After relishing a cocktail of cheap crude mixed with profits from fuel sales, Asia’s oil processors are facing their reckoning over a lack of restraint. Profits from turning crude into fuel in Asia since the beginning of April have averaged almost a third lower than levels over the previous six months, and are down 40 percent from the same period a year earlier. That’s already prompted some […]
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s national census takers made something of a stark discovery earlier this year when they found that nearly a third of the country’s 9.5 million residents are not, technically speaking, Jordanians. For decades, the country has absorbed successive waves of people fleeing war and chaos. Lately it has been the Syrians, but before them came Iraqis, Sudanese and Palestinians, not to mention those from […]
Google has already brought its Fiber high-speed Internet service to six cities across the U.S., but it may soon add Dallas, the home turf of AT&T, to its list of deployment targets. In a blog post earlier today, Google announced that is “exploring the possibility” of rolling out its Fiber service in Dallas. AT&T, which is headquartered in Dallas, is already offering its high-speed GigaPower Internet service […]
Trilobites By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Archaeologists have been combing the ancient city of Petra in southern Jordan for at least two centuries. Now, with drones and satellite imagery, they have discovered new features, including a monumental platform of nearly 30,000 square feet, or roughly half a football field. Interactive Feature | More Reporting on Archaeology Pottery shards nearby date from the second century B.C. through the sixth century […]
A 22-year-old Dutch woman detained for three months in Qatar on suspicion of adultery after she reported being drugged and raped was given a one-year suspended sentence on Monday and will be allowed to return home, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said. The woman, identified only as Laura and described as being from the Dutch city of Utrecht, was held and prosecuted on charges of adultery and alcohol […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Relief trucks delivered food aid for the first time in four years to Daraya, the rebel-held Syrian town just outside of Damascus that has come to symbolize civilian suffering in the war, the United Nations said Friday. But even as the relief convoy’s success was announced by the World Food Program, the United Nations anti-hunger agency, residents of Daraya were reporting that Syrian military […]
Fallujah: Iraq’s elite counterterrorism service moved to within three kilometres of central Fallujah on Friday and consolidated positions in the south of the city, the operation’s commander said. Speaking from the edge of the city’s Shuhada neighbourhood, Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab Al Saadi said the operation to retake one of Daesh’s most emblematic bastions was progressing well. […]
At its Tech World event in San Francisco yesterday, Lenovo unveiled a prototype of a phone that can bend around your wrist, as well as a concept tablet that can fold to act as a regular smartphone. The devices, not yet ready for market but rather “a sign of things to come,” add Lenovo to the small but growing list of companies, led by LG and Samsung, […]
Last bastion of financial system pays salaries on both sides of civil war as governor maintains ‘economic traduce’ Yemeni locals and secruity guards are pictured outside the Central Bank of Yemen in the capital Sana’a. Dubai: As civil war engulfs Yemen, the central bank is so committed to staying neutral that it pays salaries of soldiers on both sides. The bank […]
|By Matein Khalid|Dr. Mervyn King broke with tradition by publishing his book “The End of Alchemy: money, banking and the future of the global economy”. After all, retired governors of the Bank of England do not, as a rule, do not write/publish books, let alone write books that lambast the City of London’s culture of greed and hubris. It is no coincidence that Dr. King quotes T.S. […]
In the days before rapid sea or air travel, it could take months to travel to Mecca. The spiritual heart of Islam lay far from its great capitals in Istanbul, Delhi and Isfahan. The devout came from distant lands on foot, by camel and in horse-drawn carriages. Bedouin tribes routinely robbed these pilgrims, who were the primary source of revenue for this ancient desert town. Now, the […]
By RICK GLADSTONE and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE June 7, 2016 Syria’s president promised to retake “every inch” of the country from his foes in a defiant speech on Tuesday that dimmed hope for a revival of talks to end the war, now in its sixth year. The speech by the president, Bashar al-Assad, was his first major address since talks in Geneva mediated by the United Nations broke down in April, and […]
By ISABEL KERSHNER June 7, 2016 JERUSALEM — The Israeli police briefly detained a leader of a Jewish women’s rights group on Tuesday for bringing a Torah scroll to the Western Wall, signaling a resumption of the battle over rituals at the holy site here. Lesley Sachs, the executive director of Women of the Wall, was detained as she exited the Western Wall plaza Tuesday after prayers to mark […]
AMIRIYAT FALLUJA, Iraq — One of the Iraqi civilians who risked an escape from the sprawling battle for Falluja made it as far as the Euphrates River. He was there for all to see on Sunday morning: His body, tied to the side of a boat, bobbed in the muddy waters next to a rickety bridge that separates Baghdad from the violence of Anbar Province. “Sheikh, sheikh, […]
DUBAI // A Ramadan education campaign to distribute five million books to children in refugee camps and schools around the world was launched on Sunday by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai. The Reading Nation campaign, announced by Sheikh Mohammed on Twitter, is part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives. He said that he asks God to accept his and the […]
Ali was the most thrilling if not the best heavyweight ever, but he was more than the sum of his athletic gifts Ali faces the media at the US federal court in June 1967, while on trial for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces. New York: Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion who helped define his turbulent times as the most charismatic […]
DUBAI // Creating a safe place for children is the cornerstone of the UAE’s new Child Protection Law, so educators and a paediatrician have asked for a clear chain of command to enable an immediate response to cases flagged by schools and hospitals. Informally referred to as Wadeema’s Law, in memory of an eight-year-old Emirati girl tortured to death by her father, it will take effect on […]
DUBAI // Specially trained teams should be available around the clock to investigate clinical findings by doctors and nurses who report suspected cases of child abuse. The new legislation to protect children’s rights that is due to become law in two weeks will make medical staff more confident about speaking out, but their reports must be thoroughly checked by professionals trained to identify abuse, doctors said. “My […]
WASHINGTON — An exhausted and ill-equipped Iraqi Army faces daunting obstacles on the battlefield that will most likely delay for months a long-planned major offensive on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, American and allied officials say. The delay is expected despite American efforts to keep Iraq’s creaky war machine on track. Although President Obama vowed to end the United States’ role in the war in Iraq, […]
Iran’s top leader said Friday that trusting or cooperating with the United States would be a big mistake, an assertion that seemed to rule out any greater collaboration despite the nuclear deal reached nearly a year ago. The statement by the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made in a nationally televised speech, was the latest in a series of signals that Iran’s senior leadership was not likely to […]
Fish that are bred to be bolder or more shy show corresponding changes to their body shape and locomotion, suggesting that personality changes affect other seemingly unrelated traits. The findings could be useful in animal breeding, pest management and studies of complex human behaviors. In a study performed by North Carolina State University researchers, zebrafish that were bred to be more bold — quantified by the shorter […]
INTERNATIONAL. –(BUSINESS WIRE)–Shifting power relationships in the Middle East are reordering regional geopolitics, entrenching a stalemate of conflict that threatens to further destabilize the region. Wars in Syria and Yemen and against the Islamic State, combined with the balancing of supply and demand in oil markets later this year, will likely return a risk premium to oil prices in 2017, says a new special report by IHS […]
The company logo is shown at the headquarters of Oracle Corporation in Redwood City, California, February 2, 2010. Reuters/Robert Galbraith/Files Oracle Corp was sued on Wednesday by a former senior finance manager who claimed she was terminated in retaliation for complaining about improper accounting practices in Oracle’s cloud services business. Shares of Oracle fell about 2.6 percent to $39.23 in after-hours trading. In a complaint filed in […]
Experts say they found more than 400 wooden tablets during excavations Image Credit: AFP Archaeologist Luisa Duarte poses for a picture holding a Roman waxed writing tablet containing the earliest written reference to London, dated AD 65/70-80, which translated reads ‘Londinio Mogontio’ (in London, to Mogontius…), at Bloomberg’s offices in central London. The tablets were found during excavation for financial news agency […]
