ABU DHABI / Emirates Business A major retail development on Al Reem Island has been granted detailed approval by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) in Q4 2015. The 27 projects and master plans approved in Q4 brings the total number awarded detailed approval in 2015 to 101, with a gross floor area (GFA) of 13.58 million meter-square — ...

Dubai / Emirates Business The Annual Dealer Meet organised by Total Marketing Middle East (TMME) — a subsidiary of Total — saw more than 150 dealers from across the UAE participating. The meet began with a warm welcome message from David Kalife, the Managing Director of TMME, in which he reiterated Total’s trust in its partners and thanked them for ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market suffered a 28.7 percent year-on-year slump in shipments in the final quarter of 2015, according to the latest insights from global technology research and consulting firm International Data Corporation (IDC). Shipments fell for the third consecutive quarter in Q4 2015, with the decline representing the steepest ever recorded ...

Brussels / AFP Belgium has charged two new suspects over last month’s deadly Brussels airport and metro attacks, as police pursue the investigation “night and day”, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday. A statement said Smail F and Ibrahim F were “charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempts to commit terrorist murders, ...

Brussels / AFP The European Union on Tuesday renewed sanctions against Iran over its human rights record, even as it relaxes damaging measures imposed on Tehran to force it to rein in its disputed nuclear programme. “The Council (of member states) decided to extend until April 13, 2017 its restrictive measures against 82 people and one entity in view of ...

Vienna / AFP Austria sparked consternation in Rome on Tuesday with preliminary construction work at the Brenner pass in the Alps to prepare for a possible new influx of migrants coming north from Italy. A police spokesman in Tyrol state said that work started on Tuesday on concrete foundations for a planned control area in a layby off the northbound ...

TAIPEI / AP Armed Kenyan guards used tear gas to dislodge a group of Taiwanese citizens from a detention center and force them to board a flight to China, a top Taiwanese diplomat said on Tuesday, amid a complicated diplomatic tussle that threatens to cause further rifts between Taipei and Beijing. Director General of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of West ...

Brasília / AFP Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s fate rested on Tuesday on the loyalties of the last 100 or so congressional deputies yet to declare how they will vote in a looming impeachment showdown. In a ruthless and complex contest, supporters and opponents of Brazil’s first female president raced to amass the magic number that will make history when the ...

Kiev / AFP Ukraine’s parliament was weighing on Tuesday whether to approve the resignation of embattled Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk as furious backroom talks raged about the makeup of a new pro-EU government. The volatile political situation in the former Soviet republic took a new twist when the man tipped to replace Yatsenyuk—condemned by President Petro Poroshenko for losing the ...

LONDON / Reuters British online fashion retailer ASOS met forecasts with an 18 percent rise in first-half profit and said it was on track to achieve its sales and margin guidance for the full year. Established in 2000 for fashion-conscious twenty somethings, ASOS was an early ecommerce success story, but is seeing growing competition from the likes of Germany’s Zalando ...