Bloomberg Just days ahead of President Xi Jinping’s visit to India, the Chinese leader demonstrated his country’s resolute support for Pakistan over its dispute with India in the Himalayan Kashmir region, vowing to support Islamabad’s “core interests and key concerns.” “The rights and wrongs of the situation in Kashmir are clear,” China Central Television reported on Wednesday, citing Xi who ...

Bloomberg Russia blacklisted the anti-graft fund of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a “foreign agent,” stepping up pressure on it as part of wider crackdown on Kremlin opponents after a summer of street protests. The Justice Ministry said it was adding Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation to the register of foreign agents, subjecting it to strict regulation reserved for non-government organisations that ...

Dubai / WAM The UAE ranked first in the Arab World and 25th globally in the Global Competitiveness Report, 2019, released by the World Economic Forum, Davos, on Wednesday. According to the report, which assesses the competitiveness landscape of 141 economies, providing unique insight into the drivers of economic growth, the UAE gained two positions since the last edition. Commenting ...

Emirates Business Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone (Rakez) and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE’s largest bank and one of the world’s safest financial institutions, have signed an agreement to offer Rakez clients special banking benefits and solutions designed specifically to meet their business needs. As per the agreement signed by Rakez Chief Strategy Officer Mohammed Al Dhuhoori FAB’s ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Etihad Airways will increase capacity between Abu Dhabi and Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, by upgrading the current daily Airbus A321 service to a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner from October 27. The step up from narrow body to wide body aircraft follows the announcement by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the immediate removal ...

MUKALLA / WAM Over 80 tonnes in food aid was distributed by the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC), in Yemen’s Hadramaut governorate. Five thousand people across the western neighborhouds of Mukalla received the aid, as part of the UAE’s efforts to improve living conditions in Yemen. The beneficiaries have thanked the UAE and the ERC for this humanitarian gesture and for ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM Delegates of the eighteenth session of the General Conference (GC), of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), are set to arrive in Abu Dhabi on November 2 for five days of discussions around the future of manufacturing. The General Conference, UNIDO’s supreme policymaking organ convenes every two years to determine the guidelines and policies of ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the US “should never have been” in the Middle East and it was “the worst decision ever made” amid reports that Turkey has begun its operation to force back US wartime allies in Syria. In a series of tweets defending his decision that the US would stand aside and allow a Turkish incursion in an ...

Bloomberg China is flexing its economic muscle for political ends, with more local sponsors of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) mainland events suspending their ties with the league over a tweet that backed Hong Kong’s protesters. Following the decision by China’s state television and tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd to not show pre-season NBA games, the country’s largest sportswear maker ...

Bloomberg The worst crisis to hit Japan’s nuclear industry since the 2011 Fukushima disaster threatened to entangle PM Shinzo Abe’s ruling party amid scrutiny of donations to lawmakers. Hiroshige Seko of the Liberal Democratic Party received 6 million yen ($56,000) of donations from the president of a company linked to the furor surrounding Kansai Electric Power Co’s nuclear operations, Kyodo ...