Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG rose in Zurich trading, leading European bank shares higher, as Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam pledged to cut an additional 1 billion Swiss francs ($1 billion) in expenses and lowe- red profit targets that were seen as too ambitious. Thiam, who was updating investors after cutting more than 6,000 jobs this year as part ...
Read More »â€˜Zombie banks’ give Ukraine nightmares
Kiev / AFP Ukraine’s central bank keeps trying to shut them down but they keep surviving: ‘zombie banks’ are roiling the impoverished country’s financial system through the help of allegedly crooked courts. The former Soviet republic — labelled the continent’s most corrupt state by the European Court of Auditors on Wednesday — needs financial aid from the International Monetary ...
Read More »Weak lira could knock Turkish bank off targets
ANKARA / Reuters Weakness in the Turkish lira could start to drive up prices and knock the central bank off its targets in the first quarter of next year, but the impact will depend on the pace of economic activity, Governor Murat Cetinkaya said. At a news conference on the central bank’s monetary and exchange rate policy for 2017, ...
Read More »Sony announces new games, controller for smartphones
Bloomberg Sony Corp. is stepping up efforts to gain a foothold in mobile gaming. It has announced 11 new mobile titles and unveiled Project Field, a thin, lightweight device the size of a kitchen cutting board that connects to real-world objects so they can be used for controlling games on smartphones and tablets. “We believe this is a brand ...
Read More »Google hits renewable energy goal in quest to pare pollution
SAN FRANCISCO / AP Google is crossing a milestone in its quest to reduce pollution caused by its digital services that devour massive amounts of electricity. The internet company believes that beginning next year, it will have amassed enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity needs throughout the world. That’s significant, given Google’s ravenous appetite for electricity to ...
Read More »Google makes digital assistant available to developers
Bloomberg Two months after rolling out its digital assistant, Google is opening its doors to outside developers to help the company chase rivals, particularly Amazon.com Inc., in a critical technology race. The Alphabet Inc. unit recently launched a system for developers to build chatbots that work with Google Assistant, its voice-based virtual helper. The tools, called Conversation Actions, will ...
Read More »Regaining its Colonial-era glory
Mumbai / AFP India’s only surviving opera house has been restored to its colonial-era glory, reopening to the public more than two decades after it closed in disrepair. Once the place to be seen for Mumbai’s great and good it was forced to close in the 1990s after years of financial struggles. But a painstaking seven-year project has transformed ...
Read More »Cairo traffic poses daily test of survival
Cairo / AFP In an endless cacophony of car horns, Mostafa Ekram each day confronts the frenzy of Cairo’s traffic jams: pedestrians darting out into the street, swerving tuk-tuks and even donkey carts. At the wheel of his SUV, in the heart of Egypt’s bustling capital, he doesn’t bat an eyelid as he narrowly dodges a black tuk-tuk, a ...
Read More »UAE condemns terror attacks in Egypt, Turkey
ABU DHABI / WAM The United Arab Emirates (UAE) strongly condemned Sunday’s terrorist attack, which targeted the Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral in the Abbasiya district in the Egyptian capital Cairo. The blast killed scores of innocent people. HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, emphasised that the leadership, government and people of ...
Read More »2,713 facilities in Abu Dhabi avail Musanada’s services
ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi General Services Company, (Musanada) is currently providing management services to 2,713 facilities and buildings across the emirate of Abu Dhabi, in addition to operating a 24/7 customer service call centre, the company said on Sunday. “Musanada’s facility-management division follows highest international and local standards to ensure provision of best services and operation of ...
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