Bloomberg Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, detained as the country prepared for local elections, urged his supporters to get out and vote against the incumbent party. Saakashvili, who returned from eight years in exile in defiance of warnings he’d be prosecuted for alleged abuse of power, was moved to the Rustavi prison, near the capital, Tbilisi. The government has accused ...

Bloomberg French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian is expected to hold talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Paris next Tuesday, in a bid to improve ties after the recent diplomatic crisis between the two countries. The two ministers will hold in-depth talks “in o rder to identify the steps that could allow the restoration of ...

Bloomberg Japan’s financial regulator (FSA) is keeping a closer watch on the nation’s banks and insurers as their drawn out hunt for yield pushes them into riskier non-traditional assets. After years of ultra-low interest rates and record levels of deposits, it’s “inevitable” that firms are taking bigger risks, according to Toshinori Yashiki, who’s in charge of assessing risk at banks ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp.’s (BofA) online-banking platform went down for several hours, leaving thousands of customers locked out of their accounts before service was restored. The outage started in the morning and began to be resolved midday. Bank of America’s website and app were both at full capacity in New York, according to a company spokesman. “Today, some of ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc unveiled a home robot called Astro, a screen on wheels that works with the company’s Alexa voice software. The $1,000 bot, which Bloomberg first reported was in development in 2018, was shown at an Amazon event checking on pets while a user was away and following a child through the home during a video call. The device’s ...

Bloomberg YouTube will begin removing content questioning any approved medical vaccine, not just those for Covid-19, a departure from the video site’s historically hands-off approach. The division of Alphabet Inc’s Google announced that it will extend its policy against misinformation to cover all vaccines that health authorities consider effective. The ban will include any media that claims vaccines are dangerous ...

Bloomberg Fashion houses such as Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham have long eschewed animal products in their wares, while automakers including Audi, BMW, Land Rover, and Tesla offer leather-free and sustainable interiors as options in their cars. So far, Volvo is among the very few brands to say it will not offer any leather at all, even as an option, ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc said it’s pausing work on rolling out an Instagram Kids site after social networking company came under criticism for its negative effect on children, especially on teenage girls. Facebook said it’s not abandoning the idea to create a dedicated experience for kids under 13, but will take time to discuss with experts, parents and policymakers to “demonstrate ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT) has announced that the 2021 first-half report for real estate transactions in Abu Dhabi reached AED23.57 billion. The H1 recorded value was achieved through 7,046 transactions, including transactions and mortgages of land, buildings and real estate units of all kinds. The report showed that the real estate sector in ...

ABU DHABI / WAM President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has received a letter of thanks from President Katerina Sakellaropoulou of Greece, in which the latter expressed her gratitude for UAE’s efforts in helping extinguish wildfires that swept Greece recently. In her message, President Sakellaropoulou voiced her country’s thanks and appreciation for UAE’s assistance in confronting these ...