logo

News related to
First

DUBAI Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority has called cinemas and singing concerts harmful and corrupting, in a move that could complicate government efforts to introduce cultural reforms to the conservative kingdom. The comments by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, published on his website, said cinemas and round-the-clock entertainment could open the door to “atheistic or rotten” foreign films and encourage the mixing of the sexes. Cinemas […]

Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier During the year just ended the Labour government con­tinued to dig itself deeper into a culture of institutionalised corruption with persons occupying high government positions and those close to them partaking of the fruits of a corrupt system. A perfect example was the scandal revealed last year by leaked secret files where then health and energy minister Konrad Mizzi […]

SOFIA A virulent bird flu virus has spread to 55 poultry farms in Bulgaria prompting the veterinary authorities to announce a cull of some 430,000 birds since it was first detected in the middle of December, agriculture minister Dessislava Taneva said on Saturday. The Balkan country has also registered four cases of bird flu in wild ducks since mid-December. Bulgaria has imposed a nationwide ban on poultry […]

Thailand’s army opened up some of its military barracks to children on Saturday to let them handle and pose with weapons and other hardware on the country’s annual Children’s Day. The army plays a big role in Thailand’s public and political life. It seized power during political turmoil in 2014 in the 19th coup since absolute monarchy was abolished in 1932. The armed forces traditionally opens up […]

By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY VATICAN CITY Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discussed the Middle East with Pope Francis on Saturday and said prospects for peace there will suffer if U.S. president-elect Donald Trump moves Washington’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. “We are waiting to see if it happens. If it does, it will not help peace and we hope it does not happen,” Abbas told reporters […]

By Paul Lienert and David Shepardson | DETROIT/WASHINGTON DETROIT/WASHINGTON Japan’s Takata Corp (7312.T) on Friday agreed to plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing and to pay $1 billion to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation into ruptures of its air bag inflators linked to at least 16 deaths worldwide. The deal was announced hours after prosecutors in Detroit charged three former senior Takata executives with falsifying test results […]

Digital transformation must be one of the most over-hyped, least concrete terms around. Like every such term, it can mean different things to different people. It can also be a huge stress-generating, money-squandering machine for organizations. Because “if you’re not doing it, your company will die and you will lose your CIO or IT leadership job. You’ll be disrupted! Or fail the wrong side of the Innovator’s […]

Advertisements

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 struck off Indonesia’s Maluku archipelago on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. The quake was recorded 120 km (75 miles) west-northwest of the island of Ternate at 1141 GMT, at a depth of about 23 km, according to the USGS website. (Writing by Andrew Heavens) ‘); $(‘.second-article-divide’).append($(‘.slider.slider-module’)); $(‘.third-article-divide’).append(”); var median = (relatedItemsTotal / 2); var $relatedContentGroupOne = $(‘.related-content.group-one […]

For the first time, biomedical engineers have woven a ‘smart’ fabric that mimics the sophisticated and complex properties of one nature’s ingenious materials, the bone tissue periosteum. Having achieved proof of concept, the researchers are now ready to produce fabric prototypes for a range of advanced functional materials that could transform the medical, safety and transport sectors. (via WSJ)

DHAKA Bangladesh police said on Saturday they had arrested one of the men behind a militant attack on a Dhaka cafe last year that killed 22 people, mostly foreigners. Jahangir Alam was detained late on Friday during a raid in Tangail, about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital, the head of the counter-terrorism police, Monirul Islam, told reporters. “He was one of the masterminds,” Islam […]

130 entries from more than 40 nations discussed the most critical solutions to mitigate climate change risks over the next decade 14 January 2017 Abu Dhabi, UAE – Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, has announced the winner of its fifth annual Engage Social Media Contest. This year’s contest received 130 entries, a record level of participation in the five years of this competition, with submissions coming […]

By Stephen Kalin | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq As Iraqi government forces advanced towards his eastern Mosul neighbourhood in November, a group of Islamic State militants stormed Abu Rami’s home, put a gun to his head and told him and his family to get out immediately. The militants, including a local man whose name he knew, brought with them a bearded comrade clutching a sniper rifle whom […]

In October last year, Microsoft began making available Windows 7, 8.1 and Server 2008 and 2012 patches in roll-up form. Credit: Microsoft Now, four months later, Microsoft is going public with some tweaks designed to fine-tune the rollup process and address IT complaints about how the system was working. First things first: Customers who use Windows Update and Automatic Update are not impacted by any of these […]

By Sinead Carew and Lewis Krauskopf | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. bank stocks will stay in favor with investors as long as earnings reports in the coming week show an improving profit outlook while investors wait to see if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives up to his campaign promises. Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) kicked off […]

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi special forces battled Islamic State militants inside the Mosul University campus on Saturday in a second day of fierce clashes in the complex. “There are still clashes. We entered the university and cleared the technical institute, dentistry and antiquities departments,” Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told a Reuters reporter in the complex. “In the coming hours it will be […]

DUBAI// The country’s first “robot” pharmacist has been launched by Dubai Health Authority. The smart pharmacy at Rashid Hospital will be using the technology to dispense prescribed medication at the click of a button based on barcodes to minimise human error, reported Wam. The DHA plans to roll out the adoption of the system to all its hospitals. The robot, which begins operations from Sunday, is the […]

Not only is Kim Kardashian one of the most beautiful women in the world, she is one of the most high-profile too. This month, she returned to social media for the first time since she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris on October 3. With the eyes of the world’s media on her, and determined to make a fresh start after a traumatic year, Kardashian made her […]

Wells Fargo has laid down plans to close at least 400 branches over the next two years as part of a push to cut costs as the US bank tries to recover from the scandal over sham accounts. The San Francisco-based lender, which operates more than 6,000 branches across the country, is accelerating closures as it aims to reduce about $2bn in expenses by the end of […]

One response was violence. Where violence was ineffective or unacceptable, other forms of resistance had to suffice. Schools integrated spasmodically, often kicking and screaming in court. Workplaces often didn’t. Many white homeowners and landlords refused to sell or rent to families of color. In 1973 in New York, President Richard Nixon’s Department of Justice sued Donald Trump and his father for refusing to rent to black people. […]

BAGHDAD Residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul said up to 30 civilians died in an air strike on a district held by Islamic State this week. Locals said they saw at least three missiles hit the western Mosul al-Jadida area on Thursday, in a raid that appeared to target the house of senior militant Harbi Abdel Qader. He was not in the building at the time, […]

BEIJING Beijing’s air quality target for 2017 is more than double the acceptable standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the mayor announced on Saturday in the wake of weeks of hazardous air pollution in the Chinese capital. “We will work hard to keep PM2.5 at an annual average of around 60 micrograms per cubic metre,” Beijing mayor Cai Qi said during his delivery of the […]

BANGKOK An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude struck 224 km (140 miles) southwest of Fiji on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said, but there was no immediate tsunami warning. There were also no immediate reports of any damage or casualties. (Created by Robert Birsel) ‘); $(‘.second-article-divide’).append($(‘.slider.slider-module’)); $(‘.third-article-divide’).append(”); var median = (relatedItemsTotal / 2); var $relatedContentGroupOne = $(‘.related-content.group-one ul’); var $relatedContentGroupTwo = $(‘.related-content.group-two ul’); $.each($relatedItems, function(k,v) { if […]

Bahrain-based Amlak, the real estate investment arm of the Social Insurance Organisation (SIO), has revealed plans to launch new projects in 2017. Amlak’s CEO, Mohammed Abdulelah Alkooheji, unveiled plans for The Sixty Six project, a six-storey residential building located in Umm Al Hassam, adding that a Bahrain-based contractor has been appointed to build it. He also announced that Amlak is currently studying the possibility of developing a […]

By Karen Freifeld | NEW YORK NEW YORK Moody’s Corp (MCO.N) has agreed to pay nearly $864 million to settle with U.S. federal and state authorities over its ratings of risky mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday. The credit rating agency reached the deal with the Justice Department, 21 states and the District of Columbia, […]

VISHNU RAJA
RYO YAMADA
HITORI GOTOH
IKUYO KITA
Just in:
Sun World Ba Den Mountain marks Vietnam Culture Day, welcoming Cambodian visitors over Bon Om Touk // Fujairah highway pile-up leaves 14 dead and 30 injured // US resumes flights after nationwide air traffic shutdown // The Honey Trap Is The Headline, The Chip Pipeline Is The Story // China Reconciled To U.S. Curbs On Chips Exports, Woos South Korea For Supply // October Food Price Shock Has Far Reaching Consequences // UAE crews sustain coastal oil removal as beaches reopen // Hackers falsify NVIDIA GPU readings to mask cryptomining // Inpex reaffirms Gulf oil strategy despite shipping constraints // Microsoft outage leaves Outlook and Teams users disconnected // From Dubai to the EU: how UAE-based crypto firms can expand under MiCA // Saudi fund assets forecast to cross $400 billion // Electoral register gains 2.17 lakh voters // Messi affair SIT finds all-round violations // OpenAI unveils ChatGPT Wallet for agent-led purchases // Nvidia appoints Colette Kress interim chief after Huang departure // IEA forecasts fourth-quarter oil surplus as Gulf shipments rebound // Rooftop solar planning gaps behind power shortages // Microsoft apologises as Outlook services recover after outage // Yicura BioMed Advances Dual Capital and Industrial Strategy： Completes First Closing of Series B Financing Led by Gobi Partners //