By Ben Blanchard | BEIJING BEIJING China on Wednesday called on all parties in the Korean standoff to stay calm and “stop irritating each other” a day after North Korea said the United States was pushing the region to the brink of nuclear war. The United States has urged China, reclusive North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbour’s nuclear and missile […]
By Karolin Schaps | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rebounded from near 2017 lows on Wednesday after preliminary data showed a much higher-than-expected fall in U.S. crude stocks, reviving bullish sentiment about easing oversupply. Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 37 cents at $50.83 a barrel at 0815 GMT. On Tuesday the futures had settled at their lowest since Nov. 30, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting […]
May 3, 2017 by: Jamie Smyth in Sydney New Zealand’s competition watchdog has blocked a merger between the country’s two main newspaper groups in the interests of defending media diversity, shrugging off concerns its decision threatens the groups’ financial viability. Wednesday’s ruling on a proposal from New Zealand Media and Entertainment and Fairfax NZ comes as global regulators face a swath of contentious mergers and growing concentration […]
A big part of that is its watering down of the anti-Semitic language of the original Hamas charter in 1988, with its talk of war between Arabs and Jews. “We are making it clear that ours is a liberation project — not about religion or the Jews,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Tuesday in Doha, his latest home. Continue reading the main story His offer […]
The Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has revealed that consumer complaints about delays in being connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN) have dropped over the first two quarters of the 2016-17 financial year. Complaints about NBN connection delays dropped from 1,669 complaints in the fourth quarter of 2015-16 to 1,545 in the first quarter of FY17, and then further down to 1,539 in the second quarter […]
OPEC and allied oil producers should extend their collective production cuts into the second half of the year when an expected upturn in demand will help to re-balance the crude market, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said. All countries participating in the cuts must agree to any extension, he said Tuesday in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major […]
BANGKOK Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged Thailand’s military government to disclose the whereabouts of a prominent rights lawyer who has been missing since his house was raided at the weekend. Prawet Prapanukul, 57, provided legal assistance to members of Thailand’s political opposition group, the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, and served as legal counsel in a high profile royal insult case. He has been missing […]
List of top 10 passers of the 2016 Bar exam A graduate of the University of San Carlos (USC) in Cebu City topped the 2016 Bar examinations. With a rating of 89.05 percent, Karen Mae Calam clinched the top spot in what has been considered as the toughest licensure examinations in the country. Three other Carolinians landed on the top 10 – Fiona Cristy Lao (3rd), Anne […]
MEXICO CITY Three successive Mexican presidents have failed to halt a cycle of violence against journalists and impunity for their killers that is stifling freedom of expression, a watchdog group said on Tuesday. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged President Enrique Pena Nieto to prioritize protection for the media in the last year of his government, after at least 21 journalists were slain in the past […]
As Australia passes the milestone of 2 million premises connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN), the latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) shows that over 1.1 million users are now on a 25/5Mbps plan. When taken in combination with the almost 600,000 premises on a 12/1Mbps connection, more than 1.7 million NBN users are now on connections that […]
As the United States adapts to the presidency of Donald Trump and faces rising tensions abroad, Berkshire Hathaway Inc shareholders will descend on Omaha, Nebraska this weekend seeking reassurance, from Warren Buffett. The weekend known as “Woodstock for Capitalists” is unique in corporate America, a celebration of the billionaire’s image and success at a conglomerate whose businesses range from Geico insurance to the BNSF railroad to See’s […]
Abu Dhabi // The prime minister of Libya’s UN-backed government and the country’s most powerful military commander met in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for direct talks on ending Libya’s conflict. The meeting came after months of international pressure and a failed attempt at negotiations in Cairo in February. The rival figures met face to face “thanks to international and Arab mediation”, according to Libya’s Lana news agency. […]
Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have each promised to bring renewal to French politics. Still, the two insurgent candidates, who will go head to head in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, have clashed over how to handle the challenges facing France. Ms Le Pen, of the National Front, is running on a populist, anti-immigration platform but has spurned economic liberalism in favour […]
In 2001, “Frontline” aired a documentary by investigative reporting legend Lowell Bergman. The movie, which chronicled the new cowboys of “Energy Alley,” contained never-before-seen interviews with Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and other players in the energy scandal. It was compelling footage. After Enron imploded, filmmaker Alex Gibney bought the video from PBS and used some of it in his 2005 documentary about the scandal, “The Smartest Guys […]
TAIPEI Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen called on China to change its thinking and extend goodwill in its relationship with the self-ruled island, according to an interview published on Wednesday by a newspaper considered close to her main opposition. Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own, cut official communication channels with Taipei soon after Tsai took power in May last year to pressure her and her party into […]
The New Zealand dollar is the best-performing major currency in Asia today in the wake of strong labour market data. The country’s unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent in the three months ended March 31 from 5.2 per cent in the December quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand. This was a better result than the 5.1 per cent economists had pencilled in. It was the equal-lowest […]
BEIRUT An aid convoy of food and medical supplies has reached the besieged Syrian town of Douma for the first time since October, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. Along with the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the ICRC went into Douma with 51 trucks loaded with aid for 35,000 people, it said on Twitter. A U.N. official in […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks followed global indexes higher on Wednesday, as strong earnings and manufacturing data boosted risk appetite, while expectations that the Federal Reserve will signal a June rate increase later in the session lifted the dollar. Oil prices pulled higher after a sharp fall on Tuesday on technical selling in a market already worried about oversupply and following a rise in […]
After being diagnosed with desmoplastic melanoma in 2016, Holly Rowe has partnered with the Melanoma Research Foundation to create an awareness campaign on skin cancer. May is the Melanoma Awareness Month, and various organizations inform people on the issue of skin cancer. Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that is especially dangerous, as it can spread quickly. The disease develops from the cells in our skin that […]
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed paths towards peace in Syria on Tuesday, in the first sign of practical interaction between the American and Russian presidents since Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, visited Moscow last month. The call, only the second time the two leaders have spoken since Mr Trump took office in January, was the first sign that Moscow and Washington might be acting on […]
By Brenda Goh and Andrew R.C. Marshall | KHON PI LONG, Thailand KHON PI LONG, Thailand China’s plan to blast open more of the Mekong River for bigger cargo ships could founder on a remote outcrop of half-submerged rocks that Thai protesters have vowed to protect against Beijing’s economic expansion in Southeast Asia. Dynamiting the Pi Long rapids and other sections of the Mekong between Thailand and […]
A leaked document made some startling allegations, indicating that Facebook was targeting emotionally insecure and vulnerable users. The company denies such claims. The leaked document reveals that Facebook conducted research to target vulnerable users, but was not published. Nevertheless, although the paper was not released, it still sparked plenty of controversy when it leaked last week and the media was abuzz with reports of how Facebook targeted […]
For the first time ever, Red Hat will align its flagship operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), development and release dates with a third-party: Amazon Web Services (AWS). This alliance underlines just how important the cloud is to Red Hat as it moves from being a Linux distributor first to being a cloud services provider first. Red Hat is partnering closely with Amazon to fly Red […]
By Alexandra Ulmer and Eyanir Chinea | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s opposition blocked streets in Caracas on Tuesday to denounce a decision by leftist President Nicolas Maduro to create a “constituent assembly,” a move critics said was a veiled attempt to cling to power by avoiding elections. After a month of near-daily protests by opponents demanding early general elections, the unpopular leader announced on Monday he planned to […]
