By Kevin Yao and Xiaochong Zhang | BEIJING BEIJING China has cut its growth target this year as the world’s second-largest economy pushes through painful reforms to address a build-up in debt and strives to keep a lid on risks in its financial sector. China aims to expand its economy by around 6.5 percent in 2017, Premier Li Keqiang said at the opening of the annual meeting […]
Photo American armored forces patrol on Friday near Manbij in northern Syria. Credit Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — The United States has increased its forces near the northern Syrian town of Manbij as concerns have grown that fighting could erupt among the complex array of militias and Syrian and Turkish troops who are operating on the crowded battlefield near there. Photographs of American troops […]
WASHINGTON Twenty-one civilians were killed in nine separate strikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between November and January, the U.S. military said on Saturday. That brings the total number of civilians unintentionally killed by the coalition since the start of operations against the militant group in 2014 to 220, the military said in a statement. “Although the Coalition takes extraordinary efforts […]
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, has issued the following statement after President Trump accused former President Obama of wiretapping his phones in 2016 and Obama’s spokesman said that was false. Sasse raises several key points: if the wiretap was authorized by a FISA Court, Trump should demand to see the application, find out on what grounds it was […]
ANKARA Turkey said on Saturday a MiG-23 warplane, probably belonging to the Syrian air force, had crashed on the Syrian side of the border and a search was under way for the pilot who probably bailed out and may have come down on Turkish soil. But a local Turkish governor told Anatolian news agency a rescue team had reached the remains of the plane, which suggested it […]
Singapore will set up a new cybersecurity command centre to combat increasing threats and ensure there are adequate skillsets in cyberdefence. Running 24 by 7, the new facility would encompass four key groups and comprise top-ranking military and armed officers, according to the country’s defence minister Ng Eng Hen. The new Defence Cyber Organisation (DCO) would be manned by some 2,600 soldiers operating within divisions overseeing cybersecurity […]
Emerging markets had a third month of strong inflows into their equities and bonds in February, in a further sign of reviving optimism over an asset class that was expected to be caught in the crosshairs of any US move to protectionism. There were cross-border flows to EM assets of more than $17bn in the month, up from just over $14bn in January, data from the Institute […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. So what have you heard more often: “Fox & Friends” shilling for President Trump or sophisticated people confiding their real reason for reading The New Yorker is the cartoons? Ah, if only Bob Mankoff had long ago negotiated some piece […]
Plot twists, accusations and 25,000 pages of evidence — a snapshot of the case that will determine Nawaz Sharif’s fate. Panama Papers leaked; Sharif family under spotlight — Feica/Dawn. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) makes 11.5 million secret documents available to the public for the very first time. The documents, coming from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, contain confidential attorney-client information for more than 214,488 […]
GENEVA Syria’s chief negotiator said on Saturday that the “only thing” achieved at 10-day talks in Geneva was an agreed agenda and that the government wanted a unified opposition delegation as its negotiating partner. In his first remarks since talks ended on Friday, Bashar al-Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN in New York said that all four subjects in the agreed agenda reached through U.N. mediator Staffan […]
In a bill aimed at encouraging asylum seekers to leave voluntarily, Austrian lawmakers are considering halting the provision of food and accommodation to migrants who are denied asylum and refuse to leave the country. Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population, as it was swept up in Europe’s migration crisis when hundreds of thousands of people crossed its […]
Deutsche Bank said on Friday night that it was laying the groundwork for a “potential capital raise of approximately €8bn” as well as considering several other strategic adjustments as it aims to revive its fortunes after a torrid 12 months. Alongside the capital increase, Germany’s biggest lender said it could garner further funds by selling a minority stake in its asset management arm. It is also considering […]
GENEVA The Syrian opposition has provisionally accepted 12 principles given to delegates by the United Nations at the end of an eight-day round of peace talks, chief negotiator Nasr al-Hariri said. The general principles on the future of Syria were derived from points set out by U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura last year, Hariri told reporters after the final meeting of the round of U.N.-led talks in […]
GENEVA Syrian peace talks are expected to conclude later on Friday with an “agreed agenda” and a plan to resume negotiations later this month in Geneva, Western diplomats said. It was not immediately clear whether the issue of fighting terrorism would be part of the terms, as sought by the Damascus delegation led by Syrian Ambassador Bashar al-Ja’afari. A third Western diplomat said there had been movement […]
ERBIL, Iraq Rival Kurdish groups clashed in Iraq’s northwestern Sinjar region on Friday, two Kurdish security sources said, causing deaths on both sides. The fighting erupted when Peshmerga Rojava forces deployed towards the border with Syria, encroaching on territory controlled by a local affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The unrest highlights the risk of conflict and turf wars between the multiple forces arrayed against Islamic […]
April 3, 2016 Panama Papers leaked; Sharif family under spotlight The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made nearly 11.5 million secret documents public. The documents contained confidential attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities, with the source of these leaks being a Panamanian financial law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Eight offshore companies were reported to have links with the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his […]
BEIJING China’s leaders are expected to telegraph their willingness at this year’s annual parliament meeting to let reforms overtake policy stimulus as their priority amid concerns over financial instability in the world’s second-largest economy. Pro-growth policies, evident by a lending binge and increased government spending last year, have fueled worries among policymakers about high debt levels and an overheating housing market. Top leaders at the National People’s […]
GENEVA Syria’s warring sides both claimed U.N. peace talks in Geneva were going their way on Thursday, but the chief government negotiator and Syria’s ally Russia accused the main opposition delegation of trying to wreck the talks. Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari told reporters that he had discussed “substantive issues, particularly counter-terrorism” with U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, and would continue on Friday. The government delegation has […]
Uber’s US rival Lyft is seeking $500m in a new fundraising round to provide fresh ammunition as the transportation company takes its fight with Uber to a growing number of US cities, according to two people close to the process. The fundraising comes at a time when Uber has been struggling with a series of public relations crises, including allegations of sexual harassment and a video of […]
GENEVA The Syrian opposition declined to congratulate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on retaking historic Palmyra from Islamic State militants on Thursday and suggested the sight of the city changing hands again was risible. “It is the second time that we see this handover and this is obviously being used for political reasons,” chief opposition negotiator Nasr al-Hariri told reporters in Geneva, adding that he considered both sides […]
GENEVA Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Ja’afari accused the Saudi-backed opposition on Thursday of holding peace talks hostage because of their reported refusal to unify under one opposition delegation and include terrorism on agenda. “We heard that… the Riyadh platform refused the inclusion… of counter-terrorism,” Ja’afari told reporters after meeting U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura. “This did not come as a surprise because some members of the Riyadh […]
BEIRUT Villages controlled by the Manbij Military Council will be handed to the Syrian government in the coming days under a deal agreed with Russia, an official from the council said on Thursday. The Manbij Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of U.S.-allied militias including the powerful Kurdish YPG, which is fighting against Islamic State group but is regarded by Turkey […]
In The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State, journalist Graeme Wood aligns himself with the Orientalist tradition of Bernard Lewis, who warned liberal students against projecting secular frameworks on contemporary Muslim politics. Lewis believed religion, not secular grievance, was the prime motivator of this politics. This may or may not be true. In any case, the argument has limited explanatory power. It doesn’t explain […]
BAGHDAD A number of civilians and Islamic State members were killed in an attack that hit a mosque run by the militants and damaged neighbouring houses in the west of the Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday, three residents said on Thursday. The Omar al-Aswad mosque, in the al-Faruq district of the old city centre, was hit by an airstrike, three residents in the same area told […]
