By Nichola Saminather and Wayne Cole | SINGAPORE/SYDNEY SINGAPORE/SYDNEY The euro was under the gun on Monday, skidding to a 20-month low after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign following a stinging defeat on constitutional reform that could destabilise the country’s shaky banking system. The single currency, which slumped to as low as $1.0505 EUR= in early Asian trade after opening at around $1.0685, […]
Every morning in the Philippines, a handful of bodies are found littering the streets. Their faces are often covered in black plastic tape. Sometimes there are signs of torture. Usually, they have been shot in the head. Few bother police – they are usually suspected of being responsible. No one, frankly, should be surprised that it is happening. The country’s democratically elected leader, after all, was elected […]
Two days after Donald Trump created a diplomatic dispute with China over Taiwan, the president-elect took to Twitter on Sunday evening to criticise Beijing and defend his decision to speak with the Taiwanese president. China issued a protest on Saturday after Mr Trump spoke on the phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the first such contact with a Taiwanese leader since the US severed diplomatic ties in 1979. Although […]
GENEVA Europe’s trade negotiator blamed China on Sunday for scuppering a global environmental trade deal by submitting impossible late demands at World Trade Organization talks aimed at scrapping import tariffs on exports worth more than $1 trillion. “China came in with their list, bringing in totally new elements of perspective, which was very late in the process,” European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told Reuters. The change of […]
Europe’s mainstream political parties have voiced their relief after Austria voted against a far-right nationalist becoming president in an election that had been seen as the first of two tests of populism on the continent on Sunday. Alexander Van der Bellen, a Green politician who ran as an independent, won 53.3 per cent of the vote while his far-right opponent, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom party, won […]
Meetings held with Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy and Korea Diamond Exchange 04 December 2016 Dubai, UAE: As part of the ongoing efforts of the UAE Kimberley Process Chair (KP Chair), Ahmed Bin Sulayem, to engage countries across the diamond supply chain, he has held meetings with senior government and industry representatives in South Korea. The aim of these discussions was to deliberate ways to bolster […]
Motion capture technology helped researchers at NC State University develop an energy-efficient technique for accurately tracking a user’s physical activity based on data from wearable devices. Credit: Edgar Lobaton Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed an energy-efficient technique for accurately tracking a user’s physical activity based on data from wearable devices. One goal for wearable health technologies is to identify and track physical activity by […]
Motorists heading to Dubai from Sharjah were met with congestion on Mohammed bin Zayed Road until the third bridge and on Shiekh Zayed Road from the World Trade Center roundabout towards the first bridge, according to Dubai Traffic Department. TrafficDXB reported an accident on the E66 Dubai – Al Ain Road near the Mohammed Bin Zayed Road intersection on Dubai which also caused delays. Commuters experienced congestion […]
By Yun Hwan Chae and Nataly Pak | SEOUL SEOUL As protesters march through Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul, the centre stage of huge weekly demonstrations calling for South Korean President Park Geun-hye to step down, nearby restaurants hustle to prepare for a busy night. Many bars and restaurants in the area, home to government offices and near the presidential Blue House, have been doing roaring business […]
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 […]
The UAE and Serbia have announced moves to increase trade links, with a focus on the tourism, agriculture, construction sectors. Ways of expanding economic relations and co-operation in key sectors were at the centre of talks held on Monday by officials from the two countries in Abu Dhabi, news agency WAM reported. Abdullah Al Saleh, Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade and Industry at the UAE Ministry of Economy, […]
In June, speaking at a former steelworks in western Pennsylvania that now processes scrap aluminium, Donald Trump promised a bright future for US steel if he became president. “It will be American steel that will fortify American’s crumbling bridges. It will be American steel that sends our skyscrapers soaring into the sky,” he said. “We are going to put American-produced steel back into the backbone of our […]
03 December 2016 Gulf Navigation announces the initiation of studies for large expansion of its operations in the northern region of the United Arab Emirates consisting of a set of comprehensive maritime activities, (the GNH Northern Project), including ship building, ship repair and offshore platforms, equipment and services, logistics, marine specialized operations and global mobile ship repair and services including a float and during voyage. The eastern […]
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 Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD No food or fuel has reached Mosul in nearly a week and the onset of rain and cold weather threatens a tough winter for more than a million people still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, residents said on Saturday. Iraqi troops waging a six-week-old offensive against the militants controlling Mosul have advanced into eastern city districts, while other forces […]
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. The United States should focus on larger strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region, including expanding trade ties, the defense minister of Singapore said on Saturday, when asked about the controversy sparked by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with the president of Taiwan. Ng Eng Hen said it was not Singapore’s place to comment on Trump’s phone calls, but welcomed comments by his aides […]
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 […]
US technology shares faced one of their worst weeks of 2016 as investors shifted their focus to equities that will benefit from the soaring price of oil and the policies of the Trump administration. The S&P 500 technology index, a measure of large companies in the sector, has declined 3 per cent since Friday last week. The fall represents the steepest drop since late April, when Apple […]
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 […]
Egypt, which has seen its influence wane, is seeking allies and relevance wherever it can find them, even if that means shelving concerns about Iran. Continue reading the main story While Russia’s goal seems to be to expand its influence and pave the way for the international rehabilitation of Mr. Assad’s government, the scrambling of alliances remains in motion and the results unclear. The new relationships are […]
A digital battle is being waged over the huge amount of technical data that will be stored in autonomous vehicles Just like credit cards, smartphones or search engines, autonomous cars will carry a trove of information about their owners as they make driving more comfortable, raising new concerns about privacy. Automakers are engaged in a fierce race to develop the first driverless car, which experts say should […]
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 […]
By Chiekh Sadibou Mane and Thierry Gouegnon | BANJUL BANJUL Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh, who once vowed to rule the tiny West African nation for “a billion years”, said he had accepted his shock election defeat on Friday, 22 years after seizing power in a coup. Voting on Thursday against Jammeh was a rare show of defiance against a leader who has ruled by decree and who […]
