HELSINKI Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said on Friday the nation is unlikely to host an Arctic summit at short notice, quashing the prospect of an imminent meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. “That a summit could be arranged hastily, seems impossible, and I have not proposed that… The G20 meeting in Germany will likely be the first meeting for presidents Trump and […]
President Jacob Zuma has sacked Pravin Gordhan, his finance minister, and eight other cabinet members, threatening turmoil for South Africa’s fragile economy and setting the stage for the biggest crisis yet for the ruling African National Congress under his leadership. Mr Zuma’s decision to fire Mr Gordhan as part of a late-night cabinet reshuffle sent the rand down 2 per cent on Friday, taking the currency’s decline […]
March 31, 2017 by: Nicholas Megaw in London South African president Jacob Zuma’s dismissal of his well-regarded finance minister Pravin Gordhan has left the country’s currency on course for its worst week since 2015 and hit prices in the country’s government bonds and its banking stocks. It has also left analysts expecting imminent downgrades to the country’s credit ratings. The firing of Mr Gordhan — which was […]
MANILA The Philippines on Friday ruled out declaration of a unilateral ceasefire ahead of the resumption of peace talks with communist rebels next week, saying it was more interested in a bilateral truce both sides could stick to. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) plans to declare a unilateral ceasefire no later than Friday and had expected the government to do the same, in line with […]
President Trump’s Air Force Secretary nominee, Heather Wilson, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 30 that she had consulted honorably for four U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories years ago, even though she never produced a detailed written accounting of how she had spent her time while earning $20,000 a month. Wilson, a former Air Force pilot and House lawmaker who now runs the South Dakota School […]
BEIRUT/ANKARA: More than 5 million Syrians are now refugees, the UN said Thursday, as aid groups urged the international community to end the country’s six-year war and provide more assistance.The new figures mean around a quarter of Syria’s population has fled since the March 2011 start of a conflict that has killed over 320,000 people.The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged more international assistance, with spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly […]
By Ingrid Melander and Johnny Cotton | PARIS/MALESHERBES, France PARIS/MALESHERBES, France A 90-minute train ride from the Gare de Lyon station in Paris traces a political gulf between big-city voters and the rest, a divide that has shaken up Britain and the United States and has an outside chance of doing the same in France’s upcoming vote. The further you go, the greater the support for the […]
ISTANBUL Turkish state-run lender Halkbank’s operations and transactions fully comply with national and international regulations, it said in a statement regarding the arrest of its deputy general manager Mehmet Hakan Atilla in the United States. Atilla was charged on Tuesday with participating in a multi-year scheme to violate sanctions against Iran and conspiring with Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is already on trial in a case […]
By Martin Petty and Neil Jerome Morales | MANILA MANILA Allies of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte have prepared legislation to postpone elections to the over 40,000 village councils in the country and allow him to choose replacements in what they say is part of the war on drugs. If passed by Congress, the move would make Duterte, a former mayor, the most powerful leader in the Philippines […]
Leftist Salvadoran guerrillas, emboldened by the Marxist Sandinistas’ success in neighboring Nicaragua, had been trying to overthrow the country’s ruling junta. But Mr. Hinton was determined. He encapsulated his mission this way: “Save the economy, stop the violence, have the elections and ride into the sunset.” Continue reading the main story But after an election campaign in which fending off far-right candidates was at least as demanding […]
Friday 05.10 BST Overview Asian stocks were mostly positive on Friday as investors prepared to end a solid first quarter of 2017 and Wall Street closed in on record highs. Hot topic 1 South Africa’s rand was 1.2 per cent weaker in Asian trading in the wake of the nation’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, being dismissed on Thursday by President Jacob Zuma. The currency has shed a […]
Same.Image: POOL/EPA/REX/Shutterstock By Keith Wagstaff2017-03-31 03:38:55 UTC No Donald. Just, no. The president tweeted out a video Thursday about how “only by enlisting the full potential of women in our society will we truly be able to (you have not heard this expression before) make America great again.” Hmm, I wonder what people on the internet will think of this message. It’s not like Trump was caught […]
By Michelle Nichols | NEW YORK NEW YORK The United States’ diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focussed on making the war-torn country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration’s initial and public stance on Assad’s fate. The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European […]
SINGAPORE: Former presidential hopeful Tan Cheng Bock has called on the Government to make the upcoming Presidential Election an open election. Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Friday (Mar 31), he asked if it was correct to make the upcoming election, which must be held by August, a reserved one. He pointed out that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) had advised the Prime Minister to count […]
BEIJING China does not have any policy to devalue its currency to promote exports, Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said on Friday, ahead of President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump amid lingering tensions over trade. In a briefing, he said China does not seek a trade surplus with the United States. This is Xi’s first meeting with Trump, who assumed office Jan. 20, […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE The dollar extended its overnight gains in early Asian trade on Friday on signs of strong U.S. economic growth, while the euro inched up after sliding overnight on data suggesting slowing growth in Europe. Stock markets in Asia were off a bit despite solid gains on Wall Street as investors awaited China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index data for March. The […]
By Cynthia Kim and Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL A South Korean court on Friday approved a warrant to arrest ousted president Park Geun-hye, the country’s first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office, on accusations of bribery and abuse of power. Park can be held in a cell for up to 20 days while she is investigated over allegations that she colluded with a […]
But it was not immediately clear whether the approval of the new settlement was meant to be a provocative move to scuttle the prospect of a revival of peace talks. Mr. Netanyahu said he was following through on a pledge he made a few weeks ago to 40 settler families who were evacuated from the illegal Amona outpost in the West Bank. That outpost was removed by […]
By Diego Oré and Andrew Cawthorne | CARACAS CARACAS Opposition leaders branded Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” on Thursday after the Supreme Court took over the functions of Congress and pushed a lengthy political standoff to new heights. There was swift and widespread international condemnation of the de facto annulment of the National Assembly, where the opposition won a majority in late 2015 amid an […]
By Maayan Lubell | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb on settlement activity. The unanimous vote in favour of construction of the new settlement in an area called Emek Shilo came after Netanyahu earlier told reporters: “I […]
Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye was arrested on Friday after a Seoul court issued a warrant in connection with the corruption and abuse-of-power scandal that ended her presidency, according to local media reports. Facing at least 13 charges, Ms Park is accused of letting a now-jailed confidante, Choi Soon-sil, meddle in state affairs and gain unauthorised access to classified documents, while colluding to extort massive donations […]
The Crisis in Scale Five million people is roughly equal to the population of Norway. If nearly a quarter of the United States’ population left the country, it would be as if the combined populations of California, New York and Ohio had disappeared. In addition, 6.3 million Syrians have been internally displaced by the war. Altogether, about half of all Syrians have been forced from their homes […]
If President Jacob Zuma of South Africa wanted to know how markets would react if he sacked Pravin Gordhan as finance minister, he got part of the answer this week. The rand shed 4.4 per cent of its dollar value earlier this week after Mr Zuma ordered Mr Gordhan to cancel a roadshow with investors on the first day and fly home from London, without explanation. The […]
By Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Trotta North Carolina Republican lawmakers said late on Wednesday they had reached a deal to repeal the state’s controversial law prohibiting transgender people from using restrooms in accordance with their gender identities. The compromise, reached with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and set to go before the legislature for a vote Thursday morning, would still ban local municipalities, schools and others from regulating […]
