DUBAI / WAM Etihad Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE’s US$11 billion national rail network, hosted the 7th meeting of the GCC Railway Expert Working Group in a three-day event held in the UAE capital from May 10-12. The meeting brought together members of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), railway ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM A team of Emirati women from the UAE Armed Forces has come home after climbing to Mount Everest base camp in the Khumbu valley, 5,364 metres above sea level in the Himalayas in Nepal. The team, which consisted of twelve climbers from the UAE Armed Forces, including nine female military climbers, two trainers and a ...

  Shanghai / AFP China’s key economic indicators moderated in April from the previous month, official figures showed on Saturday, raising worries over the strength of a rebound in the world’s second-largest economy. Industrial output rose 6.0 percent year-on-year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said, down from a 6.8 percent jump in March. Economists had estimated a 6.5 ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to postpone a sales tax hike a second time, judging that boosting the tariff could hurt the world’s third-largest economy, a newspaper said on Saturday. Abe has already informed senior government officials he plans delay the consumption tax hike, scheduled for next April; that would raise levy from eight to ...

  Jakarta / WAM Bank Indonesia reported the country’s current account deficit narrowed to US$4.7 billion or 2.1 percent of its gross domestic products (GDP) in the first quarter of this year from US$5.1 billion or 2.4 percent of the GDP in the previous three months period. The central bank attributed the improvement in current account performance to growing surplus ...

  Washington / AFP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that it is considering new financial support for the Afghanistan government as the country’s economy continues to stumble. The IMF lauded the country’s gains under a just-concluded IMF-monitored program to close vulnerabilities with reforms in the government budget process and in the financial sector. “Despite difficult circumstances, the authorities implemented ...

  KUALA LUMPUR / WAM The 4.2 per cent annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth recorded for the first quarter (1Q16) as announced by Bank Negara Malaysia exceeded the forecast of economists. It came in higher than the consensus estimate of 4.0 per cent, said Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd Chief Economist Dr Mohammed Afzanizam Abdul Rashid. He commented that the ...

  Kolkata / Bloomberg UCO Bank, an Indian state-owned lender with 629 deliberate defaulters, reported the highest bad loan ratio among banks in the South Asian nation. Shares fell the most in three months. Provisions for soured debt at the Kolkata-based company more than doubled to about 23 billion rupees ($344 million) in the three months through March from a ...

  Beirut / AFP Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday blamed extremists for killing its top military commander in Syria and vowed to keep fighting to defend President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. The movement has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Mustafa Badreddine had led its intervention in support of Assad’s forces, which are also backed by Russia and ...

  NEW DELHI / AP A court in India’s capital ruled Saturday that there’s enough evidence in a stalking and sexual harassment case for former UN climate chief Rajendra Pachauri to stand trial. Judge Shivani Chauhan announced that the next hearing in the case will be on July 11, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Police filed charges against ...