Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, speaks to members of Abu Dhabi Media’s management and board during a Sea Palace barza in the capital on Monday, including Dr Ali bin Tamim, centre left, who Sheikh Mohammed recently appointed director-general of Abu Dhabi Media. Hamad Al Kaabi / Crown Prince Court – Abu Dhabi The National
By Humeyra Pamuk | ISTANBUL ISTANBUL Turkish authorities have arrested the cafeteria manager of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper for insulting the president after he said he would not serve tea to Tayyip Erdogan, one of the manager’s lawyers told Reuters on Monday. Senol Buran, who runs the cafeteria at the Istanbul office of Cumhuriyet, was taken into custody after police raided his home late on Saturday, lawyer […]
In January of 2016, the Bundesbank announced that three years after commencing the transfer of some of its offshore-held gold from vaults located at the Banque de France in Paris and the NY Fed in New York, it had repatriated a total of 366.3 tonnes, bringing the German central bank’s gold reserves held in Frankfurt to 1,402 tonnes, or 41.5% of Germany’s total gold of 3,381 tonnes, […]
One may assume the life of a member of a Royal Family is easy, right? After all, members receive the “royal treatment” all year long. But the truth is royal families are just like all our families. Their lives can include controversy, scandal and some drama. And this year was no different. Whether it was relationship rumours, links to the Panama Papers scandal, tax fraud trials or […]
Saudi Arabia will resist plans to introduce a tax on expat remittances for now, according to Mohammed Al-Tuwaijri, secretary general of the Financial Committee at the Royal Court. Saudi Arabia’s Shura council has discussed plans to impose a 2 to 6 percent tax on expat workers’ remittances, following a proposal submitted by former Shura council member Husam Al Angari. He proposed an initial tax of 6 percent […]
SEOUL The detained friend of impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye, at the centre of a corruption scandal engulfing Park’s administration, said she was sorry on Monday when questioned by a special parliamentary committee, an opposition MP said. Choi Soon-sil, whom Park has said she turned to at difficult times, denied key allegations against her, including colluding with Park to pressure big businesses into paying money to […]
Egypt confirmed on Sunday that it had arrested an Al Jazeera news producer, accusing him of “provoking sedition” on behalf of the Qatar-based broadcaster that it considers a mouthpiece of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Judicial sources said Mahmoud Hussain, who was detained on Friday, was being held on charges of disturbing public security and spreading false news. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that Al Jazeera […]
By David Stanway | SHANGHAI SHANGHAI The heavily polluted northern Chinese province of Hebei said it will learn lessons from the smog that engulfed the region last week and step up its clean-up efforts, while the country’s Supreme Court vowed to crack down harder on polluters. Hebei, which surrounds Beijing and was home to seven of China’s 10 smoggiest cities last year, has been on the front […]
When US authorities started pursuing banks for their role in slicing, dicing and packaging the arcane products that sparked the financial crisis, they initially focused on domestic lenders. Now it is Europe’s banks that are in the crosshairs. Two days before Christmas, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have agreed to settle with the US Department of Justice over the alleged mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities in the run-up […]
Three Société Générale executives have been arrested in Equatorial Guinea for allegedly breaking its banking secrecy laws, accused of leaking financial documents to be used against the country’s vice president during his upcoming corruption trial in Paris. The move is the latest in a tit-for-tat battle between the two countries after French prosecutors this year formally charged the vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, of acquiring real estate, luxury […]
She says she hasn’t decided what she’ll do next, but that it likely will involve working for a foundation or, perhaps, in the private sector. She’ll depart the FEC having largely seen her standing goal of revealing sources of secret money in politics stymied. Goodman, in an interview, wouldn’t commit to staying at the FEC through 2017. “I will make a decision early next year about my […]
By Tracy Rucinski | CHICAGO CHICAGO Caesars Entertainment Corp’s (CZR.O) bankrupt operating unit resolved a dispute with its lenders on Friday, paving the way for a consensual plan to push the casino group out of its $18 billion Chapter 11. In filings with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago, bank lenders said they had reached an agreement over their recovery terms and were withdrawing a threat to […]
An Argentine court has ruled that pop star Justin Bieber must face trial for allegedly assaulting a photographer outside a nightclub in 2013, according to a decision published this week. Judge Alberto Banos ordered Bieber, who recently announced he will perform in Dubai on May 6 next year, to go on trial on charges of robbery, attempted robbery and assault with minor injuries. The case dates to […]
“The resolution that was passed by the U.N. yesterday is part of the swan song of the old world that is biased against Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said at a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony honoring wounded soldiers and terrorism victims. “But, my friends, we are entering a new era and, as President-elect Trump said yesterday, that is going to happen a lot faster than people think.” Continue reading the […]
A man wearing a Santa Claus costume walks atop Jerusalem’s Old City walls on December 23, 2016 An online Santa tracker run by a Canadian and American defense agency mapped the jolly old gift-giver’s path around the globe Saturday, in what has become a Yuletide tradition. Every Christmas Eve since 1955, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Saint Nicholas’s annual voyage to deliver […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE proclaimed its message of tolerance, hope and peace last night to a world confronting the darkness of militant extremism. In Europe, many Christmas festivities were muted by a climate of fear after terrorist attacks last week in Germany and Switzerland. In Iraq, a once vibrant Christian community of 1.5 million has been shattered by ISIL, many families driven out of their homes […]
NAIROBI Burundi has halted legal action against 11 non-governmental organisations that were banned due to accusations they conspired with opponents of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the prosecutor general’s office said on Saturday. Nkurunziza’s government has often accused civil society groups of working against it during a crisis that erupted last year over his disputed election for a third term. About 450 people have been killed in political violence. […]
Saudi Arabia plans to borrow between $10 to $15 billion from international markets in 2017 and around 70 billion riyals from the domestic market, a senior Saudi official told Al Arabiya television channel. Mohammad al-Tuwaijri, secretary-general of the Finance Committee at the Royal Court, was speaking to Al Arabiya in an interview aired on Friday. The Saudi government borrowed $17.5 billion this year in its first international […]
By David DeKok | HARRISBURG, Pa. HARRISBURG, Pa. A Pennsylvania couple tried to starve their three children to death because the father no longer wanted them, state police said in charges filed this week. Police said officers and Dauphin County social workers rescued the emaciated children, girls aged 4 and 5 and a boy aged 6, from their parents on Dec. 16 and took them to a […]
By Yun Hwan Chae | SEOUL SEOUL A large crowd of South Koreans took to the streets of central Seoul on Saturday for the ninth weekend in a row to demand the immediate resignation of President Park Geun-hye, who has been impeached by parliament over a corruption scandal. About 200 young people dressed as Santa Claus gave out gifts to some of around 200,000 people taking part […]
Getting $45 million in new work In the complaint, the whistleblowers said that when they originally lodged accusations of mismanagement — several years earlier — Bechtel project leaders launched a coordinated lobbying campaign to defend their work and also to collect new revenues for additional work on the waste treatment plant project. It then billed the department for the costs of this lobbying, the complaint said. In January 2010, […]
Porsche has won a key victory in its efforts to dismiss claims against the company for billions of euros of damages relating to its failed takeover of Volkswagen in 2008. Porsche Automobil Holding SE said on Friday that Germany’s federal court of justice, the country’s highest civil court, had dismissed a claim for €1.2bn brought by 19 hedge funds. When Porsche revealed in 2008 that it owned […]
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 […]
A hundred years ago, an arms race between the dominant global superpower the (British Empire) and a rising power (Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany) culminated in the mass slaughter of World War One. The deep mistrust between the United States and the People’s Republic of China has all the potential to spawn a traumatic chapter in international relations. Despite its “pivot” to Asia, the Obama White House was cautious […]
