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Oman is now getting attention for what’s hidden underneath its craggy peaks. Majlis Al Jinn has the world’s ninth largest cave chamber, while the pools and caverns of Wadi Bani Khalid and Wadi Shab attract a growing number of visitors every year. Of the country’s many caves, Al Hootah is the only one with guided tours, and it reopened earlier this season four-years after severe floods in […]

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) appeared on Fox’s First 100 Days Thursday evening after a closed door briefing earlier in the day by FBI director James Comey concerning the agency’s investigation into claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The interview begins with host Martha MacCallum mentioning that Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), who attended the same meeting, was “rattled” over the lack of information Comey gave concerning Russian involvement in the election. Gowdy, on the other […]

By Praveen Menon and Angie Teo | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia condemned the use of VX, the super toxic nerve agent that killed the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a Kuala Lumpur airport last month, as authorities on Friday prepared to deport a North Korean suspect. Kim Jong Nam was murdered on Feb. 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he […]

Uber’s US rival Lyft is seeking $500m in a new fundraising round to provide fresh ammunition as the transportation company takes its fight with Uber to a growing number of US cities, according to two people close to the process. The fundraising comes at a time when Uber has been struggling with a series of public relations crises, including allegations of sexual harassment and a video of […]

Technology accelerates by leaps and bounds, which can only spell doom for most workers’ economic prospects. How long before a robot or algorithm can do your job, leading to mass “technological unemployment?” Machines are learning to master once-unthinkable tasks. Yet, even though our software can best us at Jeopardy! and our hardware has learned to run and jump, there’s still no consensus among economists that […]

Australia is concerned about the South China Sea; all Indonesia wants to talk about is economics. By Leo Suryadinata and Mustafa Izzuddin for The Diplomat March 03, 2017 Prior to Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s maiden visit to Australia on February 25-26, The Australian – a conservative-leaning paper in Australia – published its exclusive interview with Jokowi on February 24. Jokowi was reported as saying that he […]

The US broke its long drought of hot technology initial public offerings on Thursday as shares in Snap soared more than 40 per cent in their market debut despite questions about corporate governance and profitability at the owner of vanishing messaging service Snapchat. A pack of traders huddled around the desk of Snap’s designated market maker for more than an hour after the opening bell at the […]

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A research group at Tohoku University and Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed a molecular robot consisting of biomolecules, such as DNA and protein. The molecular robot was developed by integrating molecular machines into an artificial cell membrane. It can start and stop its shape-changing function in response to a specific DNA signal. This is the first time that a molecular robotic system has […]

By John Ruwitch | SHANGHAI SHANGHAI The fortunes of the richest 100 members of China’s parliament and its advisory body – all dollar billionaires – grew about 64 percent in the four years since Xi Jinping rose to power, according to data from an organisation tracking wealth in China. Xi has overseen a crackdown on corruption and decadence, and made the fight against poverty a top priority […]

The raid is a delicate issue in the Trump administration because the president authorized it five days into office, over dinner at the White House with Mr. Mattis and several other senior officials. But in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday, Mr. Trump seemed to distance himself from the operation, saying that responsibility for the decision to go forward rested with his generals. “This was […]

SEOUL Isolated North Korea is developing sophisticated tools to digitally spy on its citizens, who are increasingly using mobile devices to connect to each other, a U.S. government-funded report released on Wednesday says. The report, “Compromising Connectivity”, says North Korea has allowed the growing use of mobile phones and domestic internet access in return for the detailed information the network feeds Pyongyang’s surveillance state. “By giving citizens […]

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia will cancel visa-free entry for North Koreans entering the country from March 6, state news agency Bernama reported on Thursday citing the deputy prime minister. North Koreans will be required to obtain a visa before entering Malaysia for national security reasons, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quoted as saying on Bernama. The move comes two weeks after Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of […]

Republica de Panama a former Spanish settlement is sandwiched between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The landscape offers an amazing opportunity for tourism and tax-free zone offers to set up offshore companies; the choice between both is up to you. In other words, you will be in Panama for blonde or for pelf. A German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung obtained the records of some staggering 11.5 million […]

Superloop has expanded its high-speed intercapital colocation network with a new point of presence (PoP) at NextDC’s C1 datacentre in Canberra. The addition of C1 connectivity sees the Asia-Pacific fibre infrastructure company complete its national footprint through NextDC, with connections already at the latter’s datacentres in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. According to Superloop, the nationwide deployment of capital city infrastructure gives the company the ability to […]

Just to clarify – Trump said nothing new at all – and added no detail, another major US retailer blew up, ‘hard data’ disappointed (soft surveys gained), Fed speakers were the most hawkish since Volcker, and The Dow soars 350 points to top 21,100… makes perfect sense…   Hawkish FedSpeak sent March rate-hike odds soaring over 80%…   But the probability of a rate hike is rising […]

When you’re deep in a video game, the last thing you want to do is leave home. If only you could take the game with you for your commute to work or your bus ride to school, or to liven up your lunch hour. Nintendo’s new Switch console tries to address that by letting you play it anywhere. You simply yank the Switch out of its docking […]

By Ben Stupples The chairman of the EU’s Panama Papers inquiry has slammed the U.K. Treasury’s refusal to meet with investigators, raising concern over Britain’s commitment to the high-level investigation. It was “most disappointing and regrettable that no one at the political level at HM Treasury was able or willing to meet” during the trip to London last week from the European Parliament’s Panama Papers inquiry committee, […]

A contract arranged at the top According to the investigators’ notes, Wilson wasn’t pressed further by the labs to detail her work because her contract had been blessed by the labs’ top officials. At the time, Los Alamos was reeling from a $300 million budget cut handed down by the Congress that Wilson had just left, a contracting official told investigators during an interview on Oct. 11, […]

Embedded in a sweatband, a network of sensors devised by Ali Javey can monitor moment-by-moment changes in electrolytes and metabolites, a potential boon to weekend athletes, diabetics and people exposed to heavy metal concentrations. Credit: Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally Sweating it out on a treadmill, or racing to finish a half marathon, a runner might risk a potentially dangerous buildup of electrolytes in her blood. In […]

01 March 2017 The global Islamic financial community has recognized the innovative and development impact made by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s inaugural local currency Sukuk. At a lavish ceremony on February 28 2017 in Dubai, Jordan emerged as the winner of IFN “Sovereign Deal of the Year 2016” award. In addition to this global award, Jordan was a global runner-up for two award categories: “Ijarah & Sukuk […]

By Sijia Jiang | HONG KONG HONG KONG Taiwan’s Foxconn (2317.TW), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, is “definitely bidding” for the chip business of Japan’s Toshiba Corp (6502.T) and is “very confident” it can buy into it, company founder Terry Gou said on Wednesday. Gou was speaking as Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, broke ground for a 61 billion yuan ($8.87 […]

KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia on Wednesday charged two women – an Indonesian and a Vietnamese – with murdering the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader in an assassination using a super-toxic nerve agent that killed in minutes. Siti Aishah, a 25-year-old mother of one from Jakarta, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from rural northern Vietnam, could be hanged if they are convicted for the killing of Kim […]

People started a staggering 84 percent of all wildfires in the United States, a new study reveals. In the comprehensive, first-of-its-kind analysis of wildfire data over a 20-year period, the remaining 16 percent of fires started naturally or via lightning. Human-Ignited Fires In Focus University of Massachusetts professor Bethany Bradley and her coauthors probed 1.5 million wildfires occurring from 1992 to 2012, findings that human-induced fire season […]

By Stephen Kalin | SOUTH OF MOSUL, Iraq SOUTH OF MOSUL, Iraq A few hundred men who had scurried across front lines in a refugee exodus from Mosul sat on the ground in neat rows before an Iraqi intelligence officer who scanned the crowd for hidden militants. The officer pulled a teenager onto a raised platform and asked the group if he belonged to Islamic State (IS). […]

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