MARRAKESH / WAM Solidarity and equality between men and women is a fundamental right within the UAE, and the nation’s leadership has been highly dedicated to the advancement of gender equality to achieve the highly anticipated national agenda, said Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi, President of Zayed University (ZU). Al Qasimi’s remarks came during her two-day panel discussion on ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May arrived in China seeking to balance her desire to build a powerful post-Brexit trade relationship with a clutch of political concerns. At the start of a three-day trade mission to the country, May said she would raise the sensitive topics of China’s human rights record and Hong Kong democracy in talks with President Xi ...

Bloomberg Two years into his rule, Tanzanian President John Magufuli has some unexpected new fans: his political opponents. His chief rival in the 2015 vote, Edward Lowassa, has praised his reforms and urged others to support them. Another challenger became one of his regional commissioners, while two opposition lawmakers recently defected to the ruling party and will run as candidates ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters The Taliban are openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, fully controlling 4 percent of the country and demonstrating an open physical presence in another 66 percent, according to a BBC study published. The BBC estimate, which it said was based on conversations with more than 1,200 individual local sources in all districts of the South ...

Bloomberg Mali will deploy additional troops to its central region in a bid to halt an escalation of extremist attacks as pressure mounts to stabilise the West African nation before elections later this year. “Our biggest concern is the security of central Mali,” Security Minister Salif Traore said in an interview in the capital, Bamako. “We are under time constraints ...

Bloomberg With diminished odds that Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will run for the presidency after an appeals court upheld his corruption conviction, a host of left-wing candidates are already trying to move in on his patch. At least half a dozen leftist parties with representatives in Congress are ready to jump into the race as Lula’s candidacy looks ...

Bloomberg The global stock declines that have shaped the week showed signs of easing in the US, with all three major equity indices trading higher. The dollar slump deepened in the wake of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. The S&P 500 Index gained for the first time in three days as companies including Xerox Corp., Anthem Inc., ...

Reuters Cement shares lifted Saudi Arabia’s stock index on Wednesday while other big bourses in the region were weak, with real estate shares pulling down Dubai. The Saudi index rose 0.3 percent as 13 of the 14 cement stocks climbed in unusually heavy trade. Jouf Cement was up 5.4 percent and Tabuk Cement jumped its 10 percent daily limit. The ...

Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. is on a roll. The maker of smartphones, screens and consumer electronics reported record quarterly profit and disclosed numbers showing that it’s chip business pulls in more revenue than Intel Corp. The Suwon, South Korea-based company took the opportunity to unveil a 50-to-1 stock split, which sent its shares surging. The earnings report for the last ...

Bloomberg Ukraine is countering a slump in wheat sales to India by selling record amounts to Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Shipments to India, the biggest market for Ukrainian wheat in 2016-17, have sunk so far this year as a bounceback in the Asian country’s production helped it become more self-reliant again. “This is a real change,” said Sergey Feofilov, ...