News related to
near

Middle East Secretary of State John Kerry with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, on Sunday. By MICHAEL R. GORDON September 27, 2015 The Iraqi military announced Sunday that it had agreed to share intelligence about the Islamic State with Russia, the Syrian government and Iran, an agreement that caught the Obama administration off guard. The Iraqi military said in a statement that the new agreement was necessary because […]

Middle East Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the United Nations on Saturday. By MICHAEL R. GORDON September 26, 2015 UNITED NATIONS — Secretary of State John Kerry sought on Saturday to draw Iran into the search for a political solution to the Syrian conflict as he began a week of diplomacy over the brutal fighting there. “I view this week as […]

WASHINGTON — Nearly 30,000 foreign recruits have now poured into Syria, many to join the Islamic State, a doubling of volunteers in just the past 12 months and stark evidence that an international effort to tighten borders, share intelligence and enforce antiterrorism laws is not diminishing the ranks of new militant fighters. Among those who have entered or tried to enter the conflict in Iraq or Syria […]

UNITED NATIONS — Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, promoted access to the Internet as “an enabler of human rights” and a “force for peace” on Saturday, as he announced that his company would help the United Nations bring Internet connections to refugee camps. “It’s not all altruism,” Mr. Zuckerberg said later, in an implicit acknowledgment that drawing new users to his service is also good for […]

AMMAN, Jordan — Mohammad Smarat sat gazing at the few plants sprouting outside the entrance of the white stone hospital here, recalling how he had collapsed in a sea of green fields after getting shot. He had been helping farmers pick tomatoes near his home in Dara’a, Syria, when a stray bullet shattered his left hip joint. Though he had obeyed his father’s orders not to join […]

ABU DHABI // A sunken fishing boat near Mina Zayed poses an environmental hazard to marine life and a threat to safety, fishermen say. The 15-metre dhow sank last year, three years after it was abandoned in port. It is not the only vessel causing problems, fishermen said. They said up to 50 of 200 dhows at Mina Zayed were not in use and were obstructing other […]

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama announced on Friday that he had reached a “common understanding” with Chinese President Xi Jinping on curbing economic cyber espionage, but threatened to impose U.S. sanctions on Chinese hackers who persist with cyber crimes. The two leaders also unveiled a deal to build on a landmark emissions agreement struck last year, outlining new steps they will take to deliver on pledges they made […]

Advertisements

Iran’s president and foreign minister dropped hints on Friday of movement toward a resolution in the fates of Americans imprisoned or missing in Iran. The president, Hassan Rouhani, who was visiting New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly gathering, told guests at an invitation-only meeting in a nearby hotel that he wanted the governments of Iran and the United States “to be helpful” in finding […]

Open Source By ROBERT MACKEY Dozens of Finnish nationalists, including a man dressed like a member of the Ku Klux Klan, hurled rocks and fireworks late on Thursday at a bus carrying migrants seeking asylum to temporary housing in Finland, the state broadcaster YLE reported. Reporters in Lahti, about 60 miles north of the capital, Helsinki, recorded video of the bus — which carried men, women and […]

Bloomberg|David McLaughlin| Google Inc. is back under U.S. antitrust scrutiny as officials ask whether the tech giant stifled competitors’ access to its Android mobile-operating system, said two people familiar with the matter. The Federal Trade Commission reached an agreement with the Justice Department to spearhead an investigation of Google’s Android business, the people said. FTC officials have met with technology company representatives who say Google gives priority to its own […]

INTERNATIONAL. Just four per cent of businesses are able to extract the full value from the information they hold, with over a third (36 per cent) lacking the tools and skills they need to do so, according to new research from storage and information management company, Iron Mountain (IRM) and  PwC. As a result, 43 per cent of the European and North American companies surveyed obtain little […]

INTERNATIONAL. Gleaming glass skyscrapers, state-of-the-art technology, and wealthy merchant families have replaced the Gulf’s muddy towns and villages populated by traders and pearl fishers that once lacked electricity, running water or modern communications. The region’s modern day projection of a visionary cutting- edge, 21st  century urban environment masks however the fact that some things have not changed. Gulf states continue to be ruled by the same families, […]

Contrary to common portrayals of the madding crowd, people caught in an unfolding catastrophe usually summon their best selves, keep cool heads and look out for those around them, according to decades of research into crowd reactions during earthquakes, fires, floods, bombings and other threats. It had not been reported exactly what touched off the panic that killed more than 700 people on Thursday near Mecca, Saudi […]

WASHINGTON — As the war in Iraq deteriorated, a senior American intelligence analyst went public in 2005 and criticized President George W. Bush’s administration for pushing “amateurish and unrealistic” plans for the invasion two years before. Now that same man, Gregory Hooker, is at the center of an insurrection of United States Central Command intelligence analysts over America’s latest war in Iraq, and whether Congress, policy makers […]

ABU DHABI // Thousands of UAE pilgrims escaped a stampede near Mecca on Thursday that claimed the lives of hundreds on the first day of Eid Al Adha. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, sent a cable to King Salman of Saudi Arabia expressing condolences and sympathy for the victims of the stampede. UAE pilgrims were […]

UAE. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that although it expects that some corporates and infrastructure issuers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will likely feel the weight of lower oil prices, most of its rated entities show resilient financials for now, in an industry report card published today titled, “Some Gulf Corporates Could Feel The Heat On Low Oil Prices.” Corporate and infrastructure companies in the […]

DUBAI // A woman who claimed she was tortured and threatened with rape after being mistaken for an Al Qaeda terrorist faces months of uncertainty awaiting the outcome of a legal case against the Kenyan government. Mother of three Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni, 50, relived her 72-day ordeal this week as she gave testimony via video link from London to the high court in Nairobi. She was too […]

|By Ole Hansen| Global markets went quiet ahead of the long awaited Federal Open Market Committee meeting this past week as the first rate hike in almost ten years seemed possible. In the end Janet Yellen and her follow central bankers opted for no change and the statement following the announcement was surprisingly dovish. While US activity and employment data remains strong the extreme market volatility in late […]

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has raised Dh504 million ($137 million) in its rights issue, which was nearly three times oversubscribed with Dh1.46 billion in subscriptions received. The rights issue, the first tradable rights issue for a bank in the UAE, forms part of the comprehensive capital plan to support ADIB’s strong growth plans. Following the close of the subscription period on September 10, all 168 million […]

|By TAP Staff| Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has successfully raised AED 504 million in the first tradable rights issue for a bank in the UAE. The rights issue, which forms part of the comprehensive capital plan to support ADIB’s strong growth trajectory, was nearly 3 times oversubscribed with AED 1.46 billion in subscriptions received. Following the close of the subscription period on 10  September 2015, all […]

QATAR. On Sept. 18, 2015, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its ‘AA’ long-term and ‘A-1+’ short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the State of Qatar. The outlook is stable. We also affirmed the ‘AA’ long-term issue ratings on the bonds issued by Qatari Diar Finance Q.S.C. and SoQ Sukuk A Q.S.C. RATIONALE Qatar is a wealthy economy; we estimate its GDP per capita […]

EDIRNE, Turkey — Doaa, a 25-year old Syrian, was lying in the shade one day last week, trying to shelter herself from the scorching sun in a makeshift camp near this northwestern border city. A pile of blankets next to her quivered, and a tiny hand emerged. Her son, Nassim, was just a week old. Doaa had walked out of a hospital in Istanbul a few days […]

SANA, Yemen — A Saudi-led military coalition bombarded government buildings and residential neighborhoods in Sana, the Yemeni capital, overnight on Saturday, killing more than two dozen people, officials and witnesses said, and destroying homes in Sana’s Old City, a Unesco World Heritage site. The Saudi coalition, which includes nine other Arab nations and is supported by the United States, began fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels in March, two […]

LONDON — Russia’s military buildup in Syria now includes surface-to-air missiles as well as combat aircraft with air-to-air capability, deployments that raise “serious questions” about Moscow’s role in the region, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday. Russian officials have said that the purpose of the buildup at a base near Latakia, Syria, is to combat the Islamic State. But the deployment of air defense systems and […]

VISHNU RAJA
RYO YAMADA
HITORI GOTOH
IKUYO KITA