Sprint has revealed that it is going to hire about 5,000 personnel, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump quickly claimed credit for purportedly negotiating the deal. Trump has lumped those figures with the 3,000 new hires planned by a startup called OneWeb, for a grand total of 8,000 new jobs, which Trump has promptly announced as very good news for the economy. Sprint is owned by Japanese firm […]
For France, 2016 ends as it began, with the nation under a state of emergency following terrorist outrages and in anticipation of more to come. The warnings of French leaders of potential further attacks have come gloomily true. Even last month, as the French centre-right party Les Républicains was choosing the Thatcherite Francois Fillon as its candidate in the presidential elections, ISIL was attempting to inflict further […]
Two years ago, James Garstang, a brewer at the Kernel Brewery, one of London’s most popular microbreweries, was approached by a friend about an opportunity abroad. “He said: ‘If you are interested in some karma and curry, then I have a potential job for you,’” Mr Garstang recalls. Less than a month later, the Londoner was living and working in Gwalior, a midsized city in India five […]
KINSHASA A court in Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced a political opposition leader to five years in prison on Wednesday, a human rights advocate said, a judgment that risks imperiling multi-party talks meant to organise a presidential election next year. The court found Franck Diongo, president of the opposition MLP party, guilty of illegally detaining three soldiers during violent protests last week in the capital Kinshasa that […]
Updated December 29, 2016, 9:08 AM By Restituto Cayubit HILONGOS, Leyte – At least 32 persons watching an amateur boxing bout were injured in an explosion at the town plaza Wednesday night. HILONGOS, Leyte CREDIT: Google Maps, Manila Bulletin Leyte police provincial director Supt. Franco Simborio said out of the 32 injured, 16 were treated as outpatient while the remaining 16 were brought to various hospitals in […]
By Nia Williams | CALGARY, Alberta CALGARY, Alberta A Canadian man punched a cougar in the face to stop it attacking his dog in a wooded area near a fast food chain in Whitecourt, central Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Wednesday. William Gibb, 31, from Red Deer, Alberta, had stopped at a Tim Hortons outlet, a popular Canadian restaurant chain on his 600-kilometre […]
US secretary of state John Kerry delivered a stinging rebuke of the Israeli government on Wednesday, accusing it of making the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nearly impossible through the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. With Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining forces with president-elect Donald Trump to attack the Obama administration, Mr Kerry said that the US allowed a […]
While the opening of the archives was not expected to provide a conclusive end to the chapter for many of the families, given the partial and sometimes contradictory information in the files, the government hoped to at least dispel the notion that it was hiding information, and to perhaps bring some relief. Continue reading the main story “Today we are correcting an historic injustice of disregard or […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that Israel’s building of settlements in occupied territory was endangering Middle East peace, expressing unusually frank frustration with the longtime American ally. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of showing bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign […]
Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com, Natural gas prices are surging as cold weather eats into U.S. inventories, tightening the market much more quickly than many analysts had expected. The blast of Arctic weather in December put a strain on natural gas markets, with millions of people cranking up the heat to keep warm. The EIA reported a surprise drop in storage levels in the week ending […]
Sony could launch an edge-less smartphone in 2017, presumably called the Xperia XZ (2017), according to a new leak. The smartphone market has become increasingly fierce and heated competition is forcing OEMs to come up with new ways to stand out from the crowd and set their smartphones apart from rivals. Apple and Samsung still dominate the smartphone market, but Sony wants a bigger slice of the […]
By Orhan Coskun and Ellen Francis | ANKARA/BEIRUT ANKARA/BEIRUT Turkey and Russia have prepared an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that Ankara would not give up its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying on as leader. The five-year-old Syrian civil war raged on, with heavy casualties reported in the siege of a town held by Islamic State, and the […]
The FTSE 100 was within touching distance of a closing high on Wednesday, as optimism about the outlook for metal prices lifted the shares of the heavyweight miners on Britain’s blue-chip index. On the market’s first day back after the Christmas holiday, the FTSE 100 was up 0.6 per cent at 7107.56 in early afternoon trading, putting it on track to surpass its closing high of 7103.98 […]
AMMAN Syria’s main rebel groups were discussing with Turkey a ceasefire proposal being negotiated with Russia but had rejected Moscow’s demand to exclude a rebel stronghold near the capital from any deal, a senior rebel official said on Wednesday. Munir al Sayal, the head of the political wing of Ahrar al Sham, whose group is involved in the talks with Turkey, said it was premature to talk […]
A group of hardy Siberian residents stripped down to their bathing suits and Santa hats for a run and swim in Russia’s icy Lake Baikal to promote healthy living. Passing cars beeped their horns at the dozen or so runners, who jogged alongside the lake for approximately 1 km (0.6 miles) in fake white beards, tinsel scarves and red gloves. The runners then crossed a snowy, icy […]
Post-Millennials in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia call for more investment in clean energy – mirroring actions being undertaken as part of Government’s Vision 2030 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, December 28, 2016 Ambitious plans set out by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the deployment of renewable energy are strongly aligned with the hopes and ambitions of the country’s young people, according to global research […]
By Andrew Osborn and Orhan Coskun | MOSCOW/ANKARA MOSCOW/ANKARA Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar al-Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say. Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change […]
Carrie Fisher’s death is being mourned by all sections of the arts and entertainment community, from fellow actors to rock stars and authors. Here, we reflect on five ways the actress and writer changed the face of popular culture. She invented Girl Power Fisher once self-deprecatingly characterised her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars as a lot of “running down corridors”. Of course, she represented much […]
By Erik Kirschbaum | BERLIN BERLIN Nearly 55,000 migrants who were not eligible for or were likely to be denied asylum left Germany voluntarily in 2016, up by 20,000 from the number who left of their own volition in 2015, the government said on Wednesday. “That’s a considerable increase from last year,” Interior Ministry spokesman Harald Neymanns told a news conference, saying the 2016 figure had climbed […]
DUBAI Iran has warned off foreign surveillance planes that have tried to approach its forces during air defence exercises on the Gulf coast, an Iranian military spokesman said on Wednesday. “In the past three days, more than 12 warnings have been issued to aircraft from outside the region to refrain from approaching the airspace of the manoeuvre area,” said Brigadier-General Abbas Farajpour Alamdari, quoted by the official […]
Even as the Singapore economy is projected to see worsening economic climate next year, local businesses appear unwilling to transform to cope with the changing environment. Just 15 percent of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and 36 percent of large enterprises strongly agreed with the need to transform to adapt to slowing economic growth as well as technological change and disruption. Across the board, 62 percent agreed […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM Jerusalem’s city hall cancelled a vote on Wednesday on applications to build nearly 500 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, a municipal official said, plans that had drawn U.S. criticism in a raging dispute over settlements. The proposed settlement is part of building activity that the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to on Friday, a resolution that a U.S. […]
JAKARTA, Dec. 28 (UPI) — A judge overruled Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama’s appeal to have his trial on blasphemy charges thrown out, instead setting a date and new location for the next hearing in the trial. Purnama’s next hearing is set for Jan. 3 at the Agriculture Ministry’s building in south Jakarta, a relocation from the Central Jakarta District Court in central Jakarta in an effort […]
Nearly half of all new mobile device and app activations across the United States during the week leading up to Christmas and the beginning of Chanukah were for the Apple iPhone, according to analyst firm Flurry. Flurry reported that during the week, 44 percent of all new phone and tablet activations involved Apple devices, while just 21 percent were across Samsung smartphones and tablets, with the latter […]
