Masonry Layout

  Birmingham / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain would start the formal process for leaving the EU before April as her governing Conservative Party opened its annual conference on Sunday. Though many Conservatives headed to the congress in Birmingham, central England still jubilant about Britain’s June referendum vote to leave the European Union, the centre-right government has come ...

  Aleppo / AFP Syrian regime forces advanced on Sunday in Aleppo after Russia unleashed dozens of strikes, even as condemnation kept pouring in over the bombing of the main hospital in the city’s rebel-held east. The devastating five-year war in Syria has ravaged second city Aleppo, once the country’s economic hub but now torn apart between government troops and ...

  BUDAPEST / AFP Hungary’s populist strongman Viktor Orban was banking on voters on Sunday to defy the European Union and reject its troubled refugee quota plan, but low turnout threatened to taint his camp’s expected referendum win. Surveys showed the referendum turnout might not reach the required 50-percent threshold and therefore be deemed invalid. But Orban has already downplayed ...

  Bloomberg Australian steel and iron ore producer Arrium Ltd. may face costs of as much as A$40 million ($30.6 million) following storms that caused blackouts and forced BHP Billiton Ltd. to halt its Olympic Dam copper operation. Arrium’s steelworks in the south-coast town of Whyalla and the mining of iron ore to feed the mill have been halted since ...

  Bloomberg China’s official factory gauge steadied at the highest level in almost two years while services picked up, suggesting that the economy’s stabilization continued last month and reducing prospects for additional policy easing. The data add to evidence of improvement as government fiscal support and a soaring property market help underpin growth. Fresh signs of stability may lead policy ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business The Middle East market for security, safety, and fire protection is on track for double digit growth over the next four years, as regional governments and the private sector look for improved technologies to better protect assets, people, businesses, and borders. Led by the Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, regional countries are ...

  Sharjah / Emirates Business Officials from the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY), the national branch of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), recently visited the UAE Red Crescent Authority moderated Emirati-Jordanian refugee camp at the Mrajeeb Al Fhood in Jordan. Representatives from Knowledge without Borders (KwB) accompanied the officials, with the delegation’s visit ...

  Paris / AFP Volkswagen boss Matthias Mueller has said that the troubled German automaker is using “all available resources” to work its way through the “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal which has engulfed it. One year after the scandal erupted, it “is and will remain an incisive turning point, a pivotal event in our history,” VW chief executive Mueller said ...

  Dubai / WAM The Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently signed an agreement with the Emirates Development Bank (EDB) on the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Fund to Finance Innovation, aimed at supporting the UAE’s transition to a knowledge- based economy and achieving prosperity and sustainability for the country. Saeed Rashid Al Yateem, Assistant Under-Secretary of Resources and Budget Sector ...

  Sharjah / Emirates Business ‘Sharjah is open for business’ – that was the message delivered by HE Marwan bin Jassim Al Sarkal, CEO of Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) during his closing address at the Sharjah Foreign Direct Investment Forum (Sharjah FDI Forum 2016), which concluded on Thursday at Al Jawaher Reception and Convention Centre in Sharjah in ...