Wall Street is bathing in nostalgia. This week the cover of Barron’s, the bible of US retail investors, proclaimed “Dow 20,000”. Presenters on CNBC are wearing Dow 10,000 caps first donned in 1999. And each day the thinning crowds on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have watched the boards to see if the Dow Jones Industrial Average, having passed 19,900, can top the 20,000 […]
By Lisa Barrington and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hopes to resume the evacuation of civilians and wounded from the Syrian enclave of east Aleppo on Sunday, a spokeswoman said. Thousands of people are left in Aleppo, some sleeping on the streets in freezing temperatures, after the evacuation of the rebel-held areas ground to a halt on Friday following […]
Venezuelans are bracing for Christmas without cash after the country’s highest denomination banknote was withdrawn from circulation with new larger bills not due until January, as many fear that the country is spiralling towards hyperinflation. Embattled President Nicolás Maduro this week announced plans to scrap the ubiquitous 100 bolívar bill, which makes up about half the country’s banknotes but is increasingly worthless as annual inflation is forecast […]
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council will vote Sunday on a French proposal to send observers to the flashpoint Syrian city of Aleppo to monitor evacuations and report on the protection of civilians, diplomats said.The council will meet at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) to decide on the draft resolution, despite resistance from Russia, Syria’s ally and a veto-wielding Security Council member.France circulated a draft text late Friday […]
Facebook on Thursday unveiled a multi-part plan to fight fake news that includes teaming up with fact-checkers in the United States to cut down on the reach of bogus stories. The plan (which Poynter’s International Fact-checking Network is involved with) represents the first time Facebook has given fact-checkers the ability to verify news on its platform, and comes after months of public debate about the social media […]
By Bill Trott Henry Heimlich, the medical maverick who came up with a maneuver credited with saving thousands of choking victims but who damaged his standing as a proponent of the curative powers of malaria, died on Saturday at the age of 96. Heimlich, a doctor who developed a life-saving technique to dislodge airway blockages, died at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati of complications from a massive heart […]
It was a clear and chilly afternoon in Moscow – March 18, 2014 – when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the documents to formally annex the Crimean Peninsula away from Ukraine. Frustrated Western governments soon began rolling out the only response they could agree on to Mr. Putin’s brazen redrawing of Europe’s borders: economic sanctions. Over the next two days, the United States would designate 27 individuals […]
When word came that a shaky evacuation deal had been reached, the remaining residents in the last patch of rebel-held Aleppo got moving. Doctors readied their patients, mothers packed their children’s bags and young men burnt their motorbikes to spite regime forces who might have wanted to take them. Relief mixed with heartbreak for residents who have lived in a world more nightmare than reality. Over a […]
A new deal has been reached to complete the evacuation of rebel-held areas of Syria’s east Aleppo which ground to a halt on Friday over demands from pro-government forces that people also be moved out of two villages besieged by rebels. Syrian rebel official al-Farouk Abu Bakr, speaking from Aleppo to news channel al-Arabiya al-Hadath on Saturday, said the deal comprised an evacuation from the two Shi’ite […]
DUBAI Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned Britain on Saturday as a “source of evil and misery” for the Middle East after British Prime Minister Theresa May called Iran a regional threat. “Shamelessly, the British have recently called … Iran a threat to the region, but everyone knows that … it is the British who have always been the source of threats, corruption and misery,” the […]
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte(Photo: Tang Chhin Sothy, AFP/Getty Images) President Rodrigo Duterte threatened Saturday to terminate a pact that allows U.S. troops to visit the Philippines, saying “bye-bye America” as he reacted with rage to what he thought was a U.S. decision to scrap a major aid package over human rights concerns. A U.S. government aid agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, said earlier in the week that […]
2016 is definitely a memorable year for various reasons, but Google’s latest compilation of “Year in Search” reveals that much of the things that made the year memorable were because of huge losses. Not only for those in the United States but for everyone around the globe. The year marked losses due to disease, politics, and terrorism, and issues being searched about often divided the world as […]
By MacDonald Dzirutwe | MASVINGO, Zimbabwe MASVINGO, Zimbabwe Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was confirmed on Saturday as his party’s sole candidate for the next presidential election in 2018, when he will be 94. Supporters at a party conference sang a song titled “Mugabe should rule until eternity” as the veteran leader rose to give a speech in which he called for an end to infighting within the […]
To do otherwise, he said, would have required the United States to be “all in and willing to take over Syria.” Continue reading the main story The recent developments in the Syrian conflict send a message to autocratic leaders in the region and elsewhere that force works — and brings few consequences, said Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. The lesson […]
By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT A new deal has been reached to complete the evacuation of rebel-held areas of Syria’s east Aleppo which ground to a halt on Friday over demands from pro-government forces that people also be moved out of two villages besieged by rebels. Syrian rebel official al-Farouk Abu Bakr, speaking from Aleppo to news channel al-Arabiya al-Hadath on […]
BEIRUT A new deal has been reached to complete the evacuation of rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo which stalled over demands from pro-government forces that two villages besieged by rebels must also be evacuated, a Syrian rebel told news channel al-Arabiya al-Hadath on Saturday. Rebel official Al-Farouk Abu Bakr, speaking from Aleppo, said the deal comprised an evacuation from the two Shi’ite villages besieged by insurgents, the […]
WASHINGTON — American-led airstrikes have destroyed 14 Syrian Army tanks at a military base in central Syria that, just days earlier, had been captured by Islamic State fighters, the United States military said Friday. The strikes against the group of Russian-made T-72 battle tanks on Thursday near Palmyra came one day after senior American officers in the region warned their Syrian and Russian counterparts that United States […]
GAZIANTEP, Turkey A bus transporting off-duty soldiers and civilians was hit by an explosion near a university in the central Turkish city of Kayseri on Saturday, killing and wounding an unknown number of people, security sources and local media said. Ambulances were sent to the area after the explosion, the sources said. There were dead and wounded from the blast, local hospital sources confirmed, but they were […]
By Ori Lewis and Matt Spetalnick | JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON A senior Palestinian official warned on Friday that implementation of Donald Trump’s pledge to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would destroy any prospects for peace with Israel, even as a spokesman for the U.S. President-elect said he remained committed to the move. Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, issued the grim prediction just a day […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 17, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Nationwide New movie Collateral Beauty stars Will Smith as Howard Inlet, a successful New York advertising executive, who has suffered a tragedy and retreats from life, spending his time writing letters to Love, Time […]
The war in Syria has subjected Turkey’s border regions to terrorist attacks and demographic upheaval on an historic scale, but on the face of it there’s a welcoming feeling to Samanda, a bustling town of 45,000 on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. On a wall by the town’s beachside boardwalk, graffiti proclaims how “Syrians are our brothers”, a sentiment in sharp contrast to the burning of refugees’ […]
Washington has protested to Beijing over a US Navy underwater drone being seized by the Chinese navy in the South China Sea, marking a sharp escalation in already rising tensions between the two countries. China claims sovereignty up to the ‘Nine-dash’ line A US defence official said the device was grabbed as it was being operated by the USNS Bowditch, a survey vessel. The Obama administration issued […]
Etihad Airways and Lufthansa have signed a codeshare agreement that could herald further partnership growth between the two national carriers. In what is seen as the potential start of a growing relationship between the two airlines, Etihad and Lufthansa have agreed to codeshare on the UAE carrier’s twice-daily flights between its home base of Abu Dhabi and Frankfurt, and its twice daily services between Abu Dhabi and […]
By Laila Bassam, Lisa Barrington and John Davison | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT The evacuation of the last opposition-held areas of the Syrian city of Aleppo was suspended on Friday after pro-government militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two Shi’ite villages being besieged by rebel fighters. The second day of the operation to take fighters and civilians out of Aleppo’s rebel enclave […]
