BOGOTA A member of a United Nations team working on a project in Colombia to substitute illegal crops was kidnapped by dissident former FARC rebels who have rejected the peace process, U.N., police and military sources said on Thursday. The U.N. official Arley Lopez, a Colombian, was seized on Wednesday by gunmen close to Miraflores in southern Guaviare province, where coca cultivation has long formed a big […]
DUBAI // “Iron” Mike Tyson, the former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, hopes his new Dubai gym will unearth a diamond in the rough that could go on to make a career in the fight game. Speaking at Atlantis The Palm on Thursday, the American said Dubai is the perfect venue to launch the Mike Tyson Academy of boxing and fitness. “People don’t have to fight […]
How do best performing companies and leaders deliver value with a vision and foundation for success? SAP works with some of the best companies and CEOs across the region in helping them achieve transformation through innovation and technology. This new CEO Innovation Series, supported by SAP will share and tell the best stories of achievement and feature top leaders on how they continue to lead by example. […]
Still, the Iraqi forces face hundreds of militants who appear determined to fight to the end in neighborhoods still teeming with hungry and increasingly desperate civilians. Continue reading the main story The new operation will also require careful synchronization among the Iraqi Army, Interior Ministry troops and the Counterterrorism Service, which report to different authorities in Baghdad and sometimes seem to be fighting separate wars. Tensions among […]
Samsung’s Bixby is out to compete with other AI assistants in the market. Its cred? Rapping. In Korean, at least. A video posted online showed the Galaxy S8‘s much-hyped AI assistant with a female voice rapping. The three-minute clip of Bixby rap was also discovered to contain a shoutout to Apple Siri. Bixby was baked into the Galaxy S8 when it was launched on March 29, with the […]
By Michel Rose and Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron clashed over their vision of France’s future, the euro and ways of fighting terrorism in an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday before Sunday’s run-off vote for the presidency. The two went into the debate with opinion polls showing Macron, 39, with a strong lead of 20 percentage points over […]
Don’t open that email. Journalists and others on Wednesday were ensnared in what appears to be a widespread phishing attack from the address “[email protected],” while others took to Twitter to warn others: icymi: Someone Is Spreading a Massive Google Doc Phishing Email Right Now https://t.co/Y2HVIKejlp via @lorenzofb — Carl Franzen (@carlfranzen) May 3, 2017 This may be spreading through asking authorizing apps. DO NOT AUTHORIZE APPS WITHOUT […]
The insurgent groups suspended participation in the talks on Wednesday to protest what they described as heavy bombing by the Syrian government’s Russian-backed forces the day before that killed dozens, including civilians. Continue reading the main story The Russian proposal does not specify measures to prevent government warplanes from carrying out such bombings. Rebels said they remained suspicious of Russian guarantees, regardless, because Russia has been unable […]
By Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuelan security forces battled protesters who lit fires and hurled stones on Wednesday in rage at President Nicolas Maduro’s decree to create an alternative congress, with another fatality taking the death toll to 34 during a month of unrest. In a familiar pattern in protests against the socialist government, thousands of opposition supporters rallied peacefully at first before […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE on Wednesday hailed a meeting in Abu Dhabi between two rival Libyan leaders as a significant breakthrough in talks aimed at ending the conflict. The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs voiced optimism over the meeting between Fayez Al Sarraj, prime minister of Libya’s UN-backed government, and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the country’s most powerful military commander, the state news agency, Wam, reported. […]
By Richard Cowan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September and avoid federal agency shutdowns on Saturday when existing money is depleted. With the 309-118 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber, the legislation now goes to the Senate, which is expected to pass it before a midnight Friday deadline. The Pentagon is a […]
BEIRUT: A large explosion shook a rebel-held Syrian town along the border with Turkey on Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding others.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a car bomb went off in the town of Azaz close to the offices of the Syrian interim government, which represents the opposition in rebel-held areas. The Observatory and the activist-run Azaz Media Center confirmed the […]
Theresa May has formally launched her election campaign with an attack on “European politicians and officials”, whom she accused of threatening Britain and trying to sabotage her attempt to win re-election. Standing on the steps of Number 10, Mrs May set out to inflame Brexit tensions, claiming that events of recent days showed that “there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed”. […]
(Corrects to show plane took a ground test, not a flight test) BEIJING China’s domestically developed AG600, the world’s largest amphibious aircraft, took its maiden ground test on Saturday in the southern city of Zhuhai, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The AG600 was designed to extinguish forest fires and carry out rescue missions at sea, Xinhua said, adding that it could also “be used to […]
A big part of that is its watering down of the anti-Semitic language of the original Hamas charter in 1988, with its talk of war between Arabs and Jews. “We are making it clear that ours is a liberation project — not about religion or the Jews,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Tuesday in Doha, his latest home. Continue reading the main story His offer […]
Abu Dhabi // The prime minister of Libya’s UN-backed government and the country’s most powerful military commander met in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for direct talks on ending Libya’s conflict. The meeting came after months of international pressure and a failed attempt at negotiations in Cairo in February. The rival figures met face to face “thanks to international and Arab mediation”, according to Libya’s Lana news agency. […]
Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have each promised to bring renewal to French politics. Still, the two insurgent candidates, who will go head to head in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, have clashed over how to handle the challenges facing France. Ms Le Pen, of the National Front, is running on a populist, anti-immigration platform but has spurned economic liberalism in favour […]
Mr. Abbas’s visit to the White House will present Mr. Trump with the Palestinian viewpoint more directly than he has ever heard it as president. But at 82, Mr. Abbas is a weakened political figure facing public discontent and divisions at home. Continue reading the main story His Palestinian Authority operates in the West Bank, while the more militant rival Hamas faction rules in Gaza. Despite an […]
BEIRUT An aid convoy of food and medical supplies has reached the besieged Syrian town of Douma for the first time since October, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. Along with the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the ICRC went into Douma with 51 trucks loaded with aid for 35,000 people, it said on Twitter. A U.N. official in […]
New Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has big shoes to fill after his two predecessors were forced to resign in disgrace after being exposed for, among other things, intentionally rigging their party’s national primary process and sharing debate questions with chosen candidates days before debates were held. And, at least with his rhetoric, Perez seems up for the task. In speaking with a group of immigrants […]
Outreach to conservatives, increased collaboration between journalists and academics and more data from major social media companies could help fight the tide of fake news, according to a report released Monday by the the Harvard Kennedy School and Northeastern University. The premise of the first recommendation — involving more conservative voices and institutions like the Cato and Koch Institutes — is likely to be the most controversial […]
By Susan Heavey | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump came to office promising that he would produce so much winning that Americans would be sick of it. As he struggles to produce wins, some signs of frustration are starting to appear. Democrats’ gleeful declarations that they outsmarted Republicans in a battle over a spending bill that avoided a government shutdown drew the ire of the president. […]
ABU DHABI // Two major development projects will bring thousands of homes and jobs to an underdeveloped area on the outskirts of the capital. The Dh4 billion Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City is 90 per cent complete and will open soon, while construction is under way on a Dh2.5bn Emirati housing neighbourhood near Abu Dhabi International Airport. The first of the homes will be ready by 2019. The […]
Photo A nurse with a wounded patient at a hospital in Hasaka, Syria, on Tuesday after an attack by the Islamic State. Credit Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State militants attacked a checkpoint on Tuesday used by refugees fleeing fighting in Syria and Iraq, killing more than three dozen people, according to local Kurdish militants and monitoring groups. It was one of […]
