Dubai Internet City pledges its support to local talent

After its successful rounds in Beirut, Amman, and Riyadh, the ArabNet Developer Tournament will showcase the UAE’s most talented web and mobile programmers in a series of coding challenges at the Dubai Round on April 20th 2013. The competition, sponsored in the UAE by Du and hosted by Dubai Internet City, seeks to highlight young technical talent across the region and connect them with job opportunities in the growing digital sector. “The ArabNet Developer Tournament will shine the spotlight on the hidden heroes of the digital industry – the developers who build every website we visit and app we use,” stated Omar Christidis, the Founder & CEO of ArabNet.

Greece and its troika of international creditors have reached agreement on its economic recovery efforts, opening the way for the disbursement of 8.8 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in bailout loans, officials said Monday.

The talks under way since March "have wrapped up, we have an agreement," said Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras at a conference organised by The Economist.

President Nicos Anastasiades said Sunday that foreigners with bank deposits in Cyprus who lost at least 3 million euros ($3.9 million) under an EU bailout for the island would be given passports.

"Non-resident investors who held deposits prior" to the bailout and lost "at least 3 million euros will be eligible to apply for Cypriot citizenship," which brings with it an EU passport, Anastasiades said.

French ministers will for the first time on Monday disclose their assets, in a move President Francois Hollande's Socialist government hopes will restore public confidence after a tax fraud scandal.

There was apprehension, however, that the move could backfire by revealing significant riches to a country struggling with a lengthy economic downturn.

Germany's finance minister expects his country's parliament to widely approve the bailout plan for indebted Cyprus, he told a newspaper on Monday.

"I am reckoning on a broad majority in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament), also on broad support by the opposition," Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung according to a pre-released excerpt.

The World Bank will press the international community to endorse its 2030 anti-poverty goals at next week's meeting with the IMF, Bank president Jim Yong Kim said Friday.

"Our top priority for this meeting is simple and clear: We want to push the world to commit to ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity in countries worldwide," Kim said in a conference call with reporters.

The International Monetary Fund recognized the government of Somalia Friday, ending a 22-year break in relations that could lead to IMF technical and policy support to the country.

"The International Monetary Fund today recognized the Federal Government of Somalia, headed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, paving the way for the resumption of relations after a 22-year interval," the IMF said in a statement.

European Union finance ministers tackle tax fraud and money-laundering as they wrap up two days of talks on Saturday.

After a first day in Dublin focused on eurozone bailout issues -- tougher terms for Cyprus, easier repayments for Ireland and Portugal -- ministers want to flesh out a banking union that sets down the pecking order for creditor losses in future Nicosia-style private-sector "bail-ins".

The European Union must clarify "rules of the game" regarding help for Europe's ailing banks, and accelerate the creation of a mechanism to either help them or wind them up, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said in a interview published Friday by three European newspapers.

"I think it's important that, as there is still some uncertainty on rules of the game concerning resolution and bail-in, that we clarify these rules now," Rehn told the Wall Street Journal Europe, the German newspaper Die Welt and the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad.

The heiress of Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Athina, is negotiating a lease of the Ionian Sea island of Skorpios that was one of her family's most prized assets, a local official said on Friday.

"There are advanced talks that may have already produced a deal," Stathis Zavitsanos, the mayor of neighboring island of Meganissi that administers Skorpios, told Agence France Presse.