Italians and Austrians headed to the polls in closely watched votes on Sunday that will gauge the strength of Europe’s populist and extreme right political parties. Italy’s constitutional referendum on Sunday will determine the political future of prime minister Matteo Renzi and test anti-establishment parties in the eurozone’s third-largest economy. The plebiscite on Mr Renzi’s flagship overhaul — which would shrink the powers of the Italian senate […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon: At least 46 people were killed in suspected Russian air strikes on several areas of Idlib province in northwest Syria on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The Britain-based monitor said those killed in the strikes, on three locations in the province, were mostly civilians.The Observatory says it determines whose planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone conversation with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday, which prompted a diplomatic protest from China, was simply a “courtesy call,” Vice President-elect Mike Pence said on NBC on Sunday. Asked whether any shift in policy should be read into the call, Pence said: “I don’t think so.” The call with Tsai was the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with […]
Bizarrely enough, it’s difficult to determine what constitutes a “small business” in the United States. The US Small Business Administration has a table of standards [PDF] that ranges from about 250 to over a thousand employees. On the other hand, the Affordable Care Act kicks in certain requirements for businesses with over 50 employees. So, what exactly is small? When I researched my book, How To Save […]
Google and Facebook cut off advertising revenue to bogus news sites Google and Facebook moved Tuesday to cut off advertising revenue to fake news sites, after a wave of criticism over the role misinformation played in the US presidential election. The move by the two tech giants aims to choke off funds to an industry fueled by bogus, often sensational “news” circulating online and seen as a […]
The ice of Pluto is a two-lobed formation on its surface which has sparked the interest of researchers ever since NASA’s New Horizons discovered it back in 2015. One of the two lobes, the western one, has been subjected to more scientific attention due to its mysterious formation and the types of ice it hosts. The lobe was named Sputnik Planitia informally, and it is a deep […]
Meetings held with Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy and Korea Diamond Exchange 04 December 2016 Dubai, UAE: As part of the ongoing efforts of the UAE Kimberley Process Chair (KP Chair), Ahmed Bin Sulayem, to engage countries across the diamond supply chain, he has held meetings with senior government and industry representatives in South Korea. The aim of these discussions was to deliberate ways to bolster […]
LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May is cracking down on unauthorised leaks by ministers and civil servants on her Brexit plans, a leaked memo to the Mail on Sunday newspaper said. Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood has written to senior officials to tell them that May wants to “urgently tighten security processes” and that anyone found to have leaked sensitive information will be dismissed, according to the memo. […]
By Sanjeev Miglani | AMRITSAR, India AMRITSAR, India Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the Taliban insurgency would not survive a month if it lost its sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan, urging its neighbour to take on militant groups on its soil instead of giving Kabul financial aid. Ghani’s remarks, made at an international conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar not far from the […]
Hotels operating in the UAE continued to see declines in occupancy and room rates during October, according to the latest data from industry consultants STR. It said the UAE’s hospitality sector reported an occupancy dip of 2.9 percent during the month to 75.6 percent, while average daily rates (ADR) dropped 9.6 percent to AED668.05, the lowest for an October since 2005. As a result, revenue per available […]
KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for foreign intervention to stop the “genocide” of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar on Sunday, as he joined thousands of Rohingya protesters in Kuala Lumpur. Muslim-Majority Malaysia has been increasingly critical of Myanmar’s handling of violence and allegations of state abuses in northern Rakhine state, which has driven hundreds of ethnic Rohingya to flee across the borders to Bangladesh. It […]
04 December 2016 Dubai, UAE – FireEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: FEYE), the intelligence-led security company, recently discovered a wave of attacks targeting the GCC states. In 2012, a suspected Iranian hacker group called the “Cutting Sword of Justice” used malware known as Shamoon – or Disttrack – to target energy companies in the Middle East. During that incident, tens of thousands of computers were compromised. In mid-November, Mandiant […]
Beijing’s infamous smog spiked on Sunday despite draconian measures in surrounding cities to reduce persistent pollution during the winter in northern China. The thick layer of haze has become a political liability for the ruling Communist party and has driven China’s participation in the Paris climate accord to limit emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases. An air monitor index released by the US embassy in Beijing breached 600 […]
Dubai-based Careem, the app based car booking service, has announced that it is expanding operations into 15 more cities within the next few weeks, with Istanbul, Turkey the latest city to be added. Initially, Careem will operate as an airport service in Turkey, available to customers going to and from the airport, in Mercedes VITO and Volkswagen car models. Within the GCC, Careem said it is answering […]
Google refreshed its Daydream View VR device with two new colors, crimson and snow, expanding the number within the virtual reality headset range to three variants. When the device was unveiled last October, it only had the Slate coloring. New Colors, Same VR Technology The new colored headsets will not come with different or improved hardware specifications. Both variants are similar to the standard version under the […]
Jakarta – Rescuers have recovered a body from the waters off Pulau Lingga, in the Riau Islands, near the crash site of a police transport aircraft that went down on Saturday (Dec 3) morning, said local police. Riau Islands police spokesman S. Erlangga, said in a statement issued at 11pm on Saturday local time, that the body was found by Basarnas, Indonesia’s national research and rescue agency, […]
Every year, Brazilian venture capital firm Monashees takes entrepreneurs from its portfolio companies on an overseas discovery tour. This year, instead of Silicon Valley, the firm headed to the Yangtze Valley, in a clear sign of a new front opening for Chinese investment in Latin America. China is seeking to expand lending and investment in Brazil and elsewhere on the continent, as it shifts from its traditional […]
On April 7, 14 large blue letters quietly disappeared from the outer walls of an office building in an exclusive neighborhood in northern San Salvador. One by one, the letters came down from the blue and beige stucco walls, leaving behind faint traces of the name of the law firm that had been working there just days before: M-O-S-S-A-C-K-F-O-N-S-E-C-A. Employees of the El Salvador branch of Mossack […]
By Francois Murphy | VIENNA VIENNA Austria will provide a new gauge of the populist wave sweeping Western democracies on Sunday, as the divided country holds a vote that could deliver the first freely-elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two. The knife-edge presidential run-off is all the more dramatic for being a re-run of an election held six months ago – before Britain […]
In June, speaking at a former steelworks in western Pennsylvania that now processes scrap aluminium, Donald Trump promised a bright future for US steel if he became president. “It will be American steel that will fortify American’s crumbling bridges. It will be American steel that sends our skyscrapers soaring into the sky,” he said. “We are going to put American-produced steel back into the backbone of our […]
The commission, if not dead on arrival, quickly ended up on life support. Mr. Stiglitz and another board member, Mark Pieth, a Swiss anticorruption expert, resigned after only one official meeting because the government, they said, would not promise to make their final report public. Continue reading the main story “You can’t have a committee on transparency and not be transparent,” Mr. Stiglitz said. Photo President Juan […]
It’s becoming an increasingly difficult chore trying to scour the App Store for decent apps given its very saturated library. A plethora of excellent apps intermingle with shovelware, and it’s often a tall order to sort the ones worthy of downloading from the ones that aren’t. A tall order, sure, but not impossible. Here’s a chief list of the best iPhone apps for 2016. Evernote Evernote has struggled […]
By Michael Holden | LONDON LONDON Prime Minister Theresa May’s government launches a challenge on Monday against a court ruling that it requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, a decision that could upset Britain’s Brexit plans. If the Supreme Court, the United Kingdom’s highest judicial body, dismisses the government appeal it could derail May’s timetable for triggering Article 50 of the […]
By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD No food or fuel has reached Mosul in nearly a week and the onset of rain and cold weather threatens a tough winter for more than a million people still in Islamic State-held areas of the city, residents said on Saturday. Iraqi troops waging a six-week-old offensive against the militants controlling Mosul have advanced into eastern city districts, while other forces […]
