INTERNATIONAL. What would your ideal robot be like? One that can change nappies and tell bedtime stories to your child? Perhaps you’d prefer a butler that can polish silver and mix the perfect cocktail? Or maybe you’d prefer a companion that just happened to be a robot? Certainly, some see robots as a hypothetical future replacement for human carers. But a question roboticists are asking is: how […]
By Krishna N. Das and Karen Lema | MANILA MANILA Bangladesh’s central bank has said it is withholding findings of investigations into the cyber theft of $81 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to avoid tipping off the “foreign perpetrators” of the hack. Bangladesh Bank lawyer Ajmalul Hossain was responding to comments by Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines […]
|Arabian Post Special| Sale of gold jewellery for cash is emerging as one of the major sources of gold supply and is accounting for almost a third of total supplies to the market this year. According to the World Gold Council, the high price level of gold in recent times has taken its toll on the jewellery sector and conversely recycling has sparked into life. Jewellery consumers […]
Humans have evolved a disproportionately large brain as a result of sizing each other up in large cooperative social groups, researchers have proposed. A team led by computer scientists at Cardiff University suggest that the challenge of judging a person’s relative standing and deciding whether or not to cooperate with them has promoted the rapid expansion of human brain size over the last 2 million years. In […]
INTERNATIONAL. The future for many young people across the Middle East and North Africa looks bleak. The World Bank records that 54% of the working age population in the Middle East and North Africa is unemployed with little prospect of any positive immediate change. An average of 28.7% of 15 to 24-year-olds in the Middle East and 30.6% of those in North Africa are unemployed according to […]
BAGHDAD — If there were one safe place in Iraq, it should be a hospital nursery, locked down for the night with dozens of babies nestled inside. But here, not even that is a given. When a fire started late Tuesday night in the maternity wing of one of Baghdad’s main hospitals, it quickly engulfed the babies’ room. And then, in another Iraqi tragedy in a horrifying […]
A solar storm that jammed radar and radio communications at the height of the Cold War could have led to a disastrous military conflict if not for the U.S. Air Force’s budding efforts to monitor the sun’s activity, a new study finds. On May 23, 1967, the Air Force prepared aircraft for war, thinking the nation’s surveillance radars in polar regions were being jammed by the Soviet […]
A man uses a mobile phone in front of an advertisement board bearing the image of Pokemon Go at an electronic shop in Tokyo, Japan, July 27, 2016. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo SAN FRANCISCO Top video game companies, caught off-guard by the runaway success of Pokemon Go, are wrestling with how to play catch-up to the augmented reality app that has become a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly a dozen […]
UAE. The limited stock of affordable options in Dubai has caused for the neighboring emirates to act like satellite cities. Around 1.1 million people who work in Dubai are residents of another emirate (30% of the active population), as they try to take advantage of the cheaper rates. Rates in other emirates such as Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, and Ajman are 30-40% cheaper than the affordable options […]
A general view of a Wal-Mart store in Mexico City, April 24, 2012. Reuters/Edgard Garrido/Files Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), vying to better challenge Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), will pay about $3 billion for internet retailer Jet.com and its innovative pricing software in the largest-ever deal for an e-commerce startup. The deal disclosed on Monday follows a five-year e-commerce acquisition spree in which Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest traditional retailer, […]
ABU DHABI // A pilot scheme to allow Filipinos working overseas to apply for an exit clearance each time they return home on holiday is to begin next month, officials announced on Monday. Those returning to the same employer and job site and listed on the electronic data base of the Philippine overseas employment administration (Poea) will no longer be required to secure an overseas employment certificate, […]
YANGJU, South Korea — Surrounded by salvaged used-cars parts bound for Syria, Ahmad Khalifa has worked 12 hours a day for three years in one country that does not really want him while longing for another that war has destroyed. In junkyards in South Korean towns like Yangju, north of Seoul, there are hundreds of young Syrian men like Mr. Khalifa, who often worked, ate and slept […]
A security guard stands guard outside a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in Paranaque city, Metro Manila, Philippines August 2, 2016. Reuters/Erik De Castro MANILA A Bangladesh central bank team visiting Manila to recover $81 million stolen from its account in New York said it was close to getting back $15 million of the loot frozen by the Philippines, but first has to prove ownership […]
The Chicago Beach Hotel, Hard Rock Café and Jumeirah TV Tower are famous Dubai landmarks that disappeared years ago. Next to be added to the list: the Ramada Dubai. The hotel is another link to an old Dubai receding into memory at a rapid rate. When the four-star Ramada opened in Bur Dubai in 1983, it was mostly surrounded by desert. Today, more than three decades on, […]
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested that oil prices have probably bottomed out at about $40 per barrel after tumbling more than 20 percent in the past two months into a bear market. “It’s hard for me to imagine it going very much lower, but it could,” he said Wednesday, according to the transcript of a conference call organized by Rock Creek Group, an investment advisory […]
BREMEN, Germany — Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria. He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German […]
INTERNATIONAL. New research from Long Finance, sponsored by PwC and conducted by Z/Yen, shows the wholesale insurance* market is enthusiastic about implementing blockchain solutions**. The report is based on interviews with brokers, insurers, reinsurers, regulators and trade bodies from across the global wholesale insurance market. As well as cost reduction and improved efficiency, blockchain could be a transformative technology changing the way the industry operates, enabling revenue […]
SolarCity Corp (SCTY.O) agreed to Tesla Motors Inc’s (TSLA.O) $2.6 billion offer to buy the solar panel installer, the companies said on Monday, clearing one obstacle in the way of Elon Musk’s ambitious plans for a carbon-free energy and transportation company. Tesla’s offer represented about half of SolarCity’s value a year ago, a tumble reflecting the solar company’s slowing growth, complex financial structure and the increased scrutiny […]
ABU DHABI // Expatriates will have to pay their traffic fines before they can leave the country for business or holidays, under a plan being considered. The idea has been put forward by the Federal Traffic Council and, if approved, expats will be told to pay their fines at airports and land borders or miss their trip. Road-safety experts say the move could make motorists think twice […]
DUBAI // Two Russians kidnapped a Ukrainian tourist after offering her a lift home before assaulting her and stealing her passport. The men, aged 30 and 34, were convicted of kidnap, physical assault and robbery by Dubai Criminal Court and jailed for two years each. On January 13 this year one of the men approached the woman in Bur Dubai and asked if she knew any good […]
INTERNATIONAL. Despite significantly increasing investment in compliance and being continuously under the scrutiny of regulators, economic crime in financial services has increased, showing new thinking is needed to make investment in compliance deliver more value and tackle economic crime. The views are published in a new paper by PwC examining how the financial services sector (including Banking & Capital Markets and Insurance) responds to economic crime. Financial […]
SAUDI ARABIA. JLL, the world’s leading real estate investment and advisory firm, today has released its Q2 2016 Riyadh and Jeddah Real Estate Overview reports assessing the latest trends in the office, residential, retail and hotel sectors. With Saudi Vision 2030 pivotal to the diversification and restructuring of the economy in lieu of decreasing oil prices, this report highlights that both Riyadh and Jeddah continue to maintain […]
|Mary-Ann Russon|IBNTimes|The President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has issued a series of new federal laws relating to IT crimes, including a regulation that forbids anyone in the UAE from making use of virtual private networks (VPN) to secure their web traffic from prying eyes. The new law states that anyone who uses a VPN or proxy server can be imprisoned and fined between Dh500,000-Dh2,000,000 ($136,000-$545,000, […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers claimed a historic milestone in the efforts to resolve the largest and most complex financial dispute in the history of the Middle East. AHAB today said it has signed a settlement support agreement with the five Steering Committee members who have been negotiating the terms of settlement since May 2014. This agreement formally commits AHAB and the Steering […]
