Author: dailyguardian.ae

Monetary policy transmission to the real economy in Sri Lanka is still incomplete, the governor of the country’s central bank, Nandalal Weerasinghe, said at a LSEG FX Community Event on Monday. Weerasinghe said he would like to see private sector interest rates come down further and at a faster pace, adding that the domestic debt restructuring is the most important focus for the debt-laden country in the near-term. “We would firstly like to see yields drop in line with policy rates and, from there, decline further. We are waiting to see this reaction from markets,” he said. “Given the downward…

We were able to check out some demoes and see a dummy unit running the company’s new Snapdragon X Elite PC chip, and Qualcomm is making some big performance claims against Apple’s latest silicon. The Snapdragon’s Qualcomm Oyron CPU, which was announced in October, was being compared to the Apple M2 Max chip at the time. The brand stated in October that its component can match the peak performance of an ARM-compatible competitor using 30% less power. But since then, the competition has changed. Apple notably announced its M3 series chips and accompanying laptops a week after Qualcomm announced the…

Japanese Hikari Okubo from the Fade Fit team won the first place in the first edition of the Dubai Electric Scooter Cup in Dubai Design District on Saturday. Anish Shetty from the Booze Racing Team came in second place, while Swiss Matthias Neiro from the Blondie Supercar Team was third. 16 top male and female contenders competed together in a knockout-style race at speeds of over 100kmph for the title. As a culmination of the Year of Sustainability in the UAE, the Dubai Electric Scooter Cup united the world’s best riders from the United States of America, Britain, India, South…

Oil and gas should not be demonised in the medium-term, Elon Musk, the founder of electric car maker Tesla, said on Saturday, but he also said it was important to reduce carbon emissions to preserve the planet. Musk, speaking at a right-wing political gathering organised by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party said: “Climate change alarm is exaggerated in the short term,” adding that the environmental movement may have gone too far, causing people to lose faith in the future. At this month’s COP28 climate summit, representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed to begin reducing global consumption…

This week, Alan Ritchson is back as Jack Reacher in the second season of Amazon Prime Video‘s Reacher. Author Lee Child couldn’t have anticipated that Reacher would be portrayed by someone as physically imposing as Ritchson, which makes him look like a superhero compared to most of the other people on the show. That’s fitting since Ritchson made guest appearances on Smallville as Aquaman, and he co-starred in Max’s Titans as Hawk. The key appeal of Reacher is that the title character isn’t afraid to take the law into his own hands and confront powerful criminals when no one else…

Ahmed Alliusie is a Chinese expat who has called the UAE home for half a century and has created quite a buzz on social media. He is a viral sensation, thanks to how he has mastered the Arabic language — that too the Emirati dialect. Ahmed came to the Emirates with his family in 1972 and grew up here. His Arabic adventure began when his father decided to enroll him in a government school, while his siblings opted for an international one. Now, you might think he’d have felt like a fish out of water, being the only Chinese kid…

Two major freight firms including MSC, the world’s biggest container shipping line, on Saturday said they would avoid the Suez Canal as Houthi militants in Yemen stepped up their assaults on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi movement has been attacking vessels in response to the Gaza war on a route that allows East-West trade, especially of oil, to use the Suez Canal to save the time and expense of circumnavigating Africa. War risk insurance premiums have risen as a result. The Liberian-flagged MSC Palatium III was attacked on Friday with a drone in the Bab Al…

Apple made a change to the default notification sound when it launched iOS 17, replacing “Tri-tone” with “Rebound.”Users have been unable to switch back to the original sound or select a different one as the default, and not everyone is a fan of the new tune. As you’d imagine, that’s left some folks rather annoyed. But there’s good news! This issue has been resolved with the release of the iOS 17.2 update. If you’re looking to make changes to your iPhone’s default notification sound, here’s how to do it. How to change the default notification sound on your iPhoneWith these…

A Filipina expatriate, who works as a cleaning assistant at a private company in Abu Dhabi, recently bagged the top prize in the inaugural Emirates Labour Market Award. She was cited not only for her work ethic but also hailed as “a beacon of success.” Maria Isabel Lacierda, 44, was beyond grateful when she received the award, and thanked her company, Emirates Business Group (EBG), for the nomination and the opportunity to show her “dedication and passion at work.” “Working in the UAE was previously just a dream but now I am living and seizing every moment of it,” Lacierda,…

Sri Lanka’s government on Sunday cut taxes on female sanitary products in a bid to help women and girls unable to afford them because of the country’s economic crisis. Even before the downturn last year, many schoolgirls and women in Sri Lanka, like in other poor countries, would stay home when menstruating because they couldn’t afford sanitary products. A study this year by policy advocacy group Advocata said “period poverty” – being unable to afford sanitary products – among Sri Lanka’s 5.3 million women of reproductive age was about 50 per cent. Campaigners believe the situation has worsened, with Sri…