The cruise map is ever expanding and 2017 will see new ports of call make their mark. We look at some of the most unusual and alluring of them. newslide Doha and the UAE The Arabian Gulf cruising market is still relatively young compared to most established destinations such as the Caribbean and Mediterranean, but it’s quite clear that Qatar wants a piece of the action. Doha […]
WASHINGTON The U.S. military said on Tuesday it carried out air strikes in Syria against Islamic State targets of interest to both Washington and Ankara near the town of al-Bab, following Turkish criticism of insufficient U.S. support for its ground offensive. U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition battling Islamic State, counted four strikes in recent days against Islamic State […]
By Jilian Mincer | NEW YORK NEW YORK About a quarter of U.S. Republicans do not want to see Obamacare repealed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday. Trump and his fellow Republicans, who control Congress, have promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, but a majority of Americans, including 25 percent of Republicans polled, do not want it to be […]
Donald Trump has threatened to overturn two decades of US economic policy by questioning the strong value of the dollar, raising fears that his presidency could set off a new round of currency wars between the world’s major economies. On Monday the president-elect appeared to break from the longstanding “strong dollar” policy of successive administrations, declaring that the currency was too high and that this was preventing […]
Before she spoke on Tuesday, Theresa May was gaining a reputation for talking sterling lower by spooking investors that Britain was headed to a disorganised exit from both the EU and its common market. Her Lancaster House speech was the first occasion the pound rallied to her Brexit views since becoming prime minister; it had risen nearly 3 per cent by the end of the London trading […]
Theresa May’s first big speech on Brexit since she became prime minister removed some of the political uncertainty that has dogged the pound. However, the messiness of the politics of Britain’s exit from the EU still tops the lost of reasons why sterling will remain under pressure. A list of the pound’s pros and cons quickly shows why it is languishing at levels last seen in the […]
New images have revealed otherwise invisible details of our Sun, including a new view of the dark, contorted center of a sunspot that is nearly twice the diameter of the Earth. The images are the first ever made of the Sun with a facility where ESO is a partner. The results are an important expansion of the range of observations that can be used to probe the […]
Three years ago, The New York Times published its innovation report, an unsparing assessment of the newsroom’s many weaknesses. Nearly 100 pages long and full of words like “worrying,” “shrinking” and “upheaval,” the report described a New York Times that was in a digital standstill while competitors like BuzzFeed, Vox Media and The Washington Post were racing ahead. Today, The New York Times released the results of […]
By Stephen Kalin | DEBAGA, Iraq DEBAGA, Iraq While fleeing Islamic State rule in northern Iraq three months ago, Laila saw two of her daughters die in front of her. Crippled by grief and the trauma of that night, she now struggles to walk and hardly eats. Running under the cover of darkness after more than two years under the jihadists’ harsh rule in Shirqat town, south […]
The company rolling out Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) has warned of possible civil works disruptions after announcing that it will begin extending fibre and cable broadband into major cities this year. Much of the disruption will occur as NBN needs to gain access to pits and existing infrastructure within high-density cities. “As the NBN network rolls out into cities, we will be met with new problems […]
TOKYO Nearly six years after Noriko Matsumoto and her children fled Japan’s Fukushima region, fearing for their health after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, they confront a new potential hardship – the slashing of vital housing subsidies. Matsumoto is among nearly 27,000 people who left areas not designated as mandatory evacuation zones, spooked by high levels of radiation after nuclear meltdowns unleashed by a powerful […]
BOSTON JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has been no fan of Institutional Shareholder Services and once called investors “lazy” if they cast votes in corporate elections based on recommendations from the leading proxy adviser or its rival. But JPMorgan itself turns out to be a close follower of ISS, at least when it comes to proxy votes on pay, new data show. JPMorgan (JPM.N) […]
Blume was working on a letter to a man who was angry about being profiled by the police in his community. She showed me some of Obama’s handwritten comments in the margins. He had underlined sentences and added exclamation points; the words he wrote were sparse, but Blume understood the code. “See?” she said. “You can break down the sections of his thoughts: I’m mad, too. My […]
By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil dipped on Tuesday on lingering concerns over global fuel oversupply due to rising U.S. output and doubts that OPEC and other producers would adhere to commitments to cut output in an effort to balance markets and prop up prices. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were at $55.55 per barrel at 0643 GMT, down 31 cents from […]
Why Megève Megève is old France at its classiest best – a magical village with a medieval heart and effortlessly chic atmosphere. It’s moneyed, certainly, but without the vulgarity you see in other glitzy resorts in the Alps. When you’re strolling through the main Place de l’Eglise, with its dazzling fairy lights, it’s hard not to sigh at the immaculate prettiness of it all. It was the […]
The US dollar is weakening this morning after comments from president-elect Donald Trump that the greenback was “too strong” against the Chinese currency. “Our companies can’t compete with them [Chinese companies] now because our currency is too strong. And it’s killing us”, Mr Trump told the Wall Street Journal. His comments have helped soften the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of its major […]
Through long shifts at the helm of a highly sophisticated microscope, researchers have recorded reactions at near-atomic-scale resolution. Their success is another step toward building a better battery. (via WSJ)
BEIJING Cadillac, General Motors Co’s (GM.N) luxury brand, is predicting a double digit growth rate in China sales this year, the brand’s country chief Andreas Schaaf told Reuters on Tuesday. The brand – which opened its first dedicated factory in China last year, helping boost Cadillac sales in the country by 46 percent – expects China to become its top market in less than five years, Schaaf […]
A new approach has been uncovered to detail the formation of material defects at the atomic scale and in near-real time, an important step that could assist in engineering better and stronger new materials. (via WSJ)
BISHKEK A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said. According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to […]
CARACAS OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo forecast on Monday that stability would return to oil markets this year while price hawk Venezuela said it hoped its crude basket would rise to $70 in coming months. The head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was back in Caracas for a second meeting in two months with President Nicolas Maduro whom he lavishly praised for an “inspirational” role […]
Dubai, United Arab Emirates –January 16, 2017(ME NewsWire) Grundfos, the award-winning world leader in advanced pump solutions, is partaking along with a number of renowned Danish companies, in the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) to be held during 16–19 January 2017, in Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, UAE. Some of the companies participating in WFES, including Grundfos, are part of the Act NOW initiative (www.actnow.dk), a partnership […]
By Jessica DiNapoli and Lisa Richwine American Apparel LLC started to lay off staff on Monday after Canada’s Gildan Activewear Inc (GIL.TO) withdrew its initial plan to buy some of the bankrupt U.S. fashion retailer’s manufacturing operations, company employees said. Gildan won the rights to American Apparel’s brand with an $88 million bid in a bankruptcy auction last week. It had previously indicated it would assume some […]
TEHRAN — Perplexed residents here focused their eyes — and smartphones — upward on Monday afternoon as antiaircraft weapons hidden on rooftops suddenly began blasting away at “an unidentified flying object” in the clear sky. The thunderous clack-clack of gunfire and small dots of white smoke overhead provided a loud and unexpected accompaniment to the start of city’s evening rush, as videos show. Anti-aircraft fire on the […]
