Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Representing milestones in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi’s Waste Master Plan 2040’s development, the situational analysis and the waste characterisation study, were discussed at the Waste Master Plan’s first Steering Committee meeting. The Steering Committee is led by Chairman HE Khalifa Mohamed Al Mazrouei, Undersecretary at the Department of Municipal Affairs. The Committee’s role ...

  Sunaina Rana / Emirates Business UAE-based company, ARTAR Real Estate Development has announced that it has achieved a 15 percent completion rate of Mada Residences. The new upcoming project is situated in Downtown Dubai and this exclusive residential property development is ARTAR’s first project in the UAE. Sulaiman Abdulrahman Al Rashid, CEO of ARTAR Real Estate Development LLC, stated, ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has revised its long-term outlook on Jordan’s economy while at the same time allocating a BB-/B rating on the kingdom’s long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings. “We have revised downward our economic growth projections and now expect wide current account deficit,” the rating services agency said in ...

  DUBAI / Reuters State-run Saudi Electricity Co (SEC), the Gulf’s largest utility firm, reported a narrowing first-quarter net loss as higher tariffs boosted its operating income. The company, which the government aims to split into several components this year to improve efficiency, made a loss of 1.37 billion riyals ($365.32 million) in the three months to March 31, according ...

  KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s National Industrialization Co’s chief executive expects to see the benefits of a restructuring soon and has a more positive outlook for the chemicals market. Like many Saudi petrochemical firms, Tasnee’s earnings have suffered as its product prices are closely tied to oil prices, which have slumped since mid-2014. To combat poor market conditions, Tasnee ...

  Seoul / AFP North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un hailed a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test as an “eye-opening success”, state media said on Sunday, declaring Pyongyang has the ability to strike Seoul and the US whenever it pleases. Saturday’s launch came amid growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing a fifth nuclear test. But it was followed just hours later by ...

  Yangon / AFP Violent storms which saw hailstones the size of golf balls rain down across Myanmar have killed at least eight people in recent days, toppled pagodas and damaged thousands of buildings, officials said Sunday. The freak storms struck across five states on Friday and Saturday after weeks of heatwave temperatures regularly topping 40C (104F). “From what we know ...

  QUITO / AP The death toll from last week’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake that flattened towns along Ecuador’s coast has risen to 654 with another 58 people missing, the government said Saturday. The website of the secretariat for risk management said that 113 people had been rescued alive following the quake and more than 25,000 people remained in shelters. The death ...

  Belgrade / AFP Serbians began voting on Sunday in a general election that is likely to return pro-European Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to power, but also give a voice in parliament to the pro-Russian far-right. While Vucic’s nominally conservative Serbian Progressive Party is projected to win about half of the votes, ultra-nationalists who want the Balkan country to deepen its ...

  Ankara / AFP A Dutch journalist was arrested early Sunday at her home in Turkey for tweets deemed critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to her Twitter account. “Police at the door. No joke,” wrote Ebru Umar, a well-known atheist and feminist journalist of Turkish origin. Umar recently wrote a piece critical of Erdogan for the Dutch ...