Abu Dhabi / WAM Dr Abdullah bin Mohammed Belhaif Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development and Chairman of the Zayed Housing Programme, on Thursday met Kai Mykanen, Finland’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, and Riitta Swan, Finnish Ambassador to the UAE, to discuss ways of promoting cooperation between the two countries. The UAE Minister briefed the Finnish officials …

  Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Masdar City’s Eco-Villa, a pilot project incorporating water and energy-saving technologies, has been completed and a UAE national family will soon live in the prototype sustainable dwelling, it was announced on Thursday at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017. The 405 square-metre Eco-Villa is the first villa to achieve a 4 Pearl rating according to …

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Al-Reyadah, the joint venture between the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s Future Energy Company, was the focus of attention at the World Future Summit (WFES). Discussing the increasingly important role of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, the forum was told that CCS operations like Al-Reyadah …

  CIA Director John Brennan’s biggest concern the past few years hasn’t been Russian hacking, or even the wars in the Middle East, but what he calls “modernization” of the agency. In an effort to improve performance of this notoriously siloed organization, Brennan moved to fuse operations (the agency’s vaunted spies) and analysis (its less glamorous but no less essential …

  It’s been two years since the European Central Bank decided to combat the region’s economic woes by expanding the supply of money, buying bonds and slashing interest rates to nothing. The moves effectively debased the euro, prompting a chorus of investors and strategists to opine that the shared currency would soon tumble to parity with the dollar for the …

On Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May set out her fullest account yet of her aims in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. Greater clarity was overdue, and welcome — but with it comes a clearer understanding of the enormous hazards Britain faces as this process moves forward. May said, “What I am proposing cannot mean membership of the single market.” That …

  World is waiting to see where the mutual admiration between President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will proceed to. Will this wooing translate into a long-term courtship? Trump called Putin smart guy. The Republican said, “if Putin likes me, it’s an asset.” Trump also initially out-rightly rejected the intelligence agencies’ findings about Russian hacking and called it …

  Dubai / WAM Middle Eastern investment banking fees reached US$820.8 million during 2016, an 18 per cent increase compared to fees recorded during 2015 and the highest annual fee total in the region since 2008, according to the annual investment banking analysis for the Middle East region, by leading business information provider Thomson Reuters. “Bolstered by Saudi Arabia’s $17.2 billion …

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Ministry of Finance (MoF) participated in the Second Annual Under-Secretaries of Arab Ministries of Finance meeting which commenced in Abu Dhabi. The meeting, which was organised by the Arab Monetary Fund, AMF, in cooperation with the MoF, was attended by Younis Haji Al Khoori, Under-Secretary of MoF, and Khalid Ali Al Bustani, Assistant Under-Secretary for …

  Dubai / WAM Mohammed Abdullah Al Jarman, General Manager of Emirates Transport (ET) launched a demonstration version of a smart application that will enable drivers to request roadside assistance in the event of a breakdown, or other car-related trouble. According to Al Jarman, the new application is in the pilot phase and will currently only be available to serve the …