By James Pearson | SEOUL SEOUL South Korea’s newest celebrity took an unusual route to the nation’s TV screens – years spent working his way up through the ranks of North Korea’s diplomatic corps, followed by months secluded in the custody of the rival South’s spy agency. Since his release Thae Yong Ho, the former North Korean deputy ambassador to London, has spent the first week of […]
By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday picked former U.S. Senator Dan Coats as his director of national intelligence, two senior transition officials said, as he puts his own stamp on a U.S. intelligence community that he frequently criticizes. The official announcement was expected this week as Trump makes decisions on some of the remaining major positions he must fill as he prepares […]
By Dustin Volz and Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Thursday he was “even more resolute” in his belief that Russia staged cyber attacks on Democrats in the 2016 election campaign, rebuking persistent scepticism from Republican President-elect Donald Trump about whether Moscow was involved. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he had a very high level of confidence that […]
By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles | ERBIL, Iraq ERBIL, Iraq Iraqi forces have retaken around 70 percent of eastern Mosul from Islamic State militants and expect to reach the river bisecting the city in the coming days, Iraq’s joint operations commander told Reuters. Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati, who is also head of the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) spearheading the campaign to retake the northern city, said […]
BAGHDAD Two car bombs in Baghdad killed at least 14 people on Thursday, police and medics said, part of a surge in violence across the capital at a time U.S.-backed forces try to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the first blast which went off in Baghdad’s eastern al-Obeidi area during the morning rush, killing six and wounding 15. […]
January 5, 2017 by: David J Lynch in Washington and Jessica Dye in New York Senator John McCain joined three top US intelligence officials on Thursday in blaming Russia for election-related cyber attacks which the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called an “unprecedented attack on our democracy”. At an extraordinary Senate hearing called to hear the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in November’s presidential […]
Submitted by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org, Lithuania has confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Supposedly, Vladimir Putin has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad, an area that borders Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about […]
LG touched on hot themes at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, including robots, appliances equipped with artificial intelligence, and self-driving car technology LG Electronics showed off a “wallpaper” thin television and task-tending robots that learn, as a day packed with gadget unveilings got underway Wednesday in Las Vegas. As in years past, the South Korean consumer electronics giant staked out the opening slot in a day rich […]
ADEN At least three soldiers were killed in clashes with al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen in an operation launched by the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi, security sources said. They said at least 10 other soldiers were wounded when troops were ambushed east of the coastal city of Shuqra on Tuesday. Intense clashes were continuing on Wednesday. The sources said that Hadi forces, […]
Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org, The dark, infamous days of American lynch-mob rule and burning witches at stakes are back as never before. But not in backwater enclaves of benighted bigotry. Oh no, the modern lynch mobs are running amok in Washington’s seat of government, across prime TV and on the editorial pages of its supposed finest newspapers. It is the effete, self-regarding ruling US elite […]
CAIRO: A report alleging human rights violations in Yemen by Houthi rebels has recorded 949 cases of damaged public property and 2,673 instances of private property damage, the Saudi Embassy here reported on Tuesday.The damage varied between complete and partial by bombardment from Houthi militants and loyalists of deposed President Abdullah Saleh against civilian homes and government and private facilities, according to a statement released on Tuesday […]
04 January 2017 BBK has recently announced new appointments in its Executive Management as part of a re-organization plan recently approved by the Bank’s Board of Directors and the Central Bank of Bahrain. The new structure aims to foster the Bank’s three years strategy (2016-2018), in addition to achieving the future vision and expectations of the Bank’s shareholders and stakeholders. The new organization included the following appointments: […]
Foreign financial support to the Palestinian budget is running at about half the forecast level, the Palestinian prime minister told local media on Tuesday, meaning deep cuts will have to be made to the budget this year. At its cabinet meeting, the government said it expected to run a budget deficit of 4.12 billion shekels in 2017 ($1.06 billion), approaching 15 percent of gross domestic product. “We […]
The following people are mentioned as contenders for senior roles as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump assembles his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and other media reports. Trump already has named a number of people for other top jobs in his administration. AGRICULTURE SECRETARY * Sonny Perdue, former Georgia governor * Elsa Murano, undersecretary of agriculture for food safety under President George […]
Google’s Project Zero has found that it was previously trivial to create an SSL certificate collision thanks to Kaspersky using only the first 32 bits of an MD5 hash in its SSL proxy packaged with its Anti-Virus product. “You don’t have to be a cryptographer to understand a 32-bit key is not enough to prevent brute-forcing a collision in seconds,” Tavis Ormandy of Project Zero said in […]
ABU DHABI // More than 1,000 abandoned vehicles were seized last year as part of campaigns to improve the city’s appearance. Abu Dhabi Municipality said that 1,233 abandoned vehicles were seized and 4,929 warnings were given to owners, while more than 100 received fines for leaving their vehicles in public places. The campaigns targeted areas including Abu Dhabi city, Baniyas West and East, Shakhboot City, Shamkha, Shawamekh, […]
As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the Connecticut coast late October of 2012 and Gov. Dannel Malloy pled with residents to find high ground, reporter Neena Satija couldn’t shake one thought: “We are clearly not prepared for this.” Sandy passed, and sheer luck spared the state the worst of its impacts. But did officials acknowledge the averted disaster? Not in Satija’s view. “All of a sudden talk […]
Indonesian police barred journalists from the courtroom on the fourth day of Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s blasphemy trial on Tuesday. Police ordered all journalists out after some broadcast journalists pushed into the auditorium, despite warnings from the judge against airing witness testimony live, according to BeritaSatu. “The hearing of witnesses testimonies cannot be aired to prevent them from listening to each other’s information. Therefore, they […]
BERLIN German investigators searched a refugee centre and a flat in Berlin on Tuesday which they believe were homes to associates of the Tunisian man who killed 12 people in an attack in the capital before Christmas, the federal prosecutor’s office said. Anis Amri, 24, ploughed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market on Dec. 19. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the assailant a […]
Last year ZDNet’s Jason Perlow was impressed with the $199 Honor 5X and now we see Huawei bringing the Honor 6X to the US with some important upgrades while keeping the price low at just $249.99. Huawei announced the Honor 6X in China on 18 October 2016 and today made the US release announcement at CES in Las Vegas. The Honor 6X packs in a lot of […]
BERLIN Germany’s chief prosecutor has charged a 28-year-old German citizen with murder, belonging to a terrorist group and committing war crimes for his role in the execution of six detainees by Islamic State militants in Syria in 2015. The man, identified as Harry S. in court documents, has been in custody since returning to Germany in July 2015, shortly after prosecutors said he took part in the […]
By Erik Kirschbaum | BERLIN BERLIN A new acronym coined by German police to describe troublemaking migrants from North Africa has sharpened a national debate over immigration and crime as the country recovers from a deadly attack and gears up for a vital election this year. Police in Cologne said this week they had prevented trouble on New Year’s Eve by screening some 650 ‘Nafris’ – an […]
Turkey’s lira fell to a record low on Tuesday amid concerns about rising inflation and the fallout from the new year’s day terrorist attack in Istanbul. The currency dropped 1.5 per cent to TL3.5993 against the dollar. The fall underlines investor disdain for a currency that fell 17 per cent in 2016, marking the second-worst performance among emerging market currencies after the Argentine peso. Political risk and […]
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Tuesday said it was unfair to use taxpayer’s money to subsidize the P2,000 pension increase for Social Security members (SSS). “You contribute to that fund, okay and when you retire, you get benefits from that fund, okay. So given that perspective, I don’t think it is fair to say use the taxpayers’ money to subsidize the benefits of the pension members, the […]
