By Praveen Menon | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s stern rebuke to Myanmar for a military-led crackdown on Muslim Rohingyas was a rarity among Southeast Asian nations, who adhere to a policy of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs. Critics saw the beleaguered Najib reaching for the moral high ground with his criticism over the weekend of Myanmar in order to pander to […]
Bayern, as ever, is in the vanguard. In recent years, it has become a commercial juggernaut. It rakes in more money from commercial activity than any other club in the world, apart from the Qatari-backed Paris Saint-Germain, and it has established satellite offices in New York and Shanghai to press its interests far from its home base in Bavaria. That success, and that reach, are sources of […]
Relegated to the backbench of the UK parliament, George Osborne has a great deal more time on his hands after the very public failed Brexit ‘Remain’ campaign. The former British chancellor is using the downtime to investigate why a wave of populist nationalism is currently sweeping across the world – and how it managed to bruise his political career as well as that of former prime minister […]
By Associated Press Published: 23:54 EST, 8 December 2016 | Updated: 23:55 EST, 8 December 2016 TRINGGADING, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s president traveled Friday to areas of Aceh province devastated by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake and vowed that torn-apart communities would be rebuilt. Stopping at a collapsed mosque in Tringgading not far from the quake’s epicenter, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo gave out envelopes stuffed with 15 million rupiah […]
Shares in casino operators took a tumble on Friday before recovering some poise, following a response from China’s UnionPay to a report that its daily withdrawal limit from ATMs in the gambling haven of Macau was to be halved as part of Beijing’s battle against capital flight from the mainland. China has moved in recent weeks to staunch capital gushing from the mainland, including tightening scrutiny of cross-border […]
The bromide says all politics are local. But if examined closely, state politics are looking quite national these days. Some independent groups ensconced in offices around D.C. and New York have been running their own shadow campaigns to affect the outcomes of races for governor, legislators, state supreme court justices and more around the country. Overall, independent political groups such as these have taken on a larger […]
More than half of total Starbucks stores in the United States will be turned into either PokéStops or Gyms as part of a special Pokémon GO promotional event that was leaked recently. The official announcement of Pokémon GO‘s special Starbucks event comes just a day after Niantic announced its partnership with Sprint, growing Niantic’s roster of corporate partners as it lures players back into the game. This, coupled with […]
Photo Syrian civilians, in eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo retaken by government forces, returned to their homes on Thursday under military supervision. Credit George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BEIRUT, Lebanon — Russian officials said Thursday that the Syrian Army had stopped combat operations in the divided city of Aleppo in order to evacuate civilians, but residents of the rebel-held enclave reported that after a day of intense […]
Two days after the Mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, filed a lawsuit against the Dallas Police and Fire Pension system to block withdrawals, which he referred to as a “run on the bank” of an “insolvent” pension system in “financial crisis, the Pension’s board has finally taken steps to halt further withdrawals. Of course, this delayed action has come only after $500 million in deposits have been […]
By Laila Bassam and John Davison | ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT The Syrian army’s advance in Aleppo slowed on Thursday but a victory was still firmly in sight after President Bashar al-Assad vowed that retaking the city would change the course of the six-year-old war. Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying the Syrian army, which has captured territory including Aleppo’s historic […]
ABU DHABI // The US presidential election, religious occasions and rainstorms were among the most discussed topics on Facebook by people in the UAE this year. On Thursday, Facebook released its Year in Review’s top moments of 2016 from people in the country and around the world. “As the year comes to a close, we have seen people in the UAE connect in big and small ways […]
By Mark Hosenball | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump is receiving an average of one presidential intelligence briefing a week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors. Although they are not required to, presidents-elect have in the past generally welcomed the opportunity to receive the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), the most highly classified and closely held document in […]
Pebble’s time ran out. Pebble did not launch the first smartwatch or even the first smartwatch of the modern era. But its combination of long battery life, daylight-readable display and iOS compatibility led it to become the highest-grossing Kickstarter campaign ever. Its campaign for the Pebble Time — which noted that over a million Pebble watches had been sold and that it was the top-selling smartwatch on […]
By freelance contributor Ben Bohane in Ly Son Island Posted December 09, 2016 05:35:32 Photo: Ly Son island, looking out towards the Paracels and Spratlys. (ABC News: Ben Bohane ) Related Story: Vietnam moves rocket launchers into disputed South China Sea: report Related Story: Vietnam expanding South China Sea runway: reports Sparkling on the horizon as our boat navigates the swell is one of the world’s most […]
ABU DHABI // The US presidential election, religious occasions and rainstorms were among the most discussed topics on Facebook by people in the UAE this year. On Thursday, Facebook released its Year in Review’s top moments of 2016 from people in the country and around the world. “As the year comes to a close, we have seen people in the UAE connect in big and small ways […]
The Lifetime Achievement Award handed to Samuel L Jackson during the opening ceremony of this year’s Dubai International Film Festival on Wednesday honours an improbably prolific 40-year career during which the actor has become as ubiquitous as popcorn. Above all else, moviemaking is a business, and on Jackson’s website, you can find a startling fact to explain the true meaning of the citation: “In recognition of his […]
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) used a long lens to document what crews have termed one of the most spectacular features of the planet: the dunes of the Namib Sand Sea. Source link
Mark Katches has spent his career battling one of the cruel realities of journalism: Hard-hitting and important investigative reporting rarely creates the kind of online buzz that a good cat video does. “I have been involved in Pulitzer Prize winning projects that were getting 20,000 pageviews,” Katches, the editor of the Oregonian, told Poynter. So when his team discovered that National Guard armories around the country are […]
He said that he was speaking from a makeshift medical clinic and that doctors were working in secret basement locations after being driven from hospitals. There were dozens of wounded and dead around him, including children, he added. Continue reading the main story “My neighbors have died; they were brought here,” he said. “I couldn’t ask them, ‘Where is my family?’ ” The latest round of fighting […]
FRANKFURT China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund has dropped its takeover bid for German chip equipment maker Aixtron after U.S. President Barack Obama blocked the deal. Fujian’s takeover vehicle Grand Chip Investment said on Thursday its offer had lapsed as it had failed to obtain U.S. regulatory approval for the purchase, which had been a condition of the deal. Investors who had already accepted its takeover offer […]
I spot the ship long before the car pulls up to the cruise terminal at Abu Dhabi’s Mina Zayed. Part of the Celebrity Cruises fleet, the stately Celebrity Constellation – dark blue and white, and marked with a distinctive “X” logo at the top – stands 13 decks tall. Orange lifeboats hang high on Deck 5, and the shaded gangplank looks like a tunnel boring into the […]
Can you imagine a bank where artificial intelligence runs checking accounts, debit cards, and wire transfers? Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto The Milan-London startup connection is getting stronger. After MoneyFarm and Soundreef, yet another promising Italian startup, Euklid, is opening up shop in the UK capital, moving its headquarters to be part of the city’s vibrant ecosystem. The team selected London’s Level39 fintech accelerator as its new center of […]
In a glass cube inside a MK2 cinema near France’s national library in Paris, viewers can choose between HTC Vive, Playstation VR and Oculus Rift headsets, or they can go for “full body immersive” simulators The first wave of virtual reality cinemas, heralding what their creators claim will be an entertainment revolution, rolls out across the world this month. The first screening room in France opened Wednesday […]
BAGHDAD Iraq’s parliament speaker called on Thursday for a government inquiry into air strikes on a western border town which killed around 60 people, mostly civilians. Hospital sources and local parliamentarians said three air strikes killed dozens of civilians, including 12 women and 19 children on Wednesday in a market district of the Islamic State-held town of Qaim, close to the border with Syria. A spokesman for […]
