Bloomberg The race is on to get more consumers hooked on Amazon ahead of the holidays, and music is the latest lure. Amazon.com Inc. is working on a stand-alone music-streaming service and will release more details in the coming weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. With a price tag reported to be about $5 a …

  AFP Global automakers are showing off new electric vehicles at the Paris auto show as they look ahead to a world of tighter environmental standards on emissions. Volkswagen on Thursday displayed the I.D, a battery-powered compact it says will sell for about what a fully equipped Golf diesel does when a production version eventually goes on the market in …

  AFP Although wave-generated power could meet a quarter of America’s energy needs, the technology lags other renewables such as wind and solar. But the U.S. Navy has established a test site in Hawaii, where power from floating devices travels a mile through undersea cables to Oahu’s power grid — the first wave-induced electricity online in the US. Some things …

  Bloomberg Virtual reality is on the cusp of becoming mainstream, but one startup in Japan is betting the technology won’t really succeed unless it cracks one critical piece of the puzzle: human eyeballs. Fove Inc. is introducing the world’s first commercially available VR goggles equipped with tiny infrared cameras to follow eye movements. By tracking human irises, the gadget …

  London / AFP Asian and European stock markets rallied on Thursday and energy-linked currencies advanced after OPEC’s shock deal to trim oil output. The announcement on Wednesday lit a fire temporarily under oil prices, sending petroleum-linked shares surging on Wall Street and later across Asian and European stock markets. Despite crude later falling back on doubts about the cartel …

  Dubai / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market rebounded in afternoon trade on Thursday on the back of petrochemical stocks, which rallied in response to OPEC’s production deal to restrain output and prop up oil prices. The main Saudi index dropped as much as 1.0 percent in early trade, continuing a slide triggered by this week’s announcement of austerity measures …

  Mumbai / AFP Indian stock markets slumped almost two percent on Thursday after the army said it had conducted “surgical strikes” along the de-facto border with archrival Pakistan in Kashmir. The Bombay Stock Exchange slid 534.70 points, or 1.84 percent, to 27,770.32 in afternoon trade after India said it had carried out the strikes to thwart attacks on some …

  ABU DHABI / WAM In his capacity as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued the Human Resources Law which regulates all matters concerning human resources from the appointment of the employee until the end of his service. The law will be enforced on civil servants in government entities of the …

  DUBAI / WAM Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation (AMAF) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Dubai SME to strengthen emirate’s position in the entrepreneurship and waqf (religious endowment) sectors in a way that reflects positively on the economy and society at large. The MoU was signed by Tayeb Al-Rais, Secretary-General of AMAF and Abdul Baset Al Janahi, …

  OTTAWA / WAM HE Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, and Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Minister of International Trade, on Wednesday chaired the preparatory meeting of the first joint economic committee of the UAE and Canada in Ottawa, Canada. The meeting was attended by senior government officials from both countries, including Mohammed Ahmed Bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Shehhi, Under-Secretary …