Dubai / Emirates Business Mashreq ‘Salaam Rewards’ Customer Loyalty Program by Mashreq, UAE’s leading financial institution, was awarded two of the top awards for its continued efforts to offer enhanced customer experience; “Best Customer Experience Initiative” award at this year’s MEFTECH Innovation Awards – one of the MENA regions’ largest and most prestigious financial innovation gatherings and “Best Customer ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) – a member of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives – announced the expansion of its knowledge initiatives and projects to consolidate its efforts in the dissemination, transfer and localization of knowledge in the region. The enhanced initiatives were unveiled in line with the announcement of His Highness ...

BEIRUT / AP A wave of nighttime airstrikes hit a hospital in Syria supported by Doctors Without Borders and nearby buildings in the rebel-held part of the contested city of Aleppo, killing at least 38 people as the UN envoy for Syria appealed early Thursday on the US and Russia to help revive the peace talks and a cease-fire, which ...

  Paris / AFP A highly contested EU deal with Turkey may not be ideal, but it is the only solution to stem the migration crisis, the bloc’s Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Christos Stylianides said on Thursday. The deal in which Turkey agrees to take back certain migrants fleeing to Greece in exchange for visa-free travel in the EU has angered member ...

  BRUSSELS / AP Turkey’s crackdown on the media and reported human rights abuses are pushing the country further away from Europe even as it hopes to join the European Union, a senior EU official said on Thursday. European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told EU lawmakers that “the distance between us and Turkey is not decreasing, it is increasing.” “If ...

  Rome / AFP Italy and Austria were set for showdown talks on Thursday as Italian politicians and media reacted furiously to Vienna’s new anti-migrant measures that could close the border between the two countries. Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka, who has vigorously defended the controversial package which was driven by a surge of the far right, was due in ...

  Aden / AFP A suicide bomber targeted the police chief of Yemen’s second city Aden on Thursday in the latest attack against senior officials in the base of the Saudi-backed government, a security official said. The bombing came after loyalist forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition seized the key southeastern port city of Mukalla and the nearby airport ...

  Jerusalem / AFP Growing safety fears surrounding Israel’s largest but ageing atomic research centre have provoked fresh questions over its future and a dilemma over the secrecy of the country’s alleged nuclear arsenal. Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, has long refused to confirm or deny that it has such weapons. The Haaretz newspaper reported ...

  Immigrant goes to America, Many hellos in America; Nobody knows in America Puerto Rico’s in America! — “West Side Story” Puerto Rico, an awkward legacy of America’s 1898 testosterone spill, the Spanish-American War, is about to teach two things that few Americans know: If conditions get bad enough there, its residents, who are American citizens, can come here. And ...

  The move of Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to launch the world’s first integrated and comprehensive strategy to use 3D printing technology to develop infrastructure, sets the tone for advanced development in the next decade and beyond. The declaration that 25 per cent of Dubai’s ...