January, 2021

• 5 January

  Idex, Navdex sign deal with Edge group as strategic partner

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The International Defence Exhibition and Conference (Idex 2021) and the Naval Defence Exhibition (Navdex 2021), held under the patronage of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, from February 21-25 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, signed an agreement with EDGE Group, the Abu Dhabi based advanced technology group for defence and beyond, ...

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• 5 January

  UAE’s hotel reservation rates witness significant growth

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE’s hotel reservation rates witnessed significant recent growth, benefitting from the rise in travel to the UAE during Christmas and New Year, and a boom in domestic tourism. The hotel sector continued its recovery after the extraordinary conditions caused by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, most notably with the continued operations of national carriers and the ...

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• 5 January

  DMCC attracts 2,025 firms to Dubai in 5 years

  

  DUBAI / WAM DMCC – a Free Zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise – has registered a record breaking 2,025 new companies in 2020, the highest number of registrations in five years. Despite an overall business environment shaped by the pandemic, the record-breaking registrations are a testament to Dubai’s continued appeal to investors and the ...

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• 5 January

  Vaccine nationalism in India is a global risk

  

  Like many things in India nowadays, the science of vaccine approval has also run into the politics of chest-thumping nationalism. Alongside authorising Covishield, the Covid-19 protection developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India Ltd, the country’s drugs regulator gave a go-ahead to an indigenous vaccine for which critical phase three trial data ...

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• 5 January

  User Indulgence is the new ‘UI’

  

  Twitter doesn’t have an edit button. Despite a chorus of protest over many years, the company has declined to bow to user demand — indeed, as Covid-19 raged, Twitter trolled its 330 million users with this taunt. This absence of edit mirrors a range of controversial Twitter innovations — including switching the “validation” button from a star to a heart; ...

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• 5 January

  Bitcoin’s bulls should fear scarcity problem

  In the eyes of many Bitcoin advocates, scarcity is a key advantage over more conventional assets. Unlike fiat money, which can be created from nothing on a bank’s balance sheet, or gold, which can be mined from the ground in quantities still far from being exhausted, the supply of Bitcoins was set from the start at 21 million. That means, ...

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• 5 January

  Singapore virus success isn’t easily replicated

  At the dawn of 2021, Singapore feels like a coiled spring where growth is just waiting to be unleashed. Last-minute dinner reservations are once again almost impossible to secure and the countless malls that dot the map are hopping on weekends. The Central Expressway, a core artery running north from downtown, is again prone to congestion. Children — mercifully — ...

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• 4 January

  Trump’s last stand on election gives Pence a final loyalty test

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump will make his last stand to overturn his election loss on Wednesday when Vice President Mike Pence presides over a congressional session to ratify November’s results, an event that threatens to strain the relationship between the two men. Trump’s refusal to concede and his obsession with overturning the will of voters means the ceremony poses a ...

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• 4 January

  UK judge blocks Julian Assange’s extradition

  Bloomberg A London judge blocked Julian Assange’s extradition to the US to face espionage charges on health grounds, a victory for the WikiLeaks founder after close to a decade of imprisonment or self-imposed exile. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that extradition would be oppressive because of 49-year-old’s mental health, saying he was clearly “a depressed and sometimes despairing man genuinely fearful ...

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• 4 January

  Don’t draw military into US election, say ex-defense chiefs

  

  Bloomberg All 10 living former US defense secretaries called for a peaceful transition of power this month and warned that any effort to involve the military in resolving election disputes “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.” Three days before Congress meets to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, the group, who served Democratic and Republican presidents, evoked the ...

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