MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened corrupt government officials with the prospect of being thrown out of a helicopter mid-air, warning he has done it himself before and had no qualms about doing it again. The fiery-tempered former prosecutor said he once hurled a Chinese man suspected of rape and murder out of a helicopter. “If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter […]
Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella says there are no indications that would prompt the declaration of martial law. KING RODRIGUEZ/ Presidential Photo The recent bombings in Leyte and North Cotabato are not “indicators” for a possible declaration of martial law, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said on Thursday. Abella said the separate bombings Wednesday night in Hilongos, Leyte, and Aleosan, Cotabato, were “areas of concern” but were not cause […]
Sprint has revealed that it is going to hire about 5,000 personnel, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump quickly claimed credit for purportedly negotiating the deal. Trump has lumped those figures with the 3,000 new hires planned by a startup called OneWeb, for a grand total of 8,000 new jobs, which Trump has promptly announced as very good news for the economy. Sprint is owned by Japanese firm […]
For France, 2016 ends as it began, with the nation under a state of emergency following terrorist outrages and in anticipation of more to come. The warnings of French leaders of potential further attacks have come gloomily true. Even last month, as the French centre-right party Les Républicains was choosing the Thatcherite Francois Fillon as its candidate in the presidential elections, ISIL was attempting to inflict further […]
Israel is clearly now on a path toward absorbing the West Bank’s 2.8 million Palestinians. There are already 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel, so putting these two Arab populations together would constitute a significant minority with a higher birthrate than that of Israeli Jews — who number 6.3 million — posing a demographic and democratic challenge. Continue reading the main story I greatly sympathize with Israel’s […]
TAIPEI Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will pass through the United States when she visits Latin America next month, the foreign ministry said Thursday, a move bound to infuriate China which had urged the United States to block a transit stopover. China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade […]
Almost all – nine in 10 – Middle East workers believe that employee loyalty is tied to higher productivity, but ‘loyalty’ for them is no longer about remaining in the same company for a long period of time, a survey suggests. Recruitment website Bayt.com surveyed 8,223 respondents from countries including the UAE, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, Qatar, KSA and Yemen between November and […]
TOKYO The president of Dentsu Inc, Japan’s largest advertising agency, will step down over the “death by overwork” of a young employee, a suicide which has prompted official probes and fresh hand-wringing over Japan’s overtime culture. Matsuri Takahashi, a promising graduate of Japan’s top university, leapt to her death in December 2015, leaving behind a trail of grievances over relentless days. She clocked 105 hours of overtime […]
By Nobuhiro Kubo | TOKYO TOKYO Japan’s defence minister visited a controversial shrine to Japan’s war dead on Thursday, just after accompanying Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a historic visit to Pearl Harbor, where Japan’s attack brought the United States into World War Two. Television footage showed a smiling Tomomi Inada in a black jacket and skirt arriving at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japanese who lost […]
KINSHASA A court in Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced a political opposition leader to five years in prison on Wednesday, a human rights advocate said, a judgment that risks imperiling multi-party talks meant to organise a presidential election next year. The court found Franck Diongo, president of the opposition MLP party, guilty of illegally detaining three soldiers during violent protests last week in the capital Kinshasa that […]
This July 29, 2015, file photo shows Amazon’s Echo speaker, which responds to voice commands, in New York. A prosecutor investigating the death of a man whose body was found in a hot tub wants to expand the probe to include a potential new kind of evidence: the suspect’s Amazon Echo smart speaker. Amazon has called the request “overbroad or otherwise inappropriate.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) Authorities […]
If there is one thing that unites Middle Eastern leaders these days, it is concern over what Donald Trump might do in 2017. A true political outsider, Trump will arrive in the White House next month with no track record and no political markers that might give an indication. The list of policy problems is certainly long, yet his list of policy ideas, as mooted during his […]
LONDON European Union voters in France, Germany, Italy and Greece think their countries are heading in the wrong direction but there is not yet any Europe-wide inclination to follow Britain towards exiting the bloc, according to a poll published on Thursday. Britain’s shock June 23 Brexit vote, which was praised at the time by then U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump as a “miracle”, has raised questions about […]
By Richard Cowan | PALM BEACH, Fla. PALM BEACH, Fla. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said telecommunications group Sprint Corp (S.N) and a U.S. satellite company OneWeb will be bringing 8,000 jobs to the United States, celebrating the moves as a result of optimism associated with his election. It was unclear how the 8,000 jobs are related to a $50 billion investment announced in December by […]
BOGOTA Colombia’s Congress on Wednesday approved an amnesty law to protect thousands of demobilizing Marxist guerrilla fighters from prosecution for minor crimes committed during the country’s 52-year war. The law, a key part of a peace deal signed last month between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, will not include fighters who have committed war crimes or human rights violations. The amnesty […]
Based on Samsung’s staggered announcements, it appears that the South Korean company is going to inundate CES with a host of new products. After revealing fresh projects baked in its Creative Lab, it has now confirmed three more gadgets: the H7 Wireless Speaker, a new soundbar, and a UHD Blu-ray Player. The trio is being touted as the future of audio on the strength of the so-called […]
By Andreina Aponte | CARACAS CARACAS Roughly one person is being lynched in crisis-ridden Venezuela every three days as frustrated residents take revenge on suspected criminals, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), which monitors crime, said mob killings have become a generalized phenomenon across the country, with 126 deaths reported in 2016 versus 20 last year. “Due to being repeated victims […]
US secretary of state John Kerry delivered a stinging rebuke of the Israeli government on Wednesday, accusing it of making the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nearly impossible through the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. With Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining forces with president-elect Donald Trump to attack the Obama administration, Mr Kerry said that the US allowed a […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that Israel’s building of settlements in occupied territory was endangering Middle East peace, expressing unusually frank frustration with the longtime American ally. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of showing bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign […]
By Orhan Coskun and Ellen Francis | ANKARA/BEIRUT ANKARA/BEIRUT Turkey and Russia have prepared an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that Ankara would not give up its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying on as leader. The five-year-old Syrian civil war raged on, with heavy casualties reported in the siege of a town held by Islamic State, and the […]
Within the tech world, there is something known as a Chaos Monkey. It is a software tool that simulates chaos and uncertainty, rampaging through a system pulling at cables and kicking computers. Simulate big problems so you can prepare for them; that’s how the thinking goes. Chaos Monkeys are tame – they are a tool employed by network administrators to make their systems safer and more stable. […]
WASHINGTON — In a harsh rebuke of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry declared on Wednesday that the United States cannot “allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our eyes.’’ Mr. Kerry, in one of his last speeches as secretary of state, said that Mr. Netanyahu was allowing the agenda of the settler movement to define the future of Israel. […]
AMMAN Syria’s main rebel groups were discussing with Turkey a ceasefire proposal being negotiated with Russia but had rejected Moscow’s demand to exclude a rebel stronghold near the capital from any deal, a senior rebel official said on Wednesday. Munir al Sayal, the head of the political wing of Ahrar al Sham, whose group is involved in the talks with Turkey, said it was premature to talk […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday chided the Obama administration for its stance toward Israel, shortly before the U.S. secretary of state was set to deliver a speech regarding international opposition to Israeli settlement building. “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but…….,” Trump, a Republican, wrote on Twitter. […]
