ABU DHABI // A panel from 12 government agencies has designed a plan of attack against childhood obesity. Measures range from promoting healthy foods and exercise to improving the health care of women before and after they become pregnant. The head of the panel, Health Authority Abu Dhabi chairman Dr Mugheer Al Khaili, presented statistics from the World Health Organisation showing that 15.1 per cent of pupils […]
In late July, Moussa Aksar, the director of Niger’s L’Évènement newspaper, answered his phone and heard a familiar voice warning him that he was, once again, in danger. “Be careful,” a friendly source told Aksar. “Look out for yourself and be careful what you say on the phone.” Aksar had just published Niger’s first exposé from the Panama Papers, the investigation based on a leak of documents […]
ABU DHABI // A panel from 12 government agencies has designed a plan of attack against childhood obesity. Measures range from promoting healthy foods and exercise to improving the health care of women before and after they become pregnant. The head of the panel, Health Authority Abu Dhabi chairman Dr Mugheer Al Khaili, presented statistics from the World Health Organisation showing that 15.1 per cent of pupils […]
By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi | BEIRUT/AMMAN BEIRUT/AMMAN As the Syrian government and its allies prepared to ramp up their attack on Aleppo in November, one of the rebel groups defending the opposition-held part of the city took up arms against another, seizing its stores of ammunition, fuel and food. The incident near an Aleppo frontline underlined the rebel rivalries that only worsened in the face […]
The family of a woman killed in the 2015 Paris attacks by ISIS claims in a lawsuit that Twitter, Facebook, and Google profit from targeted advertising linked to terrorist propaganda promoting violence. As Bloomberg reports, the case is one of several complaints in U.S. courts alleging that the social media giants have played crucial roles in the growth of terrorist organizations in recent years. The biggest hurdle […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he will discuss with Donald Trump the West’s “bad” nuclear deal with Iran after the U.S. president-elect enters the White House. During the U.S. election campaign, Trump, a Republican, called last year’s nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated”. But the businessman-turned-politician has also said it would be hard to […]
By Saif Hameed and Ulf Laessing | BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq Islamic State fighters retreating in the face of a seven-week Iraqi military assault on their Mosul stronghold have hit back in the last two days, exploiting cloudy skies which hampered U.S.-led air support and highlighting the fragile army gains. In a series of counter-attacks since Friday night, the jihadist fighters struck elite Iraqi troops spearheading the […]
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 […]
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 […]
There is an old adage that trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. When it comes to the Internet and its users, the same holds true. For average Internet users, trust in the Internet has to be built. They have to gain confidence in the safety of their private information online. When a user’s private online information is made public, they lose […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The independence of student media nationwide is threatened, in part by administrative moves that place a priority on public relations rather than campus journalism, according to a new report. “It has become disturbingly routine for student journalists and their advisers to experience overt hostility that threatens their ability to inform the campus community and, in some instances, imperils their careers or the survival of their publications,” concludes […]
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 […]
Submitted by Robert Parry via Strategic-Culture.org, Under the cover of battling “fake news,” the mainstream U.S. news media and officialdom are taking aim at journalistic skepticism when it is directed at the pronouncements of the U.S. government and its allies. One might have hoped that the alarm about “fake news” would remind major U.S. news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, about […]
By Tom Perry, Isla Binnie and Vladimir Soldatkin | BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States about a withdrawal of all Syrian rebels from eastern Aleppo where advances by the Russian-backed Syrian army and its allies threaten to deal a crushing blow to the rebellion. An official with an Aleppo rebel group accused Russia of backtracking on ideas agreed […]
It has been a bad week for Conservative Eurosceptics, their worst since their EU referendum victory in June. The sight of Zac Goldsmith, a leading Brexiter, losing his 23,000 majority in a by-election to the pro-European Liberal Democrats capped it. “The result doesn’t change anything,” said a Conservative spokesman, pointing out that Theresa May was still committed to starting Brexit by the end of March 2017, whatever […]
(a,b) Eurasian eagle owl (Bubo bubo) (c) great gray owl (Strix nebulosi) and (d) snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). Credit: Ian A.Clark, Conor A. Daly, William Devenport, W .Nathan Alexander,Nigel Peake, Justin W. Jaworski, Stewart Glegg Many species of owl are able to hunt in effective silence by suppressing their noise at sound frequencies above 1.6 kilohertz (kHz) – over the range that can be heard by humans. […]
By Abdiqani Hassan | BOSASSO, Somalia BOSASSO, Somalia Soldiers allied to the Western-backed Somali government said they killed seven insurgents from a faction loyal to the Islamic State group in a clash in northern Somalia on Saturday. The soldiers from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland are part of a force headed to the port town of Qandala, which has been under the control of the insurgents since […]
ANKARA The Turkish military killed 20 fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after they tried to attack army bases in the southeastern Hakkari province, the military said on Saturday. The fighters crossed into Turkey from northern Iraq and attempted to launch attacks on military bases in the mountainous border region, the military said, without giving further details. Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast has been rocked by […]
Egypt, which has seen its influence wane, is seeking allies and relevance wherever it can find them, even if that means shelving concerns about Iran. Continue reading the main story While Russia’s goal seems to be to expand its influence and pave the way for the international rehabilitation of Mr. Assad’s government, the scrambling of alliances remains in motion and the results unclear. The new relationships are […]
Authored by William Blum, originally posted at Strategic-Culture.org, On November 16, at a State Department press briefing, department spokesperson John Kirby was having one of his frequent adversarial dialogues with Gayane Chichakyan, a reporter for RT (Russia Today); this time concerning U.S. charges of Russia bombing hospitals in Syria and blocking the U.N. from delivering aid to the trapped population. When Chichakyan asked for some detail about […]
Ben Carson Nothing’s official yet, but Ben Carson will supposedly serve as Trump’s Housing and Urban Development secretary. In a Republican primary field of establishment politicians, Carson and Trump were consummate outsiders. The demure doctor put together an impressive small-dollar fundraising machine built on the collection of personal information from millions of supporters. Months later, the campaign reported earning quarter million dollars by selling donors personal information, […]
