By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS Every week, a small group of Marine Le Pen’s aides brainstorm on how to achieve what many say is impossible: change how most French people view her to get her elected president in May. The “Idea-Image” committee of Le Pen’s far-right National Front (FN) consists of about 10 party officials and supporters. It held its first meeting in October as the […]
By David Ingram and Nate Raymond | NEW YORK NEW YORK A scandal that could complicate the South Korean political ambitions of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon features an unlikely central character: a New York fashion designer whose wedding was broadcast on reality TV and who authorities said falsely touted ties to Middle Eastern royalty. Malcolm Harris, who has dubbed himself on social media the “curator of […]
European plane maker Airbus has ruled out plans to develop the A380neo, despite Emirates “challenging it for the new version”. In May 2016, Emirates president Tim Clark said the Dubai carrier would buy more of the A380 superjumbo, even if Airbus decided not to press ahead with the more fuel efficient ‘Neo’ version. Emirates is the world’s largest operator of A380s, having 89 aircraft currently in its […]
By Se Young Lee and Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee left the South Korean special prosecutor’s office early on Friday, more than 22 hours after arriving for questioning on bribery suspicions in an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye. Lee left the special prosecution office without answering reporters’ questions and headed to a waiting car. Prosecutors have been investigating […]
In this Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, file photo, 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokees appear on display at a Fiat Chrysler dealership in Doral, Fla. On Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017, the U.S. government alleged that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles failed to disclose that software in some of its pickups and SUVs with diesel engines allows them to emit more pollution than allowed under the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection […]
Barack Obama has ended a longstanding US policy that allowed Cuban nationals who reached the US to be eligible automatically for residency, putting a final stamp on his foreign policy legacy. “Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with US law and enforcement priorities,” the White House said in […]
Photo About 10,000 Palestinians took to the streets in the Jabaliya refugee center on Thursday. Credit Khalil Hamra/Associated Press JABALIYA, Gaza Strip — The nearly two million residents of Gaza have been suffering through a cold winter of crippling power cuts, receiving electricity for only three or four hours a day. The popular anger over the cuts erupted on Thursday in a large protest. In a rare […]
Friday 04:50 GMT Overview Asian stocks were mixed in the wake of a retreat by US stocks and the dollar as investors continued to assess the fallout from Donald Trump’s combative press conference on Wednesday. What to watch Shares in Nintendo were down 2 per cent after the company announced details about its new Switch video game console, including price and technical specifications. The device, a hybrid […]
SAN SALVADOR El Salvador said on Thursday it will strengthen ties with Taiwan as President Tsai Ing-wen visits Central America at a time when China suspects she is seeking formal independence from the mainland. Tsai is making her last stop in the region on a trip that has taken her to Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, after meeting U.S. Republican lawmakers in a Houston stopover last weekend that […]
The proposal — opposed by businesses that make and use the solvent — comes eight years after the European Union approved a ban on sales of methylene chloride paint strippers to consumers and companies, with the exception of businesses using it in industrial sites with protective equipment and other cautionary measures. The chemical is also known as dichloromethane. The would-be rule is the third the EPA has […]
ANKARA: Turkey’s threat to close its strategic southern Incirlik Air Base to US-led international coalition flights seem to have paid off, according to analysts.The US recently announced its decision to provide regular aerial intelligence to support Turkey in its military operation against Daesh around the Syrian town of Al-Bab.Incirlik does not belong to NATO, but is a Turkish base that remains open to the operations of NATO […]
By Yun Hwan Chae | SEOUL SEOUL Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon polled second in a survey of South Korean presidential favourites released on Friday, 11 percentage points behind former opposition leader Moon Jae-in, who led the Gallup Korea poll at 31 percent. South Korea has been gripped by a political crisis since lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in December to impeach President Park Geun-hye over an influence-peddling scandal. […]
The British pound fell to a record 31-year low against the dollar on Wednesday, leading to a sharp increase in remittances from UAE expatriates to the UK. Sterling fell to $1.20 before rebounding to just above $1.21 by Wednesday evening – reaching its lowest level excluding the flash crash on October 7 last year. Dutch Rabobank said the economic policies of US President-elect Donald Trump have boosted […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Obama administration on Thursday announced the repeal of a measure granting automatic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived in the United States, whether or not they had visas, ending a longstanding exception to U.S. immigration policy. The end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached U.S. soil to stay but returned any picked […]
The seven candidates for France’s centre-left presidential nomination showed their profound differences on the economy and the EU on Thursday night even as they scramble to pull together a fractured Socialist party ahead of a widely expected crushing defeat in the spring. A little more than a week before the first round of primary elections, the presidential hopefuls quarrelled on primetime television over the legacy of the […]
The Chargers’ move is expected to presage another, with the Oakland Raiders gearing up to abandon their home in the coming weeks and bring N.F.L. football to Las Vegas for the first time. Continue reading the main story These moves will ultimately help the league meet its financial target, even at the expense of medium-size cities like San Diego and St. Louis, and possibly Oakland, left without […]
Donald Trump’s upcoming presidency has led many investors to size up oil, coal and gold trades that could benefit from the sweeping changes he has promised. But a growing band of specialist commodity traders think investors may be overlooking the one raw material in line for bigger price gains than others when the US president-elect takes office: uranium. While interest in the key fuel for nuclear power […]
By Anna Koper and Andrew Osborn | WARSAW/MOSCOW WARSAW/MOSCOW Poland on Thursday welcomed several thousand U.S. troops along with tanks and heavy equipment under a planned NATO operation to beef up its Eastern European allies, vexing the Kremlin, which said the troops’ presence is a threat to Russia. The largest U.S.military reinforcement of Europe in decades of around 2,700 troops, out of 3,500 planned, arrived as part […]
With just 8 days left until President Trump’s inauguration ceremony in Washington D.C., a massive security force, including 7,500 Guardsmen and 3,000 police officers, is preparing for the worst as the event is expected to attract up to 750,000 protesters, some of whom have vowed to “paralyze the city.” Certainly if the protester presence at the Senate confirmation hearings over the past two days is any indicator […]
President-elect Donald Trump may be at war with the intelligence community, but on Thursday his pick to head the CIA tried to bridge the rift between the incoming president and his spies, saying he accepts the assessment that Russia meddled in the election to boost the Republican’s candidacy. “It’s pretty clear about what took place here, about Russian involvement in efforts to hack information and to have […]
The UAE Ambassador to Afghanistan Juma Al Kaabi arrived in Abu Dhabi aboard a military plane on Thursday to receive further treatment from injuries suffered in a bombing in Kandahar. Mr Al Kaabi was accompanied by another UAE Embassy official and an Afghan translator who were also injured in Tuesday’s attack, which Afghan officials now say was carried out with help from outside the country. The injured […]
The US Department of Justice inspector general said on Thursday that he is investigating actions taken by DoJ and FBI officials, including FBI director James Comey, during the 2016 presidential election. The surprise probe was launched in response to calls from Congress and members of the public, who have questioned whether Mr Comey’s statements in the final weeks of the campaign were politically motivated, according to a […]
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in February. (Image: file photo) Despite pleas from privacy groups to rein in the US government’s surveillance powers before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the Obama administration has done the opposite. The outgoing government will now allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to share raw globally intercepted personal data with the government’s other intelligence agencies. […]
Oil continued its see-saw start to the new year, registering its biggest advance in six weeks on Thursday after Opec’s biggest producer said that it had slashed output to the lowest level in almost two years. Brent, the global oil market, rose as much as $1.24 to $56.43 a barrel after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said that the kingdom had cut production to less than […]
