By Lisa Barrington and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT BEIRUT Syrian rebels shelled Aleppo and air strikes resumed around the city on Friday as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies said the insurgents’ withdrawal from the city could pave the way towards a political solution for the country. A day after the last rebels left their remaining pocket of territory in the city, the Syrian Observatory for […]
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Israel stop building settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, after the US abstained in spite of ferocious criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The resolution was passed with 14 votes from the 15-member security council, hours after a senior Israeli official accused US President Barack Obama of working “behind Israel’s back” to cook up the resolution, in […]
Filipino beauty pageant winners Parul Shah and Maggie Wilson have emerged victorious on the fifth season of reality-TV programme The Amazing Race Asia. They beat fellow beauty queens Yvonne Lee and Chloe Chen from Malaysia, as well as married couple Eric Tai and Rona Samson, who are also from the Philippines, in the grand finale this week. It was the culmination of 10 legs of competition that […]
Photo An Airbus A321 featuring the Iranian flag at an Airbus plant in Hamburg, Germany, this week. The acquisition of modern planes is an important achievement for President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. Credit Fabian Bimmer/Reuters The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus completed a deal on Thursday to sell 100 jetliners to Iran, a move described by both sides as a major step toward revitalizing Iran’s aged commercial fleet […]
The seizure of all of Aleppo by Mr. Assad and his allies signals a turning point in the nearly six-year conflict. Continue reading the main story Mr. Assad’s army relied heavily on foreign military support from Russia, Iran and Shiite militias like Lebanon’s Hezbollah to surround the rebel-held area. Months of shelling and airstrikes that killed hundreds of people and reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble finally routed […]
By Ellen Francis and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA The Syrian army said on Thursday that it had retaken complete control of Aleppo after the last rebel fighters were evacuated from the city, handing President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory of the war. The army said it had brought “security and safety” to Aleppo, ending four years of rebel resistance in parts of the northern Syrian city. […]
But talk around the house was more likely to involve the Dodgers or Bruins. Malcolm was a good athlete, a basketball player growing up and an avid tennis player until the end. He and Steve spent a lot of time at the high school hitting and fielding, and Malcolm sometimes joined Steve in the driveway. Continue reading the main story “He was a lefty and had a […]
Dec 22, 2016 12:33 pm IST India’s business world has had its share of scandal and success this year and that has been reflected in headlines and during heated discussions on nightly news shows. From Cyrus Mistry’s unceremonious ousting as Tata Sons chairman to Vijay Mallya’s ongoing battle with Indian authorities from the U.K., there has been plenty to write and talk about. To quantify the business […]
Photo A Turkish honor guard with the coffin of Andrey Karlov, the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey, at a ceremony Tuesday at an Ankara airport. Credit Emrah Gurel/Associated Press For the moment, the most important thing to say about Monday’s dramatic assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey by a lone gunman is that it has not ruptured relations between the two countries. It might have, given past […]
But by the time Mr. Trump is sworn in next month, such safe zones may be irrelevant, if the evacuation of Aleppo and political negotiations proceed. Continue reading the main story More than a year after launching the air campaign that remade the battlefield in Mr. Assad’s favor, Russia appears to be looking for a way out of the war. Analysts say that Moscow sees in the […]
Friction between the two countries and their proxies is rising alarmingly at a time that mutual trust has reached a nadir. Tehran interprets Turkey’s Syria policy as primarily a product of a neo-Ottoman ambition to regain clout and empower pro-Turkey Sunnis in territories ruled by its progenitor. “What changed in Syria” after the civil war began “was neither the government’s nature nor Iran’s ties with it, but […]
By Angus McDowall and Maria Tsvetkova | BEIRUT/MOSCOW BEIRUT/MOSCOW As President Bashar al-Assad’s army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. The Syrian army used loudspeakers to broadcast warnings to insurgents that it was poised to enter their rapidly diminishing area during the day and told them to […]
ABU DHABI // Iran’s nuclear deal and the republic’s support for militias across the region are some of the major threats GCC countries face, the head of an Abu Dhabi think-tank told the British Parliament. Dr Ahmed Al Hamli told the International Relations Committee this threat had led to a regional shift of power from legitimate states to illegitimate terrorist groups, weakening the region for the Islamic […]
By Umit Bektas and Orhan Coskun | ANKARA ANKARA Turkish police have detained six people over the killing of the Russian ambassador, state media said, who was shot in the back as he gave a speech in Ankara on Monday by an off-duty police officer shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar”. The state-run Anadolu agency said on Tuesday the attacker’s mother, father, sister and two other […]
Video Bana al-Abed Escapes Aleppo Bana al-Abed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl whose Twitter account made her a face of the suffering in Syria, has been evacuated from eastern Aleppo along with thousands of other displaced citizens. By MEGAN SPECIA and YARA BISHARA on Publish Date December 19, 2016. Photo by Twitter/AlabedBana. Watch in Times Video » Bana al-Abed, a 7-year-old Syrian girl who became the face of […]
ABU DHABI // Pakistan’s ambassador to the UAE said he aims to help deepen bilateral defence and economic ties, particularly through the major new trade route traversing Pakistan to China, the Asian power that is set to become the GCC’s largest trade partner. “We really want to make this relationship more diversified, and deepen and expand it,” said Moazzam Ahmad Khan, who began his tenure as Islamabad’s […]
As we celebrate the completion of another trip around the sun, and prepare to start the next one, the festive television season is shifting into high gear. Grab your remote – we’ve got more than enough TV treats to enjoy as you relax on the sofa after all the preparation and socialising. Pop that gourmet corn, rip open a box of chocolate and enjoy a wide range […]
By Angus McDowall and Ellen Francis | BEIRUT BEIRUT Thousands were evacuated from the last rebel-held enclave of the city of Aleppo on Monday after a deal was reached to allow people to leave two besieged pro-government villages in nearby Idlib province. Convoys of buses from eastern Aleppo reached rebel-held areas of countryside to the west of the city in cold winter weather, according to a U.N. […]
The deal would send United Nations monitors to observe the evacuation process after consultations with “interested parties,” which means that observers could in theory be turned down by soldiers and militias on the ground. Senior United Nations officials have repeatedly said that they have sought Syrian government permission to be present during the evacuation process, and that they have not received it. Continue reading the main story […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for December 19, 2016, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Abu Dhabi Film screenings Catch two film screenings as part of the Cinema Space series. The Patience Stone (pictured), a film in Dari (Afhgan Persion) with English subtitles, is about a young woman in […]
By Lisa Barrington and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hopes to resume the evacuation of civilians and wounded from the Syrian enclave of east Aleppo on Sunday, a spokeswoman said. Thousands of people are left in Aleppo, some sleeping on the streets in freezing temperatures, after the evacuation of the rebel-held areas ground to a halt on Friday following […]
It was a clear and chilly afternoon in Moscow – March 18, 2014 – when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the documents to formally annex the Crimean Peninsula away from Ukraine. Frustrated Western governments soon began rolling out the only response they could agree on to Mr. Putin’s brazen redrawing of Europe’s borders: economic sanctions. Over the next two days, the United States would designate 27 individuals […]
When word came that a shaky evacuation deal had been reached, the remaining residents in the last patch of rebel-held Aleppo got moving. Doctors readied their patients, mothers packed their children’s bags and young men burnt their motorbikes to spite regime forces who might have wanted to take them. Relief mixed with heartbreak for residents who have lived in a world more nightmare than reality. Over a […]
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. Bob Dylan just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, enough said. “Poet laureate of the rock era.” But media critic, too? Patti Smith gained deserved attention for a notable performance of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” at the Nobel ceremony […]
