WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday spurned the Taiwanese president’s suggestion that the two leaders hold another phone call, saying he did not want to create problems for Chinese President Xi Jinping when Beijing appears to be helping efforts to rein in North Korea. In a White House interview, Trump brushed aside the idea after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told Reuters on Thursday she would not […]
Seemingly out of the blue, Nintendo just announced a brand-new console. It’s called the 2DS XL, the sequel to the 2DS, but now in a more traditional clamshell design. Nintendo 2DS XL Announced The 2DS XL features the same screen size as the New 3DS XL, has the same level of internals, and features a C-stick, too. There’s also an NFC reader baked in, for all Amiibo […]
With each successive generation of new vehicle these days, there tends to be an inevitable bloat factor, whereby the latest and greatest offering is invariably bulkier and lardier than its predecessor. So it’s an eye-opener when a car brand – especially an American one – rolls out an all-new model that appears to have shrunk in the wash. Say hello to all-new GMC Acadia, a revamped seven-seat […]
That small drama points to the bigger issue confronting Francis as he lands in Cairo against a backdrop of swirling anxiety and turmoil. Christians across the Middle East are under intense pressure. After years of persecution by Islamist militants, half of Iraq’s Christian population has fled, and a lonely beach in Libya was the setting for the 2015 beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in orange jumpsuits. Continue […]
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has revealed that it “mistakenly” accessed a journalist’s call records without a warrant in breach of the data-retention legislation. According to the AFP, there was no “malice” involved in the breach, and there should be no inference that the journalist in question had committed an offence leading to their call records being illegally accessed by the AFP. “Earlier this week, the AFP […]
By Philip Pullella | ROME ROME They will not be drawing swords like their predecessors did 1,000 years ago, but battle lines have been drawn between conservatives and reformers in the Knights of Malta, the Catholic chivalric order and global charity. Its former leader, Briton Matthew Festing, has returned to Rome for a decisive boardroom confrontation over its future this Saturday, defying a request to stay away […]
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is in talks with investors about introducing its US-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants brand to the UAE. Pascal Gauvin, IHG’s India, Middle East and Africa COO, told Arabian Business that Nasdaq-listed IHG began discussions with investors in January and hopes to sign a deal this year. After that, it intends to launch boutique hotel brand Kimpton in Dubai, first, within the next 3-5 […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters on Thursday he will either renegotiate or terminate what he called a “horrible” free trade deal with South Korea and said Seoul should pay for a U.S. anti-missile system that he priced at $1 billion. In an interview with Reuters, Trump called the five-year-old trade pact with South Korea “unacceptable” and said it would be targeted for renegotiation after his […]
Almost every time a hot Silicon Valley startup finally grits its teeth and releases diversity data, the story’s the same. Facebook? Mostly male. Uber? Male-dominated. Google? Same story. It’s a problem that’s gotten plenty of play in the tech press. In 2014, Wired ran an 1,800-word dissection of Silicon Valley male-ness titled “This is what tech’s ugly gender problem really looks like.” The story, which profiled women […]
The National Broadband Network (NBN) company should increase the extent of its fibre network, providing as many customers as possible with fibre to the premises (FttP) and fibre to the distribution point/curb (FttDP/C), the South Australian government has said, adding that the satellite service should be a “last resort”. Speaking in a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network, the South Australian government […]
Global energy markets are heading to a rebalancing in the next years after oil prices fell to historic lows due to oversupply, Qatar’s energy minister said Thursday, praising OPEC members for their adherence to a “successful” November deal to cut production. Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry Mohammed Saleh Abdullah Al-Sada told the Atlantic Council summit in Istanbul that a decade of high oil prices had led […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump complained on Thursday that U.S. ally Saudi Arabia was not treating the United States fairly and Washington was losing a “tremendous amount of money” defending the kingdom. In an interview with Reuters, Trump confirmed his administration was in talks about possible visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel in the second half of May. He is due to make his first trip abroad as […]
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported a 22 per cent surge in sales, despite fears that marketers were withdrawing advertising dollars from its YouTube video site because of worries about ads appearing next to extremist content. The Silicon Valley company’s shares, up 21 per cent in the past year, rose 4 per cent to $928.30 in after-hours trading in New York. Sundar Pichai, Google chief executive, said the […]
The Israeli agency that liaises with the Palestinians on civilian affairs, known as Cogat (an acronym for Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), said Israel supplies Gaza with 30 percent of its total electricity needs at a monthly cost of about $11 million. Continue reading the main story Israel did not immediately cut off the supply, apparently hoping that international donors would step in and pay. […]
Exactly one month after Trump was humiliated by his own party, when in the last moment the House failed to get the number of votes to pass a Republican healthcare bill due to holdouts from the conservative Freedom Caucus, the president’s second attempt to repeal Obamacare before his first 100 days in office run out, appears on the edge of failure. However, whereas the latest effort succeeded […]
The Nintendo Switch launched just recently and it’s already off to a strong start, with 2.74 million units sold to date. This is the first official figure that Nintendo released for Switch sales, and the console units sold also fueled good game sales. Nintendo made the disclosure in its new earnings report [PDF] for the fiscal year 2016, released on Thursday, April 27. The total Nintendo Switch sales […]
Egypt is still suffering from coordinated Palm Sunday bombings of two Christian churches that killed more than 40 people, nearly killed the head of the Coptic Church and prompted President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to declare a three-month state of emergency. Continue reading the main story Francis will lend his support to the roughly 250,000 Roman Catholics in Egypt and insist on the protection of minority rights, including […]
A brick made of Martian soil simulant compacted under pressure. The brick was made without any additional ingredients and without baking. Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering/UC San Diego Explorers planning to settle on Mars might be able to turn the planet’s red soil into bricks without needing to use an oven or additional ingredients. Instead, they would just need to apply pressure to compact the soil—the equivalent […]
Qatar Airways grows route network This week Qatar Airways announced 12 new flight routes for 2018. The Doha-based airline will launch services to San Francisco next year, as well as Cardiff in Wales, Utapao in Thailand, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Mykonos in Greece, Málaga in Spain, Accra in Ghana, Lisbon in Portugal, Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Prague in the Czech Republic, Kiev in Ukraine and Mombasa in Kenya. […]
Investigators discovered that the suspect, using a false identity, registered in December 2015 with German officials in Giessen, about 40 miles north of Frankfurt, as a Syrian refugee. It was not clear what steps officials took to verify his claim, given that he appeared to speak no Arabic, Ms. Niesen said. Continue reading the main story “Why that did not catch their attention, I am not able […]
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and later led to the creation of both PBS and NPR, also recognized the importance of archiving public broadcasting material in the United States. It stipulated that CPB should: …Establish and maintain, or contribute to, a library and archives of noncommercial educational and cultural radio and television programs and related materials and develop […]
GENEVA – The U.N. human rights office says one of its independent experts will travel to Panama next month to investigate tax avoidance and evasion schemes like those revealed by the so-called “Panama Papers” leak. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, the office’s expert on foreign debt and human rights, has been asked by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council to study Panama’s efforts to improve financial transparency and reduce illicit […]
ROME Italy’s justice minister said on Thursday it was “a lie” to paint humanitarian ships saving migrants in the Mediterranean as criminals, responding to a Sicilian prosecutor who has repeatedly suggested some are colluding with Libyan smugglers. Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor of the Sicilian port city of Catania, has said he has evidence of phone calls between people smugglers and aid groups, but he has not […]
Like taxes, Windows 10 Creators Update is inevitable. The only thing you can control is when to get it. Right now, Microsoft advises you to wait. Although already available for manual installation, Microsoft advises the casual users to wait for the Windows 10 Creators Update to be offered on their devices. The company is still in the process of optimizing the software before it begins its next phase of […]
