The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.

“In my country the people can do as they like, although it often happens that they don’t like what they have done” —Winston Churchill, 1946 During the Second World War, as US power was eclipsing Britain’s, Harold Macmillan, a future prime minister, reportedly said, “These Americans represent the new Roman Empire and we Britons, like the Greeks of old, must ...

It’s an election year in India, with the world’s largest polls expected in the spring. The focus of politicians is, as usual, on farmers and rural areas and competitive pandering to both — hardly surprising in a country that considers itself a nation of villages. However, this narrative has one major flaw. India is, in fact, more urban than politicians ...

In Flemish, they call it a “Graadmeter.” In English, it’s a bellwether. Either way, it’s applicable to the layoffs announced by Proximus SA. The former Belgian telecom monopoly is cutting about 6 percent of its workforce as it accelerates the “digitalisation” of its business (though its statement does little to explain exactly what that means). Erstwhile national carriers almost uniformly ...

The conventional wisdom among President Donald Trump’s circle seems to be that he has no choice but to stick to his guns on the border wall: His base would regard anything less as a betrayal. Senator Lindsey Graham has gone so far as to say that, if Republicans fail to support Trump’s demand, it will be “the end of his ...

The ambition of China hawks in the Trump administration is to maintain American dominance by halting China’s economic rise. It’s strange that President Xi Jinping appears to be working toward the same end. The risk for any economy approaching China’s level of development is that it gets ensnared in the middle-income trap. Once the low-hanging fruit of urbanisation and industrialisation ...

The world’s first eight flight attendants took to the air in May 1930. They were all nurses, hired by Boeing Air Transport (forerunner to United Airlines, Inc.) to give early-era air passengers a greater sense of security onboard. As air travel became safer over the ensuing decades, nurses were no longer required in the cabin. Safety and security, though, remained ...

The current European Commission could go out with a bang if it moves ahead with a plan to grab more tax-setting authority from EU member states. We could find out next week whether multinational companies using various tax-avoidance strategies in Europe will have more to fear than they do with the current periodic harassment disguised as enforcement of the EU’s ...

Bloomberg US stocks declined as weak Chinese trade data spurred concerns about slowing global growth. Treasuries rose and the dollar edged lower. The S&P 500 fell after rising for a third straight week, led by technology shares after slumping Chinese exports fuelled concerns about the growing impact of the US-China trade war on global growth. PG&E plunged after the utility ...

Bloomberg The pound’s most accurate forecaster isn’t buying into the optimism of his peers. Sterling will slide more than 3 percent to $1.24 by the end of March as even the most favourable Brexit outcome will mean the economy will be worse off than if “remain” had won the 2016 referendum, according to Westpac Banking Corp. The median estimate in ...

Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S’s money-laundering scandal threatens to undermine its growth engine. The lender’s Nordic banking operation, which encom- passes Norway, Sweden and Finland, was the only core unit of five to report higher profit in the third quarter. But now, some customers in the biggest Nordic economy may be reconsidering their loyalty to the bank, according to Berit Behring, ...