By Andrew Osborn | MOSCOW MOSCOW First, armed police seized some of its books. Next, its director was put on trial accused of stirring up ethnic hatred. And now, quietly, its shelves have been emptied and its volumes packed up, ready to be merged into another library’s collection. A year and a half after Russia’s only state-run Ukrainian language library, Moscow’s Library of Ukrainian Literature, was dragged […]
15 March 2017 Dubai, UAE – Al Shafar General Contracting Company (ASGC), a leading and award-winning UAE construction group, was the recipient of the Roads and Transport Authority’s Best Mega Construction Projects Contractor Award. The award was presented by Mohammed Obaid Al Mulla, Board Member of the RTA’s Board of Directors, and received by Abdul Aziz Mohamed Bin Shafar, Vice President and Executive Director of ASGC, during […]
TAIPEI China’s accelerated military development and recent activity by its military aircraft and ships around Taiwan pose an increased threat to the self-ruled island, according to a Taiwanese government defence report draft reviewed by Reuters. The 2017 Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) also highlights the uncertainty over the future strategic direction of the United States in the region, the impact of Japan flexing its military capabilities and “conflict […]
TOKYO Shares in Toshiba Corp tumbled on Wednesday after it said it would consider a sale of Westinghouse but did not offer any clarity on whether it would proceed with a Chapter 11 filing for the U.S. nuclear unit – a move that could stem losses. Toshiba’s failure to submit audited third-quarter earnings on Tuesday and its announcement of an expanded probe into Westinghouse also contributed to […]
Donald Trump paid an effective tax rate of 25 per cent in 2005 on income of $150m, according to a leaked tax return that sheds a glint of light on the tax affairs the president has kept shrouded in secrecy. MSNBC reported that two pages of Mr Trump’s return — which revealed nothing about his income sources — showed the president paying $38m in tax and reporting […]
By Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are weighing changes to their plan to dismantle the Obamacare health law, a White House spokesman said Tuesday, as Republicans defended their effort following an estimate that it would cause 14 million Americans to lose insurance next year. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said White House officials and leaders in the Republican-controlled U.S. […]
Dutch voters head to the polls on Wednesday after Mark Rutte, prime minister, and rivals clashed over refugees, immigration and the economy in the last televised debate following an extraordinarily tight race. After a campaign that was interrupted by a diplomatic spat with Turkey, by fears of foreign interference and by a row over the security of populist Geert Wilders, the vote is set to be extremely […]
Photo Mahmoud Abbas, right, the president of the Palestinian Authority, met with Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, in the West Bank on Tuesday. Credit Mohamad Torokman/Reuters JERUSALEM — President Trump’s new envoy to the Middle East met on Tuesday with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, striving in the administration’s first diplomatic undertaking here to maintain a public evenhandedness amid the […]
Oil prices have fallen almost 10 per cent in the past week to their lowest level since Opec agreed to cut output in November. Here are five factors contributing to the renewed bout of selling that could dictate whether Brent crude can hold above $50 a barrel. 1. Shale The US shale industry has come back with a bang, with oil prices back above $50 a barrel. […]
Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Those urban regions that pursue decentralized, networked, localized solutions will likely prosper as the adaptive advantages of these principles pay self-reinforcing dividends. In yesterday’s entry, I suggested that rather than bemoan the inevitable failure of centralized “fixes,” let’s turn our efforts to the real solutions: decentralized, networked, localized. To commentators such as Richard Florida, decentralized, networked, localized describes cities. He […]
By Katharine Houreld | NAIROBI NAIROBI Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board, Somali authorities said on Tuesday, the first time a commercial ship has been seized in the region since 2012. Security forces have been sent to free the Aris 13, a regional police official said late on Tuesday. Graphic on track of suspected hijacked tanker: http:// fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/3/868/868/ARIS13.png Graph showing […]
NEW YORK U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday as oil prices dropped to their lowest since November and airlines pulled industrial stocks down as a blizzard hit the U.S. northeast. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 43.76 points, or 0.21 percent, to 20,837.72, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 8.04 points, or 0.34 percent, to 2,365.43 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 18.97 points, or 0.32 percent, to […]
newslide Actress Sonakshi Sinha has confirmed she will perform as part of Justin Bieber’s Purpose world tour stop in India. The 29-year-old star will be one of the opening acts at the gig to be held at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai on May 10. “I am really fond of Justin Bieber’s music and I love how his sound has evolved over the years,” says Sonakshi, […]
Republicans are battling to save their new healthcare bill after Congress’s non-partisan watchdog said it would cause about 24m Americans to lose insurance and prompting fierce retaliation from the White House. On Tuesday, the Trump administration fought back against the Congressional Budget Office’s findings that the legislation, while reducing the budget deficit by $337bn, would cause an estimated 52m Americans to be uninsured by 2026. This compared […]
(Image: file photo) Patch Tuesday is back — albeit after an inadvertent and undisclosed glitch led to a month-long delay in releasing security patches. Microsoft said Tuesday that it patched dozens of vulnerabilities across 18 bulletins. read this Why software updates have to get better All too often, security patches are breaking the devices they set out to protect, and trust in the software companies to protect […]
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, moved to allay fears that the kingdom was backing away from its pledge to curb production, underlining its concern about a 10 per cent plunge in the crude price over the past week. The kingdom’s energy ministry rushed out a rare statement on Tuesday asserting its commitment to “stabilising the global oil market”, just as global benchmark Brent crude slipped […]
By Ahmed Kingimi | MAIDUGURI, Nigeria MAIDUGURI, Nigeria Islamist militant sect Boko Haram on Tuesday released a video purporting to show the execution of three men the group accused of being Nigerian military spies. The seven-minute clip, the first online video posted in two years of an execution said to be by Boko Haram, showed three men wearing orange jumpsuits. One is decapitated by masked men while […]
14 March, 2017 The Ministry of Finance in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently launched a series of Value Added Tax (VAT) and excise awareness sessions to present to advisors and businesses on the progress of VAT and excise implementation. The first such session is aimed at the advisory community, followed by later sessions aimed at the general business community. Full details of the sessions can be […]
GENEVA, Switzerland: The Assad regime came under fire from two UN bodies on Tuesday, one of which accused Syria’s air force of deliberately bombing water sources in December and another saying Syria has become a “torture chamber.”In a report, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said that the deliberate act of bombing water sources, which cut off water for 5.5 million people in and […]
The head of the main film festival in Saudi Arabia, where cinemas are banned, wants the government to invest in the sector as part of its campaign to encourage entertainment. Ahmed AlMulla made the comments in an interview with AFP ahead of the fourth Saudi Film Festival, which runs from March 23-28 in the Gulf coastal city of Dhahran. This year’s festival is the first since the […]
Turkey’s president escalated his diplomatic row with the Netherlands on Tuesday, claiming the country had a “rotten character” and blamed Dutch troops for the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war. The remarks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan come less than 24 hours before Dutch voters go to the polls in a national election that has been coloured by a heated debate about the role of […]
Tuesday 15:10 GMT What you need to know ● Pound under pressure amid Brexit and Scottish secession worries● Sterling drops below $1.22 and euro edges up towards 88p● S&P 500 down 0.5 per cent as sliding oil hits energy stocks● Treasury yields little changed ahead of Fed decision——————- Hot topic The UK pound is back under pressure as traders become concerned that Edinburgh’s demand for a another […]
PARIS French presidential candidate Francois Fillon was put under formal investigation on Tuesday over misuse of public funds in the fake jobs scandal involving his wife, the prosecutor’s office said. The 63-year-old conservative candidate was put under formal investigation on suspicion of diverting public funds, complicity in misappropriating funds, receiving the funds and not declaring assets fully, a judicial source said. Fillon’s lawyer could not immediately be […]
DUBAI A Bahraini court on Tuesday delayed a ruling in the trial of the spiritual leader of the country’s Shi’ite Muslim majority on charges of collecting funds illegally and money laundering, local media reported. Ayatollah Isa Qassim, who is in his mid-70s, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted in the trial that has ratcheted up tensions in the Western-allied Gulf Arab state where the […]
