Author: Gulf News Week
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts has accelerated its expansion across Europe, the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa, signing 25 hotels and opening 13 properties during the first half of 2026.The additions have taken Wyndham’s regional network to more than 750 hotels and over 99,000 rooms. The scale reinforces EMEA’s position as an important growth market for the world’s largest hotel franchising company by property count.Expansion has been driven by demand for experience-led holidays, branded accommodation and destinations beyond established tourism gateways. Wyndham is targeting secondary cities, pilgrimage centres, infrastructure corridors and markets where international hotel brands remain underrepresented.Türkiye, India, Central Asia…
Emirates NBD has agreed to acquire HSBC Egypt’s entire retail banking business, significantly expanding the Dubai-based lender’s customer franchise in one of its main regional growth markets.The transaction will transfer HSBC Egypt’s retail loans, deposits and accounts to Emirates NBD Egypt, along with the associated branches, automated teller machines and employees supporting the business. Completion is expected during the second half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.Financial terms were not disclosed. HSBC expects to record a pre-tax gain of about $300 million, largely when the transaction is completed. The sale is expected to have only a…
Watch: Moment before helicopters collide while tackling Greece wildfiresTwo crew members have been killed after two helicopters collided mid-air in Greece while battling wildfires.The fatalities were a Danish pilot and a Greek fire service liaison officer. A British pilot and another Greek co-ordinator on the second helicopter survived.Video of the incident some 65 km (42 miles) west of the capital Athens shows one of the two Bell helicopters hitting the rotors of the other, which bursts into flames and crashes in a ravine. The other aircraft made an emergency landing. Wildfires have broken out in Greece this week, prompting mass…
BBCDr Anwar’s makeshift clinic is unable to deal with seriously injured protestersDr Anwar’s makeshift clinic is not far from the main protest site in the city of Rawalakot in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK). A spare bedroom acts as a medical supply cupboard, outside is a bed under a red stretched tarpaulin.Lying across the bed is Shafqat Hussain, shot in the chest. The sheet he lies on is already stained with the blood of previously injured. He is dying.In the last two months, dozens of people have been killed across the region in clashes between security officials and protesters from the group…
Watch: Malaysian boy goes on trial for allegedly murdering girl at schoolA teenage boy in Malaysia is on trial for allegedly killing a female schoolmate, in a high-profile case that has sparked debate about the effects of social media on children.The boy is accused of murdering 16-year-old Yap Shing Xuen last October. The girl was found fatally stabbed multiple times in a toilet at their secondary school on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur.The boy, who was 14 at the time, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could spend decades in prison.Police previously said they suspected social media…
ReutersThree days before his rescheduled exam, 17-year-old Kahaan Patel took his lifeThree days before he was due to sit India’s rescheduled medical entrance examination, 17-year-old Kahaan Patel jumped from the sixth floor of his family’s apartment building in the western city of Ahmedabad.When his family entered his bedroom after his death in the early hours of 18 June, it looked as though he might return at any moment.His laptop was still open. Text books, notebooks, pens and markers lay scattered across his bed and study table. He was wearing his headphones when he jumped. In one corner stood his electric…
ReutersTrump speaks to reporters on Air Force One on SundayUS President Donald Trump has said new talks with Iran will begin on Monday, after calling off what he said would have been “massive” strikes on the country.”They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming,” he told reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday. “We’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.”In an earlier post on Truth Social, Trump said he had been asked by Iran and US allies in the Middle East to “hold off” on any attack as…
Getty ImagesAriana Grande is to withdraw from public appearances and will no longer star in an upcoming musical production in London when she ends her Eternal Sunshine tour next month.A representative for the US singer, 33, told People magazine that she “will be taking a step back from visibility” when the tour ends, after her appearances led to “endless, ongoing public scrutiny”.The company behind a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, due to play at the Barbican in 2027, confirmed that she would no longer be part of the production and had its “complete understanding and…
NBC via Getty ImagesOn Friday, exactly six months after Nancy Guthrie was abducted, police released two ransom notes in the hope that they would help identify her kidnappers. Guthrie, the mother of US news presenter Savannah Guthrie, was 84 when she went missing from her Arizona home in January.Her disappearance sparked a months-long investigation which has turned up few apparent leads and fewer suspects.So how could Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapper, or kidnappers, be caught from these brief ransom notes?While the language in the notes might seem straightforward, police said the writer’s “distinct linguistic characteristics” may be recognisable.”There are a number of…
LIVESimple Minds close out Glasgow 2026 with performanceFollow updates as the Commonwealth Games ends with the closing ceremony in Glasgow.