By Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden | LONDON LONDON Britain’s Supreme Court will decide as quickly as possible whether Prime Minister Theresa May can trigger Britain’s exit from the European Union by the end of March without parliament’s assent, its president said on Thursday. Last month, the High Court decided that May could not invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s exit clause, using executive […]
The Lifetime Achievement Award handed to Samuel L Jackson during the opening ceremony of this year’s Dubai International Film Festival on Wednesday honours an improbably prolific 40-year career during which the actor has become as ubiquitous as popcorn. Above all else, moviemaking is a business, and on Jackson’s website, you can find a startling fact to explain the true meaning of the citation: “In recognition of his […]
China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment said it had dropped its offer for Aixtron, the German chip equipment maker, six days after President Barack Obama blocked the deal on national security grounds. Fujian’s takeover vehicle Grand Chip Investment said its offer had lapsed because it had failed to gain regulatory approval from the US Committee on Foreign Investment. Aixtron’s shares fell more than 4 per cent to €3.73 […]
HAMBURG U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday left a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to head to Paris for further meetings on Syria on Saturday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters. Kerry told reporters after a second bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Hamburg that he was “hopeful” about reaching an accord with Moscow that would […]
Mark Katches has spent his career battling one of the cruel realities of journalism: Hard-hitting and important investigative reporting rarely creates the kind of online buzz that a good cat video does. “I have been involved in Pulitzer Prize winning projects that were getting 20,000 pageviews,” Katches, the editor of the Oregonian, told Poynter. So when his team discovered that National Guard armories around the country are […]
WASHINGTON An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 was reported off the coast of Northern California on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was centered about 102 miles (165 kilometers) in the Pacific Ocean west of Ferndale, California, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 km), according to the USGS. There was no tsunami warning, advisory or threat in effect following the earthquake, the Pacific […]
The harvest time at the International Space Station has made big news after NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough cut the “Outredgeous” Red Romaine lettuce leaves that he nurtured aboard for an mid-afternoon snack. The fruit of labor also signaled the success of “cut-and-come-again” gardening technique of NASA aimed at growing on-orbit crops to boost astronaut diets with nutritious and fresh food. The Veggie project started on Oct. 25 for […]
It was Donald Trump’s press conference in the early hours of November 9 that some pinpoint as the moment fears about what his presidency would mean for stock markets turned into euphoria about his victory. Campaign pledges to give a boost to the US economy were repeated, as the newly president-elect struck a moderate, even conciliatory, tone. Whatever you think of the reaction in financial markets since, […]
DUESSELDORF, Germany Germany’s highest court will decide next year on complaints brought by utilities against a tax on nuclear fuel rods, a spokesman said on Thursday, in a further challenge to the government’s energy policy. E.ON, RWE and EnBW have demanded exemption from the tax, introduced in 2011, and are claiming back the roughly 5.8 billion euros ($6.2 billion) they have already paid. The tax requires companies […]
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) secured shareholders’ assent to merge with First Gulf Bank (FGB) at a meeting on Wednesday, a spokesman for NBAD said. First Gulf Bank also secured shareholders’ approval on Wednesday, FGB’s chief executive Andre Sayegh said. The pair announced in July that their boards had approved the tie-up, which will create one of the largest banks in the Middle East and Africa […]
Among the victims of a plane crash that killed 48 people Wednesday night was Junaid Jamshed, a pioneering Pakistani pop star turned religious preacher. Mr. Jamshed’s two careers, and the mourning that followed his death, reflected two conflicting sides of Pakistani society, commentators said. While some of his fans remembered him as a musician others lauded his most recent evangelical persona. The Pakistan International Airlines domestic flight […]
FRANKFURT China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund has dropped its takeover bid for German chip equipment maker Aixtron after U.S. President Barack Obama blocked the deal. Fujian’s takeover vehicle Grand Chip Investment said on Thursday its offer had lapsed as it had failed to obtain U.S. regulatory approval for the purchase, which had been a condition of the deal. Investors who had already accepted its takeover offer […]
By Pak Yiu and Lisa Jucca | HONG KONG HONG KONG Cardinal Joseph Zen, the most senior Chinese Catholic cleric, says the participation of an excommunicated prelate at two bishop ordinations in China was a “slap in the face” for Pope Francis just as Rome seeks a historic deal with Beijing. Bishop Lei Shiyin, who was excommunicated by the Vatican in 2011 for accepting his appointment without […]
I spot the ship long before the car pulls up to the cruise terminal at Abu Dhabi’s Mina Zayed. Part of the Celebrity Cruises fleet, the stately Celebrity Constellation – dark blue and white, and marked with a distinctive “X” logo at the top – stands 13 decks tall. Orange lifeboats hang high on Deck 5, and the shaded gangplank looks like a tunnel boring into the […]
Engineers have developed a nanomaterial that could lead to optical chips and circuits. The researchers believe they are the first to rewrite a waveguide, which is a crucial photonic component and a building block for integrated circuits, using an all-optical technique. (via WSJ)
By Ginger Gibson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The chances that the federal government could hand off the U.S. air traffic control system to private management are increasing, say advocates who report they are getting supportive feedback from President-elect Donald Trump and his team. U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, has met with Trump and incoming Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to make his […]
ANKARA Turkey is conducting intense talks with Russia for a ceasefire in Syria’s Aleppo and to allow humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged city, President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman said on Thursday. Ibrahim Kalin also told a news conference in Ankara that Syrian government forces were carrying out crimes against humanity and war crimes in the city. (Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by David Dolan; Editing […]
This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds ETFs are a global phenomena, but there are significant differences between the market in Europe and the US. This piece examines the most important. The US is far bigger Demand for exchange traded funds in Europe has never been higher. Assets held in funds and products listed across the region hit a record […]
COPENHAGEN Security forces should shoot at the boats of migrants trying to reach the European Union illegally, a member of parliament for the Danish government’s main political ally, the Danish People’s Party, suggested on national television. “The only efficient way is to turn the boats and say: ‘You cannot sail within this national border and if you do, you will either be shot at or be turned […]
Photo Aroldis Chapman pitching for the Yankees on July 18. He was traded to the Chicago Cubs later that month. Credit Al Bello/Getty Images NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Yankees fulfilled the main objective of the off-season late Wednesday night, agreeing with closer Aroldis Chapman on a five-year, $86 million contract. The deal reunited the Yankees with the hardest-throwing pitcher in baseball after they traded him to […]
In a glass cube inside a MK2 cinema near France’s national library in Paris, viewers can choose between HTC Vive, Playstation VR and Oculus Rift headsets, or they can go for “full body immersive” simulators The first wave of virtual reality cinemas, heralding what their creators claim will be an entertainment revolution, rolls out across the world this month. The first screening room in France opened Wednesday […]
By Christopher Johnson | LONDON LONDON Oil prices steadied around $50 a barrel on Thursday, close to the week’s lows, on doubts proposed OPEC production cuts would be sufficient to balance the market, although a weaker dollar supported sentiment. North Sea Brent crude was up 25 cents at $53.25 a barrel by 0940 GMT. U.S. light crude was up 20 cents at $49.97 a barrel. Both benchmarks […]
BAGHDAD Iraq’s parliament speaker called on Thursday for a government inquiry into air strikes on a western border town which killed around 60 people, mostly civilians. Hospital sources and local parliamentarians said three air strikes killed dozens of civilians, including 12 women and 19 children on Wednesday in a market district of the Islamic State-held town of Qaim, close to the border with Syria. A spokesman for […]
Chicago politicians will have one more reason to look over their shoulders in 2017. The city’s history of political corruption and high crime rates have long made it fertile territory for investigative reporting. Next year, investigative nonprofit ProPublica plans to capitalize on that opportunity by colonizing the city with its first regional expansion. ProPublica plans to open the expansion in 2017 and is recruiting an experienced, Chicago-based […]
