SAUDI ARABIA. The recent Ministerial Resolution on the Saudisation of the sale and repair of mobile phones, together with the earlier resolutions on the retail of female clothing, indicate a growing approach by the Ministry of Labour to require the complete Saudisation of certain activities within the retail sector. In this article we examine the existing requirements and also the proposal for a weighted Nitiqat. Sale and […]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan officially confirmed the death of the former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour for the first time on Thursday, five days after the American drone strike that killed him on Pakistani soil, raising diplomatic tensions. The official announcement came from Sartaj Aziz, the chief foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, at a news conference in Islamabad. “All indicators confirm that the […]
Online payment service PayPal is abandoning the apps that it created for Microsoft Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Amazon Fire OS. The company announced the move this week on its blog. The news paves the way for PayPal to steer users toward the latest versions of its app for Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android. Those two platforms have come to dominate the mobile payment space. The last day […]
|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, 2016 will go down in German political and economic history as a significant game changer, on the scale of 1989 (fall of the Berlin Wall), 1990 (reunification) and 1999 (the Euro), even 1945 (launch of Deutschemark), 1945 (Third Reich surrenders), 1943 (Stalingrad) and 1933 (Hitler elected). Chancellor Merkel, renamed Mutti Multi kulti, allowed a million migrants to settle in Germany. The far right […]
A pedestrian walks past an Apple iPhone 6 advertisement at an electronics store in Mumbai, India, July 24, 2015. Reuters/Shailesh Andrade/File Photo NEW DELHI India has said Apple Inc must meet a rule obliging foreign retailers to sell at least 30 percent locally-sourced goods if it wishes to open stores in the country, a senior government official told Reuters. Apple is hoping to expand its retail presence […]
Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe’s existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns […]
The study found that 29 per cent of Emiratis are keen to use their Emirates ID cards to make payments, making them the highest demographic group in the GCC to want to do so. Dubai: Seventy seven per cent of residents across the GCC would opt for alternatives to cash and card payments, should they be available in their country, according to a study commissioned […]
A 3D printed Apple logo is seen in front of a displayed cyber code in this illustration taken February 26, 2016. Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration SAN FRANCISCO Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which has resisted pressure from U.S. law enforcement to unlock encrypted iPhones, this month rehired a top expert in practical cryptography to bring more powerful security features to a wide range of consumer products. Jon Callas, who co-founded several […]
In addition to protecting your iPhone, the new uniVerse Case System from Otterbox also promises to let you expand its battery life, improve its sound quality, and add other functions. The new system, designed for the Apple iPhone 6 and 6s and the iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus, allows a user to attach an additional battery, camera lens, or other peripheral to a phone, while still […]
Tech giant Microsoft said today that it has awarded grants to entrepreneurs who want to expand Internet access across the world, especially in less prosperous areas that lack affordable access. The company’s Affordable Access Initiative awards grants to startup companies that are developing new technologies to improve Internet access to communities. The goal of the initiative is to “democratize access to the Internet through grants, commercial partnerships, […]
Solar Impulse has been delayed as team engineers check for possible damage to the hybrid plane. The solar-powered plane was expected to take off on Tuesday morning for Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania but was delayed as the inflatable hanger used to store the plane began deflating. Parts of the hanger touched the plane during the 2.5 minutes it took to reboot the system. The solar panels are […]
Cardiomyopathy, or a deterioration of the ability of the heart muscle to contract, generally leads to progressive heart failure. It is frequently inherited, and, because approximately 40% of children born with it are likely to die within five years of diagnosis, being able to identify its genetic basis is particularly important. Now, an international team of researchers has identified a new disease gene which is implicated in […]
MANILA More than three months have passed since $81 million was stolen in a brazen cyber-heist from Bangladesh’s central bank and sent to Manila – yet authorities in the Philippines appear no closer to nabbing those who laundered most of the money through a bank and casinos here. Nobody has been arrested, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) – the nation’s equivalent of the FBI – has […]
ABU DHABI // Hospitals in Abu Dhabi that provide inadequate treatment or fail to meet quality targets will have their funding cut. The rules will affect all 41 public and private hospitals in the emirate. Funding cuts will be applied directly to public hospitals, and may be applied to private hospitals by reducing their grants or holding their payments from health insurers. “We want to create a […]
England’s Ben Stokes holds his knee before going off injured during day two of the first Test at Headingley. Leeds: England all-rounder Ben Stokes is facing several weeks on the sidelines after being ruled out of the second Test against Sri Lanka with a knee injury. Stokes has been replaced in England’s 12-man squad by Warwickshire all-rounder Chris Woakes. […]
Noting that “terrorism is one of the truly urgent issues of our time,” Microsoft recently said it is taking several steps to identify and combat extremist content online. Those measures include a change in its terms of use to prohibit the posting of terrorist content on Microsoft consumer services like Xbox Live, OneDrive, Skype and Outlook, according to a blog post on Friday. The company defines such […]
YISHUV HADAAT, West Bank — With shoulder-length hair tumbling from beneath his knit skullcap, Hanamel Dorfman, a radical young Israeli settler, explains matter-of-factly on camera how hilltop settlement outposts like his own will continue to proliferate across the West Bank. From there, he says bluntly, Israelis will cross the Jordan River and start building on the other side. Reminded that beyond the river there is another sovereign […]
UAE. Cyber-crime is not a new phenomenon, but it’s hitting the headlines as never before. According to PwC Middle East’s latest report, there is a renewed willingness among organizations to invest in security, with many organizations incorporating strategic initiatives to improve security and reduce risks. PwC Middle East’s Global State of Information Security survey 2016 looks at how the survey results from over 300 Middle East companies […]
ABU DHABI // The Armed Forces team that reached the summit of Mount Everest this week has arrived back safely at base camp. The 13-strong group of soldiers raised the UAE flag on top of the world’s highest mountain on Thursday morning, having received a message of goodwill from Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the previous night. Ahead of the final […]
Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Al Nahda was able to survive in Tunisia despite initial conflict with secularists Tunisian President Beji Qaid Al Sebsi (right) and Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Al Nahda wave to the audience during an Al Nahda congress in Tunis on May 20. Tunis: Tunisia’s Islamist party Al Nahda will separate its political and religious work, its chief said on Friday, moving […]
The SWIFT logo is pictured in this photo illustration taken April 26, 2016. Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Illustration/File Photo LONDON/CHICAGO Shortly after 7 p.m. on January 12, 2015, a message from a secure computer terminal at Banco del Austro (BDA) in Ecuador instructed San Francisco-based Wells Fargo to transfer money to bank accounts in Hong Kong. Wells Fargo complied. Over 10 days, Wells approved a total of at least 12 […]
At its WWDC developer conference in San Francisco next month, Apple is reportedly planning to unveil an OS X update that would let iPhone owners unlock their Macs using the Touch ID feature on their phones. While not identifying its sources, an article published yesterday by MacRumors said Apple engineers were working on a Bluetooth-enabled auto unlock feature that might be included in OS X 10.12, the […]
A new developer portal and Android SDK (software developer kit) for SoftBank’s robot platform are aimed at convincing developers to build apps for the Pepper humanoid robot. Although the platform was first announced two years ago, the decision to open it up to Android apps should help greatly expand the base of app developers working on Pepper programs. “By making Pepper compatible with Android, Android application developers […]
To help Skype continue making inroads into the enterprise, Microsoft has launched Skype for Business SDK (software developer kit). The new product is a set of tools that lets iOS and Android developers integrate Skype’s messaging, audio and voice capabilities into their mobile applications. The goal of Microsoft’s Skype for Business SDK is to allow Skype to power the communications experience inside applications, so developers can focus […]
