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  Bloomberg Federal Reserve policy makers left open the door to raising interest rates in June by nodding to improvement in global financial markets and downplaying recent weakness in the U.S. economy. The Federal Open Market Committee omitted previous language that “global economic and financial developments continue to pose risks,” instead saying officials will “closely monitor” the world situation, according ...

  ATLANTA / AP Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s claim that Hillary Clinton is playing “the woman’s card” has drawn intense backlash, from the Democratic front-runner herself as well as tens of thousands of critics on social media. “If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card,’ then deal me in,” ...

  Jakarta / AFP Indonesia hopes next week to secure an agreement with Malaysia and the Philippines on conducting joint military patrols on the high seas where militants have been on a kidnapping spree, an official said on Thursday. The plight of hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf militant group could also be on the agenda when the foreign ministers ...

  DUBAI / WAM Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) received a delegation from Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted renewable energy company, aimed at supporting DEWA’s efforts to enhance cooperation and exchange experiences in clean and renewable energy. The delegation included Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, and Bader Al Lamki, Director ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business With Dubai set to hit the 100,000 rooms’ milestone next month across its expanding hotel and hotel apartment inventory, the city aims to firmly position itself as a top 10 global destination in terms of available hotel supply, indicating high demand from international travellers and sustained growth in tourism volumes. Over the next three years, ...

  DUBAI / WAM Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, launched the ‘Dubai 3D Printing Strategy’, a unique global initiative that aims to exploit technology for the service of humanity and promote the status of the UAE and Dubai as a leading hub of 3D printing technology by the ...

  Bloomberg Oil climbed above $45 a barrel in New York for the first time since November after U.S. industry data showed a decline in crude stockpiles. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed as much as 2.5 percent, extending a gain of 3.3 percent Tuesday. Inventories dropped by 1.07 million barrels last week, the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute was said to ...

  Vienna/ AFP The Austrian parliament voted on Wednesday on adopting some of Europe’s toughest asylum laws, as the country’s political leaders struggle to halt the surging far-right which triumphed in a weekend presidential poll. The hotly-disputed bill would let the government declare a “state of emergency” over the migrant crisis and reject most asylum-seekers, including from war-torn countries like ...

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy lost momentum in the first quarter as services posted their weakest performance for almost a year and industrial production continued to decline. Economic growth slowed to 0.4 percent from 0.6 percent in the final three months of 2015, as forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The estimate, published by the Office for National Statistics ...

  Tokyo / AFP The head of crisis-hit Mitsubishi Motors said on Wednesday that sales in Japan have fallen off a cliff since the company admitted last week that it has been cheating on fuel-efficiency tests. Tetsuro Aikawa, the automaker’s president, revealed that orders have dropped by almost half since the scandal erupted, as the crisis takes a toll on ...