By J.R. Wu | TAIPEI TAIPEI Before getting too carried away with Taiwan’s elevated status under a Donald Trump presidency, President Tsai Ing-wen might want to check her bank balance. Trump’s suggestion that the “one China” principle – that Taiwan is a part of China – was up for negotiation has already prompted sabre-rattling from Chinese state media and some in the military establishment. Taipei’s ability to […]
It has been touted as one of the most exciting Dubai mega-projects of recent years and has now come to fruition. The $735m Dubai Water Canal — carved out of land between Business Bay and Jumeirah — opened to the public last month, creating a water-bound ‘mini-Manhattan’ that flows from Downtown Dubai to the ocean. The 3.2km-long canal is the final segment of the Dubai Creek extension, […]
A one-two punch of a surging US dollar and rising interest rates sent the price of gold tumbling to its lowest level since February on Thursday, hurting the shares of miners and spurring hefty liquidations of exchange traded funds that track the metal. The price of gold in New York fell as much as 1.8 per cent to $1,122 an ounce, as the dollar rose across the […]
By Leonardo Goy | SALGUEIRO, Brazil SALGUEIRO, Brazil The rusting tracks of Brazil’s Transnordestina railway peter out and give way to a dirt trail in a remote corner of the country’s arid northeast, far from the ports or farms it was meant to serve. No trains run on these tracks and the cleared path for one of Brazil’s most ambitious infrastructure projects is used only by local […]
Qatar expects to post a budget deficit of 28.3 billion riyals ($7.8 billion) in 2017, the finance ministry said on Thursday, in a sign of the lingering toll of low global oil prices on Gulf economies. Finance Minister Ali Shareef al-Emadi said that revenues were estimated at 170.1 billion riyals while expenditure was estimated at 198.4 billion riyals, state news agency QNA said. The gas-rich Gulf state […]
A few years ago, Alabama Media Group moved its photo archives into one place. Nearly 100 years of negatives from The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and Mobile’s Press-Register were brought to the building that housed the presses in Mobile. It was a reminder, said Michelle Holmes, vice president of content, of what they had. The newspapers started using more from the archives. “And we kept going […]
Thousands of people had gathered outside a hospital in the Mashhad neighborhood, which is still controlled by rebels, hoping that an evacuation deal announced on Tuesday by Turkey, Russia and Syrian rebels would hold. But the constant threat from snipers, bombs and shelling was unsettling. Video Aleppo Activists Say Final Goodbyes as Assad Closes In Syrian government forces had reclaimed most of rebel-held eastern Aleppo by Tuesday, […]
By Laila Bassam, Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Tom Perry | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT An attempt to evacuate people in need of medical attention from rebel-held eastern Aleppo stalled on Thursday when fighters loyal to the Syrian government fired on the convoy, wounding three, the head of the ambulance service said. The vehicles had intended to leave under a deal to evacuate people from rebel areas following rapid […]
The time people spend playing Pokémon GO does not count as a workout, according to new research. The team analyzed the effort and the movement of players, reaching the conclusion that the physical activity done while hunting Pokémon does not add much to the overall movement requirements for an adult. According to the World Health Organization, people need to do a lot more exercising than what playing Pokémon GO involves. […]
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Director: Gareth Edwards Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed Star rating: four stars Rogue One is subtitled “A Star Wars Story“, but it is a Star Wars movie unlike we have seen before. Dirtier, grittier, muddier, wetter… George Lucas’s space saga is now seen from the trenches in this exhilarating spin-off set just before […]
Telstra is addressing the skills shortage in the technology sector through the launch of their Business Technology Services (BTS) academy, which will see a handful of new recruits trained as security or network specialists by the telco. With 29 participants six weeks into their three-year academy course, Telstra BTS executive director Christopher Smith told ZDNet the initiative has so far seen the recruits undergo intensive training and […]
BEIRUT Government forces resumed shelling of rebel-held eastern Aleppo districts on Wednesday, which stopped after about half an hour, Syrian rebel officials and witnesses told Reuters on Wednesday. “There is fierce bombardment by the regime forces on besieged Aleppo, using artillery, tanks, and mortars,” a Turkey-based official in the Jabha Shamiya faction told Reuters, citing reports from the ground. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdulrahman […]
Photo Paraag Marathe, the San Francisco 49ers’ chief strategy officer and executive vice president for football operations, at his home in Los Altos, Calif. His sister died of anorexia. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO — Paraag Marathe’s structured, analytical mind has served him well in the offices of Silicon Valley and the National Football League. He figured that he could lean on […]
DUBAI Eleven headless bodies have been dumped in a nature reserve in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, a local news website reported on Wednesday. The Aden al-Ghad news website quoted a security source in the city as saying that the male bodies were found on Tuesday evening in the al-Hiswa reserve, west of Aden. It was not immediately clear who killed the men and why, […]
When the bill was considered by the full committee in December 2012, Schumer, who eventually voted in favor of the bill, nevertheless echoed concerns of the tech companies, saying it “still needs a lot of work to assuage the concerns of tech innovators.” Sen. Grassley, who also voted for the measure, said he had the same worries, saying the bill needed to address industry concerns that it […]
HONG KONG HSBC has launched a $290 million lending facility aimed at technology start-ups and other new industries in China’s Pearl River Delta region, intensifying the battle for a slice of a business that is growing despite a slowing economy. Showered with money from private investors over the last few years, the promising technology start-ups in China, the world’s second-largest economy, have shunned traditional lenders, seeking to […]
In a massive (in a literal sense, printing at 25 pages and over 8,000 words as there is little new information revealed in the piece itself) expose issued by the NYT tited “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.” and meant to piggyback on the WaPo’s recent reporting and solidify the left-leaning media’s case that Hillary lost the election, the New York Times try to […]
By Marc Jones | LONDON LONDON A quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, life satisfaction in Russia and other ex-Soviet states remains stubbornly low, and enthusiasm for democracy and open market economics is wavering, a survey published on Tuesday showed. The study found that only 15 percent of Russians think their households have a better quality of life, compared with 30 percent […]
When I first moved to Mexico, I started working with a really cool organization called Palabra Radio, which is a community radio organization here in Oaxaca. I was really impressed with how communities were operating, owning, and sort of dealing with everything that comes with operating their own low power FM radio station. That gave me the idea to try and do something similar with mobile communication, […]
By Laila Bassam and Stephanie Nebehay | ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA ALEPPO, Syria/GENEVA The United Nations said on Tuesday it had reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters had summarily shot dead 82 children, women and men in recaptured east Aleppo and a military source said the last rebel pocket could fall “at any moment”. The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, […]
Russia’s rouble has cemented its position as the best-performing currency of the past three months, enjoying the benefits of a strong oil price at a time when the US appears to be tilting towards a more accommodating relationship with Vladimir Putin. A 2.3 per cent rise in the rouble’s value against the dollar on Monday was followed by a further half per cent gain during Tuesday trading. […]
Demand for oil will outstrip supply in the next six months as long as Opec and countries outside the cartel can implement a deal signed over the weekend to lower output, according to one of the world’s leading energy forecasters. The International Energy Agency said the planned production cuts, which add up to 1.8m barrels a day, could reduce stockpiles by as much as 600,000 b/d over […]
By Laila Bassam | ALEPPO, Syria ALEPPO, Syria The Syrian army and its allies have taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday. Rebel defences collapsed on Monday, leading to a broad army advance across more than half of the remaining insurgent pocket in Aleppo and a retreat of opposition fighters […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The minority Christian governor of Indonesia’s capital sobbed in court Tuesday on the first day of his blasphemy trial as he recalled the role of Muslim godparents in his childhood and said he would never intentionally insult Islam. The national upheaval over the governor’s alleged blasphemy has challenged Indonesia’s reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam, shaken the government and exposed religious […]
