies on Sunday, as the divided country holds a vote that could deliver the first freely-elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two. The knife-edge presidential run-off is all the more dramatic for being a re-run of an election held six months ago – before Britain […]
BEIJING China’s armed forces must be smaller but more capable, and if reforms are not properly carried out the military risks falling behind, affecting its ability to wage war, Chinese state media on Saturday cited President Xi Jinping as saying. Xi unexpectedly announced in September last year that he would cut troop numbers by 300,000, or some 13 percent of the world’s biggest military, currently 2.3-million strong. […]
The commission, if not dead on arrival, quickly ended up on life support. Mr. Stiglitz and another board member, Mark Pieth, a Swiss anticorruption expert, resigned after only one official meeting because the government, they said, would not promise to make their final report public. Continue reading the main story “You can’t have a committee on transparency and not be transparent,” Mr. Stiglitz said. Photo President Juan […]
By Michael Holden | LONDON LONDON Prime Minister Theresa May’s government launches a challenge on Monday against a court ruling that it requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, a decision that could upset Britain’s Brexit plans. If the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom’s highest judicial body, dismisses the government appeal it could derail May’s timetable for triggering Article 50 of the […]
FRANKFURT German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron will explore with its Chinese suitor what can be salvaged of the planned takeover after a U.S. presidential order ruled the deal posed a national security risk, the company said on Saturday. U.S. President Barack Obama blocked China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC) from acquiring Aixtron’s U.S. business, the Treasury Department said on Friday. “The bidder and Aixtron are evaluating […]
Dubai-based port operator DP World has announced the creation of an investment vehicle in partnership with Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), one of North America’s largest pension fund managers. The investment platform totals $3.7 billion, with DP World holding a 55 percent share and CDPQ the remaining 45 percent, the company said in a statement. The platform will invest in ports and terminals globally […]
ABU DHABI // French president Francois Hollande yesterday spoke of the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s message of tolerance during his visit to the museum. “I have come back to this museum because it has the ambition, even within the current circumstances faced by the region, of sending out a message of dialogue, understanding and intelligence,” he said. Mr Hollande was in the capital for the Safeguarding Endangered Cultural […]
In London last month, Arabian Business was treated to a behind-the-scenes explanation of how in March Google’s AlphaGo computer programme thrashed the world’s best player at the ancient board game Go. The match represented a breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) research being undertaken by Google’s DeepMind since the start-up was acquired for a reported $400m in 2014. Go involves two contestants moving black and white stones on […]
It has been a bad week for Conservative Eurosceptics, their worst since their EU referendum victory in June. The sight of Zac Goldsmith, a leading Brexiter, losing his 23,000 majority in a by-election to the pro-European Liberal Democrats capped it. “The result doesn’t change anything,” said a Conservative spokesman, pointing out that Theresa May was still committed to starting Brexit by the end of March 2017, whatever […]
Like Christmas ornaments on Main Streets across America, Wall Street banks’ forecasts for the year ahead keep coming out earlier every year. At least this year analysts have something substantive to sink their intellectual teeth into: the impact of incoming president Donald Trump. The results are fascinating — especially for bonds. The fixed income market has been one of the biggest victims in the “Trumpflation trade” that […]
Dining in the dark Eating without looking first hit the culinary scene in 1999 when a blind man in Switzerland opened Blindekuh in Zurich, the world’s first restaurant where diners ate their meals in the dark. Usually, eating is an act that involves all the senses. When you lose one of the most important ones – sight – the others are heightened, leading to an extraordinary dining […]
Opec’s production cut this week to bolster oil prices may strike many as a throwback to an earlier era, but it hinged on a very modern method of communication: a messaging group between the smartphones of Saudi Arabia’s delegation in Vienna and Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. For a royal priding himself on being a tech savvy moderniser in the kingdom, the use of a popular encrypted messaging service may […]
Successful SMEs set to become part of the supply chain for Qatar Shell and Pearl GTL 03 December 2016 Doha: As part of a nationwide strategy to support Qatari small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Qatar Shell will award contracts for five business opportunities; four will be awarded at a special ceremony on 5th December, and a fifth contract will be signed and announced […]
Photo Residents whose home was destroyed by a fire in the Jewish settlement of Halamish in the West Bank. Credit Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images NATAF, Israel — When Rama’s Kitchen, an earthy and much-loved restaurant in the small Israeli village of Nataf, was burned last week by one of the wildfires that raged in the area, the last civilians who stayed to fight the blaze […]
By Nate Raymond | NEW YORK NEW YORK Airbnb Inc and New York City said on Friday they had resolved a lawsuit brought by the company challenging a law it argued could expose it to significant penalties for advertising short-term apartment rentals. Airbnb filed the suit in October after New York state enacted a law imposing fines of up to $7,500 on hosts who advertise illegal short-term […]
First, write out the numbers one to 100 in 10 rows. Cross out the one. Then circle the two, and cross out all of the multiples of two. Circle the three, and do likewise. Follow those instructions, and you’ve just completed the first three steps of an algorithm, and an incredibly ancient one. Twenty-three centuries ago, Eratosthenes was sat in the great library of Alexandria, using this […]
Spending more time in the great outdoors early in life offers some form of protection against visual problems later in adulthood. Findings of a new study have revealed that additional exposure to sunlight can help ward off nearsightedness later in life. For the new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association – Opthalmology, Katie Williams, from King’s College London, and colleagues involved 371 individuals with […]
Europe’s financial markets are bracing for Italy to reject the government’s constitutional reforms in Sunday’s referendum, with investors warning that an emphatic No vote risks a sharp sell-off in Italian assets. Although there has not been panic ahead of the vote, there are signs of some nerves among money managers and traders whose attention in recent weeks has been dominated by the reflation trade unleashed by Donald […]
Private equity firm Gulf Capital plans to sell some of its investments towards the end of 2017 and early 2018 as market sentiment and the regional economy improve, its chief executive told Reuters. Karim El Solh declined to say which stakes the Abu Dhabi-based company, one of the biggest private equity firms in the region, was considering offloading but said that they would be appealing to global […]
The U.S. Transportation Department said on Friday it granted flying rights to Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA’s (NWC.OL) Irish unit, setting the stage for a new battle among airlines for leisure travelers across the Atlantic. The order finalized a tentative ruling the department made in April and came days after the European Commission formally filed for arbitration over Norwegian’s request, which had languished for three years. U.S. airlines […]
Donald Trump risks opening up a major diplomatic dispute with China before he has even been inaugurated after speaking on the telephone on Friday with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. The call, confirmed by four people, is believed to be the first between a US president or president-elect and a leader of Taiwan since diplomatic relations between the two were cut in 1979. Although it is […]
BUENOS AIRES The Inter-American Commision on Human Rights on Friday called on Argentina to release social activist Milagro Sala, who has been jailed since the beginning of the year in the northwestern province of Jujuy. The commission, part of the Organization of American States (OAS), said Argentina should “give prompt attention” to recommendations from a U.N. body in October that called Sala’s pre-trial detention “unwarranted and arbitrary.” […]
