Mercy Corps, a leading American charity that uses Turkey as a base to aid hundreds of thousands of civilians upended by the war in neighboring Syria, was forced to curtail its work on Wednesday after the Turkish government abruptly revoked its registration to operate. “Our hearts are broken by this turn of events, which comes after five years of cooperation with the government of Turkey and other […]
DUBAI, UAE, March 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Over 1,300 IT and security stakeholders gathered in Riyadh to advance discussions on collaboration, standardization and a unified approach to mitigate cyber threats. Under the endorsement of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the National Cyber Security Center NCSC, representative of Ministry of Interior, in partnership with Naseba organized the 2nd International […]
Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: WIRETAPPING Two senior senators ask the FBI and Justice Department for any information they have on Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped him during the presidential campaign. HEALTHCARE The top U.S. doctors’ organization and several hospital groups come out strongly against a Republican plan backed by Trump to overhaul America’s healthcare system as […]
By Susan Cornwell and Yasmeen Abutaleb | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Democrats mounted a fierce uphill battle on Wednesday to thwart a Republican plan backed by President Donald Trump to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, even as the legislation also drew fire from a top medical group and dissatisfied conservatives. Two House of Representatives committees began debating the bill and considering amendments two days after it was unveiled by […]
ABU DHABI // A former Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that dialogue was the key to strong international relations and that his country was capable of being good friends with GCC states and Iran. Veniamin Popov, a former Russian ambassador to Yemen, Libya and Tunisia, said in Abu Dhabi that president Vladimir Putin wanted to see an end to all conflict in the Middle East and hoped […]
By Gabriela Baczynska | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS European Union leaders will discuss on Thursday their agreed plan to cut immigration from Libyan shores to Italy but they increasingly fear that calmer spring weather will bring a new surge of arrivals from Africa. Arrival numbers from lawless Libya are already higher than last year. Some 9,000 people made the perilous voyage in January and February last year, compared with […]
The highly publicised bout between Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and Britain’s Amir Khan is unlikely to take place in the UAE, according to Los Angeles Times This month, promoter Bob Arum told ESPN that he met with Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz to discuss a possible deal with an “unnamed investment group” who are keen to bring the fight to the UAE, with Yahoo Sports suggesting May […]
Confide, a messaging app used inside the White House and touted for its ability to allow staffers to privately leak to the press, isn’t as secure as the company claims. The multi-platform app, which first broke onto the security scene three years ago but only recently made headlines for its use across the Trump administration, claims that nobody can intercept and read messages that disappear after they […]
Researchers have identified 24 compounds, including caffeine, that showed potential in boosting levels of a brain enzyme exhibiting protective benefits against dementia. For a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Indiana University screened more than 1,280 compounds to identify which substances could influence production of NMNAT2. The brain enzyme’s protective effect was discovered just last year. “This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs […]
By Fatos Bytyci | PRISTINA PRISTINA Kosovo signalled on Wednesday it would turn its security force into a national army, plans opposed by its ethnic Serb minority that drew immediate criticism from NATO and the territory’s biggest foreign supporter, the United States. Nearly two decades after the Kosovo war, relations between Belgrade and Pristina remain strained and Serbia continues to regard Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, […]
KINSHASA Three mass graves have been discovered in central Democratic Republic of Congo, where hundreds have been killed since July in clashes between security forces and a local militia, the top U.N. rights official said on Wednesday. At least 400 people have died and 200,000 have been displaced since the fighting broke out with the Kamuina Nsapu militia. Police killed its leader, Kamuina Nsapu, last August, causing […]
MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces saw off a nighttime Islamic State counter-attack near Mosul’s main government building hours after recapturing it, a military official said on Wednesday, as troops sought to push the militants further back. The Islamic State fighters had used several car bombs in the assault, Major General Ali Kadhem al-Lami of the Federal Police’s Fifth Division told a Reuters correspondent near the site. “Today we’re […]
Photo A convoy of United States armored vehicles in Manbij, northern Syria. A Pentagon spokesman said Monday that the deployment was intended as a “visible sign of deterrence and reassurance” to dissuade Turkish-backed militias and other groups from attacking the area. Credit Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — The top American military officer met Tuesday with his Russian and Turkish counterparts to discuss how to […]
By Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo | TOKYO TOKYO Rattled by North Korean military advances, influential Japanese lawmakers are pushing harder for Japan to develop the ability to strike preemptively at the missile facilities of its nuclear-armed neighbour. Japan has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or weapons such as cruise missiles with enough range to strike other countries, relying instead […]
Via Soeren Kern of The Gatestone Institute, “The threat to the UK remains from homegrown terrorism, and is heavily youth- and male-oriented with British nationals prevalent among offenders.” — Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offenses and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015). “The increased prevalence of smaller cells and individualistic offending, suggests a rise in terrorism cases that feature shorter lead times to offending and fewer opportunities for identification.” […]
BERLIN Support for Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) nudged up to 32 percent, one percentage point behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, over the past week, according to a poll published on Wednesday. The centre-left SPD, currently the junior partner in Merkel’s ruling coalition, has seen its poll ratings soar since nominating former European Parliament president Martin Schulz as its candidate for chancellor in the Sept. 24 federal election. […]
After the calls to scale back the buffs on Bastion and the introduction of Orisa as the game’s 24th hero, Blizzard has released an update to the Overwatch PTR that applies changes to several heroes. The changes, which will affect Ana, Junkrat, Sombra, Winston, Zenyatta, and the new hero Orisa, will likely shake up the Overwatch competitive meta. ‘Overwatch’ Buffs And Nerfs In a post on the official Overwatch forums, […]
The House of Lords has voted in support of a requirement for the government to bring the final terms of Britain’s exit from the EU before parliament for its approval, inflicting a second defeat on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy in the space of a week. With 634 peers voting — the largest number of peers to participate in a vote in the upper chamber on record, according […]
Reuters (Adds comments from Saudi source) KUALA LUMPUR/DUBAI, March 7 (Reuters) – Malaysia said on Tuesday that suspected militants from Yemen arrested late last month ahead of a visit by Saudi King Salman had been planning an attack on Arab royalty. A senior Malaysian police source said the four suspects belonged to Yemen’sIran-allied Houthi movement, which hails from a Shi’ite Muslim sect and has been […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain’s justice ministry has filed a lawsuit intended to dissolve a major opposition group that it accuses of supporting terrorism, the state-run Bahrain News Agency reported on Monday. The group, the National Democratic Action Society, or Waad, was accused by the ministry of “serious violations targeting the principle of respecting the rule of law, supporting terrorism and sanctioning violence.” The secular organization […]
The biggest impact investing deal to ever see the light of day — that is how a fascinating new hedge fund deal is being touted. Impact investing is the practice of trying to make a measurable, positive societal impact as well as making a financial return on your money. The US hedge fund Mariner Investment Group reckons it has found a way to turn an investment of about $150m into […]
By Isabel Coles and John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces on Tuesday recaptured the main government building in Mosul, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues. A Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate complex in an overnight raid that lasted more than an hour, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters, spokesman Lieutenant […]
MOSUL, Iraq: Crawl through a labyrinth of narrow tunnels in near total darkness and suddenly they appear: two great winged bulls dating from the Assyrian empire found intact under the ground of Mosul.But as fighting rages to evict the Daesh group from the main city in northern Iraq, it will be a race against time to save the archaeological treasures uncovered in the tunnels.The jihadists dug the […]
BEIRUT Fawaz Atmeh and Mohammed Musa’s families were among the first to flee Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict, sheltering in tents on boggy ground near the Turkish border as jets bombed their villages further east. As Syria’s battle lines have shifted in nearly 18 months since, the two young men have watched their camp swell with families and fighters escaping government territorial gains, insurgent infighting and […]
