A Deutsche Bank stake worth 1.75 billion euros has already been placed with an investment vehicle owned and controlled by Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister. Reuters Qatar is again swooping in to help one of Europe’s biggest banks – this time with a twist. Paramount Holdings Services, a vehicle owned by former prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, agreed to put […]
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. […]
King Abdullah has approved a five-year plan worth more than 80 billion riyals ($21.33 billion) to develop Saudi Arabia’s education sector, state news agency SPA reported on Monday. The plan includes building 1,500 nurseries, providing training for about 25,000 teachers and establishing educational centers and other related projects, Education Minister Prince Khaled al-Faisal was cited by SPA as saying. The 80 billion riyals are in addition to […]
Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) will purchase a 25 percent stake in Indonesian Islamic lender Bank Panin Syariah, it said on Monday, as the United Arab Emirates-based bank looks to expand into the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Under the agreement, DIB – the largest Islamic bank in the UAE – will “jointly manage and operate” Bank Panin Syariah along with parent Bank Pan Indonesia, which will remain […]
An overwhelming majority of young Arabs believe Expo 2020 will improve the international image of the Arab world, with 89 per cent agreeing that it will have a positive effect, according to the findings of the 6th Annual ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey. When asked if they thought the UAE’s successful bid to host the Expo 2020 would positively impact the way the international community views the […]
Chief executives in the Middle East are the world’s most upbeat about economic growth next year on hopes that the region will see a period of increased stability following the geo-political turmoil of recent years, says consultancy firm PwC. Of those regional CEOs who say their companies will grow revenues in the next 12 months, 66% are “very confident” compared to the global average of 39%. The […]
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 […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The general in charge of Syria’s air defense has been killed in fighting near Damascus, an opposition monitoring group and Syrian security officials said Sunday. The officer, Lt. Gen. Hussein Ayoub Ishaq, one of the highest-ranking officers to die during the country’s three-year conflict, commanded 60,000 troops in Syria’s air defense forces, said Hisham Jabber, a retired Lebanese Army brigadier general who closely follows […]
WASHINGTON — To those who lost loved ones in the suicide bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in April 1983, it is often called “the forgotten bombing” — overshadowed by an even deadlier attack on a Marine barracks at the Beirut airport six months later. Now, a new book shines a spotlight on the embassy bombing, which killed 63 people, 17 of them American, including […]
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. […]
Qatar Investment Authority is acquiring joint control of a group of luxury hotels in five European cities including the Carlton InterContinental in Cannes and Amsterdam’s Amstel InterContinental. The Qatari sovereign wealth fund’s Katara Hospitality unit is also taking joint control of InterContinental hotels in Frankfurt, Madrid and Rome, according to a notice on the website of the European Commission’s competition authority. The hotels are managed by and […]
Scientists leading the fight against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome say the next critical front will be understanding how the virus behaves in people with milder infections, who may be spreading the illness without being aware they have it. Establishing that may be critical to stopping the spread of MERS, which emerged in the Middle East in 2012 and has so far infected more than 500 patients in […]
The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, or the podcar, may soon become reality in Dubai. In Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, the little driverless cabins already do rounds as one of the first operating system in the world. Futuristic as they may seem, the system could well be feasible in Dubai, too, as a rising population with high mobility rates pushes towards a diversification of the transport […]
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations is under pressure to ratchet up aid to nongovernmental organizations that can operate in the vast sections of Syria under opposition control, as most of the humanitarian relief sponsored by the organization ends up in the western slice of the country held by President Bashar al-Assad. More than 85 percent of food aid and more than 70 percent of medicines went […]
|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” […]
JERUSALEM — President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority met Thursday in London with Israel’s justice minister, Tzipi Livni, the first known face-to-face talks between the two sides since the American-brokered peace negotiations collapsed last month. Ms. Livni, one of Israel’s two chief peace negotiators, and Mr. Abbas had each met separately in London with Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the breakdown of the talks […]
Happier days: Nick Clegg and David Cameron in 2010 agree to form a coalition government Photo: Getty Images Just before the general election, the Conservatives released a party political broadcast warning that a coalition would bring disaster. “Under-the-table deals will be the order of the day,” we were told. The fate awaiting savers was depicted by a hammer smashing a piggy bank. The process of proper government would […]
Dubai’s Emaar Properties said on Thursday that its revenue from villa sales dropped by nearly 17 percent in the first quarter of the year, as it extracted more income from malls and hotels instead. The builder of the world’s tallest tower generated revenue of 256.91 million dirhams ($69.94 million) from sales of villas in the first quarter compared to 308.73 million dirhams in the corresponding period in […]
Stock markets in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar will see relatively large one-off inflows of money at the end of May as funds tracking the MSCI indexes adjust their positions in line with updated benchmarks. MSCI will move stocks from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to its emerging market index from its frontier market benchmark at the end of May, meaning they will be tracked by […]
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 […]
Equity index provider MSCI reclassified equities across a broad spectrum of markets on Wednesday as part of its semi-annual review, adding among others U.S. social networking company Twitter Inc to its world index. It reclassified Qatar and United Arab Emirates to emerging market from frontier-market status as expected. Qatar will have a 0.47 percent weighting in the MSCI Emerging Market index, while UAE will have 0.58 percent. […]
Saudi Arabia reported five more deaths on Wednesday from a mysterious respiratory virus that first appeared there two years ago and has since spread to at least 16 other countries, including the United States. The Saudi Health Ministry said the latest fatalities from infections caused by the virus, known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, brought the total in that country to 157. Saudi Arabia accounts […]
Fighting between soldiers and militants in southern Yemen killed at least 42 people on Wednesday and sent residents fleeing. Homes were destroyed and streets littered with bodies in the town of Azzan in Shabwa Province, witnesses and officials said. The fighting came amid an army offensive against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen’s local branch of the terrorist group. The militants tried to retake the town […]
King Abdullah appointed a son, Prince Turki bin Abdullah, as governor of Riyadh Province on Wednesday, strengthening his branch of the ruling dynasty as it approaches a difficult decision on how to transfer power to the next generation. Another son, Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah, was made governor of Mecca Province months ago. The line of succession does not pass directly from father to son but has moved […]
