Dubai / WAM Expenditure on outbound travel from the Middle East is expected to reach $165.3 billion by 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Highlighting the buoyant outbound travel market, another report, issued by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (2015 Tourism Highlights), which includes research teams from Frost & Sullivan and Insights Middle East, revealed …

  Dubai / WAM The eleventh edition of Art Dubai will open its doors to the public on Wednesday. Held under the patronage of Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and with the new leadership of Fair Director Myrna Ayad, and International Director, Pablo del Val, this year’s fair will …

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The total federal government spending reached AED29.717 billion in the first nine months of 2016, according to the latest report issued by the Ministry of Finance, which revealed the developments related to the implementation of the general budget by government departments in 2016. The total spending during the first nine months of last year accounted …

  Dubai / Emirates Business Danube Properties, UAE’s leading property developer, part of Danube Group, launched a new realty project called ‘Resortz’, in Dubai’s Arjaan neighbourhood. The project was unveiled by Rizwan Sajan, Founder and Chairman of Danube Group, in the presence of media, brokers as well as senior management of the firm. The AED 300 million project spans an …

  We are now deep in the era of political shocks. One electorate after another has expressed its anger with mainstream parties and technocratic elites by favouring political outsiders and know-nothing anti-incumbents. But what explains the appeal of demagogues once they start governing and reveal themselves to be exponents of chaos? The widespread disorder predicted last November, when Prime Minister …

  Europe’s tale of two rescue funds is morphing into a worrying saga. The outlook for the region’s original crisis bailout vehicle, the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), to raise sufficient long-term funds to do its job is getting trickier. Despite last week being a pretty decent one for bond issuance, the EFSF stayed on the sidelines. Meanwhile, its more-popular …

  Over the last decade, WikiLeaks has heedlessly published sensitive diplomatic cables, classified military files, secret trade documents and politically explosive emails. Last week, it dumped thousands of new files it says are from the Central Intelligence Agency. If authentic, as seems likely, it may prove the most destructive disclosure yet. Most of the new material relates to tools used …

  UK Parliament gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to trigger Article 50, a formal process to withdraw from European Union. She is expected to send the letter to begin the process by the end of March. European Union Bill reached UK Parliament to be discussed after House of Commons and House of Lords battled over the bill’s contents, …

  ANKARA/ AP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday directed fresh verbal attacks at the Netherlands amid their growing diplomatic spat, holding the country responsible for Europe’s worst mass killing since World War II. In a televised speech, Erdogan referred to the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995, and blamed a …

  BRUSSELS / AP European Union lawmakers have voted to toughen the bloc’s gun laws and close loopholes exploited by attackers in France. The lawmakers passed the rules on Tuesday in a 491-178 vote, with 28 abstentions. It will force EU countries to beef up laws on certain arms that fire blanks so they can’t be easily converted to use …