Sharjah / WAM The Emirates Publishers Association (EPA), launched “Manassah”, a new cultural project , and platform to showcase its member publishers, in its ongoing efforts to support new and upcoming local publishers enhance their regional visibility, and boost the UAE’s book publishing industry. The unique platform was launched at the EPA’s seventh board meeting which was attended by Sheikha Bodour ...

Dubai / WAM The UAE is launching a fiscal risk management project with the IMF’s help and will produce its first fiscal stress test this year, according to Christine Lagarde, Managing Director and Chairwoman of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Speaking at the main session of the Fourth Annual Arab Fiscal Forum organized by the IMF, Arab Monetary Fund, AMF, ...

Sharjah / WAM The Big Heart Foundation (TBHF), a Sharjah-based global humanitarian organisation dedicated to helping people in need worldwide, announced the commencement of a project to establish the first Ready Made Garments (RMG) Factory for Kids Wear, in Upper Egypt. The project, to be implemented by Egypt Network for Integrated Development (ENID), under the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), ...

Bloomberg The US has some “some hard work” to do with North Korea before President Donald Trump meets Kim Jong un in Vietnam later this month, according to its special envoy Stephen Biegun. Trump is “very much looking forward to taking the next steps,” according to a pool transcript of Biegun’s remarks on Saturday. The envoy on North Korea spent ...

Bloomberg Even for a country where coup attempts, street protests and political intrigue are the norm, February 8 will go down as one of the most dramatic days in Thai history. It started around 9:15 am, when allies of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra —a tycoon who has lived in exile for more than a decade after repeated clashes with royalists ...

Bloomberg A leading Zimbabwean politician accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa of treating opposition supporters like cockroaches that need to be eliminated, evoking language used during the genocide of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in 1994. Tendai Biti, a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, laid the blame for the most brutal suppression of urban protests in Zimbabwe since ...

Bloomberg The only thing Venezuela had in abundance was angry words as its main political players attacked each other in simultaneous news conferences while the nation teeters on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. In Caracas, President Nicolas Maduro denounced the presence of trailers of humanitarian aid brought to the Colombian border, calling them part of a plan cooked up ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron is on the offensive, seeking to regain his footing after being mocked by Italy’s leaders, largely ignored by Germany’s rising political generation and threatened by Yellow Vest protesters. Three months before a European election, the burst of assertiveness signals Macron is stepping up his campaign to boost his standing after months of scandals and domestic ...

Bloomberg Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of Zambia’s main opposition party, said police fired live ammunition at him and his supporters. The incident happened during a political rally in the southwest of the country, his spokesman, Brian Mwiinga, said in a text message. The opposition leader wasn’t hurt, he said. Police didn’t use live ammunition in dispersing an “unruly crowd” in ...

Bloomberg Chevron Corp. vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the Paris Accord on climate change, potentially averting a shareholder rebellion at its annual general meeting. The US oil major pledged to reduce air pollution intensity by 25 to 30 percent by 2023, as recommended in the Paris agreement that took effect in 2016. The target applies across ...