December, 2016

• 21 December

  Etihad, Tanzania’s Precision Air unveil codeshare pact

    Abu Dhabi / WAM In a move that extends its reach across East Africa, Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday announced that it has entered into a codeshare agreement with Precision Air, Tanzania’s leading domestic airline. Under the new codeshare agreement, Etihad Airways will place its EY code on Precision Air flights between Dar ...

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• 21 December

  FANR, Insurance Authority sign deal over policy assessment

    Abu Dhabi / WAM In line with its commitment to cooperate with relevant entities in undertaking its regulatory role, the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Insurance Authority. The MoU promotes the exchange of information between the two entities and cooperation in the assessment and evaluation of insurance policies and sources ...

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• 21 December

  Germany hunts Tunisian suspect after IS-claimed truck attack

  

    Berlin / AFP German police launched a manhunt on Wednesday for a Tunisian suspected of driving the truck that ploughed through a Berlin Christmas market in a deadly assault claimed by the IS extremist group. Media reports said asylum office papers believed to belong to the man were found in the cab of the 40-tonne lorry used in the ...

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• 21 December

  EU to tighten screws on terror financing

    Brussels / AFP The European Union on Wednesday proposed tighter checks on cash and gold transfers as part of a crackdown on terrorist financing across a bloc grappling with a wave of terrorism. EU officials put forward greater powers to freeze or seize assets of suspected terrorists, crack down on money laundering and stop the flow of terror funds. ...

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• 21 December

  Deadly truck attack sparks security debate in Germany

  

    Berlin / AFP Should Germany’s popular Christmas markets be ringed with concrete, patrolled by armed soldiers and screened with surveillance cameras? After a truck ploughed through a crowd of holiday revellers in central Berlin, the country—having so far been spared large-scale attacks—is debating the balance between security and an open society. “This attack could have been prevented if the ...

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• 21 December

  South Korean court to mull impeachment, ruling party split

  

    Seoul / AFP South Korea’s Constitutional Court will Thursday start hearings into whether to confirm the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye, with her ruling conservative party deeply split on the issue before a likely fresh election. The court has up to 180 days to decide whether to uphold or reject parliament’s impeachment of the country’s first female president on ...

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• 21 December

  US makes biggest Okinawa military land transfer to Japan since 1972

  

    Tokyo/ AFP A deal to return American military land on Okinawa to the Japanese government was hailed on Wednesday as the biggest such land transfer in more than four decades. But the move is unlikely to reduce frustration on the strategic island that remains crowded with American bases—a legacy of World War II. The agreement covers about 4,000 hectares ...

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• 21 December

  The writing that shaped economic thinking

    The past year was dominated by the bitter presidential election. But during the precious, brief moments when I was able to unplug from the madness and read about economics, I found a lot of great material. Here’s a list of 10 excellent economics books and papers I read in 2016 that should be accessible to the general public. 1. ...

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• 21 December

  Are China’s rural schools failing?

  

    It had become something of a ritual. Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development would release the results of its PISA exams, which are given to hundreds of thousands of students in dozens of countries. And every three years, an American freak-out would ensue, as Chinese students seemed to be outperforming their U.S. counterparts by a ...

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• 21 December

  European banks risk becoming irrelevant

  

    Any conversation with a European bank executive these days quickly turns to talk of how their US rivals are in better shape. American banks were much quicker in bolstering their capital bases after the financial crisis; they also have more regulatory certainty (in part because they didn’t challenge every proposed rule change). And in at least one corner of ...

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