Markets seen consolidating; Egypt eyes Mobinil
DUBAI/CAIRO: Trading in Gulf Arab markets appears immune at times from turmoil in the wider region, judging from new highs reached this week. Upbeat first quarter earnings from companies in…
Disease hits wheat crops in Africa, Mideast
PARIS: Aggressive new strains of wheat rust disease have decimated up to 40 percent of harvests in some regions of north Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus,…
Egypt economy to surpass Saudi Arabia by 2050, HSBC predicts
CAIRO: Egypt’s economy will be the largest market in the Middle East by 2050, surpassing Saudi Arabia and emerging as the 19th largest economy in the world, according to a…
Democracy or finance?
By Robert Skidelsky LONDON: “Shorting” is a tactic well known among the financial cognoscenti. It means betting against an asset with borrowed money in the expectation of making a profit when…
The bear of Bretton Woods
By Barry Eichengreen BERKELEY: This is the season for international monetary conferences. In March, national leaders assembled in Nanjing, China, to speechify on exchange and interest rates. And, in early April,…
Muslims #1 victims in terrorist attacks
By Hussein Abdallah DOHA: Late last month, Yemeni officials claimed that Al-Qaeda-affiliated gunmen allegedly took control of a munitions factory in southern Yemen and then booby-trapped the facility after looting it.…
Helping Muslim youth realize their ambitions in the UK
By Jonathan Freeman LONDON: The last decade has seen growing concern around the issues facing young Muslims living in lower socio-economic areas of Britain, exacerbated by the tensions arising from the…
Booker Prize honors UK novelist Beryl Bainbridge
Organizers of the Booker Prize have recognized often-nominated Beryl Bainbridge with a posthumous "best of" award. The special prize, which pitted Bainbridge's five Booker-nominated books against each other in a…
Black Eyed Peas to start music academy in NYC
The Black Eyed Peas are opening a school where local teenagers will learn video and music production using professional-quality equipment. The six-time Grammy Award winners announced Tuesday that their Peapod…
Cotillard, Gordon-Levitt in ‘Batman’ finale
French actress Marion Cotillard will join Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the cast of "The Dark Knight Rises," the finale to the recent Batman film series, Warner Brothers said Tuesday. The film…