SOFIA Four people were killed and another 25 were injured after a cargo train derailed and exploded in the northeastern Bulgarian village of Hitrino, demolishing at least 20 buildings, police said on Saturday. Two of the train’s tanks, carrying propane-butane and propylene, derailed at the station of the village, hit electricity line and exploded in flames early on Saturday, a senior police officer said. “Two blasts have […]
Submitted by Nomi Prins via TomDispatch.com, Given his cabinet picks so far, it’s reasonable to assume that The Donald finds hanging out with anyone who isn’t a billionaire (or at least a multimillionaire) a drag. What would there be to talk about if you left the Machiavellian class and its exploits for the company of the sort of normal folk you can rouse at a rally? It’s […]
Yet Mr. McLaren suggested that the full extent of the cheating might never be known. “It is impossible to know just how deep and how far back this conspiracy goes,” he said on Friday, calling the “immutable facts” of his report clear but far from comprehensive. “For years, international sports competitions have unknowingly been hijacked by the Russians.” Continue reading the main story Mr. McLaren concluded last […]
December 10, 2016 by: Joe Leahy in São Paulo Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and one of his sons have been accused by prosecutors of influence peddling and other crimes in relation to a landmark $4.5bn Saab Gripen fighter jet deal in Latin America’s largest country. Prosecutors in Brasília accused Mr Lula da Silva’s son, Luís Cláudio Lula da Silva, of receiving nearly R$2.6m […]
Opec’s first supply cut in eight years looks set to earn the 13-member cartel an extra $5bn a month in revenues. The 15 per cent rally in oil prices since last Wednesday’s agreement looks like an impressive return from a marginal cut in output, even if the deal was months in the making. Beyond the headline price reaction the market has thrown Opec a curve ball. Oil […]
Journalism took a beating in 2016. Donald Trump was elected president, thwarting pollsters and shaking off seemingly endless fact-checking. News organizations continue to lay off journalists as Facebook and Google gobble up the advertising market. And trust in media sunk to an all-time low, helped along by abuse on the campaign trail. Despite that, a former whistleblower thinks journalism still has the power to make big changes. […]
From spray-on skin for burns victims, the electronic pacemaker, the Gardasil and Cervarix cancer vaccines, or finding the medical application of penicillin, Australia has a reputation of birthing a number of medical innovations that have changed the global healthcare industry. In 1967, Sydney-based Dr Graeme Clark began researching the possibilities of an electronic implantable hearing device, and by 1978, the first ever Cochlear implant was performed. Cochlear […]
Google has updated Chrome web browser for Android on Dec. 6, and version 55 is now rolling out across the Play Store. The update to the Google Chrome browser for Android increases its functionalities comprehensively. The updated Chrome 55 (55.0.2883.84) also brings stability and performance fixes and new features galore. We check out the new features and functionalities that version 55 of Chrome for Android brings users’ way. Reduces […]
By Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and John Irish | WASHINGTON/PARIS WASHINGTON/PARIS Key U.S. allies in Europe are quietly expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump’s approach to Syria, warning that his pledge to work more closely with Russia, Damascus’ main backer, will do little to diminish the terrorist threat emanating from Syria. The diplomatic persuasion campaign has taken on new importance in recent days as the Syrian army, […]
By Laila Bassam and Lisa Barrington | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT The Syrian army pressed an offensive in Aleppo on Friday with ground fighting and air strikes in an operation to retake all of the city’s rebel-held east that would bring victory in the civil war closer for President Bashar al-Assad. “The advance is going according to plan and is sometimes faster than expected,” a Syrian military […]
By Yeganeh Torbati and Warren Strobel | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S.-led coalition planes destroyed 168 Islamic State oil tanker trucks in Syria, the coalition said on Friday, in the largest strike of its kind and the latest instance of what U.S. officials say has been a successful effort to starve the militant group of revenues. The air strikes targeted the truck fleet near Palmyra, Syria on Thursday, a […]
BEIRUT The Syrian army declared a ceasefire in several areas around Damascus and the northwestern province of Idlib beginning on Friday evening, but did not say how long the pause in fighting would last. There was no immediate comment from rebels on the truce. The areas affected included the government-besieged town of Madaya near Damascus and Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib, which are surrounded by insurgents. (Reporting […]
December is always marked by a run of fantastic journalism from news organizations across the United States. The flood of ambitious work nearly always coincides with the publication deadline for the Pulitzer Prizes (Dec. 31), as newsrooms gear up for journalism awards season. Here’s a quick look at some of the most ambitious journalism that’s been published recently. If you know of a great project that I […]
The epidemic of heroin and opioid related deaths in the US continues to grow, surpassing gun homicides in 2015 for the first time ever. As RT reports, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows. Nearly 5,000 more people died from opioids in 2015 than in 2014. Both heroin and opioid use have exploded in the US, after decades of doctors over-prescribing painkillers in the […]
Sprint has apparently started a slow rollout of Rich Communication Services, or RCS, for select devices. RCS, for the uninitiated, is an upgraded SMS standard for improved text and multimedia sharing. The nearest RCS comparison would be iMessage, Apple’s proprietary messaging app between iDevices. The newest version of Google Messenger has now been found to display the option to enable “Enhanced Messaging,” but only for a number of […]
Video Deadly Blast in Cairo A bomb exploded on Friday at a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Cairo, killing six police officers and wounding three others. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and REUTERS on Publish Date December 9, 2016. Photo by Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency. Watch in Times Video » CAIRO — A bomb ripped through a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Cairo on Friday, killing […]
By Gabriela Baczynska | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS Eastern European Union states remain at loggerheads with “frontline” countries such as Greece and Italy over sharing the burden of caring for asylum-seekers reaching EU frontiers, officials said on Friday. Largely uncontrolled arrival of some 1.4 million people from the Middle East and Africa in the past two years, many fleeing Syria’s civil war, has triggered bitter EU infighting. Dispute centres […]
Bangladesh labour activists said on Friday they had joined a lawsuit in Switzerland against world soccer body FIFA for allegedly failing to use its influence to ensure people working on 2022 World Cup facilities in Qatar are treated fairly. The suit, filed in FIFA’s home city of Zurich with the backing of the largest labour union in the Netherlands, calls on FIFA to force Qatar to adopt […]
The European Central Bank’s supervisory arm has rejected a request from Rome to delay a private sector-led rescue for Monte dei Paschi di Siena, leaving Italy little option but to inject state funds and impose losses on creditors. MPS asked the ECB for an extra five weeks to pull off a last-ditch €5bn equity injection for the lender, which emerged as the weakest in the European bank […]
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Malaysian police forces clashed with suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels killing three of them off Semporna City in Sabah after they attacked at least two sea trawlers. The Malaysian media said police captured two more gunmen and rescued a fishing boat captain, believed to be a Filipino holding a special identity card. Another skipper, however, was abducted by the two gunmen who escaped at the height […]
Alaa Najd is the inaugural winner of Project Runway Middle East. The aspiring Lebanese designer won the debut season of the talent quest, in a star-studded finale held on December 8 at the Dubai Design District. Broadcast on MBC, Project Runway Middle East is one 26 international versions of the programme that have been launched since the US original began in 2004. Some of the big regional […]
Good morning. Regrets laced with irony Glenn Beck is sorry. He really is. He swears. He’s sort of like Miss Otis in Cole Porter’s oft-recorded 1934 “Miss Otis Regrets” (I’ll take Bette Midler’s version). She “woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, madam.” And, them, “from under her velvet gown, she drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam.” In this case, […]
Investors made the biggest shift in more than three years into funds that help provide protection against rising interest rates ahead of next week’s meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers who are expected to increase overnight borrowing costs for the first time this year. Funds invested in leveraged loans attracted $1.7bn of inflows in the week to December 7 — the greatest weekly haul since 2013 — figures […]
Photo Zar Mohammad Stanikzai, an Afghan who worked as an interpreter and whose application for a United States visa was rejected this year. Credit Andrew Quilty for The New York Times WASHINGTON — After a protracted political debate, Congress passed a measure on Thursday that would offer sanctuary to a fraction of the Afghan interpreters and translators who have risked their lives to help the military. The […]
