By Dominic Evans and Stephanie Nebehay | BAGHDAD/GENEVA BAGHDAD/GENEVA The Iraqi army said it took full control of two more districts of east Mosul on Saturday, pushing back Islamic State militants in a slow and hard-fought advance into the city whose 1 million residents face growing shortages of fuel, water and food. A military statement said elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops took over the neighbourhoods of […]
Photo Syrian Army soldiers driving past the Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, in the Homs Governorate. Credit Omar Sanadiki/Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State fighters appeared close to retaking Palmyra, Syria, on Saturday, just nine months after Syrian government forces drove them from the desert city, where they had terrorized residents and blown up irreplaceable ancient monuments. Residents said Islamic State militants were battling soldiers in the […]
Two explosions hit Saturday night near a major soccer stadium in Istanbul, and Turkish authorities say about 20 police have been wounded. Witnesses said police were deployed and had cordoned off the area as smoke rose from the newly built Besiktas Stadium. They said gunfire could be heard in what appeared to have been an armed attack on police. The private NTV channel said the target of […]
By John Irish | PARIS PARIS Backers of the Syrian opposition appeared resigned to the fall of eastern Aleppo on Saturday, with the United States urging Russia to show “grace” when officials meet in Geneva to try to reach a deal for civilians and fighters to leave the city. Syrian government and allied forces have in the last two weeks driven rebels from most of their territory […]
newslide Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik debut new duet on film soundtrack American pop star Taylor Swift and former One Direction member Zayn Malik released a surprise duet on Friday, December 9 after joining forces for the upcoming Fifty Shades Darker movie soundtrack. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever will feature in the sequel to the Fifty Shades of Grey film, based on the hugely successful trilogy by […]
PARIS: US Secretary of State John Kerry and leading diplomats are trying to find solutions for Syria’s desperate opposition, as Syrian government forces squeeze rebels out of Aleppo after a devastating blitz.With tens of thousands of civilians fleeing, Kerry said he is working to ensure their safety and to save Aleppo “from being absolutely, completely destroyed.”Kerry and European and Arab diplomats are meeting members of Syria’s opposition […]
DUBAI // A cook convicted of working as a prostitute must serve his six-month jail term, a Dubai court has ruled. Two unemployed Emiratis, aged 21 and 29, were sentenced in June to six months in jail each for having consensual sex with the cook. One of them appealed the decision, but the Dubai Court of Appeals upheld it. On November 30 last year, police received a […]
newslide Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik debut new duet on film soundtrack American pop star Taylor Swift and former One Direction member Zayn Malik released a surprise duet on Friday, December 9 after joining forces for the upcoming Fifty Shades Darker movie soundtrack. I Don’t Wanna Live Forever will feature in the sequel to the Fifty Shades of Grey film, based on the hugely successful trilogy by […]
By Laila Bassam and John Davison | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT Syrian’s military and Russian warplanes bombarded rebel-held districts of Aleppo on Saturday as Damascus’s allies said victory was near, but insurgents fought back and army advances halted after rapid gains during the week. The United States said it was meeting a Russian team in Geneva to find a way to save lives, but an agreement looked […]
In this part of the world, the debate is not just theoretical. Terrorism is an everyday reality, and the role that Facebook and other social media sites may play in inspiring it generates deep emotion. Israel has pushed to combat online provocation that it links to bloodshed. Palestinians consider a crackdown on Facebook posts just another tool of repression by an occupying power. Continue reading the main […]
Two leading Netgear routers are vulnerable to a severe security flaw. (Image: Netgear) An advisory posted on Friday in Carnegie Mellon University’s public vulnerability database (CERT) said that Netgear’s R7000 and R6400 routers, running current and recent firmware respectively, are vulnerable to an arbitrary command injection flaw. If exploited, the vulnerability could let an unauthenticated attacker run commands with root privileges. The code to exploit the vulnerability […]
Yet Mr. McLaren suggested that the full extent of the cheating might never be known. “It is impossible to know just how deep and how far back this conspiracy goes,” he said on Friday, calling the “immutable facts” of his report clear but far from comprehensive. “For years, international sports competitions have unknowingly been hijacked by the Russians.” Continue reading the main story Mr. McLaren concluded last […]
By Jeff Mason | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on Jan. 20, the White House said on Friday. In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, […]
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s lawyer in Panama Papers case in the Supreme Court Babar Awan said Friday in a lighter mood that the hearing in PanamaLeaks case had been adjourned for a year and now hearing would be held in 2017. Talking to media persons outside the apex court, he made it clear that this did not mean that the accused in the case would go away somewhere […]
WASHINGTON The CIA has concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, the Washington Post reported on Friday. Citing U.S. officials briefed on the matter, the Post said intelligence agencies had identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided thousands of hacked emails from the […]
By Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and John Irish | WASHINGTON/PARIS WASHINGTON/PARIS Key U.S. allies in Europe are quietly expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump’s approach to Syria, warning that his pledge to work more closely with Russia, Damascus’ main backer, will do little to diminish the terrorist threat emanating from Syria. The diplomatic persuasion campaign has taken on new importance in recent days as the Syrian army, […]
(Image: file photo) The good news is developers are looking very closely at Linux’s core code for possible security holes. The bad news is they’re finding them. At least the best news is that they’re fixing them as soon as they’re uncovered. The latest three kernel vulnerabilities are designated CVE-2016-8655, CVE-2016-6480, and CVE-2016-6828. Of these, CVE-2016-8655 is the worst of the bunch. It enables local users, which […]
By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT The Syrian army pressed an offensive in Aleppo on Friday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city’s rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar al-Assad. “The advance is going according to plan and is sometimes faster than expected,” a Syrian military […]
Video Deadly Blast in Cairo A bomb exploded on Friday at a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Cairo, killing six police officers and wounding three others. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and REUTERS on Publish Date December 9, 2016. Photo by Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency. Watch in Times Video » CAIRO — A bomb ripped through a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Cairo on Friday, killing […]
AMSTERDAM Police acting on a tip-off from the Dutch intelligence agency arrested a 30-year-old “terrorist” suspect and seized an arsenal of weapons in the port city of Rotterdam on Friday afternoon, prosecutors said. Detectives found a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle, four boxes of illegal highly explosive fireworks, a large depiction of the Islamic State flag, several mobile phones and 1,600 euros in cash when they searched the suspect’s […]
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Malaysian police forces clashed with suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels killing three of them off Semporna City in Sabah after they attacked at least two sea trawlers. The Malaysian media said police captured two more gunmen and rescued a fishing boat captain, believed to be a Filipino holding a special identity card. Another skipper, however, was abducted by the two gunmen who escaped at the height […]
Good morning. Regrets laced with irony Glenn Beck is sorry. He really is. He swears. He’s sort of like Miss Otis in Cole Porter’s oft-recorded 1934 “Miss Otis Regrets” (I’ll take Bette Midler’s version). She “woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, madam.” And, them, “from under her velvet gown, she drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam.” In this case, […]
What are Australia’s policy options for responding to the internet threats of 2022? This question was explored in the 360° Cyber Game conducted jointly by RAND Corporation and the National Security College (NSC) at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra on Thursday. RAND has conducted two of these games before, in Washington DC and in Silicon Valley, and has written up the methodology and results in […]
TUNIS Libyan forces are trying to secure the city of Sirte after ousting Islamic State from its former North African stronghold in a battle that lasted nearly seven months. Here are some facts about Islamic State in Libya: ORIGINS Islamic State drew on existing pockets of militancy in Libya, establishing its first major presence in Derna, an eastern city with a strong Islamist tradition. It also profited […]
