BEIRUT Syrian rebels were fighting pro-government militias on the southeastern edge of east Aleppo’s opposition-held enclave on Tuesday, a rebel official said, as Damascus and its allies try to build on major gains in the city in recent days. A major assault by government forces backed by allied militia has driven rebels from the northern part of their eastern Aleppo enclave and they now hold only two […]
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is examining the timing of $3bn of impairment charges that Rio Tinto booked on a disastrous Mozambique coal deal, sources close to the company have confirmed. The Anglo-Australian miner was already facing scrutiny from US regulators when it contacted law enforcement authorities this month about a questionable payment made to a consultant operating in Guinea. The Mozambique investigation, first reported by […]
Much of the markets’ mixed reaction reflects uncertainty about a new president who has never held public office, leaving political leaders, business executives and international institutions to make bets on how a Trump administration may rewrite rules that have governed global affairs under American presidents of both parties. Continue reading the main story “For allies and adversaries alike, the election of Donald Trump represents the likely abandonment […]
President Bashar al-Assad’s forces seized a wide swath of rebel territory in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo, spurring the flight of tens of thousands of civilians amid intense fighting that threatens the collapse of the opposition’s last major urban stronghold. Activists and rebel leaders said pro-Assad forces on Monday recaptured the northern districts of the city, which has been divided between opposition forces on the east […]
Saudi Arabia has set a high bar for any oil supply deal ahead of Wednesday’s Opec meeting in Vienna, as it attempts to put pressure on regional rivals Iran and Iraq to accept a larger share of output cuts. The oil production cartel is trying to reach an agreement to curb supplies for the first time since the financial crisis and put an end to a two-year […]
CARACAS Venezuela’s bolivar currency has depreciated an unprecedented 60 percent in a month against the U.S. dollar on the black market to trade at nearly 3,500 on Monday, according to the widely-tracked web site DolarToday. That makes the largest-denomination note of 100 bolivars now worth less than 3 U.S. cents in the crisis-hit OPEC nation. Such is the currency chaos that Venezuelans often carry rucksacks full of […]
By Ulf Laessing | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Islamic State has arrested dozens of Mosul shop owners accused of raising food prices in the nearly besieged city, to tamp down discontent as a U.S.-backed offensive closes in on the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq, residents said on Monday. The arrests took place on Sunday morning in Bursa, a commercial district in the western part of the […]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, November 28, 2016/ — The Ashish J Thakkar Global Entrepreneurship Index of 85 countries ranks Singapore as the best environment for entrepreneurs Of the African nations, Namibia scores highest and comes 42nd overall – ahead of other prominent African markets, such as Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa The research, conducted by Mara Foundation and Opinium Research, examines the state of entrepreneurship around the […]
Bail in risk – €4 Trillion Italian banking system at risk as referendum looms Sunday according to Financial Times Concerns of multiple bank failures – Eight banks at risk of failure and bail ins Monte dei Paschi di Siena, third largest by assets and mid-sized banks Popolare di Vicenza, Veneto Banca and Carige and four smaller banks Italy’s banks have €360 billion of problem loans Contagion poses risks to Unicredit, […]
By Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean President Park Geun-hye cannot be questioned by Tuesday as prosecutors have requested, her lawyer said, as she resists growing calls to resign over an influence scandal that has engulfed her administration. Park is under intense pressure to step down over the crisis involving a close friend accused of meddling in state affairs, with the main opposition party seeking to […]
BEIRUT Syrian state media said on Monday the army and its allies had captured the al-Sakhour district from rebels in eastern Aleppo, an advance that risks splintering the opposition-held area in two. Rebel sources could not immediately be reached for comment. Citing a military source, state TV said the army and its allies had seized the entire area and were working to clear it of mines. It […]
By Lisa Barrington | BEIRUT BEIRUT Several thousand residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo fled shifting frontlines, residents and a monitor said on Sunday, after a rapid advance by the Syrian army and allied forces that rebels fear could split their most important urban stronghold in two. The army and its allies took control on Saturday of the large Hanano housing district, on the northeast frontline of the […]
By Michael Georgy, Isabel Coles and John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq Iraq’s sectarian political leaders have plunged back into a dispute over the status of Shi’ite armed groups, undermining efforts to reunite the country as its troops press on with the assault of Mosul, Islamic State’s biggest stronghold. Forty days into the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, about a […]
By Isabel Coles | GOGJALI, Iraq GOGJALI, Iraq Until three weeks ago, many of Abu Osama’s customers were Islamic State militants who brought their wives and children to his pharmacy on the eastern edge of Mosul for injections and treatment. Now, most of them are Iraqi security forces who recaptured the Gogjali neighborhood earlier this month and are pushing further into the city, which has been under […]
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it had killed four militants linked to the Islamic State on Sunday after they attacked Israeli forces in the Golan Heights. The confrontation appeared to be the first of its kind between Israel and Islamic State-affiliated forces based in Syria. It was not immediately clear if the militants’ attack was spontaneous or if it signaled a possible change of policy by […]
“We have lost everything, our infrastructure, and we have nothing left to lose,” he said. “Now it is a long war of attrition.” Photo A nonfunctioning cement factory in Amran, Yemen, that was bombed twice by the Saudi-led coalition. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times The Houthis’ control of such key territory has made them essential to international efforts to end the conflict, leaving policy makers and […]
By Simon Gardner and Ana Isabel Martinez | HAVANA HAVANA From the Bay of Pigs invasion to a historic visit by President Barack Obama to Havana, Cubans have known for generations that whenever the United States turns its face to Cuba, Fidel Castro would be staring right back. But the death of “El Comandante” has added to worries among Cubans that U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump will slam […]
By Marc Frank and Sarah Marsh | HAVANA HAVANA Fidel Castro’s death could give his younger brother, President Raul Castro, more space to pursue economic reforms, but change will also depend on whether U.S. President-elect Donald Trump decides to work with or challenge Cuba’s communist government. Raul Castro has introduced market-oriented reforms in recent years, but the pace of change has been slowed, many Cubans say, by […]
With violence escalating in Aleppo and elsewhere across war-ravaged Syria, the United Nations said Saturday that the number of children trapped in besieged areas had doubled in less than a year to half a million. A report by Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said the children were among hundreds of thousands of civilians in 16 areas under siege across the country who had been “almost completely […]
By Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s ruling socialists mourned former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, while opposition hardliners exulted over the death of a man they call a dictator who helped wreck the economy and whose country has for years got an easy ride with subsidized oil. The two leftist Latin American governments became intimate allies under Castro and his younger disciple, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo […]
As mourners carried the coffin of a slain Hezbollah commander, they moved quickly to wipe away blood still dripping from his body — it had been washed in haste as it was rushed from the battlefields of Aleppo to its final resting place in Lebanon. While Russian war planes and bombs have dominated headlines about outside intervention in Syria’s five-year conflict, thousands of those fighting on the […]
BEIRUT Syrian government and allied forces seized large parts of an important district in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Saturday but fierce fighting for control of the residential area continued, rebels, pro-government media and a monitor said. Government forces have advanced with a ground and air assault on the edge of the besieged eastern half of the city, a move the rebels say is designed to split their […]
By Karin Strohecker | LONDON LONDON Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia has not changed Ankara’s position that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go to restore peace in the country, Turkish deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Saturday. Russia is Assad’s main military backer while Turkey backs the rebels fighting to oust him in the six year old conflict. “We are in the same position, Assad has committed […]
MOSCOW The Kremlin said on Thursday that a report by the al-Hayat newspaper on an agreement between Russia and the United States on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was not true. The newspaper reported that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had told several Arab countries that Russia and the U.S. reached an understanding on the future of Syria’s peace process, including Assad’s departure to […]
