ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) announced Q1 total revenues of AED4.1 billion, an increase of 6 % on previous year (Q1 2016: AED 3.9 billion), for the period ended March 31, 2017. Saeed Al Dhaheri, Acting Chief Operating Officer, said, “After the completion of our two-year transformation programme, I am pleased to announce a return …

Dubai / WAM The country’s commitment to internationally agreed standards of transparency and exchange of information for taxation purposes was the crux of a workshop organised by the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. The workshop reviewed a series of issues of close relevance to tax and monetary policies developed to realign taxation …

The mystery at the center of the Michael Flynn case is why Donald Trump didn’t react sooner to warnings about Flynn’s involvement with Russia. Why didn’t Trump listen to President Obama’s caution against hiring him? Why did Trump wait 18 days before removing his national security adviser after urgent advice that Flynn could be ‘blackmailed’? We don’t have answers. But …

Emmanuel Macron’s election as French president removes the risk that one of the founding members of the European Union might seek to extricate itself from the euro. That in turn should be the signal for equity investors to take advantage of a less febrile political environment and buy European stocks. After several years of underperformance, economic growth in the euro …

His differences with US President Donald Trump may have helped win Moon Jae-in the presidency of South Korea. Now he and Trump need to focus on what unites them. During the campaign, Moon took issue with the U.S. administration’s approach to North Korea. In the past, he’s called for engaging economically with the North and restarting joint development projects, rather …

US President Donald Trump has approved to directly arm the Syrian Kurdish forces in the fight to wrest back Raqqa, the self-declared capital of IS group. But Turkey, a US ally and NATO member, has criticized US plan as unacceptable and a threat to Turkey. Ankara says Syrian Kurds are linked to PKK militants in the country and supporting them …

Bloomberg State-led Russian hackers remain a “major threat” to the U.S. government and will keep up their attacks after seeking to influence the 2016 presidential vote, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in an annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment.” Coats, in a statement prepared for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, stood by past intelligence community assertions that only …

Bloomberg President Moon Jae-in told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that he’s aware of Beijing’s concerns over a U.S. missile shield installed on South Korean territory and will work to resolve the problem. In their first phone conversation since his election victory this week, Moon told Xi that it may become easier to settle differences over the Terminal High Altitude …

Bloomberg Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on his party to stay united ahead of a potential election within months, urging members to avoid complacency even as the opposition descends further into disarray. Surrounded by key lieutenants on stage at a 71st anniversary celebration of his United Malays National Organisation, the premier attacked detractors including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, …

DUBAI / Reuters Rising oil prices lifted energy company stocks in the Gulf on Thursday, but indices were mixed due to some negative earnings reports, especially in Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh index lost 0.7 percent. Savola Group, the kingdom’s largest food products company, reported a 96 percent drop in first-quarter net profit, sending its shares down 2.4 percent. The National …