David Cameron began 2016 in 10 Downing Street and ended it at DePauw University in a small Indiana town, speaking for a reported £120,000 an hour. The former British prime minister is now paid almost as much for a 60-minute speech as he used to earn in a year, as he tries to make sense of his own historic failure: Brexit. Whatever he says now, Mr Cameron’s […]
Many stakeholders are now coming home after a productive week at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Guadalajara, Mexico. As the first IGF since its 10 year mandate renewal by the UN General Assembly, this was a key edition to set the stage for multistakeholder cooperation in the next few years, and to identify the issues that will have to be addressed by the global Internet community now […]
DUBAI Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned Britain on Saturday as a “source of evil and misery” for the Middle East after British Prime Minister Theresa May called Iran a regional threat. “Shamelessly, the British have recently called … Iran a threat to the region, but everyone knows that … it is the British who have always been the source of threats, corruption and misery,” the […]
ABU DHABI // Before becoming Europe’s No 1 ethical hacker, Jamie Woodruff took advantage of his autism to become a computer boffin and started hacking when he was nine. In discussing with young people how challenges can be turned to opportunities, Mr Woodruff, 23, showed how he overcame autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia. “I did not have access to education sectors that you would see. When I went to […]
President Barack Obama’s vow to retaliate against Russia’s alleged interference in the American election raises the prospect that he will impose new sanctions or conduct some form of cyber operations against Russia before he leaves office on January 20. Under pressure from many Democrats for not having done more to push back and deter Russia during the election campaign, the White House is now preparing a new […]
Short takes and quick hits for the week of November 11-17, 2016. ‘Yahoo is not safe to use,’ former company engineer says Posted December 16, 2016 14:10 PST An absolutely brutal article in The Parallax by Seth Rosenblatt. After a second data breach involving as many as a billion users, what should users do? Let’s just say there aren’t many advocates for the company right now. Here’s […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE has appointed its first Ambassador to a Baltic nation. Hanan Al Alili will become Ambassador to Latvia when the UAE Embassy opens in the capital, Riga, next month. Inara Murniece, Latvia’s speaker of parliament, was in Abu Dhabi for the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament when the announcement was made. “It is important to have women in key positions in […]
TOKYO Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin wrapped up two days of talks on Friday with numerous economic deals but no big breakthrough on a territorial row that has overshadowed ties between the countries since World War Two. The following list details energy and other alliances and agreements between Japanese and Russian companies and government enterprises announced during the summit meetings: HEALTHCARE – […]
By Elizabeth Piper and Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS European Union leaders agreed their plan for Brexit negotiations on Thursday, pledging to move swiftly and stick together to ensure Britain does not cherry pick a sweet deal that might inspire others to unstitch the bloc. Prime Minister Theresa May left before the other 27 leaders met briefly to formalise their plan for how to run Brexit talks. […]
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Katya Golubkova | TOKYO TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a second day of talks on Friday after Abe made little headway a day earlier in his quest to resolve a territorial row that has festered since World War Two. Putin looked set to come away with a slew of economic deals and achieve what experts said […]
BRUSSELS The heads of European Union institutions were given a mandate to plan a possible summit meeting with Turkish leaders in the coming months at an EU summit on Thursday, summit chair Donald Tusk told a news conference. “We have a mandate to organise this kind of summit in the next months,” Tusk said, adding that no date had been set. The EU would be represented by […]
Theresa May on Thursday embarked on a Brexit charm offensive in Brussels, amid warnings from a senior diplomat that a final exit deal could take a decade to complete. Mrs May will tell an EU summit that Britain will play a full role in tackling migrant flows from north Africa to Europe, even after Brexit. She will also reassure fellow leaders from Latvia and Lithuania that Britain […]
HELSINKI Finland said on Wednesday it would push the European Union to step up efforts to curb illegal migration by negotiating agreements with Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. European leaders are due at a summit on Thursday to discuss results from their recent migration compacts with five African countries – Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Ethiopia. In exchange for financial support, the EU requires those countries to impose […]
Dec 14, 2016 10:30 am IST As for the rest of the world, 2016 has been an eventful year for India. From the cash crunch to pollution to terrorist attacks to the Rio Olympics, there has been plenty for Indians to talk about online. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have ranked the most talked about events, videos, people and hashtags of 2016. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Twitter said Indian Prime […]
By Dustin Volz | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON More than 100 employees of technology companies including Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google, Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Salesforce pledged on Tuesday to not help U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s administration build a data registry to track people based on their religion or assist in mass deportations. Drawing comparisons to the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the employees […]
By Alastair Macdonald | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS European Union leaders will set out plans this week for negotiating Britain’s exit, diplomats said, after national officials met late on Monday to prepare an EU summit statement. After the 28 national leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday, British Prime Minister Theresa May will leave and the other 27 will dine without her and agree principles on how negotiations with London […]
ABU DHABI // Women members of parliament have an important role in brokering peace in the Middle East and beyond, a conference heard on Monday. About 50 women who preside over parliaments met in Abu Dhabi for the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament. For the first time men were invited to participate, including Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister, who […]
Britain’s exit from the European Union will mean it can forge free trade deals with Gulf Arab allies, foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Friday in a speech also heralding closer defence ties to the conservative monarchies. Johnson was speaking at a conference in Bahrain a day after footage was published of him accusing Saudi Arabia, an important ally for Britain, and Iran of stoking proxy wars […]
Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s foreign minister, has been chosen to replace Matteo Renzi as prime minister amid signs of a quick solution to the political crisis that has convulsed the eurozone’s third-largest economy during the past week. After three days of consultations with parliamentary leaders of all stripes, Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s president, on Sunday summoned Mr Gentiloni to the presidential palace in central Rome and asked him to […]
TOKYO Russia appears to have snubbed a Japanese attempt at puppy-love diplomacy by declining a gift of a dog for President Vladimir Putin at a summit next week with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Japanese government had planned to present Putin, widely known to be a dog lover, with a male Akita as a companion to Yume, a female of the same breed that Japan gave him […]
Brexit may have come at the most fortunate time for the GCC. As the Gulf seeks greater support to fend off security risks in the region, including Iranian actions, and avenues to shore up bilateral trade in replacement of lost oil revenues, the UK is reaching out to old friends in a bid to strengthen non-mainland European relationships. “We will make it a priority, when the UK […]
1776, a Washington, DC-based technology incubator with a direct presence in Dubai, has signed a partnership agreement with the UK Lebanon Tech Hub (UKLTH), a joint initiative by Banque du Liban (Lebanon’s Central Bank) and the UK Government. The partnership is aimed at supporting Lebanon’s fastest-growing tech start-ups and help them break into new international markets such as the UAE and the neighboring Gulf countries. Start-up companies […]
European Parliament president Martin Schulz does not believe the Panama Papers scandal has cast doubt on Malta’s ability to push through the EU anti-money laundering laws. Mr Schulz was fielding questions at a joint conference with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat during his visit to the island before Malta assumes the EU presidency. The EU’s anti-money laundering directive was enacted in June 2015, and with a two-year window […]
Britain plans to deepen security cooperation with Gulf Arab countries and work with them to counter Iranian actions in the region, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday. Addressing a meeting on the sidelines of the Gulf Cooperation Summit in Bahrain, May said Britain would invest more than 3 billion pounds in defence spending in the region over the next decade. “Gulf security is our security,” May […]
