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LOS BANOS / AFP Rice-growing techniques learned through thousands of years of trial and error are about to be turbocharged with DNA technology in a breakthrough hailed by scientists as a potential second “green revolution”. Over the next few years farmers are expected to have new genome sequencing technology at their disposal, helping to offset a myriad of problems that ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, an independent, research-driven graduate-level university focused on advanced energy and sustainable technologies, has announced the successful initiation of its Concentrated Solar Power on Demand Demonstration (CSPonD Demo) pilot at the Masdar Institute Solar Platform (MISP) located in Masdar City. The demonstration is intended to show that the novel ...

Singapore / AFP Oil prices turned lower again on Monday as Iran prepared to ship its first consignment of the commodity since sanctions were lifted, reigniting worries over a global supply glut. Both main contracts had soared more than 10 percent on Friday on a report that the OPEC producers’ club was open to output cuts that could drag prices ...

Shanghai / AFP China’s yuan currency surged more than one percent against the dollar on Monday, its biggest rise in over a decade, after the central bank chief said there was no reason the beleaguered unit should fall further. The yuan stood at 6.4944 to $1.0 at 0830 GMT, up 1.14 percent from February 5 — the last trading day ...

Abu Dhabi / EMIRATES BUSINESS Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), announced the launch of “ADCB Private”, a new private banking proposition providing globally sophisticated banking and wealth management solutions for high-net-worth customers, delivered from the UAE. Wealthy clients in the region and the UAE have historically had to seek international banking and investment services that required them to deal with overseas ...

Shanghai / AFP Japanese telecom giant Softbank said on Monday it will buy back about 14 percent of its shares for more than $4.0 billion, after the stock plunged since the start of the year. The company plans to buy 167 million shares over one year starting Tuesday at a total cost of around 500 billion yen ($4.4 billion), it ...

BLOOMBERG Bank stock volatility this year shows that the Bank of England should “think again” about its capital buffer requirements for U.K. lenders, according to John Vickers, who led the Independent Commission on Banking. The BOE’s 11 percent goal for the “appropriate” level of Tier 1 equity, a regulatory measure of financial strength for the banking system, is “questionable,” Vickers ...

Bloomberg Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE approved an offer by billionaire Naguib Sawiris’ Orascom Telecom Media And Technology Holding SAE to buy its investment-banking unit CI Capital. Orascom Telecom made a non-binding offer to buy CI Capital for 924 million Egyptian pounds ($118 million), Egypt’s biggest publicly-traded lender said in a filing to the country’s bourse on Monday. The deal ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is easing rules on bank lending to stimulate growth in the largest Arab economy, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Banks were told they can lend the equivalent of 90 percent of their deposits, up from an earlier limit of 85 percent, by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency on Sunday, the people said, asking not ...

ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS Habib Bank Limited ( HBL ) UAE has opened its new Abu Dhabi Main Branch at the Landmark Tower on Corniche Road in Abu Dhabi. The branch was inaugurated by H.E. Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Mr. Sultan Ali Allana, Chairman of HBL , Mr. Mubashar Maqbool, Country Manager – ...