February, 2017

• 16 February

  Two-state solution only option for Mideast peace

    US President Donald Trump on Wednesday did about-face on Palestine-Israel conflict. He abandoned the US policy on ‘two-state’ solution for Middle East peace. Trump, during a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held back from clearly supporting an independent Palestinian state. Trump said he would be open to a Mideast peace agreement that doesn’t ...

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• 16 February

  Why some consumer costs just grow and grow

  

    Why does everything cost so darn much? More to the point, why does it cost so much more than it used to? Well, not everything costs more than it used to. Food is cheap. Electronics are absurdly cheap: I can get a clock radio on Amazon today for not much more than I would have paid in 1965 (before ...

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• 16 February

  Musk’s next frontier is underground

  

    Elon Musk wants to dig tunnels. Without them, he says, “we will all be in traffic hell forever.” It’s a well-timed ambition, given President Trump’s plan to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure projects. Let’s hope he can figure out what he’s doing. Musk has already started burrowing near the offices of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. in Los Angeles — ...

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• 16 February

  Coming to US no done deal for China’s film wannabes

    Chinese companies looking to escape slower economic growth at home have turned, quite naturally, to soccer and Hollywood. They should prepare for some unhappy endings. Recon Group, the Chinese firm that bought the UK’s Aston Villa Football Club, is the latest to attempt to add movie making to its bow, in talks to acquire Millennium Films, according to people ...

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• 16 February

  Lenovo comes up short on smartphones

  

    Bloomberg Lenovo Group Ltd.’s mobile-phone business continues to shrink, while its personal-computer division managed anaemic growth in the face of brutal holiday-season competition. The world’s largest PC maker’s profit plummeted more than two thirds in the December quarter, missing analysts’ projections after HP Inc. threatened its position in North America. Smartphone sales declined almost a quarter globally as Lenovo ...

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• 16 February

  Huawei to plan own voice assistant for smartphones

  

    Bloomberg Huawei Technologies Co., the third-largest smartphone maker, is preparing to enter the competitive world of digital assistants with its own voice-powered service, people familiar with the matter said. A team of more than a hundred engineers is in the early stages of developing the technology at its Shenzhen, China offices, one of the people said. The efforts are ...

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• 16 February

  Fund managers target tech deals as key trend for 2017

  

    Bloomberg For global technology investors, deal-making is set to be one of the biggest investment opportunities of 2017, and they may have the new US president to thank for it. Tech companies are one of the biggest accumulators of offshore capital. According to some estimates, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle Corp., and Alphabet Inc. hold a ...

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• 16 February

  Email most likely method for ransomware attack in Mideast

  

    Dubai / Emirates Business Mimecast Limited (NASDAQ: MIME), a leading email and data security company, announced the launch of the Mimecast Email Security Risk Assessment (ESRA), an analysis report measuring the effectiveness of email security systems. This effort highlights the need to push the entire industry to work toward a higher standard of email security. The report showed that ...

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• 15 February

  RAK Chamber, Belgium team explore investment prospects

  

    RAS AL KHAIMAH / WAM Ras al-Khaimah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RAK Chamber) hosted a high-level Belgian delegation led by Pieter De Crem, Belgian Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, to explore investment opportunities, enhance economic relations and bolster means of cooperation. The meeting was part of the Belgian delegation’s visit to the UAE, organised by the UAE ...

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• 15 February

  Sharjah Finance Department begins e-payment service

    ABU DHABI / WAM The Sharjah Finance Department (SFD) launched an e-payment service in partnership with the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA). Now the Emirates ID card can be used to make payments for service fees for all Sharjah government departments, it was announced. The strategic agreement with Emirates ID indicates that the Department’s system is now linked to all ...

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