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Under the memorandum they signed as guarantors of a cease-fire, fighting between government forces and insurgents is to stop in four zones that include rebel-held territory in the north, central and southern parts of the country. Continue reading the main story It remains unclear precisely how the guarantors will monitor compliance with what they are calling “de-escalation zones.” Aleksandr Lavrentyev, the Russian negotiator at the Astana talks, […]

JUBA Unknown assailants attacked a U.N. operating base in northern South Sudan overnight, showing “callous disregard” for civilians and aid workers, the head of the U.N. mission said. The assault in the town of Leer, which lies in an oil-producing region, was repelled by Ghanaian peacekeepers. There were no reported injuries. The assailants’ identity was not clear. David Shearer, head of the U.N. mission, said the attack […]

Authored by 720Global’s Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, “History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums” – Alan Greenspan The ability to see beyond the observable and the probable is the most important and under-appreciated characteristic of successful investors. For example, visualize a single domino standing upright. With this limited perspective, one can establish what the domino is doing in the […]

Google is trying to make email on Android safer with a new warning that doesn’t prevent access to shady pages but cautions that you are proceeding at your own risk. Image: Google Google is rolling out a new anti-phishing feature in Gmail on Android that stops users immediately proceeding to a page if they click a suspicious link. The new feature is designed to make it easier […]

11:00 am Suppose we could be brave, Bryce, and go with a pic of Jeffery Lacker as our portrait for today 11:01 am Well, he stepped down from the Richmond Fed after fessing up to helping a colleague at a sister publication — Medley — on a story 11:02 am 11:03 am I could give you a rival’s analysis of the story 11:03 am It’s not the […]

What are the major drivers of Twitter take-up, in Australia and elsewhere? Do we connect around shared interests, shared location, or pre-existing offline relationships? And when, in the eleven-year history of the platform, did these structures form? These are the questions that guided a new, long-term study of the Australian national Twittersphere that my colleagues and I have undertaken. Drawing on , a major multi-institutional facility for […]

Or at least not just about the Panama Papers. This election is about saving journalists their jobs. You see, the thing is, this really was the government that kept on giving. And I’m not referring to the just announced minimum wage increase which we will get in two years time, nor the hundreds of employees who have just started working with government and have been immediately given […]

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By Michel Rose and Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron clashed over their vision of France’s future, the euro and ways of fighting terrorism in an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday before Sunday’s run-off vote for the presidency. The two went into the debate with opinion polls showing Macron, 39, with a strong lead of 20 percentage points over […]

Long before TV presenter Naoufer Ramoul had an apartment to decorate, she had chosen an interior designer. Ramoul, who is the presenter of the weekly political debate show ­Qabil li Niqash, had come across Harf Noon Design Studio on Instagram, and immediately got in touch with the company’s founder, Nisrine El Lababidi. “Naoufer messaged me and said: ‘Nisrine, I don’t own a house at the moment, but […]

By Clement Uwiringiyimana | KIGALI KIGALI An independent woman candidate announced on Wednesday she would challenge President Paul Kagame, joining two other candidates hoping to defeat him in August elections after 17 years in office. Diane Rwigara, a 35-year-old accountant, said she would work to eradicate poverty, injustice and promote freedom if elected. She does not belong to any political party. Kagame is widely admired for restoring […]

What were you thinking Microsoft? The company’s just-released Surface Laptop is meant to challenge Chromebooks, but at a starting price of $999, who the heck will buy it? It sure won’t be schools, which Chromebook dominates now. Windows 10 S and Surface Laptops are neither Chrome OS or Chromebook killers. They’re another pair of Microsoft mistakes. Sure, there have been premium-priced Chromebooks. I own two of them, […]

By Samia Errazzouki and Patrick Markey | RABAT/ALGIERS RABAT/ALGIERS A Moroccan phosphate ship has been held in a South African port by a complaint from Western Sahara Polisario movement that it transported cargo unlawfully from the disputed territory, a lawyer and Polisario said on Wednesday. The seizure of the vessel, carrying 50,000 tonnes of phosphate to New Zealand, may be a test for the Polisario’s use of […]

Theresa May has formally launched her election campaign with an attack on “European politicians and officials”, whom she accused of threatening Britain and trying to sabotage her attempt to win re-election. Standing on the steps of Number 10, Mrs May set out to inflame Brexit tensions, claiming that events of recent days showed that “there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed”. […]

GENEVA Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis. Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports […]

The law justifying Britain’s Brexit bill is hotly contested, the variables in the calculation are legion and the negotiation has yet to start. But there can be no doubt that the EU’s €100bn demand to settle Britain’s exit dues is one of the biggest political dangers in the Brexit process. The Financial Times estimated the bill using the EU’s negotiating guidelines, the more detailed draft mandate for […]

The walled garden of iOS is more difficult to compromise than the famously open source Android platform. Image: iStock While most people are aware of the malicious threats targeting their computers, many still don’t realise that their mobile devices are an increasingly lucrative a target for cybercriminals. The main way smartphones are attacked is though apps, often ones which pose as innocent and useful but actually aim […]

A big part of that is its watering down of the anti-Semitic language of the original Hamas charter in 1988, with its talk of war between Arabs and Jews. “We are making it clear that ours is a liberation project — not about religion or the Jews,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Tuesday in Doha, his latest home. Continue reading the main story His offer […]

BEIRUT A bomb blast killed at least four people and wounded many more in a rebel-held town in northern Syria near the Turkish border on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. The explosion hit the town of Azaz, which has long been an important base for rebels, including groups backed by Turkey. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which […]

Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have each promised to bring renewal to French politics. Still, the two insurgent candidates, who will go head to head in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, have clashed over how to handle the challenges facing France.  Ms Le Pen, of the National Front, is running on a populist, anti-immigration platform but has spurned economic liberalism in favour […]

If you stand close to one of Marwan Sahmarani’s paintings and examine a small section, you find yourself being pulled into a swirling mass of colour and texture, a seemingly abstract formation of thickly-applied oil paints. It is testament to the Lebanese artist’s mastery of the medium that, as his viewers take in each work as a whole, its stories reveal themselves easily. In his latest show, […]

By Brenda Goh and Andrew R.C. Marshall | KHON PI LONG, Thailand KHON PI LONG, Thailand China’s plan to blast open more of the Mekong River for bigger cargo ships could founder on a remote outcrop of half-submerged rocks that Thai protesters have vowed to protect against Beijing’s economic expansion in Southeast Asia. Dynamiting the Pi Long rapids and other sections of the Mekong between Thailand and […]

Dutch paint maker Akzo Nobel NV’s (AKZO.AS) supervisory board is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss how to proceed after deeming PPG Industries Inc’s (PPG.N) latest $29 billion offer to be insufficient, people familiar with the matter said. Akzo believes that PPG’s third acquisition bid, which was unveiled on April 24, still does not value the company highly enough, especially in light of Akzo’s plans to […]

Saudi-Iranian relations hit a low in 2016 when the Saudis severed diplomatic relations with Iran after the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was stormed by Iranian rioters, outraged over the Saudi execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric. Continue reading the main story Signs of a Saudi-Iranian thaw emerged a few months ago when the Saudis said Iranians would be able to participate in this year’s hajj, the pilgrimage […]

By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis | YANGON YANGON Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has declined an invitation to meet U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington this week alongside top diplomats from Southeast Asia, citing other commitments, Myanmar officials said on Tuesday. Nobel laureate Suu Kyi – who serves as Myanmar’s foreign minister while also being de facto head of its civilian government – […]

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