In Nairobi, children kick a football down the street pretending to be Ronaldo. In London, K-pop is on MTV. And in an Abu Dhabi mall, a queue forms outside the latest bubble-tea cafe. We have all become familiar with the continuous creep of globalisation. So it’s not surprising that, like other industries, classical music hasn’t been left behind. Next week, one of the bastions of the British […]
The White House has assured the UK government it will not repeat allegations that President Donald Trump was placed under surveillance by GCHQ, Britain’s electronic eavesdropping agency, after London protested over the “nonsense” claims. The allegations, made on Thursday by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, triggered an angry response from Downing Street, an extraordinary high-level spat between two allies with possibly the closest intelligence-sharing relationship in […]
Photo Some of the Somali migrants who died, in the Red Sea port of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, on Friday. Credit Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters SANA, Yemen — More than 30 Somali migrants in a vessel off Yemen were killed on Friday in what Yemeni security officials said was an airstrike by a Saudi-led military coalition. Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, said that […]
Trump, presumably toasting his “great Irish friends”.Image: OLIVIER DOULIERY/POOL/EPA/REX/Shutterstock By Sam Haysom2017-03-17 13:15:42 UTC Despite their best efforts, Republicans’ attempts to embrace St. Patrick’s Day haven’t exactly gone down a storm. First there was Donald Trump’s green MAGA baseball cap, then there was his failed attempt to share an Irish proverb, and Thursday there was the not-exactly-positive response to Paul Ryan’s pint of Guinness. As expected, Trump […]
VIENNA An avalanche in Austria’s western region of Tyrol killed two people on Friday, local police said, two days after another avalanche in the same province killed four Swiss men. Police said five people had been in the off-piste area near St Anton when the avalanche hit. Two had already been found dead, but their gender and nationalities had not yet been established, a police spokesman said. […]
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, is undoubtedly familiar with “tone at the top,” a term coined by audit firms and drilled home by business ethicists in the wake of financial scandals at Xerox, Enron and Arthur Andersen. When corporate leaders fail to model tone at the top by upholding principles, corners are cut and lapses trickle down and poison institutional culture. And yet […]
By John Davison and Abdelaziz Boumzar | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq From a distance, the exhausted Iraqis fleeing parts of Mosul controlled by Islamic State appeared to be pushing their worldly possessions on handcarts. By the time they reached Reuters journalists it was clear that their cargo was far more precious, and more tragic. One man lifted a grubby, fluffy blanket to reveal the dust and blood-covered […]
Doha Festival City, which is due to open next month, has revealed its plans for a 3km outdoor leisure trail. Visitors to the new shopping mall will have free access to the trail, which includes a running and walking path, as well as an adjacent cycling lane with technical trail features specifically designed for mountain bikes, a statement said. The mall has postponed its opening date several […]
For Indian IT, the world has changed seemingly overnight. The biggest existential threat seems to be US President Donald Trump’s proposed immigration reform that could put substantial barriers to Indian IT being able to corner the market on skilled H-1B visas, thereby threatening the lucrative $75 billion or so that it collects in revenue from the US alone. Equally serious is the fact that the traditional outsourcing […]
Given the collapse of European VIX to record lows, one could be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing to worry about. However, a one point jump in first-round support for French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has sparked a notable drop in EURUSD this morning. #presitrack 17/03 MLP 28% (+1)EM 25% (=)FF 20% (+1)BH 12% (-1)JLM 11% (-1)@LesEchos@ORPI_France@radioclassique https://t.co/BSF2m8vxkw pic.twitter.com/icAEaopK7I — OpinionWay (@opinionway) March 17, 2017 […]
BEIJING Even as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledges to ensure that blue skies never become a luxury, a state-backed firm is doing brisk business selling 48 yuan ($6.95) cans of fresh air bottled in a forest in western China. Each bottle is good for two minutes of uninterrupted use. From air-filter necklaces to anti-smog stockings, Chinese companies are touting innovative – if not odd – products to […]
Dubai, UAE, 17 March 2017 For over five decades, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has played a significant role in supporting the social, economic, and environmental development of Dubai, using a set of pioneering programmes and initiatives. This has contributed to the leading position DEWA enjoys today, and has reinforced the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to be more inclusive and effective. DEWA has launched […]
BEIRUT Ahrar al-Sham, a powerful Syrian rebel group, on Friday said the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State was behind a deadly mosque attack near Syria’s Aleppo that a war monitor said killed dozens of people on Thursday evening. Jets hit around a mosque in al-Jina village near Atarib in the western part of Aleppo province, a few miles (km) from Idlib province on Thursday, killing at least […]
By Julia Fioretti | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Social media companies Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc and Twitter Inc will have to amend their terms of service for European users within a month or face the risk of fines, a European Commission official said on Friday. U.S. technology companies have faced tight scrutiny in Europe for the way they do business, from privacy to how quickly they remove illegal or […]
Composer Mohammed Fairouz is somewhat of a rarity. Not only is he an Emirati working in the western classical tradition, but he also moonlights as a foreign-policy commentator for the likes of The Independent and The National. It’s perhaps unsurprising, considering he’s the son of an Emirati diplomat and grew up living on several different continents. These days, the 31-year-old may be based in New York, but […]
Bob Diamond, the former Barclays chief executive, has teamed up with the investment vehicle of the Qatari royal family to launch a bid for Panmure Gordon, the lossmaking stock broker and investment bank. Panmure, whose name dates back more than 140 years, is suffering like many mid-cap brokers from a number of structural challenges, including increased regulation, fewer deals and lower corporate retainers. The deal may be […]
By Umaru Fofana | FREETOWN FREETOWN A Christian pastor has found one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds – weighing 706 carats — in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kono region. The stone, a photograph of which was posted on the president’s official website, is being stored in the country’s central bank, government sources said. A local chief from Kono handed the stone to President Ernest Bai Koroma on […]
By John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq After five months of intense fighting, Iraqi forces have begun to drive back Islamic State into the dense and narrow-alleyed Old City of Mosul, with the mosque where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014 firmly in sight. Iraqi leaders say the battle to recapture Mosul is reaching its final stages, trumpeting each gain made against […]
Qualcomm has announced that its Snapdragon branding will now apply only to premium processors, while those in the 200 tier will be relabelled under the new “Qualcomm Mobile” brand in an effort to differentiate their value — with the chip giant also moving away from processor branding towards “platforms”. “Moving forward, only premium mobile platforms will retain the Snapdragon brand, while processors in the 200 tier will […]
BEIRUT Syria’s army high command said in a statement on Friday Israeli jets breached Syrian air space early in the morning and attacked a military target near Palmyra in what it described as an act of aggression that aided Islamic State. It said its air defences shot down one of the Israeli jets over what it called “occupied ground” and damaged another. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing […]
ZURICH Switzerland has rejected a Turkish request for legal assistance in prosecuting a suspect accused of insulting President Tayyip Erdogan, ruling that the comments in question were protected by Swiss free speech provisions. Switzerland helps foreign prosecutors only if the crime they are investigating is a criminal offence in Switzerland as well, and that was not the case here, a spokesman for the Federal Office of Justice […]
WELLINGTON Flights from New Zealand’s Auckland Airport are returning to schedule after a runaway dog near the tarmac was shot dead by police because it was delaying planes taking off. Sixteen domestic and international flights were delayed for safety reasons at the nation’s busiest airport while the dog was on the loose for three hours, a spokeswoman for Auckland Airport, Lisa Mulitalo, told Reuters. “The dog was […]
KHOST, Afghanistan A suicide car bomb detonated near an army base in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Friday, killing one soldier and wounding several before the army repelled at attack on the base by four gunmen, the district chief said. The blast, 50 metres (yards) from the base, was heard several miles away and damaged several shops, homes and a school, Akbar Zadran, the chief […]
ING Direct in Australia has released its financial results for 2016, reporting AU$295 million in statutory after-tax profit off the back of attracting 163,000 new customers during the 12-month period. According to ING CEO Uday Sareen, the bank’s customer growth came as a result of ING further developing its digital offerings and launching a new online banking platform in 2016. “Bank customer inertia is declining as people […]
