DUBAI // The UAE’s youth have the will, knowledge and culture to carry the vision of the country’s leadership into the future, said Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Addressing Emirati youth at an open dialogue session to encourage political participation, held at Etihad Museum, Dr Gargash answered questions on the challenges facing the country and the running of the Federal National Council. “Young […]
TEHRAN — A council that vets Iran’s political candidates disqualified former two-term president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday — along with hundreds of others — from the presidential election next month. No official reason was given for the disqualifications in the May 19 election, which were announced on state television Thursday night by an election official, Ali Asghar Ahmadi. While Mr. Ahmadinejad’s disqualification was not unexpected, the timing […]
BEIRUT Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and hardline rival Ebrahim Raisi were both approved to run in May’s presidential election by a government vetting body, while former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was disqualified, state media reported on Thursday. The approval of Rouhani, a moderate, and Raisi, a political hardliner thought to have the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sets up a showdown between rival political camps. Four […]
PARIS One policeman was killed and another wounded in a shooting incident in central Paris on Thursday night, a police source said. A person who fired on police on the Champs-Elysees shopping boulevard just days ahead of France’s presidential election has been killed, the source said. A police source also said there had been two assailants, and a witness told Reuters that one man got out of […]
The London market broke a four-day losing streak as the week’s spate of sterling-induced selling eased and consumer stocks from Burberry to Unilever put in robust performances. The marginal gains for the FTSE 100 were not enough to reverse Wednesday’s fall into losses for the year for the benchmark. But UBS maintaining that Burberry was its “preferred turnround name in luxury” and top pick in that European […]
By David Lawder | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON World financial leaders gathered in Washington on Thursday with pledges to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to fix lingering trade problems while vowing to keep their commitments to free trade and global integration. Worries over Trump’s approach to trade, taxes, financial regulation and climate change clouded the start of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, even amid […]
Wall Street still exudes widespread optimism that 2017 will provide another year of solid if unspectacular economic growth and only gentle interest rate rises. With the S&P 500 up over 4.5 per cent for the year, here is a series of charts that will hearten investors of a more bearish persuasion. While there are good reasons why each chart should not be taken too seriously, together they […]
By Madeline Chambers | BERLIN BERLIN Germany’s Central Council of Muslims said on Thursday that the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on a path to becoming a more radical, anti-Islamic party without co-chief Frauke Petry leading it into September’s national election. Petry had become the face of the anti-immigration party, which hurt Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives during the migrant crisis but has leaked support this year. […]
MOSCOW Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that only the Russian people will choose who succeeds him as president, through the electoral process. Russia will hold a presidential election in March next year. Putin has not said whether he will run or not, but is widely expected to go for what would be his fourth term. “The president’s successor will be decided by the Russian people only during […]
By Roberta Rampton | JAKARTA JAKARTA U.S. Vice President Mike Pence toured Southeast Asia’s largest mosque on Thursday during a visit to Indonesia, calling the Muslim-majority nation’s tradition of following a moderate form of Islam “an inspiration to the world”. Pence, an evangelical Christian, has sought to use his trip to soften some of the harsher edges of rhetoric about the Muslim world used by U.S. President […]
By Sarah White and Yann Le Guernigou | PARIS PARIS Hard-left presidential challenger Jean-Luc Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon were neck-and-neck behind the frontrunners in an opinion poll on Thursday, as candidates made last-ditch appeals to undecided voters. Voters will cast their ballots on Sunday in the first round of what has transformed into the most unpredictable French election in living memory, with four candidates within reach […]
With ‘Never-Trump’-ers still convinced he is Hitler and ‘Trump’-ers questioning their reality at his recent flip-floppery, many in the country are asking why should we support this President (even as his approval ratings rise with each warmongering threat). Well there is a simple – and perhaps greedy – reason… the world’s debt and equity markets have gained over $8 trillion since his election and a loss of […]
ANKARA Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday that any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers would be rejected by the constitutional court, and Europe’s human rights court had no jurisdiction on the matter. The main opposition CHP party said on Wednesday it was considering taking its appeal for the referendum to be annulled to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of […]
Thursday 08:00 BST What you need to know ● European bourses soft despite positive Asia session and as US futures steady● Energy shares under pressure as oil struggles to recover from sell-off ● Dollar soft as sterling and euro shrug off election concerns● Sovereign bond yields hold near recent lows ● Gold prices add 0.1 per cent to $1,281 an ounce——————- Hot topic Oil prices are steadier […]
BEIJING Britain will lose more than the European Union from its decision to leave the bloc, the EU’s top diplomat said on Thursday, and talks with London were expected to be difficult. Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from the EU last month, declaring there was no turning back, ushering in a tortuous exit process that will test the bloc’s cohesion and pitch her country […]
JAKARTA Indonesian prosecutors called on Thursday for Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, to be jailed for one-year on blasphemy charges, in a trial that is seen as a test of the Muslim-majority nation’s religious tolerance. Purnama, 50, is heading for defeat in his bid to remain governor in this week’s election against Muslim opponent Anies Baswedan after a bitterly fought campaign that saw hundreds of thousands […]
WASHINGTON A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters. They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort […]
Britain’s benchmark stock index dipped into negative territory for the year on Wednesday, as investors worry that a stronger pound saps the foreign-based revenues for many of the FTSE 100’s multinational companies. The blue-chip gauge slipped as much as 0.5 per cent on Wednesday by the close of trading. The pound retraced some gains in late trade from session highs above the $1.2850 level after surging on […]
In a lab deep within Tata Consultancy Services’ landscaped campus in the western Indian city of Pune, 16 recent graduates are experimenting with new technologies that are shaking up a flagship national industry. TCS, the largest of India’s powerful IT services companies, set up the lab 18 months ago to enable new starters to work on the “internet of things”, the field of connected machines and appliances that […]
Jeff Bezo’s Amazon is coming, take cover Australia!Image: DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES By Jerico Mandybur2017-04-20 02:36:33 UTC The moment Australian retailers have dreaded is here. Amazon is expanding Down Under, opening warehouses that’ll enable cheap, fast local shipping, and letting small businesses sell goods through the site—a development an Amazon employee reportedly said would “destroy the retail environment in Australia.” Shopping on Amazon.com is already available […]
By Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday denied being misleading about a U.S. carrier strike group’s push towards the Korean peninsula, saying it never gave an arrival date and that the ships were still on their way. When Trump boasted early last week that he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, the USS Carl Vinson […]
By Eyanir Chinea and Anggy Polanco | CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela Two Venezuelan students died on Wednesday after being shot during protests against unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro, increasing turmoil in the volatile nation amid a crippling economic crisis. Opposition supporters protested in Caracas and other cities in what they called “the mother of all marches,” denouncing Maduro for eroding democracy and plunging the oil-rich […]
A former Indonesian education minister yesterday won the race for Jakarta governor yesterday after a polarising campaign that cast a shadow over Indonesia’s reputation for practising a tolerant form of Islam.Anies Baswedan won with 58% of the votes versus 42% for Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his Chinese nickname as “Ahok”, based on 100% of the votes in an unofficial “quick count” by Indikator Politik.Other pollsters showed […]
Fund managers are buying eurozone equities and shunning Wall Street, as a major survey of global money managers this month revealed the fifth-biggest rotation from US to European stocks since the start of monetary union in 1999. The survey of 203 fund managers by Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed a record number — a net 83 per cent — believe US stocks are overvalued and that […]
