The Syrian government and rebels opened talks in Kazakhstan on Monday as part of a Turkish and Russian-backed effort to end the Arab state’s near six-year civil war. It is the first time the warring parties have held negotiations in a year, and if successful could mark a turning point in a conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people, while also underlining the increasing roles of […]
Picture for representation Reuters Fire engulfed a residential unit at Sago Lane in the wee hours of Monday following which two people were rushed to the hospital, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said. According to Channel News Asia, the victims, a man in his 50s and a woman in her 80s, both residents of the affected HDB flat, suffered smoke inhalation. The SCDF said that it […]
RIYADH/ADEN: King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) on Sunday dispatched a convoy loaded with 17 containers of medical supplies and equipment to Yemen, Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, Royal Court and KSrelief Supervisor, said Sunday. The convoy consisted of 11 containers carrying 279 types of medical supplies to the Republican Hospital in Aden and 25 types of medical equipment and supplies for the central medicinal and pharmacology storage […]
More than a decade after An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore and husband-and-wife duo Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk have released a sequel to the Academy Award-winning documentary. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gore discussed the long road to the sequel, the continuing threats of climate change, and his hope for the new administration. The original documentary 11 years ago set a high bar for […]
newslide If you wondered where Hollywood’s A-list celebrities had gone during President Donald Trump’s inauguration, you didn’t have to wonder any longer on Saturday, when scores of them showed up at huge women’s marches in Washington and other cities to send the new president a pointed message that he was in for a fight – and that, as so many signs said, women’s rights are human rights. […]
SANA, Yemen — Renewed fighting in the Yemen conflict killed about 75 people on Saturday and Sunday, some of them in the first drone strikes launched during the new administration of President Trump, according to Yemeni news reports. Two drone strikes in the central Yemeni province of Bayda on Saturday killed 10 militants with Al Qaeda, three of them hit while riding on a motorcycle and the […]
WASHINGTON The White House vowed on Sunday to fight the news media “tooth and nail” over what officials see as unfair attacks on President Donald Trump, setting a tone that could ratchet up a traditionally adversarial relationship to a new level of rancor. A day after the Republican president used his first visit to CIA headquarters on Saturday to accuse the media of underestimating the crowds at […]
BERLIN Germany must brace itself for turbulent times under U.S. President Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Sunday, adding that free trade and trans-Atlantic cooperation to fight extremism and terrorism were key for Berlin. Steinmeier, who in August said Trump was a “Hassprediger” or “hate preacher”, wrote in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper that some members of the new U.S. administration understand the importance of allies […]
SINGAPORE — With salary disputes forming a significant proportion of cases it saw last year, the labour movement’s Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE) will push for electronic payments for all foreign domestic workers here, centre chairman Yeo Guat Kwang said yesterday. “Today, it’s still not standardised,” Mr Yeo said at an event at the Singapore Flyer to mark the CDE’s first anniversary and to thank 50 of […]
By Warren Strobel and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The White House said on Sunday that it is only in the early stages of talks to fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an action that would likely spark anger in the Arab world. “We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” White […]
BAGHDAD Islamic State blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces from using it as a base in their offensive to capture the city, witnesses said on Sunday. The Mosul Hotel, shaped as a stepped pyramid, appeared to be leaning to one side after the explosions, two witnesses said by phone. They requested anonymity, saying the […]
Droneboarders stand on snowboards and grip tow ropes, like those used in water-skiing, and are pulled along by a drone at speeds of up to 60 kph Skirted on all sides by snow-clad pine forests, Latvia’s remote Lake Ninieris would be the perfect picture of winter tranquility—were it not for the huge drone buzzing like a swarm of angry bees as it zooms above the solid ice […]
BEIRUT The Syrian army and its allies on Sunday drove Islamic State from several villages east of Aleppo, a military media unit run by Hezbollah and a war monitor reported, bringing them closer to territory held by Turkey-backed rebels. Several overlapping conflicts are being fought in Syria, dragging in regional and global powers as well as the government and local groups, complicating the battlefield in the north […]
After more than 10 years, how did “An Inconvenient Truth” change the conversation on climate change? Tech Times looks back at the climate crisis in the decade that followed the award-winning film. ( Christopher Furlong | Getty Images ) When the documentary first premiered, An Inconvenient Truth presented data and information that were, in fact, inconvenient. The world back then was complacent about the massive usage of fossil […]
But by April, protests against Mr. Assad had spread throughout Syria. One summer day I joined a group of young women in an upscale neighborhood of western Aleppo. We walked through a market carrying banners critical of the regime. A few minutes later, pro-Assad militiamen arrived in several cars and began circling us. We ran. A girl and I who sought refuge in a house in an […]
Submitted by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation, Whenever The New York Times or some other mainstream news outlet holds itself out as a paragon of professional journalism – by wagging a finger at some pro-Trump “fake news” or some Internet “conspiracy theory” – I cringe at the self-delusion and hypocrisy. No one hates fake news and fact-free conspiracy theories more than I do, but the […]
BEIRUT The Syrian army and its allies on Sunday drove Islamic State from the village of Soran, east of Aleppo, state media and a military media unit run by Hezbollah reported, bringing them closer to territory held by Turkey-backed rebels. Several overlapping conflicts are being fought in Syria, dragging in regional and global powers as well as the government and local groups, complicating the battlefield in the […]
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Washington and other major US cities in one of the biggest US political demonstrations in recent memory and a stark rebuke to Donald Trump at the start of his presidency. More than half a million protesters are estimated to have descended on the US capital to take part in the Women’s March on Washington, according to event organisers, […]
By Tom Perry and Laila Bassam | BEIRUT BEIRUT Islamic State is fighting hard to reinforce its presence in Syria as it loses ground in Iraq, deploying fighters to seize full control of a government-held city in the east while at the same time battling enemies on three other fronts. It underlines the residual strength of Islamic State even after its loss of a cluster of cities […]
China’s ruling Communist party has closed the website of a prestigious economist as it launches a campaign against “nihilist” interpretations of former leader Mao Zedong that is stirring up ghosts of the Cultural Revolution. Chairman Mao’s legacy has became a battleground for “leftists” and “rightists” over the past year, fifty years after he launched the chaotic and violent Cultural Revolution. The rancorous debates come as current president […]
“I’m sorry,” said Ms. Najjar, 26, wiping her eyes. Hisham, who is shy and has large dark brown eyes, left the room to play with balloons. “It’s just that I almost lost him, not to violence or to war, but to diabetes.” A few birds singing in their cages brighten the grim space where Hisham’s family lives. But they also remind the family of what it left […]
ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Syria’s government and opposition fighters will on Monday sit down at the negotiating table for the first time in nearly six years of war, the latest diplomatic push to end hostilities. Hosted in the Kazakh capital Astana, the talks will see an opposition delegation composed exclusively of opposition groups negotiating with the regime of Bashar Assad in an initiative sponsored by opposition backer Turkey […]
By Michael Georgy | MOSUL MOSUL Residents of east Mosul held up their children and took selfies with Iraqi counter-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi after his men cleared Islamic State fighters from their neighbourhoods. But his tour on Saturday of homes once occupied by the militants was a reminder of the dangers ahead as security forces prepare to expand their offensive against the Sunni militants into […]
TRIPOLI A car bomb exploded late on Saturday close to the recently re-opened Italian embassy in the Libyan capital, a security official said. It was not clear who was responsible for the blast. Two charred bodies were recovered from the car, according to a statement on a social media page run by a local branch of the Red Crescent, but the identity of the occupants was unknown. […]
