NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has sent to Earth its first views of Saturn’s atmosphere since beginning the latest phase of its mission. The new images show scenes from high above Saturn’s northern hemisphere, including the planet’s intriguing hexagon-shaped jet stream. (via WSJ)
General assembly meetings of FGB and NBAD held on December 7th Combined bank has total assets of approximately AED655 billion (US$178 billion), representing a 27% market share of UAE banking sector[1] Shareholders approve combined bank’s board of directors from effective merger date Effective date of merger towards the end of Q1 2017 as initially planned. Abu Dhabi, 7 December 2016 Shareholders in First Gulf Bank PJSC (FGB) […]
Slack’s push to become the de facto communications portal in the enterprise workflow got a boost on Wednesday with the announcement of an expanded partnership with Google Cloud. The workplace collaboration platform said the latest tie-up is a continuation of a long established alliance — Google Docs and Drive were among the earliest Slack integrations and remain among the most popular, with some 60,000 Drive files imported […]
By Dominique Patton and Steve Holland | BEIJING/NEW YORK BEIJING/NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next U.S. ambassador to China, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world’s second largest economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. The appointment may help to ease trade tensions between the two countries, the […]
Even Kurdish guerrilla units are fully integrated by gender: Women occupy the same combat roles as men, and when the military goes to war, it sends a woman to command one of its major units. Continue reading the main story There is one big problem with this aspect of Kurdish life, in Turkey at least: It has, in effect, been outlawed as part of the Turkish government’s […]
By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday he will nominate professional wrestling magnate and former Senate candidate Linda McMahon as his choice to head the Small Business Administration. Trump’s announcement said McMahon would be a key player in his effort to generate stronger job growth and roll back federal regulations. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former CEO of the professional […]
PARIS American and British spies have since 2005 been working on intercepting phone calls and data transfers made from aircraft, France’s Le Monde newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing documents from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden. According to the report, also carried by the investigative website The Intercept, Air France (AIRF.PA) was targeted early on in the projects undertaken by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) […]
Fresh from touting a deal to save hundreds of jobs at the Carrier plant in Indiana as proof he would hold to his election pledge to protect American workers, it appears to have escaped Donald Trump that his attack on Boeing’s contract to replace Air Force One would endanger the employment of thousands of highly skilled aerospace workers. After claiming this week that the “$4 billion” cost […]
BERLIN Germany’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that ultra-conservative Muslim girls must take part in mixed swimming classes at school, finding against an 11-year-old pupil who had argued that even wearing a burkini, or full-body swimsuit, breached Islamic dress codes. The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe rejected an appeal by the girl’s parents that she should be excused the classes because a burkini did not conform with Islam’s […]
Kuwait will request that an OPEC committee responsible for monitoring compliance with a global oil output reduction agreement meet in February or March next year, acting oil minister Anas al-Saleh said on Tuesday. “In my capacity… as head of the committee… I will call for a meeting of the first Monitoring Committee to take place in February or March 2017, ” Saleh said in a statement. “We […]
This article by David Haggith was published first on The Great Recession Blog: I risked losing my fellow anti-establishment readers in September by suggesting Trump may be an establishment Trojan horse. After seeing Trump choose Pence as VP and a Goldman Sachs exec as campaign finance manager, I was concerned the establishment knew a citizen’s revolt was brewing and made sure that even the road to revolt led back to […]
Softbank president Masayoshi Son walked out of President-Elect Trump’s office with a big grin on his face this yesterday, which can only signify one thing for me: a Sprint/T-Mobile merger is a done deal. Actual news stories don’t want to say this, because Trump and Son didn’t say it explicitly. According to the New York Times, Son “is projected” to spend half of his $100 […]
By Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry | BEIRUT BEIRUT Syrian rebels in besieged eastern Aleppo called on Wednesday for an immediate five-day ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians and wounded, but gave no indication they were ready to withdraw as demanded by Damascus and Moscow. The Syrian army and allied forces have made rapid gains against insurgents in the past two weeks and look closer than ever […]
Spider-Man comics have never shied away from being weird. Classic Spider-Man villain Doc-Ock not too long ago possessed Peter Parker’s body only to eventually be removed, and events have only continued to get stranger from there. Which is where the ongoing The Clone Conspiracy event comes in. Spider-Man and clones have a long history, and some of that history comes back in spectacular fashion in the latest […]
German and French stocks are closing in on a 20 per cent gain from their post-Brexit low, as a weaker euro and a thawing in sentiment towards banks raise the prospect that markets which disappointed investors for much of 2016 end it in positive territory. While the rebounds of the the two largest equity markets on the continent have been overshadowed by the run of new record […]
Raphael Domjan (right) and Thierry Plojoux in front of SolarStratos on December 7, 2016 in Payerne, Switzerland Just months after two Swiss pilots completed a historic round-the-world trip in a Sun-powered plane, another Swiss adventurer on Wednesday unveiled a solar plane aimed at reaching the stratosphere. The SolarStratos, a sleek, white two-seater aircraft with long wings covered with 22 square metres (237 square feet) of solar panels, […]
ISLAMABAD None of the dozens of people on board a Pakistan International Airlines (PIAa.KA) aircraft that crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday survived the accident, the airline’s chairman said. “There are no survivors, no one has survived,” Muhammad Azam Saigol told a press conference late on Wednesday, about five hours after flight PK661 from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad, crashed near the town of […]
By Lewis Krauskopf and Bill Berkrot | NEW YORK NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday took aim at drugmakers, promising in a magazine interview that “I’m going to bring down drug prices,” and shares of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies fell. In a cover story for Time magazine, which named him its Person of the Year, Trump said that “I don’t like what has happened with […]
GENEVA More Syrians have fled eastern Aleppo, with reports of about 800 arriving in the past 24 hours at a disused cotton factory in the Jibreen district of west Aleppo and 1,260 in Hanano district, retaken by government forces, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. Bus loads of civilians continue to arrive in government-controlled areas of the city and leave for other sites or to lodge with […]
Inuit throat singing admittedly isn’t the easiest sell to the wider music-buying populace, but when it’s presented in the startlingly visceral form favoured by Tanya Tagaq, that’s the loss of those who choose not to listen. Not that the Nunavut-born 41-year-old has struggled to find sympathetic ears to date. She won the prestigious Canadian Polaris Music Prize in 2014, gaining the respect of multimillion-selling contemporaries including Björk […]
Image: Pebble Despite a rather rough third quarter, Fitbit continues to lead the wearables market. Its dominance of the market will continue with the purchase of Pebble’s software assets. Read this The History of Wearable Technology: A timeline Humans have always adorned their bodies with gadgetry — be it for show, for utility, or both. Our timeline documents examples such as body armour, spectacles, wearable calculating aids, […]
DUBAI: Britain will help Gulf states “push back” against aggressive regional actions by Iran, Prime Minister Theresa May told the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Bahrain on Wednesday in a televised address.“We must… continue to confront state actors whose influence fuels instability in the region,” May told Gulf leaders at their annual summit.“So I want to assure you that I am clear-eyed about the threat that Iran […]
ISTANBUL Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday called for the immediate extradition of eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece and sought asylum following a coup attempt in July. A Greek court earlier this week had ruled that three of the eight could be extradited while the Appeals Court had ruled that three other Turkish soldiers should not be returned home. Speaking to state-run broadcaster TRT […]
MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday he felt like a saint as the incoming U.S. president wanted to repair damaged bilateral relations between the two oldest security allies in this region. Duterte spoke on the phone with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump last Friday to congratulate him and renew close ties and friendship strained by Washington’s criticism on the rising death toll by Manila’s war on […]
