By Stephanie Nebehay | GENEVA GENEVA The United Nations needs massive funds to avert famine in Yemen and warring parties there must ensure humanitarian aid can be delivered, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday as he opened a donor conference in Geneva. A U.N. appeal for $1.2 billion this year for Yemen, where Guterres said a child under the age of five dies of preventable causes […]
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Senate’s main investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is equipped with a much smaller staff than previous high-profile intelligence and scandal probes in Congress, which could potentially affect its progress, according to sources and a Reuters review of public records. With only seven staff members initially assigned to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s three-month-old investigation, […]
Photo Steven Mnuchin, left, the secretary of the Treasury, announced sanctions on Monday in response to a chemical weapons attack in Syria. “The United States is sending a strong message with this action that we will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons by any actor,” he said. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday imposed sanctions on 271 employees of […]
By Stephanie Nebehay | GENEVA GENEVA Aid agency Oxfam called on donor nations on Monday to step up life-saving assistance to millions of civilians in Yemen facing starvation and disease, rather than providing arms to fuel the deepening conflict. “Many areas of Yemen are on the brink of famine, and the cause of such extreme starvation is political,” the British charity said on the eve of a […]
Risk is definitely on this morning as European shares soar, led by French stocks and a new record high in Germany’s Dax, after a “French relief rally” in which the first round of the country’s presidential elections prompted investors to bet that establishment candidate Emmanuel Macron will win a runoff vote next month, and who is seen as a 61% to 39% favorite to defeat Le Pen […]
Two Qatari hunters who endured a 16-month hostage ordeal in Iraq spoke Sunday of their joy at being released, in the first public comments since the group were freed. Mohammed Marzouki was among 24 Qataris and two Saudis who were on a hunting trip in a mainly Shiite area of southern Iraq when they were kidnapped in late 2015. They flew back to Doha on Friday following […]
Photo Members of the United Nations Security Council during a meeting about Syria on April 7. President Trump will host a lunch on Monday with 14 diplomats who are members of the Security Council. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images UNITED NATIONS — President Trump, who recently had Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin and Kid Rock over for a White House dinner, is planning to host 14 diplomats from around […]
Photo King Salman of Saudi Arabia at the 28th Ordinary Summit of the Arab League at the Dead Sea last month. King Salman rescinded a 20 percent cut to ministers’ salaries and promoted two of his sons. Credit Mohammad Hamed/Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — King Salman of Saudi Arabia rescinded salary cuts for ministers and restored financial perks for public sector workers in a series of royal decrees […]
BEIRUT The Syrian army and allied forces advanced against rebels in western Syria near Hama city on Sunday, building on recent strategic gains in the area, a military source and a monitoring group said. Government forces captured the town of Halfaya and nearby villages, they said, taking back territory that rebels seized last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. “We gained control of Halfaya and […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE on Saturday welcomed the release of a mainly Qatari hunting party freed after a 16-month hostage ordeal in Iraq, saying such terrorism “feeds on chaos and instability”. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation congratulates the brotherly state of Qatar and expresses relief that their ordeal is over,” Dr Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said, according […]
DOHA: US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met Qatar’s emir on Saturday during a visit to the oil-rich Gulf state, home to the largest US air base in the Middle East.The visit to Doha is part of a regional tour that has included stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. Mattis is scheduled to visit Djibouti on Sunday.The Pentagon chief’s meeting with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani […]
By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg | SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens of six Muslim-majority nations faces its second challenge at a U.S. appeals court next month, and this time more Republican states are backing the measure, while one Democratic state attorney general dropped out of the legal fight this week. Some legal experts say the states’ realignment could […]
It is clear now that from the very start, the hunters’ abduction was linked to the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in regional powers in an increasingly complicated proxy war. On one side of the hostage negotiations were Shiite powers — Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah — which firmly support the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. On the other were the Sunni powers Qatar […]
LONDON Oil held near $53 a barrel on Friday, but was on course for its biggest weekly drop in a month due to doubts that an OPEC-led production cut will restore balance to an oversupplied market. Brent futures LCOc1 were at $53.01 a barrel at 1107 GMT, up 2 cents from their last close and set for a 5.15 percent weekly drop, their biggest fall since the […]
ABU DHABI // Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, held bilateral talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to discuss efforts to bring about an end to conflicts in the region as well as increasing security cooperation and economic ties. The UAE is Russia’s closest partner in the GCC, and Moscow has […]
Australia has done everything it can to make the refugees it detains in offshore camps voiceless — confiscating phones, refusing journalists access and threatening staff with jail if they speak out about the wretched conditions. But behind the fences, those detained on the South Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru are telling their stories to the world by embracing the arts: writing articles and books, drawing cartoons and […]
By Warren Strobel and Arshad Mohammed | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The United States wants new commitments from Saudi Arabia to improve its targeting procedures to minimize civilian casualties in its part in the Yemen civil war as it weighs resuming sales of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh, U.S. officials told Reuters. An announcement of the weapons sale had been anticipated last month, but objections by mostly Democratic lawmakers and […]
DUBAI // The UAE’s youth have the will, knowledge and culture to carry the vision of the country’s leadership into the future, said Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Addressing Emirati youth at an open dialogue session to encourage political participation, held at Etihad Museum, Dr Gargash answered questions on the challenges facing the country and the running of the Federal National Council. “Young […]
BEIRUT Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and hardline rival Ebrahim Raisi were both approved to run in May’s presidential election by a government vetting body, while former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was disqualified, state media reported on Thursday. The approval of Rouhani, a moderate, and Raisi, a political hardliner thought to have the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sets up a showdown between rival political camps. Four […]
The biggest risk, critics say, is that Mr. Trump will talk himself into a war. Only slightly less dangerously, he could weaken the nation’s standing by backing off from a threat to use force. Continue reading the main story “In Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, they are recalibrating their strategies — you can’t deny it — because they don’t have any idea of how Trump will respond,” said Senator […]
In a lab deep within Tata Consultancy Services’ landscaped campus in the western Indian city of Pune, 16 recent graduates are experimenting with new technologies that are shaking up a flagship national industry. TCS, the largest of India’s powerful IT services companies, set up the lab 18 months ago to enable new starters to work on the “internet of things”, the field of connected machines and appliances that […]
By Lesley Wroughton | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday accused Iran of ‘alarming ongoing provocations’ to destabilise countries in the Middle East as the Trump administration launched a review of its policy towards Tehran. Tillerson told reporters the review, which he announced on Tuesday, would not only look at Tehran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal but also its behaviour in the […]
Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) company has reaffirmed its commitment to implementing gigabit speed-enabling upgrades on the cable portion of its network rollout, on Thursday announcing that it has joined international research and development organisation CableLabs. Calling CableLabs “the driving force behind crucial technological advances in the global cable market”, NBN said its membership of the non-profit organisation demonstrates its focus on hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) and the […]
The defense secretary said Iranian support for the Houthis was destabilizing Yemen, and he talked up the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Relations are enjoying salad days in the Trump administration after years of friction between the Obama administration and the Saudi leadership, which thought Obama officials were too friendly with Iran. Continue reading the main story Mr. Mattis’s two-day visit, the start of […]
