Saudi Arabia has announced a timeline for implementation of a tax on harmful products including soft drinks and cigarettes, and said it has completely ruled out income tax contrary to previous reports, according to an official document. The Fiscal Balance Program 2020 report, published by the Saudi government last week, said the kingdom would impose a 50 percent tax on soft drinks and a 100 percent tax […]
Two years ago, James Garstang, a brewer at the Kernel Brewery, one of London’s most popular microbreweries, was approached by a friend about an opportunity abroad. “He said: ‘If you are interested in some karma and curry, then I have a potential job for you,’” Mr Garstang recalls. Less than a month later, the Londoner was living and working in Gwalior, a midsized city in India five […]
If there is one thing that unites Middle Eastern leaders these days, it is concern over what Donald Trump might do in 2017. A true political outsider, Trump will arrive in the White House next month with no track record and no political markers that might give an indication. The list of policy problems is certainly long, yet his list of policy ideas, as mooted during his […]
BOGOTA Colombia’s Congress on Wednesday approved an amnesty law to protect thousands of demobilizing Marxist guerrilla fighters from prosecution for minor crimes committed during the country’s 52-year war. The law, a key part of a peace deal signed last month between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, will not include fighters who have committed war crimes or human rights violations. The amnesty […]
While the opening of the archives was not expected to provide a conclusive end to the chapter for many of the families, given the partial and sometimes contradictory information in the files, the government hoped to at least dispel the notion that it was hiding information, and to perhaps bring some relief. Continue reading the main story “Today we are correcting an historic injustice of disregard or […]
InterAksyon.comThe online news portal of TV5 Police in Cainta, Rizal, are in hot pursuit of members of the “Highway Boys” crime syndicate who execute their victims and cement the bodies inside drums before throwing these into the river. Four members of the gang were killed in a shootout with Cainta police in Barangay San Andres on Tuesday as the criminals were about to throw into the river […]
Arguably the biggest newspaper business story of 2016 was Gannett’s failed (for now) bid to take over Tronc. What the broken deal says about the industry, however, is more than a little ambiguous. For starters, consider that 2016 was a particularly hard year financially, with advertising revenue losses that started bad and got even worse in the fall. Both Gannett and Tronc are profitable on a cash […]
By Orhan Coskun and Ellen Francis | ANKARA/BEIRUT ANKARA/BEIRUT Turkey and Russia have prepared an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that Ankara would not give up its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying on as leader. The five-year-old Syrian civil war raged on, with heavy casualties reported in the siege of a town held by Islamic State, and the […]
By Andrew Osborn and Orhan Coskun | MOSCOW/ANKARA MOSCOW/ANKARA Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say. Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change […]
In the latest snub of president Obama and the US State Department, on Wednesday Turkey and Russia reached an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said, and according to Anadolu News Agency, will aim to put it into effect by midnight. Anadolu, citing sources, said the two countries have reached a consensus that will be presented to participants in the conflict on expanding the […]
28 December 2016 The UAE Banks Federation (UBF), the professional body representing 49 banks in the UAE, announced today its whole weight contribution as strategic partner for the 2017 ACFE Fraud Conference Middle East, set to take place in Dubai from 29-31 January 2017 at Atlantis, the Palm. Held under the patronage of His Excellency AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of UAE Banks Federation (UBF), the event is […]
As president-elect Trump plays Boeing and Lockheed off against each other, China flexed its military muscles once again – after sending its aircraft carrier Liaoning into the western Pacific – by testing the latest version of its fifth-generation stealth fighter, state media reported on Monday, as it tries to end the West’s monopoly on the world’s most advanced warplanes. As The South China Morning Post reports, the […]
By Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry | MOSCOW/BEIRUT MOSCOW/BEIRUT Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the Syrian government was consulting with the opposition ahead of possible peace talks, while a Saudi-backed opposition group said it knew nothing of the negotiations but supported a ceasefire. In an interview with Interfax news agency, Sergei Lavrov did not say where the consultations were taking place or which opposition groups were […]
By Jeff Mason | PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined U.S. President Barack Obama for a symbolic joint visit to Pearl Harbor on Tuesday, commemorating World War Two dead and pledging that Japan would never wage war again. The visit, just weeks before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office, was meant to highlight the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the […]
One year after this website demonstrated that Turkey was cooperating with the Islamic State, in the very least trading cash in exchange for crude oil sold to various Turkish outposts (a trade which was subsequently ended by the Russian air force), Turkey has flipped the tables and on Tuesday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has uncovered evidence that US-led coalition forces have helped support terrorists […]
By Steve Gorman | LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES Carrie Fisher, who rose to fame as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” films and later endured drug addiction and stormy romances with show business heavyweights, died on Tuesday aged 60, her daughter said through a family spokesman. “It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 […]
By Peter Hobson | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia, China and Pakistan warned on Tuesday that the influence of Islamic State (IS) was growing in Afghanistan and that the security situation there was deteriorating. Representatives from the three countries, meeting in Moscow, also agreed to invite the Afghan government to such talks in the future, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “(The three countries) expressed particular concern about the rising […]
DUBAI // A Pakistani man was attacked with a baseball bat by a man he had fought with three years ago, a court heard on Tuesday. “I was in Al Mamzar on October 2 last year when a man I had a fight with about three years ago arrived with a number of men and they assaulted me with their fists and then with a baseball bat,” […]
By Anuradha Nagaraj CHENNAI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Housemaids, brick makers, labourers, textile workers, fleeing migrants and children risking their lives in mica mines. These were the faces of modern day slavery in 2016 when the world saw a renewed resolve to combat all forms of human bondage. An estimated 45.8 million people globally live in some form of slavery, either trafficked into forced labour, sold […]
AMMAN, Jordan: The Syrian army escalated aerial bombing of a rebel-held valley northwest of Damascus in an offensive begun last week to recapture the strategic area where a major spring provides most of the capital’s water supplies, rebels and residents said on Tuesday.They said the army shelled and bombarded several towns in Wadi Barada valley about 18 km (11 miles) northwest of the capital in a major […]
Cyanogen started with a grand dream: Create a commercially-supported, vendor-neutral Android-fork that anyone could use to keep their smartphones and tablets up to date. The vision went from grand to grandiose. In 2015, then Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster said, “We’re putting a bullet through Google’s head.” Not two years later, Cyanogen shut down its Android fork, CyanogenMod and its services. Android vendor Cyanogen is abandoning its operating […]
By Anne Mireille Nzouankeu YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sitting in a circle with several other young men in a charity’s offices in Cameroon’s capital, Fleur listens intently to the speaker talk about gay sex before slowly raising his hand. “Can we catch AIDS by swallowing sperm?” he asks, prompting laughter from his peers at the group discussion held by Alcondoms, an organisation promoting the rights and […]
2016 was another fantastic year in mobile technology where we find people using their smartphones as their primary source of information and social interaction. I’ve been blessed to now write here on ZDNet for more than a decade and look forward to an exciting 2017. This year-end post includes my ten most viewed posts from 2016, some “best of” titles for this year, answers to last year’s […]
By Stephen Kalin | EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces will resume their push against Islamic State inside Mosul in the coming days, a U.S. battlefield commander said, in a new phase of the two-month-old operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line in the city. The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security […]
