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Bangkok / AFP Thailand’s prime minister on Wednesday told farmers to cultivate less rice to help the country manage its intensifying water crisis, as experts called this year’s drought the worst in decades. Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the junta leader who grabbed power in a military coup two years ago, said his administration was working on a 20-year strategy to diversify the ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg Demand for 10,000-yen bills is steadily rising in Japan, even as the nation’s population falls and the use of credit cards and other forms of electronic payment increases. While more cash might sound like a good thing, some economists are concerned that it shows Japanese households are squirreling away money at home instead of investing it or ...

DETROIT / Bloomberg Detroit’s public schools have reached their borrowing limit and won’t be able to take on more debt to pay bills when money runs out in April if Michigan lawmakers don’t restructure some of its $2 billion of obligations, state officials said. Though the district has borrowed when it ran out of money before, it has reached the ...

Bloomberg The Real declined after Brazil’s debt rating was lowered to two levels below investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited the government’s failure to reduce its fiscal deficit amid deepening political turmoil. The currency dropped 0.7 percent to 3.9864 at 9:50 a.m. in Sao Paulo. The outlook for the rating is negative, Moody’s said in a statement on ...

DUBAI / EMIRATES BUSINESS Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance, President of Zayed University, received Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and her distinguished accompanying delegation at Zayed University in Dubai campus on Wednesday. The event saw the presence of Professor Reyadh AlMehaideb, Vice President of Zayed University, Dr Marilyn ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi International Airport has been awarded the ISO 22301 Management System Certificate for Business Continuity Management. This makes the capital’s airport the first in the Middle East, and one of a few in the world, to become ISO 22301 certified. The certification is the international benchmark of good practice in Business Continuity Management and recognizes the ...

DUBAI / WAM Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), the flagship free zone business of Dubai and the trade and logistics hub for the wider Middle East region, Wednesday organised a successful Jafza Car Free Day to support sustainability and reduce carbon footprint. Staff from the Jafza Community, including senior executives, customers, government entities and stakeholders, used environment-friendly public transport including ...

ABU DHABI / WAM UAE-based Al Gharbia Pipe Company (AGPC), a unit of Senaat, has signed loan agreement with a consortium of Japanese and Emirati banks totaling US$185 million to finance its manufacturing and sales business. The loan will finance the production and sales of large diameter, high-quality sour grade steel pipes for oil and gas pipelines by AGPC, with ...

DUBAI / EMIRATES Business The total number of people who visited Dubai Health Authority run medical fitness centres during 2015 was 2,051,802 said a top health official. Of these 843,085 were new applicants and the remaining were visa-renewals. Medical fitness test is a mandatory requirement for all expats in the UAE. It is required for a residency, employment or education ...

DUBAI / WAM Recognised in the international aluminium market as an important company of smelting technologies, Emirates Global Aluminium (“EGA”) on Wednesday concluded the sale of its internal established, exclusive DX+ Ultra Smelting Technology to Aluminium Bahrain BSC (“Alba”) for the latter’s Line 6 expansion task, marked by the trademark of the associated Technology Licence Agreement. The sale marks a ...