The United States government’s explanation for why it made a court order forcing Yahoo to scan all users’ incoming emails for intelligence purposes was unsatisfactory, the European Union’s justice chief has said. The European Commission had asked for clarification from the US government back in November last year on the secret court order served to Yahoo. “I am not satisfied, because to my taste, the answer came […]
By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Volkswagen AG, as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. regulators, on Wednesday agreed to sweeping reforms, new audits and oversight by an independent monitor for three years to resolve diesel emissions cheating investigations. Under the settlement of charges it installed secret software in U.S. vehicles to allow them to emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution, the German […]
Top US lawmakers are challenging Wells Fargo to explain a recent rise in overdraft charges, signalling a new regulatory battle for the bank still reeling from a fake accounts scandal. On Wednesday a group of Democrats on the Senate banking committee wrote a letter to Tim Sloan, the bank’s chairman and chief executive, asking him to explain whether the bank’s recent surge in income from overdraft charges […]
MEXICO CITY Mexico’s government said on Wednesday it would throw its relationship with the United States wide open when it sits down for talks with the incoming U.S. administration, putting security, migration and trade on the table in search of a deal. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to tear up a trade agreement that underpins Mexico’s economic model if he cannot renegotiate its terms in his […]
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti supported Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith’s decision to publish a 35-page dossier containing damaging, unverified information about President-elect Donald Trump, saying that the company “stand(s) with Ben on his decision to publish this newsworthy document.” During his first press conference since becoming president-elect Wednesday, Trump blasted BuzzFeed for publishing the document in its entirety, calling the viral news organization “a failing pile of garbage” toward […]
By Emily Chow | SUNGKAI, Malaysia SUNGKAI, Malaysia The Malaysian plantation district of Sungkai has become an initial – and unlikely – battleground for an election that embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to call this year. Sungkai is home to ethnic Malays who work for the national palm plantation operator, Federal Land Development Authority (Felda). Known as “Felda settlers”, they have long been among the […]
Musa and Adenan KOTA KINABALU: Sabah leaders have expressed their sadness at the passing of Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem. They also paid tribute to the late Adenan whom they described as a good leader who was an inspiration to the people of Sabah and Sarawak. Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman in a statement said Malaysia had lost a good man […]
By NICOLE HONG AND JAMES V. GRIMALDI The recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. — which has turned into a symbol of the president-elect’s potential business conflicts — is back in the spotlight. On Wednesday, a lawyer involved in deliberations with told reporters prior to Mr. Trump’s nationally televised press conference that he intends to […] (via WSJ)
By Ayesha Rascoe | NEW YORK NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump escalated a fight with U.S. spy agencies on Wednesday, just nine days before he takes over their command as president, and accused them of practices reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The Republican said leaks from the intelligence community led to some U.S. media outlets reporting unsubstantiated claims that he was caught in a compromising position in Russia. […]
By Julia Fioretti | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS The United States has not satisfied the European Union’s concerns about Yahoo’s (YHOO.O) scanning of all customers’ incoming emails for U.S. intelligence purposes, the bloc’s justice chief told Reuters in an interview. The European Commission, the EU executive, asked the United States in November for clarifications on the secret court order served to Yahoo as part of its monitoring of a […]
Photo Sue Fulton Credit Andrew T. Warman for The New York Times You were a member of the first co-ed class at West Point, then you served in the Army for five and a half years, but it’s safe to say that you’ve spent more time on a different battle: fighting for civil rights within the military. Do you think there are any similarities between what drew […]
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to take control of all levers of power and a mounting terrorist threat has begun to alarm investors, sending the Turkish lira down 4 per cent to an all-time low on Wednesday. The lira traded at 3.93 to the dollar, down 12 per cent since the beginning of January, clocking its worst performance since a failed coup in July which prompted […]
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said his country’s ties with Saudi Arabia were recovering, after tensions linked to the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran led Riyadh to cancel $3 billion of military aid to Beirut last year. Aoun, an ally of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, visited Saudi Arabia this week, trying to mend relations with the Sunni Muslim monarchy which has traditionally backed Hezbollah’s […]
President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to put distance between the White House and his real-estate empire was crafted with the help of a seasoned tax lawyer who has spent a career helping clients maximize their wealth while staying out of IRS crosshairs. At a press conference Wednesday, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP partner Sheri A. Dillon outlined […] (via WSJ)
WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday he would recommend a “full review” of the nuclear deal with Iran, but he did not call for an outright rejection of the 2015 accord. Speaking in his Senate confirmation hearing, Tillerson also said he did not oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal, but said he shares some of President-elect Donald Trump’s views about […]
|ARABIAN POST SPECIAL| Abu Dhabi’s much-fancied plan to set up the first SeaWorld marine life park outside the US on the Yas Island has run into a controversy, with the animal cause organisation PETA shooting off a letter of appeal to Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority to scrap the project. The theme park is set to be run by Miral Asset Management, which is the development […]
By Emily Stephenson and Lawrence Hurley President-elect Donald Trump said on Wednesday his team has met with numerous candidates to fill the longstanding U.S. Supreme Court vacancy and promised a decision on a nominee within about two weeks of taking office on Jan. 20. Trump, during a news conference in New York, indicated the importance he attached to the selection of a replacement for conservative Justice Antonin […]
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed he recently turned down a $2 billion deal with Dubai developer Damac Properties as he separates himself from his far-flung global business empire. Trump, who is to be sworn in on January 20 and has been under pressure to transfer his business assets into a trust before he enters the White House, said he turned down the offer from Damac chairman […]
By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump is separating himself from his far-flung global business empire by transferring all assets into a trust and putting his two sons in charge, a Trump lawyer said on Wednesday. Along with plans to hire an ethics adviser, Trump is taking the steps to avoid inevitable questions about a potential conflict of interest between his businesses and the office […]
Airbus posted an eight percent rise in deliveries last year, beating its own forecasts by a comfortable margin to set a company record, and pulled off a last-minute surge in orders to beat arch-rival Boeing in the race for new orders. Confirming an estimate published by Reuters, the European planemaker said on Wednesday it delivered 688 aircraft in 2016, compared with an official company forecast of more […]
Donald Trump angrily denied claims that Russia sought to cultivate and compromise him, after unverified allegations about his personal conduct and ties to Moscow spilled out into the open, just 10 days before his inauguration. US media reported that intelligence agency officials shared a written synopsis of a dossier containing lurid but unsubstantiated personal claims about Mr Trump, allegedly compiled by Moscow, when they met the president-elect […]
In order to survive, the Syrian regime has had to rely to an extraordinary degree on Russian and Iranian forces, and their proxies, like Hezbollah. It really wasn’t the Syrian Arab Army that retook Aleppo. Indeed, the Syrian military is stretched so thin by geography and attrition that last month it lost most of the city of Palmyra (again) to the Islamic State while pro-government forces were […]
On Wall Street, Donald Trump’s election win spelt pain for the dollar and stock markets right up until the moment he began his acceptance speech in the early hours of November 9 at the New York Hilton. Then the dollar began a trough-to-peak surge that would leave it up almost 3 per cent, a performance only bettered in 2016 on the day after the Brexit vote. S&P […]
By Andrew Osborn | MOSCOW MOSCOW The Kremlin says U.S. intelligence agency allegations it ran an influence campaign to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House are false. But if U.S. spies are right, Moscow may wish it hadn’t bothered to meddle in the first place. The belief, widely held in the West, that the Kremlin helped discredit Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by orchestrating embarrassing media […]
