ALKESH Sharma / Emirates Business Enthused by the huge capital inflow and enhanced shopper expenditure on mobile devices, software, and related services; the annual spending on mobility across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region is expected to reach the whopping mark of $185 billion by 2019. This constitutes a 10.2 percent share of worldwide enterprises and individual consumer ...

Ritika Sharma / Emirates Business A land of opportunities and wealth, the UAE has capable financial institutions too, which can manage its fortune. Mashreq, one of UAE’s leading financial institutions, was selected ‘Best Private Bank for Super Affluent Clients in the UAE’ in the prestigious Euromoney’s 13th annual private banking survey for 2016. Euromoney’s Private Banking Survey provides an annual ...

Ritika Sharma / Emirates Business Dubai is all set to host a one-of-its-kind start-up showdown, as region’s young entrepreneurs will pitch unique start-up concepts conceived to solve the greatest technology challenges of today’s world. Handpicked by an esteemed panel of distinguished technology industry experts, business gurus and SME accelerators, the contestants will compete for cash prize of AED50,000 during the ...

Brussels / AP At the aptly named Planete Chocolat, the shelves are laden with enticing Easter treasures for shoppers: bunnies with bows, pastel-wrapped eggs and elegant boxes of pralines. Swannee Vranckx, a clerk at the shop near Brussels’ main square, said she would normally have seen 50 to 100 customers by midafternoon in the days before one of the biggest ...

Bloomberg Britain’s opposition Labour party said the government is planning to cut its border force budget by 6 percent in each of the next two years, citing “whistleblowers” within the agency that it didn’t identify. The reduction would result in 88 million pounds ($124 million) of cuts during that span, Labour said on its website on Saturday. Border Force staff ...

Istanbul / AFP Six suicide attacks in eight months and a spat with Russia have added to concerns for the Turkish economy as tourists flee, taking billions of dollars in spending elsewhere, and foreign investors skirt the troubled country. Days after a suspected IS extremist blew himself up on a top shopping street in Istanbul, hotels, restaurants and retailers in ...

Damascus / AP Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes drove IS fighters from Palmyra on Sunday, ending the group’s reign of terror over a town whose famed 2,000-year-old ruins once drew tens of thousands of visitors each year. Government forces had been on the offensive for nearly three weeks to try to retake the central town, known among Syrians ...

Jerusalem / AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the military on Sunday following uproar over footage of a soldier lethally shooting a Palestinian attacker who had already been shot and subdued. Netanyahu said the incident in question does not reflect the military’s conduct, and that criticism of the armed forces as a whole over the incident is “outrageous and ...

Dhaka / AFP Four Bangladeshis have been killed in gunfights between rival groups in the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi, a minister said on Sunday. State minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam said he did not yet have full details on the dead. Alam said embassy officials had received three bodies and they were being stored in a hospital in ...

Makhmur / AFP Thousands of desperate civilians were fleeing fighting on Sunday on the new front opened by Iraqi forces against the IS group south of the city of Mosul. Families crammed in the back of pickup trucks, sometimes bringing dead and wounded with them, emerged from the dust after crossing the front line and were met by Kurdish forces. ...