Legacy of British rule is still holding India back

  One of the most common debates I hear about India is whether British colonialism has been good or bad for the country’s economic prospects. Defenders of British rule often cite the construction of the railroads, or the spread of the English language, but as time passes the evidence mounts that India would have been much better off on its ...

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‘Don’t depend on Apple’ is the tech mantra of the month

  Another one bites the dust. German-listed Dialog Semiconductor Plc lost one-third of its market value at one point after analysts at Bankhaus Lampe KG claimed there was “strong evidence” that Apple Inc. was working on making its own power management chips for the iPhone. Dialog replied that it knew of “no business reason” for the share price movement. But ...

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Understanding Britain’s strange Singapore envy

  A pro-Brexit argument that always makes me giggle a little is that leaving the European Union will allow the UK to become the new Singapore. That’s right — the land of hope and glory, home to the world’s fifth-largest economy, wants to emulate its steamy little former colony, population 5.4 million. When you look at the per-capita income data, ...

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Q1 results buoy banks, Zain Saudi soars on record profit

  DUBAI / Reuters Generally positive first-quarter results from Gulf banks helped lift financial stocks on Wednesday, while Saudi Arabia’s third-largest telecoms operator jumped by its daily limit after reporting its first ever quarterly net profit. Shares in Qatar National Bank, the largest lender by assets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), rose 1 percent after it announced net profit ...

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Stocks subdued, gold rises as investors eye global risks

  HONG KONG / AP Stock markets were subdued and the price of oil and gold rose Wednesday as geopolitical risks kept investors on edge ahead of a long weekend. In Europe, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.2 percent to 5,113 and Germany’s DAX added 0.1 percent to 12,150. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.1 percent to 7,357. US indexes were poised ...

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Emirates tells red-faced United, ‘we’re now the friendly skies’

  Bloomberg Middle Eastern carriers seized on the social media storm surrounding the forced removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight to hit back at one of the arch-critics of their breakneck expansion. Dubai-based Emirates mocked United’s best-known advertising slogan on its Twitter account, urging passengers to “fly the friendly skies with a real airline.” Royal Jordanian Airlines ...

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Qantas cash shortage halts sale of tickets in Zimbabwe

  Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd. told travel agents in Zimbabwe to stop selling tickets for its flights after the International Air Transport Association warned it’s getting harder to move funds out of the country, according to a circular sent by the Australian airline to agencies and seen by Bloomberg. The carrier owed a ‘substantial’ amount by Bank Settlement Plan Zimbabwe, ...

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UK retail sales drop most since 2011

  Bloomberg UK retail sales fell the most since 2011 last quarter as consumers started to feel squeeze from faster inflation. Retail sales dropped 0.7 percent from a year earlier on a like-for-like basis, the British Retail Consortium said on Tuesday, noting that the timing of the Easter holiday — which this year falls in April — may be distorting ...

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Preserving ‘Great War’ for posterity

  HARTFORD / AP Rick Maynard found the manila envelope containing letters from the battlefields of World War I while he and his sister were cleaning out the basement after their father’s death. The more than three dozen letters were written, some in pencil, by Paul Maynard, Rick’s great-uncle. “He was on the front lines,” said Rick Maynard, the parks and ...

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Dubai Islamic Bank Q1 profit hits AED1.042bn

  Dubai / Emirates Business Dubai Islamic Bank (DFM: DIB), the first Islamic bank in the world and the largest Islamic bank in the UAE by total assets, announced its first quarter results for the period ended March 31, 2017. Group Net Profit increased to AED 1,042 million, up 4% compared with AED 1,001 million for the same period in ...

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