By Shwe Yee Saw Myint | YANGON YANGON A man has been found dead with stab wounds in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in what the government said on Monday was the second murder in under a week of a Rohingya who cooperated with authorities as they crack down on suspected insurgents. Coordinated attacks on October 9 killed nine police officers and sparked a military operation in northern Rakhine. […]
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, […]
By Andrew Osborn | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia expanded its search on Monday for the remains of a military plane that crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 92 on board, and said pilot error or a technical fault – but not terrorism – were likely to have caused the tragedy. The plane, a Russian Defence Ministry TU-154, was carrying dozens of Red Army Choir singers and dancers […]
India’s government is making an increasing number of requests for data on Facebook’s users, but the social networking site is blocking less content as a result of fewer requests from authorities in the South Asian nation. According to the social media giant’s most recent report on government requests from January to June 2016, Indian authorities made 6,324 requests for user data from Facebook, 23% more than the […]
Over the past year, technology and ‘sharing economy’ start-ups have continued their disruption of traditional industries — from Uber and other ride hailers’ shake-up of the taxi market to Airbnb’s myriad alternatives to conventional hotel stays. But which will be the next businesses to be challenged by further digitisation and automation? FT correspondents have looked ahead five to 10 years to identify those industry sectors and companies […]
The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity investigated how pharmaceutical companies are using their political clout to push a new form of opioids as their answer to the epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse. The pills are marketed as abuse-deterrents because they usually are difficult to crush and dissolve, but they also are lucrative for the industry. Some key findings: Lawmakers in 35 states introduced more […]
ANKARA At least 30 civilians were killed and many others were wounded on Sunday after Islamic State launched an attack in the Syrian town of al-Bab to prevent people from fleeing, the Turkish military said in a statement on Monday. Syrian rebels supported by Turkish troops have laid siege to the Islamic State-held town for weeks under the “Euphrates Shield” operation launched by Turkey nearly four months […]
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 […]
ABU DHABI // As Typhoon Nock-Ten struck the Philippines on Sunday, UAE residents voiced fears for relatives in their home country. Officials there warned 2.5-metre high waves and landslides posed the biggest threats as typhoon Nock-Ten, known locally as Nina, closed in on the Bicol peninsula and nearby islands. “It’s Christmas Day and we’re finding it hard to celebrate until we are assured of our family’s safety […]
After all, Detroit had not won a playoff game since 1991 (and still has not) or a championship since 1957, when Bobby Layne, who lived on the same street as Stafford in Dallas and played for the same high school, was Detroit’s darling quarterback. So just between friends, was he really O.K. with becoming a Lion? “He said, ‘Absolutely,’” Aikman said in a telephone interview last week. […]
TAIPEI A group of Chinese warships lead by the country’s sole aircraft carrier has passed through waters south of Taiwan and is heading southwest, Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Monday of what China has termed a routine exercise. The ministry said the aircraft carrier the Liaoning, accompanied by five other vessels, had passed 90 nautical miles south of Taiwan’s southernmost point on Monday morning via the Bashi […]
In February, Anis Amri, a Tunisian refugee with a criminal past, was officially classified by the German authorities as a potential terrorist. For six months this year he was under near constant police surveillance. None of that helped. Amri went to ground and only resurfaced three days ago as the man investigators believe rammed a truck into a Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 12 people. The […]
But with few spies in the city, American officials say assessing the enemy is difficult. “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the situation on the ground in Raqqa,” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, the air war commander, said in an interview from his headquarters in Qatar. “It’s improving. It’s still not at the level we’d like it to be.” Continue reading the main story […]
Jim Gomez, The Associated Press Published Sunday, December 25, 2016 9:12AM EST Last Updated Sunday, December 25, 2016 3:43PM EST MANILA, Philippines — A powerful typhoon slammed into the eastern Philippines on Christmas Day, spoiling the biggest holiday in Asia’s largest Catholic nation, where a governor offered roast pig to entice villagers to abandon family celebrations for emergency shelters. Typhoon Nock-Ten was packing maximum sustained winds of […]
ISTANBUL — When a Turkish police officer assassinated Andrey G. Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, on Monday, it felt for a moment as if the whole world shook. The killing took place at a time of global uncertainty and reminded some observers of the start of World War I. The truth, however, is that despite shaky relations between Russia and Turkey in recent years, the assassination is […]
By Stephen Kalin | EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq This is the third Christmas that Staff Sergeant Magdiel Asencio is spending in Iraq. For Sergeant First Class Noel Alvarado, it is number four. And so it is with many U.S. troops stationed less than a hour’s drive from the front line with Islamic State. Few thought they would be back nearly 14 years after […]
COTABATO CITY—The grenade explosion that left a police officer and 11 others injured outside a Catholic church in Midsayap, North Cotabato, on Christmas Eve was meant for the police, a local official said. Midsayap Mayor Romeo Araña told reporters that the main target of the attack by two men riding a motorcycle were the police officers who were part of the security during the Christmas Eve Mass. […]
A Russian military plane carrying 92 people, including dozens of Red Army Choir singers, dancers and orchestra members, crashed into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff from Sochi on its way to Syria on Sunday, killing everyone on board, Russian authorities said. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said one of its TU-154 Tupolev planes had disappeared from radar screens at 0525 MSK (9.25 p.m. ET), two minutes […]
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile has begun observing in a new range of the electromagnetic spectrum. This has been made possible thanks to new receivers installed at the telescope’s antennas, which can detect radio waves with wavelengths from 1.4 to 1.8 millimeters — a range previously untapped by ALMA. This upgrade allows astronomers to detect faint signals of water in the nearby Universe. (via […]
Israel on Sunday summoned ambassadors of countries that belong to the UN Security Council for a Christmas Day reprimand for their support of a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. The UK was among the countries which saw its diplomats called into Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs on Sunday. David Quarrey, Britain’s ambassador to Israel, told the Financial Times. While Mr Quarrey was in the […]
KINSHASA An ethnic Nande militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 13 Hutu civilians on Sunday with guns and machetes in an apparent revenge attack for the deaths of Nande civilians last week, a local activist said. Tit-for-tat massacres by Hutu and Nande militia in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province have killed dozens this year. Relations between the communities have worsened due to population […]
LONDON Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, 90, will miss a traditional Christmas church service on Sunday for the first time in nearly 30 years due to a heavy cold, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said. Elizabeth, the world’s longest-reigning living monarch, and her husband Prince Philip, 95, suffered what the Palace described as heavy colds this week that delayed by a day their journey to their Sandringham country residence in […]
Astronomers have found one of the Universe’s biggest superclusters of galaxies near the Milky Way. The Vela supercluster, which had previously gone undetected as it was hidden by stars and dust in the Milky Way, is a huge mass that influenced the motion of our Galaxy. (via WSJ)
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON New U.S. single-family home sales rose more than expected in November and consumer sentiment hovered near a 13-year high this month, strengthening the view that the economy will gain further momentum next year. President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to cut taxes and increase infrastructure spending is expected to boost economic growth, though it already has sparked a surge in mortgage rates that […]
