GENEVA Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis. Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports […]
DUBAI // As the world’s highest building, it is no surprise the Burj Khalifa tops a list of the most instagrammed buildings in Dubai – but the other nine making up the top 10 makes interesting reading. With more than 1.5 million posts on the social media app, the Burj Khalifa is 22 times more popular as a photo opportunity than the iconic Burj Al Arab (70,400) […]
The law justifying Britain’s Brexit bill is hotly contested, the variables in the calculation are legion and the negotiation has yet to start. But there can be no doubt that the EU’s €100bn demand to settle Britain’s exit dues is one of the biggest political dangers in the Brexit process. The Financial Times estimated the bill using the EU’s negotiating guidelines, the more detailed draft mandate for […]
TEHRAN — Dozens of miners were trapped on Wednesday after a large explosion at a coal mine in northern Iran, state-run news media reported. Ambulances, helicopters and other rescue vehicles were sent to the site of the accident in the province of Golestan as the authorities tried to determine the scale of the disaster at the mine, which has more than 500 workers. The head of the […]
As previewed last night, this morning the US Air Force confirmed that another unarmed Minuteman III ICBM missile capable of sending a nuclear bomb across the world was launched early on Wednesday from California’s Vanderberg Air Force base, in what was a second clear signal of nuclear deterrence aimed squarely at North Korea and took place one week after the US test fired another ICBM under identical […]
By James Pearson and Alexei Chernyshev | SEOUL/VLADIVOSTOK, Russia SEOUL/VLADIVOSTOK, Russia When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent Lunar New Year greetings this year, the first card went to Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of leaders from China and other allies of the isolated country, according to its official news agency. Some academics who study North Korea argue Kim could be looking for Russia to ease […]
The walled garden of iOS is more difficult to compromise than the famously open source Android platform. Image: iStock While most people are aware of the malicious threats targeting their computers, many still don’t realise that their mobile devices are an increasingly lucrative a target for cybercriminals. The main way smartphones are attacked is though apps, often ones which pose as innocent and useful but actually aim […]
NEW DELHI: Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif ‘s daughter Maryam took to Twitter yesterday to call the Panama Papers “crap”, two weeks after her father managed to escape conviction for being named among those with offshore tax havens. However, two of the reporters who were involved in breaking the story last year decided to respond and tell Maryam Nawaz Sharif what journalism is about and how consequential […]
Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that it will issue a quarterly budget progress report for the first time as part of efforts to boost transparency while diversifying its oil-dependent economy. The world’s biggest oil exporter is wooing investors as it tries to reduce budget deficits caused by a collapse in energy revenues. “We will for the first time in Saudi announce, possibly in a couple of weeks or […]
News from the FT that the UK may face an initial Brexit bill of up to €100bn has dented sterling this morning. The currency fell by 0.2 per cent against the dollar to $1.29, nibbling into some of its eye-catching recent gains before recovering slightly. Against the euro, the pound is also down by 0.14 per cent to €1.1823. Broadly, the path for sterling since the general […]
By Karolin Schaps | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rebounded from near 2017 lows on Wednesday after preliminary data showed a much higher-than-expected fall in U.S. crude stocks, reviving bullish sentiment about easing oversupply. Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 37 cents at $50.83 a barrel at 0815 GMT. On Tuesday the futures had settled at their lowest since Nov. 30, when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting […]
Uber had announced in January that it was bringing its food delivery service to India, its fastest-growing market in the world. And finally, it’s here. UberEATS has rolled out in Mumbai and will soon be taken to five other Indian cities. India becomes UberEATS’ fourth Asian market, after it launched in Singapore last May, followed by Tokyo (Japan) and Bangkok (Thailand). Interestingly, Uber’s local rival Ola had […]
May 3, 2017 by: Jamie Smyth in Sydney New Zealand’s competition watchdog has blocked a merger between the country’s two main newspaper groups in the interests of defending media diversity, shrugging off concerns its decision threatens the groups’ financial viability. Wednesday’s ruling on a proposal from New Zealand Media and Entertainment and Fairfax NZ comes as global regulators face a swath of contentious mergers and growing concentration […]
A big part of that is its watering down of the anti-Semitic language of the original Hamas charter in 1988, with its talk of war between Arabs and Jews. “We are making it clear that ours is a liberation project — not about religion or the Jews,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Tuesday in Doha, his latest home. Continue reading the main story His offer […]
The Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has revealed that consumer complaints about delays in being connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN) have dropped over the first two quarters of the 2016-17 financial year. Complaints about NBN connection delays dropped from 1,669 complaints in the fourth quarter of 2015-16 to 1,545 in the first quarter of FY17, and then further down to 1,539 in the second quarter […]
Elsewhere on Wednesday, – TFW you have become verb used to specify there should be no lying in this particular bond quoting: Shortly after his indictment in 2013, Mr. Peters engaged in a chat session with a potential buyer about the price that would be offered for mortgage securities. The customer wrote, “Ok don’t litvak me! Go ahead with that bid.” – Guardian longread on where oil […]
As Australia passes the milestone of 2 million premises connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN), the latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) shows that over 1.1 million users are now on a 25/5Mbps plan. When taken in combination with the almost 600,000 premises on a 12/1Mbps connection, more than 1.7 million NBN users are now on connections that […]
Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have each promised to bring renewal to French politics. Still, the two insurgent candidates, who will go head to head in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, have clashed over how to handle the challenges facing France. Ms Le Pen, of the National Front, is running on a populist, anti-immigration platform but has spurned economic liberalism in favour […]
Mr. Abbas’s visit to the White House will present Mr. Trump with the Palestinian viewpoint more directly than he has ever heard it as president. But at 82, Mr. Abbas is a weakened political figure facing public discontent and divisions at home. Continue reading the main story His Palestinian Authority operates in the West Bank, while the more militant rival Hamas faction rules in Gaza. Despite an […]
Vocus Communications has revised its guidance for the 2017 financial year, with revenue down by AU$100 million, underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) down by between AU$65 million and AU$75 million, and net profit down by AU$45 million to AU$50 million. According to a presentation delivered by Vocus CEO Geoff Horth on Wednesday, underlying EBITDA is now expected to be between AU$365 million and […]
Combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with radio observations and computer simulations, an international team of scientists has discovered a 200,000-light-year wave of hot gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster. (via WSJ)
The New Zealand dollar is the best-performing major currency in Asia today in the wake of strong labour market data. The country’s unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent in the three months ended March 31 from 5.2 per cent in the December quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand. This was a better result than the 5.1 per cent economists had pencilled in. It was the equal-lowest […]
The Follow up Committee of the Initiatives of the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has approved a number of projects totalling AED410 million ($111.6 million). The committee, chaired by Ahmed Juma Al Zaabi, Deputy Minister of Presidential Affairs, approved the first phase of a project which will see a road built between Wadi Al-Qor and another linking the Al-Hubab roundabout and Nizwa Road for […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks followed global indexes higher on Wednesday, as strong earnings and manufacturing data boosted risk appetite, while expectations that the Federal Reserve will signal a June rate increase later in the session lifted the dollar. Oil prices pulled higher after a sharp fall on Tuesday on technical selling in a market already worried about oversupply and following a rise in […]
