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HONG KONG Hong Kong authorities have launched a prosecution against the captain of the ship and shipping agent involved in transporting nine Singaporean armoured vehicles seized in the city last November. Hong Kong customs officers seized the Terrex troop carriers as they were being shipped home from military exercises in Taiwan. Singapore’s armed forces have maintained long-standing if low key military training facilities in Taiwan, and Beijing […]

Master developer Nakheel has announced the award of a construction contract worth AED184.5 million ($50.2 million) for a second hotel at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. Dubai-based Parkway International Contracting has been appointed to build the 375-room hotel, which has a total project value of AED240 million, the developer said in a statement. It forms part of Nakheel’s AED3 billion hospitality expansion under which the developer […]

By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices edged up on Friday, supported by a fall in Saudi exports to the United States, but overall markets remained under pressure on the back of a world market awash with fuel. Prices for front-month Brent crude futures LCOc1, the international benchmark for oil, were at $50.63 per barrel at 0343 GMT, up 7 cents from their last close. In […]

By Venus Wu and Jess Macy Yu | HONG KONG HONG KONG Hong Kong on Sunday will likely select Beijing’s favoured candidate for its next leader who some say will further divide a city where middle class families have become increasingly disaffected by political tension and economic hardship. The former British colony, governed under a “one country, two systems” arrangement, was promised a high degree of autonomy […]

Chu Jeong Woo and his tour group from South Korea were supposed to visit Britain’s Houses of Parliament on Thursday. But with the area cordoned off, they had to settle for selfies with the symbol of British democracy — and the scene of Wednesday’s lethal terror attack — as a backdrop. “Change in plans,” Mr Chu, a student, explained as many in his group snapped pictures of […]

US stock funds suffered their largest redemptions since the Brexit vote in June as Donald Trump’s push to reform healthcare floundered ahead of an expected vote in Congress in the biggest test yet of his young presidency. The quarrel among Republicans over the politically charged healthcare legislation has increased market volatility and flamed investor fears that the US president may struggle to pass tax reforms later this […]

By Frank Jack Daniel and Matt Spetalnick | MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON A group of 14 nations on Thursday urged Venezuela to hold elections and release “political prisoners,” in a joint statement that kept open the option of seeking to suspend the South American country from the Organization of American States. The statement, which Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said was aimed at encouraging Venezuela to “re-establish […]

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ZTE Corporation has released its financial results for 2016, reporting full-revenue of 101.2 billion yuan, an increase of 1.04 percent to the 100.18 billion yuan reported in the previous corresponding period. The Chinese telecommunications hardware vendor, which had delayed the release of its 2016 annual report to assess the impact of the Iran sanctions case, admitted it slipped to a net loss of 2.36 billion yuan in […]

SYDNEY China is not militarising the South China Sea, Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday, although he acknowledged that defence equipment on islands in the disputed waterway had been placed there to maintain “freedom of navigation”. China has drawn international criticism for large-scale building in the South China Sea, although Li told reporters in Australia the development was for civilian purposes only. “China’s facilities, Chinese islands and […]

By David DeKok | HARRISBURG, Pa. HARRISBURG, Pa. Got $1.5 million to spare? If so, tiny Reduction, a one-time company town built to house workers at a long-vanished garbage-processing plant in western Pennsylvania, could be yours for the asking. The aptly named town is home to 60 residents, down from 400 in its heyday. They live in 19 tidy brick houses, paying rent to the Stawovy family, […]

By Michael Holden | BIRMINGHAM, England BIRMINGHAM, England Before he killed at least four people in Britain’s deadliest attack since the 2005 London bombings, Khalid Masood was considered by intelligence officers to be a criminal who posed little serious threat. A British-born former teacher and Muslim convert, Masood had shown up on the periphery of previous terrorism investigations that brought him to the attention of Britain’s MI5 […]

According to Wikileaks documents the CIA can inject a undetectable bug deep into the essential firmware of an Apple Mac computer that will not be erased even when the computer is reformatted The Central Intelligence Agency is able to permanently infect an Apple Mac computer so that even reinstalling the operating system will not erase the bug, according to documents published Thursday by WikiLeaks. In its second […]

Interior Ministry officials said the CNRP’s promotion of Kem Sokha to party president and three officials to vice president violated internal party rules, issuing vague threats of legal consequences that could potentially imperil the standing of the opposition party’s candidates ahead of June commune elections. In a letter sent on Wednesday by Interior Minister Sar Kheng to CNRP executive committee chairman Yim Sovann, he said the party’s […]

SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) said on Friday it will be difficult to adopt a holding company structure at this time. “We will review various aspects including legal and tax-related issues and report the findings to shareholders,” Samsung Chief Executive Kwon Oh-hyun said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. “But there are negative effects that would arise from transitioning to a holding company so it does […]

By Marco Aquino | CARAPONGO, Peru CARAPONGO, Peru Between rows of plastic tents on the outskirts of Lima, Martha Llanos takes her ration of rice and chicken alongside thousands of others who have been forced from their homes by the worst flooding to hit Peru in decades. The 43-year-old mother of three said she was less worried about the loss of her makeshift home in the destitute […]

DUBAI // Emiratis need to feel a “higher sense of responsibility” to help solve the conflicts around them, the head of a student programme says. “We’ve been able to write the first draft of a national document, which includes the world’s concerns, tolerance, women’s status, conflict and peace, and the skills that are taught to the students to reach this culture,” said Dr Ibrahim Al Dabal, general […]

In almost any other part of the world, a friendly, on-camera hug between two senior politicians at a public event would have raised no eyebrows. But in the febrile atmosphere of a Hong Kong bracing itself for the “election” of its fourth chief executive since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997, Tung Chee-hwa’s embrace of Carrie Lam during a public ceremony in […]

Senate Democrats have indicated that they may filibuster the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, setting up a showdown on Capitol Hill that could ultimately lead to a massive overhaul in Senate rules. Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, said on the Senate floor on Tuesday that he would not vote to confirm Mr Gorsuch, making clear that Republicans would need to find eight Democratic […]

By Jane Chung and Geert De Clercq | SEOUL/PARIS SEOUL/PARIS South Korea’s KEPCO (015760.KS), the likeliest suitor for Toshiba Corp’s (6502.T) troubled nuclear business, is holding off from making an approach because of question marks over the scale of damage at the unit and political uncertainty in both South Korea and the United States, people with direct knowledge of the matter say. Japanese TV-to-rail conglomerate Toshiba has […]

MOSCOW — It’s 2017, and the new Cold War is in full swing. The West is winning, for now. U.S. sanctions have impoverished Russia. But the two sides are poised at a critical juncture. The Russians have come up with new technology to drill for gas that could send their economy skyrocketing again, putting the West on the back foot. And so, the CIA sends President Donald […]

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United States warned South Sudan’s government on Thursday that preventing humanitarian aid workers from reaching parts of the war-torn state that are suffering famine could “amount to deliberate starvation tactics.” A civil war erupted in 2013 when President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer, who has fled and is now in South […]

WASHINGTON A bipartisan group of U.S. senators including senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee introduced a bill on Thursday seeking to tighten sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile launches and other non-nuclear activities. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a co-author of the measure with the Republican foreign relations chairman, Bob Corker, told Reuters it had been written specifically not to interfere with the international nuclear […]

By Silke Koltrowitz | BASEL, Switzerland BASEL, Switzerland Swiss watchmakers expect the market to stay challenging this year with the United States, their second-biggest market, showing no signs of recovering, executives told Reuters at an industry fair in Basel. Swiss watchmakers are grappling with declining sales in their biggest markets — Hong Kong and the United States — and have been hit by tourist shoppers avoiding Europe […]

DHAKA A fire that broke out in Bangladesh’s central bank on Thursday night on floors 13 and 14 of the 32-story building has been brought under control. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. “Twelve units of the fire fighting department controlled (the fire) after several hours of efforts,” a fire department official said. “Those floors are very important as those floors deal with foreign […]

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