Word: regions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another panelist, Saad al-Barrak, deputy chairman and group CEO of Kuwait-based mobile-phone operator Zain, argued that the greater political challenge may be internal, with Gulf countries making poor progress toward democratic reform. While the region has built key "hardware" such as roads, schools and skyscrapers, al-Barrak said it has yet to develop the "software" required to fulfil its potential - an efficient legal system, regulatory transparency and free elections. "That is what creates sustainability," said al-Barrak. "That anchors the future." He also criticized the Gulf's bloated public sector, joking that Kuwait has so many government...
Likewise, Nasser al-Shaikh, chairman of Amlak Finance, the largest publicly owned Islamic finance firm in the United Arab Emirates, spoke of the need to unlock the Gulf's human potential by improving education and training, and luring more skilled workers from overseas. The region's ambitions are vast - from the new economic cities being planned in Saudi Arabia to the huge construction projects rising up in Dubai to the renewable energy research being funded in Abu Dhabi. "But can we attract the talent to execute the projects we have in mind?" asked al-Shaikh...
...energy exporters should provide a cushion for years to come. Amid this euphoria, few seem to fret about the other seemingly glaring risk to the Gulf - the possibility that property speculation in cities like Dubai might lead to a bust. Mohamed Bin Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the region's leading property developer, says Dubai still has plenty of room to grow as a services center for the Gulf and its 200 million people: "The region is expanding, Dubai is too small, and so more needs to be done." For now, at least, such bullishness reigns supreme...
Never was the oddly ex post facto quality of celestial news more surreally on display than on May 25, when the Phoenix spacecraft touched down on Mars, the first landing ever in the Red Planet's polar region. In order to arrive at its destination in one piece, Phoenix had to cap its sleepy 10-month journey with a fiery 7-min. plunge through the atmosphere, during which it opened its parachutes, jettisoned its heat shield, fired its engines and decelerated from a blistering 12,700 m.p.h. (20,400 km/h) to a toe-in-the-dust touchdown speed...
...Observers also wonder, if Dr. Talwar was indeed the murderer as the police allege, why the presumably blood-stained clothes he wore while allegedly slitting their throats have not been found. Women- and child-rights activists have also complained about what they say are the distasteful remarks by the region?s Inspector General of Police, Gurdarshan Singh, who said that "Dr Rajesh Talwar killed Aarushi when she objected to his extramarital affair, though he was as characterless as his daughter." The country's minister of women's welfare, Renuka Chowdhury, has castigated the police for casting aspersions on Aarushi...