By ALISSA J. RUBIN June 5, 2015 Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister who for decades was the most public face of Saddam Hussein’s government on the world stage, died on Friday in Nasiriya, Iraq, where he had been imprisoned. He was 79. Adel Aldikhaly, the deputy governor of Nasiriya, said Mr. Aziz had had a heart attack after “a long-term incurable disease” and was transferred […]
By DIAA HADID June 5, 2015 RAMALLAH, West Bank — France is “firmly opposed” to a boycott of Israel, the French foreign minister said Friday, after the partly state-owned French telecommunications company Orange said it would seek to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market. The company’s decision was seen in Israel as the latest in a rapid succession of blows meant to isolate and punish the country over […]
Customer Hajime Shimada uses his newly purchased Apple Watch in front of Dover Street Market Ginza in Tokyo April 24, 2015. Reuters/Issei Kato NEW YORK When Maximo Cavazzani, creator of the popular mobile game Trivia Crack, learned about Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) plan for a new smart watch, it seemed like a logical step to adapt his game for the new product. But the little watch had some […]
June 4, 2015 Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY While many Israelis were enraged by comments from the chief executive of the French telecommunications company Orange, who told journalists in Egypt that he would like to cut ties to an Israeli cellphone service provider that operates in the occupied West Bank, pro-Palestinian activists working to isolate Israel argued that the statement was insufficient. The Orange chief executive, Stéphane […]
UAE. The Global Economic Conditions Survey for the first quarter of 2015, carried out by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants) also shows that while lower oil prices have helped oil-importing nations such as the USA and Europe, they have undermined performance in many net oil-exporting regions such as Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Confidence has dipped in […]
QATAR. Risk, governance, globalization and technology are among the many risks currently facing companies. Internal Audit plays a critical role in addressing these issues while contending with the challenge of complying with the updated Committee of Sponsoring Organizations’ (COSO) Internal Control-Integrated Framework, which is a widely used framework around the world, in which internal control is broadly defined as a process, effected by an entity’s board of […]
President Obama met with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq in April at the White House. By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS June 4, 2015 WASHINGTON — President Obama will meet on Monday with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq to discuss the military campaign against the Islamic State, White House officials said on Thursday, as the militant group continues to make gains despite an American-led counteroffensive. The two men met at the […]
By ISABEL KERSHNER June 4, 2015 JERUSALEM — A growing global pro-Palestinian movement to boycott Israel instantly created a national furor on Thursday after the top executive of Orange, a leading French telecommunications company, said he would withdraw from the Israeli market if he could. The Facebook page of an Israeli company, Partner Communications, which has a license to use the Orange brand, was filled with customer complaints demanding […]
By MERNA THOMAS and ALISON SMALE June 3, 2015 CAIRO — In an unusual daytime attack near Egypt’s most visible tourist attraction, gunmen shot and killed two police officers on Wednesday, a few hundred yards from the pyramids of Giza, security officials said. Tourism is a vital source of foreign currency for the government, and a pillar of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s plan to revive Egypt’s battered economy. The years of […]
A girl lies in a hammock at a slum area in New Delhi April 12, 2015. Reuters/Adnan Abidi/Files NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The government has launched a “Lost and Found” website to help families trace the tens of thousands of children in the country who go missing every year – often abducted for forced labour or sexual exploitation – and are never found. The “Khoya […]
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting with Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Fellows (YSEALI) at the White House in Washington June 1, 2015. Reuters/Kevin Lamarque WASHINGTON President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday legislation passed by Congress earlier in the day reforming a government surveillance program that swept up millions of Americans’ telephone records. Reversing security policy in place since shortly after […]
By SHUAIB ALMOSAWA June 2, 2015 SANA, Yemen — Warplanes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes Tuesday in Yemen that killed at least 16 fighters allied with the Saudi-led group, witnesses said. The victims were fighters supporting President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was forced into exile by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year. Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive against the Houthis in late […]
World Briefing By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK June 2, 2015 LONDON — Two senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr, were arrested this week in a suburb of Cairo after evading the police for nearly two years, security officials said Tuesday. Reports of the arrests came the same day that an Egyptian court postponed a session that was expected to confirm a death sentence against the […]
By ANNE BARNARD June 2, 2015 ISTANBUL, Turkey — Syrian insurgents rushed reinforcements into combat on Tuesday against rival Islamic State militants who have seized crucial territory near the northern city of Aleppo in recent days, building on the momentum the group has achieved in other battlefield successes in Syria and Iraq. Amid increased fears that Aleppo could be the next big prize to fall to the Islamic State […]
Men stood on a building damaged during Hamas’s last war with Israel. Gaza’s unemployment rate has risen to 44 percent, the highest in the world. By DIAA HADID and MAJD AL WAHEIDI June 1, 2015 GAZA CITY — On a street here crammed with glittery clothing and electronic shops, Mahmoud Matar flipped through the receipt book for his appliance store, much of it blank: His lone sale that day was a $7 […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
By KAREEM FAHIM and RICK GLADSTONE June 1, 2015 CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen on Monday released an American freelance journalist who had been in their custody for about two weeks, the State Department and the journalist’s family reported. The journalist, Casey L. Coombs, one of several Americans believed to be held by the Houthis, was freed as a video was released and published online of Isabelle Prime, a Frenchwoman […]
Toichiro Mizushima (L), president of the Japan Pension Service, bows as he offers an apology during a news conference in Tokyo, in this photo taken by Kyodo June 1, 2015. Reuters/Kyodo TOKYO Japan’s pension system has been hacked and more than a million cases of personal data leaked, authorities said on Monday, in an embarrassment that revived memories of a scandal that helped topple Prime Minister Shinzo […]
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, on Sunday took part in the graduation ceremony of the second intake of National Defence College students. The event in the capital was attended by other officials including Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, and Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development. Sheikh Mohammed congratulated the graduates for […]
By JODI RUDOREN May 31, 2015 JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his country faces “an international campaign to blacken its name” based not on his policies toward the Palestinians but “connected to our very existence,” likening the mounting boycott movement to anti-Semitic “libels” of earlier eras. Speaking to his cabinet after Israel’s successful diplomatic blitz to block a Palestinian bid to suspend […]
|By K Raveendran| Qatar has maintained complete silence over any possible connections with the indictment of FIFA officials on various charges, including acceptance of gratification in awarding World Cup editions. The situation continues to hold suspense amidst reports coming from the US that criminal charges are to be brought against more people. Bloomberg reports quoting Internal Revenue Service’s chief investigator that the U.S. investigation of corruption in […]
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May 30, 2015 BEIRUT — Syrian Army airstrikes killed at least 70 people, most of them civilians, and wounded scores in attacks on Saturday in the northern province of Aleppo. Activists said that civilian areas, including a packed market in a town held by the Islamic State group, were hit. The deaths occurred in two separate strikes when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels. One barrel hit the […]
Mohammed Soltan is pushed by his father during a court appearance in Cairo on March 9. By KAREEM FAHIM May 30, 2015 CAIRO — Mohamed Soltan, an American citizen who spent nearly two years in an Egyptian prison on charges that he supported an Islamist protest, has been released by the Egyptian authorities and flew back to the United States on Saturday, his family said in a statement. Mr. […]
The word ‘password’ is pictured on a computer screen in this picture illustration taken in Berlin May 21, 2013. Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski/Files WASHINGTON At 3:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the National Security Agency and telecommunications companies will begin mothballing a once-secret system that collected Americans’ bulk telephone records, shutting down computers and sealing off warehouses of digital data. If the U.S. Congress fails to act, key provisions of […]
