By Nidal al-Mughrabi | GAZA GAZA For weeks, Gazans have been making do with less than half their usual electricity supply – barely a few hours a day – with no sign of the shortages alleviating anytime soon, fuelling distress and frustration among the population. Normally, Gaza’s power alternates on eight-hour cycles, with generators providing electricity to those that can afford it in the down times. But […]
By David Shepardson and Bernie Woodall | NEW YORK/DETROIT NEW YORK/DETROIT The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday accused Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV of illegally using hidden software that allowed significant excess diesel emissions, the result of a probe that stemmed from regulators’ investigation of rival Volkswagen AG. The EPA action affects 104,000 U.S. trucks and SUVs sold since 2014, about one-sixth the number of vehicles than […]
Vladimir Putin is trying to break the north Atlantic alliance and his policies represent one of the key threats to the global order that has prevailed since the second world war, James Mattis, the retired general nominated to be secretary of defence, has told a Senate committee. In testimony that struck a notably harder line on Russia than that of Donald Trump, Mr Mattis said the US […]
WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, said on Thursday that he had a “very, very high degree of confidence” in U.S. intelligence agencies. Mattis, speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing, said he expects Trump to be open to his view on intelligence matters, and that the world order was under its biggest attack since World War Two. (Reporting by Idrees Ali […]
By Mehreen Zahra-Malik | ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD A Pakistani Senate committee is set to debate how to prevent the country’s blasphemy laws being applied unfairly, despite opposition from religious conservatives who support legislation that carries a mandatory death penalty for insulting Islam. Senator Farhatullah Babar told Reuters that the Senate Committee on Human Rights, of which he is a member, will start discussions on blasphemy laws as early […]
Twitter will be streaming Donald Trump’s inauguration for the top political job in the U.S. starting at 11 AM ET on Friday, January 20 in partnership with PBS NewsHour. The feed will be available on Twitter apps, and at inauguration.twitter.com. Trump’s official office-taking event has been the subject of a lot of attention in the lead-up to the day, since the Trump administration has been scrambling to […]
Kim Kardashian West is prepped and ready for her appearance in Dubai on tomorrow (January 13), her first public outing since the shocking robbery in Paris late last year that has seen her go to ground since. It seems the Keeping up with the Kardashians star is bringing reinforcements, in the form of her sister Kourtney’s ex, Scott Disick. “On our way #Dubai,” Kardashian West posted on […]
Car sales in China are forecast to slow sharply this year as stimulus measures designed to boost demand are set to end. Sales are expected to increase 5 per cent in 2017, a significant drop from growth of 13.7 per cent last year, which was the fastest rate since 2013 despite a broader economic slowdown. Growth in 2016 exceeded expectations due to tax incentives on smaller vehicles, […]
Global investors sold the dollar and sought government bonds and gold on Thursday in the wake of Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration press conference, revealing the first sign of buyers remorse for a reflation rally that has dominated global markets since early November. Mr Trump’s press conference, his first as president-elect, was held in New York’s Trump Tower on Wednesday and was dominated by his ties to Russia, his […]
GENEVA Foreign ministers of Britain, Greece and Turkey were to meet in Geneva on Thursday in an attempt to thrash out a security deal for a post-settlement reunited Cyprus. For the first time in decades, the three countries were to address a 1960 treaty which allows intervention in Cyprus, a pretext used by at least one of them to intervene in the island in the past. Cyprus […]
HONG KONG Property developer China Vanke (000002.SZ) (2202.HK), embroiled in a high-profile corporate power tussle for over a year, said on Thursday its No. 2 shareholder China Resources Group is considering a major plan. The country’s second-largest developer said in a statement it had been informed on Wednesday that China Resources and a unit were ‘formulating a major plan involving its holdings in Vanke but are still […]
While the 2011 revolution cannot be solely credited for creating an alternative music scene in Egypt, the ensuing political turmoil did trigger an outpouring of creativity. Music festivals from SOS to the Cairo Jazz Festival, and smaller independent music labels such as 100Copies, had been sowing the seeds of an alternative home-grown alt-music scene since the late 1990s, but the protests that began on the streets on […]
KUCHING: Sarawak has never before seen a leader who made such a great impact on the state and its people like Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem who died yesterday just two weeks shy of his 73rd birthday. He had succumbed to a heart ailment that left him with having to use a pace-maker to stabilise his heartbeat after hardly three years in office and six months […]
Having publicly trashed the US economy’s performance during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has become its most prominent cheerleader. The president-elect has in recent weeks claimed credit for surging consumer confidence, stellar equity prices and stronger end-of-year household spending, arguing there was “no hope” before he arrived on the scene. To Barack Obama’s supporters, claims from Mr Trump that the US was cloaked in economic gloom before […]
Adam Schefter of ESPN first reported that the Chargers would leave San Diego. The league’s stadium and finance committees met in New York on Wednesday but offered no new financial incentives to help the Chargers in their efforts to build a new stadium in San Diego. The Chargers did receive an extension of two days, to Jan. 17, on the deadline for them to decide whether to […]
Thursday 08:40 GMT Overview The dollar, Treasury yields and equities are lower — with pharmaceutical groups in the firing line — as traders question the “Trumpflation trade” following the US president-elect’s fractious press conference on Wednesday. The yen is stronger, signalling waning risk appetite among traders, while gold is back above $1,200, a seven-week high. Hot topic Investors are reassessing the implications of a Trump presidency. Markets […]
By Gopal Sharma | KATHMANDU KATHMANDU Nepal fired the head of its earthquake reconstruction agency and named his predecessor to the job in a game of musical chairs that critics say is only making conditions worse for the survivors of the 2015 disaster. Thousands of homeless people remain in temporary shelters after the 2015 quakes that left 9,000 people dead and destroyed more than 626,000 homes, monuments […]
Cloudflare received a national security letter (NSL) from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) back in February 2013, its transparency report for 2016 has shown, with the company only now able to report the event after being placed under a gag order. The FBI had been seeking the names, addresses, length of service, electronic communications transactional records, transaction and activity logs, and all email header […]
CNN sought to distance its reporting on President-elect Donald Trump from an article published by BuzzFeed shortly after he blasted both news organizations during his first press conference since the election. Both BuzzFeed and CNN went public with reports on Tuesday that a British intelligence official had compiled memos indicating that Russian officials might have compromising information about Trump. But while CNN merely said President Obama and […]
TAIPEI Taiwan objected on Thursday to a Nigerian request to the island to relocate its representative office in the African country, a request Taiwan sees as more pressure by China to isolate it. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and to be taken back by force if necessary, especially if it makes moves toward independence. Taiwan has no diplomatic ties with Nigeria, […]
Investors drew a line in the sand on Wednesday, forcing companies to rewrite bond documents in a stinging rejection of covenant packages that were seen as hostile to bondholders. Marketing material for bond offers by General Motors’ financial subsidiary, chipmaker Broadcom and the Brazilian pulp manufacturer Fibria Celulose dropped language that deprived investors of certain premiums should the companies breach their covenants and default, according to three people with knowledge […]
The year-long mobile share tug-of-war between Apple and Android is far spicier now than it was this time last year, according to the latest data from Kantar. For the three months ending November 30, iOS saw a 3 percentage point increase to 43.5 percent in the United States compared to October’s numbers, and a large jump on the 37 percent reported a year ago. A similar pattern […]
By Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson expressed views on Wednesday at odds with President-elect Donald Trump’s positions on key foreign policy issues like nuclear proliferation, trade deals, climate change and relations with Mexico. In a nine-hour Senate confirmation hearing, the former chief executive of oil company Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) said he favoured maintaining U.S. sanctions against Russia for […]
By Melissa Fares | NEW YORK NEW YORK In his first news conference since the Nov. 8 election, President-elect Donald Trump set social media ablaze on Wednesday with remarks including harsh criticism of the press and a defence of his goal to improve ties with Russia. The session, held in the lobby of his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan, featured a number of viral moments, like an […]
