Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. It could be called the “NBC Very, Very Late Nightly News With Brian Williams.” Instead, it’s “The 11th Hour With Brian Williams” on MSNBC — a new show starring an old face who’s honorably doing what he does well in […]
It started off as one of those typical conversations you have when you’re in a foreign country and the taxi driver recognizes you to be a foreigner. “Where are you from?,” he asks, soon after I get into the bright yellow taxi cab, to which I reply “Sri Lanka.”“Beautiful country,” he responds.“Have you been there?” I ask him politely.“No, but my friend went there for a holiday. He […]
BERLIN The Berlin police chief said on Tuesday it was not clear if the Pakistani man arrested after a deadly trunk rampage at a Christmas market was the driver of the vehicle. “As far as I know it is in fact uncertain whether that really was the driver,” said Berlin Police President Klaus Kandt. Berlin police said on Twitter that they were being vigilant as the suspect […]
ABU DHABI // Motorists will pay more for their car insurance from January 1 when new tariff rates are introduced and companies pass on the cost of ambulance services and courtesy cars to customers. New maximum and minimum premiums will be set for third-party and comprehensive policies, depending on vehicle type. The UAE Insurance Authority has issued a new vehicle insurance tariff system, on which premiums are […]
Photo Andrey G. Karlov, left, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at Ataturk airport in Turkey in October. Credit Osman Orsal/Reuters Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrey G. Karlov, was killed by a gunman on Monday in Ankara, the capital. Turkish officials said the killer had been a police officer who, after shooting, shouted: “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the assassination a […]
ABU DHABI // Iran’s nuclear deal and the republic’s support for militias across the region are some of the major threats GCC countries face, the head of an Abu Dhabi think-tank told the British Parliament. Dr Ahmed Al Hamli told the International Relations Committee this threat had led to a regional shift of power from legitimate states to illegitimate terrorist groups, weakening the region for the Islamic […]
It’s a hot July day in Bethlehem, and white-robed pilgrims from Nigeria stand in the courtyard entrance to the ancient church, singing and beating drums. They’ve travelled more than 3,500 kilometres to enter the church’s low wooden door, pass through a nave under restoration and down one of the staircases in the sprawling church, to the grotto. There, they will kneel in prayer and devotion at the […]
In a year replete with extraordinary political upheaval and the wrenching loss of artistic icons, the markets have played their part in contributing to the angst. Here is a look at some of 2016’s most notable one-day wobbles. China cracks It started badly. In China, the mainland’s benchmark, the Shanghai Composite index, had closed 2015 near a four-month high after bouncing nearly 21 per cent from its […]
To appreciate this inherent tension, consider Hillary Clinton’s words from the second presidential debate: “It is important for us as a policy not to say, as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on a religion. How do you do that? We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.” Here Clinton establishes a minimum standard of liberal decency that few American Jews would […]
The paperwork for the Opening Day Foundation listed four directors: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Dallas investor Gentry Beach and Tom Hicks Jr., the son of a Dallas billionaire. Beach and Hicks are reportedly close friends with Donald Trump Jr., and both men helped raise millions of dollars for Trump’s campaign. “The event is being put on by the Opening Day Foundation,” Kinzie confirmed, adding: “There are […]
TEHRAN: Iran’s president lashed out at the country’s hard-liners on Monday, accusing them of ignoring human rights, which he said are enshrined in the constitution.Hassan Rouhani’s remarks were apparently an attempt to appeal to the liberal-minded among the country’s middle class ahead of Iran’s May presidential elections. Without naming names, Rouhani said in a televised speech that “some individuals do not like to hear about some of […]
By Umit Bektas and Orhan Coskun | ANKARA ANKARA Turkish police have detained six people over the killing of the Russian ambassador, state media said, who was shot in the back as he gave a speech in Ankara on Monday by an off-duty police officer shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar”. The state-run Anadolu agency said on Tuesday the attacker’s mother, father, sister and two other […]
ABU DHABI // The majority of Emiratis and Arabs identify themselves by their nation state rather than their religion or Arab identity. These were the results of a survey that were revealed at the Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies forum on Monday. This is a major shift from the past decade when many polls suggested that Arabs saw themselves as “being Arab” more than anything else. The […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he feared genocide was about to start in South Sudan unless immediate action is taken, renewing his plea for the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the world’s newest country. “If we fail to act, South Sudan will be on a trajectory towards mass atrocities,” Ban told the 15-member […]
The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy on hold and turned optimistic on the growth outlook as a slide in the yen sharply improves the outlook for Japan in 2017. Japan’s economy is “likely to turn to a moderate expansion” with rising domestic demand, large-scale fiscal stimulus and growing exports, the central bank said. Its comments highlight the dramatic turnround from September — when despairing analysts said the […]
Tuesday 02:20 GMT Overview Stock markets across Asia were largely on the back foot, with investors in the Japanese market treading particularly cautiously despite the yen weakening and the Bank of Japan keeping monetary policy meeting steady, as expected. Hot topic Global financial markets were beginning to quiet down in the lead-up to Christmas. Despite attacks in Germany and Turkey on Monday that added to geopolitical unease, […]
aNewDomain — Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil chief who Donald Trump has tapped to be the next US secretary of state, was the director of a Bahamas-based US-Russian oil firm, according to leaked documents in the Panama Papers. Tillerson ended the association with the Exxon subsidiary, Exxon Neftegas, in 2001, Exxon rep Scott Silvestri said Monday, a day after the Guardian and reporters at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported the news. […]
By Tim Cocks and Aaron Ross | KINSHASA KINSHASA Gunfire could be heard in several districts of Kinshasa early on Tuesday as demonstrators demanded that President Joseph Kabila step down after his mandate expired at midnight, and measures to curb dissent fanned fears of more violence. Reuters witnesses in various parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city heard repeated gunshots, and one saw youths burning […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Imagine if Snopes, PolitiFact and The Associated Press fact-checked our holiday cards and letters — or many of our daily declarations — for the truth. Facebook, of course, just announced it would team with PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press, ABC […]
Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian-born Hollywood siren perhaps better known for her love life than her movie credits, died on December 18. She was 99. Her husband, Frederic von Anhalt said the actress passed away at home after suffering a heart attack, surrounded by friends and family. The pair wed in 1986, making their union by far the longest of her nine marriages. Gabor, who in her […]
Christine Lagarde was found guilty of negligence in public office by a special Paris court on Monday in a ruling that will cast a cloud over her position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Within hours, however, the former French finance minister won the support of her board, clearing the way for her to continue on at the head of the fund. The board’s decision came […]
By Renita D. Young | CHICAGO CHICAGO In a word, 2016 was “surreal.” Surreal, meaning “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream” was looked up so much by online users that Merriam-Webster on Monday dubbed it the 2016 word of the year. Surreal joined the Oxford English Dictionary’s “post-truth” and Dictionary.com’s “xenophobia” as top words of the year. “Our word of the year is one […]
By Roberta Rampton and Eric M. Johnson | WASHINGTON/SEATTLE WASHINGTON/SEATTLE At least five Democrats who had been committed to back Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Electoral College cast ballots for other people on Monday, the largest number of “faithless electors” seen in well over a century. The 538 electors were voting across the country to confirm Republican Donald Trump as the next president. The event is normally […]
Los Angeles-area leaders on Monday announced a $10 million “justice fund” that will help provide lawyers to local immigrants who are facing deportation proceedings without legal representation. Since winning the presidential election, has said he would prioritize the deportation of two million to three million undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. Democratic mayors […] (via WSJ)
