April 23, 2017 by: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris Emmanuel Macron will go head-to-head against Marine Le Pen in the run-off election for French president on May 7 after qualifying in Sunday’s first round vote. Mr Macron, an independent centrist, came out on top with 23.7 per cent of the vote ahead of Ms Le Pen, the far-right leader, on 21-22 per cent, according to three estimates for […]
Photo King Salman of Saudi Arabia at the 28th Ordinary Summit of the Arab League at the Dead Sea last month. King Salman rescinded a 20 percent cut to ministers’ salaries and promoted two of his sons. Credit Mohammad Hamed/Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — King Salman of Saudi Arabia rescinded salary cuts for ministers and restored financial perks for public sector workers in a series of royal decrees […]
MOSUL: Three policemen were killed on Sunday in a suicide attack south of Mosul, the northern Iraqi city where Daesh is fighting off a US-backed offensive, security sources said.A group of about 10 assailants, including four suicide bombers, had tried to infiltrate a Federal Police helicopter base in Al-Areej, a police captain told Reuters.Three policemen and three of the assailants were killed in the attack, he said. […]
By Michelle Martin | COLOGNE, Germany COLOGNE, Germany The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday chose a tough-talking former member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and an economist to lead its campaign for a September election in a line-up likely to drag the group further right. The party had stolen voters from Merkel during the migrant crisis but now looks less of a threat on […]
By Ahmed Sultan | ACHIN DISTRICT, Afghanistan ACHIN DISTRICT, Afghanistan The remote site in eastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat earlier this month bears signs of the weapon’s power, but little evidence of how much material and human damage it inflicted. Reuters photos and video footage – some of the first images from journalists allowed to get close […]
Bosasso A military vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Somalia’s semi autonomous Puntland region on Sunday, killing at least six soldiers and injuring another eight, a military official told Reuters. The al Qaeda linked Islamist group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on the outskirts of the region’s port city of Bosasso. Al Shabaab is fighting to topple the Horn of Africa country’s western […]
BEIRUT The Syrian army and allied forces advanced against rebels in western Syria near Hama city on Sunday, building on recent strategic gains in the area, a military source and a monitoring group said. Government forces captured the town of Halfaya and nearby villages, they said, taking back territory that rebels seized last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. “We gained control of Halfaya and […]
Tech Times reported on Feb. 25 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report revealing that mortality rates due to drug overdose have more than doubled since 1999. The death toll caused by opioids definitely affects not only patients who involuntarily become addicted to prescription drugs but curious children who are exposed to them as well. The Cherokee Nation, however, has had enough of the opioid […]
newslide James Cameron confirms Avatar sequels coming in 2020 James Cameron has set the release dates for the next four Avatar sequels, with the first coming in 2020. The movie’s Facebook page posted a photo of Cameron and his massive film crew, who have been working on all four films simultaneously. The post said Avatar 2 will hit theaters December 18, 2020, and Avatar 3 comes a […]
What are the best ways to reduce spam? How can we work together to reduce this threat and create a more trusted Internet? Last October, in the vibrant city of Bangkok, the Internet Society joined regulators for an in-depth conversation about how to eliminate spam and its harmful effects. Our kind hosts were the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the International Institute of Communications (ICC). […]
BEIRUT An Israeli attack against a military base for the Syrian pro-government National Defence Forces in southern Syria killed three NDF members on Sunday, the NDF militia and a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said it remained unclear if the source of the bombardment in Quneitra province was an air strike or shelling. Israel has carried out air […]
By Abdul Matin | MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan Afghan soldier Zabihullah was chatting with an army comrade at their military base in northern Afghanistan when gunfire interrupted their quiet Friday afternoon. “I asked my friend what was happening, and he said, relax, it must be one of us.” It wasn’t. It was the Taliban. Dressed in army uniforms, at least 10 Taliban attackers had breached the military […]
By Leika Kihara and Francesco Canepa | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON International Monetary Fund members on Saturday dropped a pledge to fight protectionism amid a split over trade policy and turned their attention to another looming threat to global economic integration: the first round of France’s presidential election. Concerns that far-right leader Marine Le Pen and far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, both critics of the European Union, could top the […]
Two Saudis were among a mainly Qatari hunting party freed after a 16-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, Saudi media reported on Saturday. The 26 hunters, initially believed to all be Qataris, were flown to Doha on Friday after being handed over to Iraqi authorities. Jeddah-based newspaper Okaz named the two Saudis as Salem bin Abdulhadi al-Merri and Mohammed Abdullah al-Merri and said they were expected to be […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE on Saturday welcomed the release of a mainly Qatari hunting party freed after a 16-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, saying such terrorism “feeds on chaos and instability”. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation congratulates the brotherly state of Qatar and expresses relief that their ordeal is over,” Dr Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said, according […]
Photo He was the only man I saw when we entered the nearly empty village in northern Iraq, which had just recently been liberated from the Islamic State. The first thing he did when he approached our car was ask my colleague for a light. That’s when I noticed the pack of cigarettes sticking out of Mohamed Ahmed Saleh’s shirt pocket. Just over a week after the […]
DOHA: US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met Qatar’s emir on Saturday during a visit to the oil-rich Gulf state, home to the largest US air base in the Middle East.The visit to Doha is part of a regional tour that has included stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. Mattis is scheduled to visit Djibouti on Sunday.The Pentagon chief’s meeting with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani […]
By Michelle Martin | COLOGNE, Germany COLOGNE, Germany The co-leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) suffered an embarrassing defeat on Saturday when delegates refused to discuss her motion to shift the party into the “mainstream”, putting it on course to turn further right. The party, a pariah in German politics, has seen its support drop in recent months, and thousands turned up to protest the […]
SHARJAH // Firefighters had to tackle a blaze in a Sharjah mall late on Friday night. Civil Defence said the fire broke out at Sahara Centre’s food court, which prompted the evacuation of the mall and the area being cordoned off. According to Lt Col Sami Al Naqbi, director of Sharjah Civil Defence, the fire started in Hardee’s burger restaurant at 10.30pm. Fire crews were on-site within […]
He broadened his point to argue that much of the chaos gripping the Middle East today was a result of mistrust between communities over historical wrongdoings that no one is willing to confront. “The past is not the past in the Middle East,” he said. “This is the biggest obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.” Eric D. Weitz, a history professor at the City […]
BEIRUT Lebanon’s army said it arrested ten suspected members of militant groups on Saturday after they came over the northeastern border from Syria, and a security source said a local Islamic State leader was killed in the same raid. No army personnel were reported injured or killed in the raid on Arsal, a town which militants briefly overran in 2014. The army says it stages regular operations […]
By Maher Chmaytelli | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Pushing carts loaded with bags, babies and the elderly, hundreds of people fled Mosul on Saturday after Iraqi forces retook another district in the west of the city from Islamic State. After walking for miles, families were taken by bus from a government checkpoint in the south of the city to camps housing more than 410,000 people displaced since […]
For some, modding PC games is a step to cybercrime. Image: iStock Cybercriminals are likely to get started young, and the barriers to getting involved with online crime are lower than ever, police have warned. The Pathways into Cybercrime report from the National Crime Agency (NCA) — the UK’s main body in the fight against organised crime — warns that free and off-the-shelf hacking tools, such as […]
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan As many 140 Afghan soldiers were killed on Friday by Taliban attackers apparently disguised in military uniforms in what would be the deadliest attack ever on an Afghan military base, officials said. One official in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where the attack occurred, said on Saturday at least 140 soldiers were killed and many others wounded. Other officials said the toll was likely to […]
