He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba. But during more than half a century in office Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90, metamorphosed from a popular and charismatic guerrilla leader into a traditional caudillo, an autocratic holdover from another age. At his life’s end, although bolstered by the emergence of a […]
Updated Nov. 26, 2016 2:23 a.m. ET Fidel Castro burst on the world scene in 1959, spawning the very image of a revolutionary with his scruffy beard, rifle and cigar, ruling Cuba for a half-century while rankling 11 U.S. presidents and helping bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Mr. Castro, who was suffering from undisclosed illnesses, died at 90 years old, his brother, President […]
Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest healthcare group, confirmed on Friday it is in preliminary discussions with Actelion, Europe’s largest biotechnology company, over a potential deal. Its statement came after days of speculation among investors that J&J had been preparing a bid for Actelion, although the Switzerland-based biotech had earlier warned “there can be no certainty that a transaction will result” from the J&J approach. People close […]
As Wall Street traders departed for Thanksgiving this week, they could celebrate a rare achievement. On Monday and Tuesday, the four most widely cited indices of US stocks — the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 — hit all-time highs simultaneously. The last time a “grand slam” happened was on New Year’s Eve 1999, at the height of the […]
Ashley Lane rounds up the winter activities in destinations ranging from Monaco and Manila to Brazil and Antarctica. • Read this and more stories in Ultratravel magazine, out with The National on Thursday, November 24 newslide Monaco Though temperatures are lower than normal, heading to Monaco in December means fewer crowds and lower prices. There are also plenty of festivals and activities to keep visitors busy. Those […]
The Abu Dhabi F1 party got started on Thursday on the Abu Dhabi Corniche. The free music festival, Beats on The Beach, kicked off with over 20,000 people in attendance to see a varied programme featuring the likes of Filipino pop sensation Yeng Constantino, Emirati singer Shamma Hamdan and UK rap duo Krept and Konan. With all the artists blessed with their own dedicated fan base, the […]
A Malaysian businessman and his partner have been charged with orchestrating the single biggest fraud in the history of Singapore’s stock exchange, which wiped out S$8bn in value and triggered a lasting loss of investor confidence. Soh Chee Wen, also known as John Soh, faced charges in a Singapore court on Friday in relation to an alleged fraud in which three publicly listed stocks soared in valuation […]
Not only was the long-rumored Boba Fett Star Wars Anthology movie a going concern, but a teaser reel was prepped to be shown at Star Wars Celebration 2015 alongside an official announcement, before being axed “at the last minute” following a split between Disney and mooted director Josh Trank. This comes courtesy of Entertainment Weekly sources, who say that the project has now been backburnered. Trank seemingly left […]
Palestinian leaders were more wary. “I don’t personally know Jared Kushner and have never met him, but welcome the idea of having him assist in breaking the deadlock in the negotiations of the conflict,” said Amin Maqboul, secretary general of the revolutionary council of Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority. Continue reading the main story The extent of Mr. Kushner’s relationship with Israel is unclear. […]
John Hanke arrives at Mijita on San Francisco Bay looking more like a middle-aged indie rocker than the chief executive of a company that this summer was estimated to be making tens of millions a week. His striped flannel shirt is unbuttoned over a T-shirt bearing a compass and the words, taken from a poem in The Lord of the Rings, “Not all who wander are lost”. […]
Initially the threat posed by the Legion was primarily seen as a problem for law enforcement officials. But as the threat worsened last year, and the F.B.I. stepped up the monitoring of terrorism suspects around the country, the bureau pressed the military to focus on the group, according to current and former American officials. Continue reading the main story While American and British forces conducted a series […]
U.S. healthcare company Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) has approached Swiss biotechnology firm Actelion Ltd (ATLN.S) about a potential takeover, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people it said were familiar with the matter. The report said that deliberations are still at an early stage following Johnson & Johnson’s initial offer, and Actelion is working with an adviser to explore options. Johnson & Johnson Chief Executive Alex Gorsky said […]
Jason van den Brand can’t promise that your mortgage won’t end up with Wells Fargo. As chief executive of Lenda, a home-loan provider, he’s in the business of selling mortgages into a huge secondary market in which Wells is a significant player. But he says that a wave of revulsion against the “too big to fail” bank, in the wake of the sham-account scandal, is prompting more […]
A 90-metre sculpture made from 31 aluminium-clad steel tablets will grab the attention on Commemoration Day. Nick Leech was given an exclusive tour of the structure at the memorial park when it was being put together by British artist Idris Khan “What are monuments?” asks the British artist Idris Khan, designer of the memorial that will act as the focus for Commemoration Day on November 30. “The […]
An experimental Alzheimer’s medicine has flunked a large clinical trial, wiping more than $10bn off the market value of its developer Eli Lilly and dealing a significant setback to the hunt for a drug to delay the fatal disease. Investors and analysts had tipped the medicine, known as Solanezumab, or Sola, to be the first drug that could delay dementia in Alzheimer’s patients, after earlier studies appeared […]
As night fell on June 15, volunteers at the Birstall Wellbeing Centre in West Yorkshire were preparing for their usual Wednesday group session. The centre offers Reiki healing, palm readings and holistic massage. Rebecca Walker, who opened the centre eight years ago, is haunted by that night in June. At about 6.30pm, a man in his 50s walked through the door. He was thin, on the short […]
newslide Exhausted Kanye West hospitalised Rapper Kanye West was reportedly hospitalised in Los Angeles on Monday and is said to be suffering from exhaustion. The news broke just hours after he abruptly cancelled the remainder of his tour following a week of no-shows, curtailed concerts and political rants. A source told People magazine West was “exhausted and currently dealing with sleep deprivation” but was “fine”. Concert promoters […]
A two-day ceasefire after nearly two years of war in Yemen expired at midday (0900 GMT) on Monday and would not be renewed, a spokesman for a Saudi-led military coalition told al-Arabiya TV, with each side blaming the other for violations. The 48-hour truce, announced unilaterally by the Saudi coalition on Friday, failed to halt fighting across the country between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-led forces, which […]
What does Europe’s top judge think of a full-blooded British tabloid headline casting justices as “Enemies of the People”? With a nod to propriety, Koen Lenaerts insists that he “cannot speak about ” that Daily Mail front page or the specifics of a landmark British ruling on parliamentary approval for Brexit. But the European Court of Justice president is unable to resist making a broader point. “I can say […]
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, “We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”—Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we? There’s the garden variety fake news that is not really “news” so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone with […]
Photo A cemetery on the outskirts of Gaziantep, Turkey. Grave No. 38487 holds the body of a 4-year-old girl who died of wounds she received when a shell containing sulfur mustard agent hit her home in Marea, Syria. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Islamic State has used chemical weapons, including chlorine and sulfur mustard agents, at least 52 times on the […]
Photo President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, center, at a welcome ceremony earlier this month in Karaj, just west of Tehran, has said that his country will remain committed to a nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers. Credit Office of the Iranian Presidency, via Associated Press TEHRAN — At first blush, the election of Donald J. Trump would seem to be bad news for […]
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was “guaranteed” to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that among the neo-con, foreign policy “elites” of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter of time before the “pacifist” Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary. As the WaPo reported, “there is one corner of […]
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and staunch critic of Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign, left the clubhouse at Mr Trump’s New Jersey golf course with no announcement about whether he will join the new administration. Donald Trump is holding meetings with prospective members of his administration at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey this weekend. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president […]
