By Andrew Osborn and Orhan Coskun | MOSCOW/ANKARA MOSCOW/ANKARA Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say. Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change […]
In the latest snub of president Obama and the US State Department, on Wednesday Turkey and Russia reached an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said, and according to Anadolu News Agency, will aim to put it into effect by midnight. Anadolu, citing sources, said the two countries have reached a consensus that will be presented to participants in the conflict on expanding the […]
Carrie Fisher, the iconic actress who became a household name playing the role of Princess Leia in the Star Wars film franchise, passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 27, after being hospitalized for heart attack last week. She was 60. Fisher was rushed to the hospital on Dec. 23 after suffering cardiac arrest while on a flight from London to Los Angeles. The star had been traveling to […]
Even as the Singapore economy is projected to see worsening economic climate next year, local businesses appear unwilling to transform to cope with the changing environment. Just 15 percent of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and 36 percent of large enterprises strongly agreed with the need to transform to adapt to slowing economic growth as well as technological change and disruption. Across the board, 62 percent agreed […]
By Makiko Yamazaki | TOKYO TOKYO A looming writedown at Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp has wiped almost $5 billion off its value in two days and prompted a credit rating downgrade on Wednesday, as the company grapples to plug a potential multi-billion dollar hole. Toshiba said late on Tuesday that cost overruns at a U.S. nuclear business it bought from Chicago Bridge & Iron last year, CB&I […]
MOSCOW Russian investigators said on Wednesday they had opened a criminal case into a group of men who filmed themselves crushing a bear to death by repeatedly driving over it in off-road vehicles in the Siberian tundra. A video posted on YouTube on Monday, apparently shot on a mobile phone, showed men in two heavy trucks shouting “Crush him! Crush him!” and poking the bear as it […]
Orthodox Jews in black coats and skullcaps danced with Arabs in flowing robes and checkered kaffiyehs at a Hanukkah celebration over the weekend in Bahrain, a Muslim-majority monarchy whose king has sanctioned celebrations of the Jewish holiday. Video of the celebration, which included a Jewish delegation giving a large silver menorah to Arab dignitaries and members of both groups dancing together, appeared on Monday on YouTube, where […]
Several reports of Nexus 6P units have recently been surfacing online, pitting the handsets with an alarming battery problem after the Android 7.0 Nougat update. The issue causes the phone to turn off even when the battery is still at 10 to 60 percent capacity level. How prevalent the shutdown issue remains to be determined, but the main thread has garnered close to 900 comments as of Tuesday, Dec. […]
At this late date, weeks ahead of the inauguration of Mr. Trump, who openly lobbied on Israel’s side against the United Nations resolution, it is unclear what Mr. Kerry hopes to achieve from the speech, other than to leave a set of principles that he believes will one day emerge as the basis for talks, if and when they resume. Continue reading the main story Mr. Kerry, […]
By Thomas Wilson and Saeed Azhar | TOKYO/SINGAPORE TOKYO/SINGAPORE Japan Inc may become a more important force in dealmaking next year as its cashed-up companies seek to buy growth prospects elsewhere in the world and as Beijing’s crackdown on capital outflows prevents some Chinese companies from making foreign acquisitions, bankers and lawyers said. Facing tepid prospects at home after decades of stagnation amid a shrinking population, Japanese […]
Obama says Japanese leader’s Pearl Harbor visit shows power of reconciliation | Reuters ‘+Reuters.inlinevideo.title+’ ‘+Reuters.inlinevideo.length+’ ‘); } PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the site of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor showed the power of reconciliation. “This historic gesture speaks to the power of reconciliation. … A reminder that even the deepest wounds of […]
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s former president, has been charged over corruption accusations in public works projects, marking the most significant legal setback for the embattled populist leader. Judge Julián Ercolini cleared the way on Tuesday for legal proceedings against Ms Fernández in what is the second of several cases being investigated to go to trial. She was indicted in May over allegations of manipulating the central […]
By Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry | MOSCOW/BEIRUT MOSCOW/BEIRUT Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday said the Syrian government was consulting with the opposition ahead of possible peace talks, while a Saudi-backed opposition group said it knew nothing of the negotiations but supported a ceasefire. In an interview with Interfax news agency, Sergei Lavrov did not say where the consultations were taking place or which opposition groups were […]
Gazprom has submitted proposals to Brussels in an effort to bring to an end a five-year long antitrust probe into the company, it said on Tuesday. The Russian state-controlled energy giant, which did not disclose details of its offer, said that the plan sought to address the European Commission’s concerns “to the extent it is reasonable and possible”. “We hope that the commission — and ultimately the […]
A Kingdom of Oil From the beginning, the social contract between commoners and royals constituted a trade-off: a share of the country’s wealth in exchange for absolute rule by the Saud monarchs. A Life magazine correspondent visiting in 1943 described how, as King Abdulaziz waited on a roadside while a flat tire was fixed on his Packard, he gave a shepherd passing on camelback several gold pieces. […]
Google plans to start the new year with a security message. (Image: Google) Beginning next month, the company will tag web pages that include login or credit card fields with the message “Not Secure” if the page is not served using HTTPS, the secure version of the internet protocol. The company on Tuesday began sending messages through its Google Search Console, a tool for webmasters, warning them […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city. Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity […]
In order to meet this demand for fresh content — a demand created by the process that supplies it — Jukin scales idle browsing to industrial proportions. A researcher, on average, watches 200 clips daily. That’s a thousand videos each week, or 50,000 per year, give or take. The company’s research is aided by proprietary software called Riff, which generates feeds based on niche viral keywords. Maybe […]
I am retiring from the Poynter Institute on New Year’s Eve. As my wife and I watch the ball in Times Square slide down to 2017, our fervent smooch will not just mark a new beginning. It will be the first celebration of almost 40 years well-spent. When my retirement was announced — along with the news that I would continue to work on some important projects […]
Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, on December 27, 2016. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie “Avatar” and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company. A giant South Korean-built manned robot that walks […]
By Patrick Graham | LONDON LONDON Share prices inched higher on Tuesday as trading in some of the world’s major financial markets resumed after a Christmas break, with oil and the dollar also rising marginally. Concerns about Italian banks, Chinese growth and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist bent look set to keep investors on edge into the start of 2017. But expectations the new administration will splash […]
Toshiba warned the market that it could book an impairment loss of “several billion dollars” at its troubled US nuclear division and reconsider its presence in that industry as accounting issues returned to blight one of Japan’s biggest industrial names. With Toshiba’s financial position becoming more clouded by the announcement, its chief executive, Satoshi Tsunakawa, told a press conference on Tuesday night in Tokyo that the company […]
Farah later said he was surprised that a “multibillionaire” would make so much time for a side project like this. But single-minded persistence is the essence of self-investigation. Trump, for instance, also continued to insist on the guilt of the Central Park Five — five teenagers, four black and one Latino, whose convictions in the 1989 rape and beating of a jogger were later overturned — long […]
TOKYO Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) is gauging demand for its first bond offering since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear calamity, with some market participants expecting a sale as early as February, people familiar with the plans said. Once-sceptical investors are now more comfortable with the utility’s outlook after government moves to reassess decommissioning and compensation costs, bankers and investors who asked not to be identified told Thomson Reuters […]
