ASTANA Kazakhstan’s state security service is conducting a special operation in the city of Aktobe, the site of a deadly Islamist attack in June, the Central Asian nation’s government said on Wednesday. “Detentions are being made in different parts of the city,” a spokesman for the Information and Communications Ministry said, declining to provide details. The June attack, in which at least 20 people were killed, targeted […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
By Beth Pinsker | NEW YORK NEW YORK Want to save a few quick bucks on your holiday shopping? Your credit card may offer some little-known perks that could save you money both upfront and after the purchase. Of the 100 most popular credit cards, 81 offered some kind of extended warranty, according to a study released on Wednesday from Creditcards.com, a card rating website run by […]
Abu Dhabi // Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid led the UAE delegation to the two-day GCC Summit on Tuesday, which is also being attended by UK prime minister Theresa May as she looks to expand trade ties ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union. The 37th annual talks among the six Gulf member states in Manama were expected to focus on security within the GCC, economic integration […]
Attorney Peter Smith, research editor for the Center, has filed all 17 lawsuits for the Center, ten of which the Center either won or settled. In response to these lawsuits, federal agencies have disclosed records involving government contracts related to Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s initiative to fight AIDS in foreign countries, and audits of the Medicare Advantage program. “The 17 represent just a small fraction of the thousands of […]
Investment in Manufacturing Innovative Medicines Supports the Kingdom’s “Vision 2030” Aspirations 06 December 2016 Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), known as Merck & Co, Inc. in the US and Canada, has today highlighted the initiation of the manufacturing investment agreement with Pharma Pharmaceutical Industries (PPI). This deal enables PPI to exclusively manufacture many of the MSD medicines approved by the Saudi Food & Drug Authority and distributed […]
By Phil Stewart and Amy Tennery | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK WASHINGTON/NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump urged the government on Tuesday to cancel an order with Boeing Co (BA.N) for a revamped Air Force One – a prominent symbol of the U.S. presidency – complaining that costs were out of control. It was the latest example of Trump using his podium, often via brief Twitter messages, to rattle […]
By Hani Amara | SIRTE, Libya SIRTE, Libya Libyan forces backed by U.S. air strikes finished clearing the last Islamic State holdout in Sirte on Tuesday after a near seven-month battle for the militant group’s former North African stronghold. The forces gained full control over a final patch of ground in Sirte’s Ghiza Bahriya district after hours of clashes. Several dozen women and children who had been […]
The 2016 edition of the Samsung Galaxy A5, released in January of this year, received a patch in early November to fix a critical security issue. Samsung did not disclose any specific details regarding the issue that the November update solved, perhaps to ward off attackers from looking for similar exploits. Unfortunately, it seems that there are more of such vulnerabilities in the Galaxy A5, as Samsung […]
Speaking at the session were H.E. Saeed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA; H.E. Dr. Aisha Butti bin Bishr of the Smart Dubai Office; Academic Researcher Vivek Wadhwa; and Bibop G. Gresta and Dirk Ahlborn of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Inc. Dubai, December 6, 2016 A panel discussion exploring “Future Cities” and the role that knowledge plays in that regard concluded the sessions of day one of […]
DUBAI An investigative body set up by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Tuesday it should apologise for a deadly attack on a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in August that the group said killed 11 people. But the Joint Group to Assess Incidents found the coalition was not responsible for or had legitimately targeted fighters in four other incidents that rights groups blamed on […]
Popular web hosting company GoDaddy has acquired start-up company WP Curve, which offers services and support for WordPress sites. GoDaddy Buys WP Curve Dan Norris and Alex McClafferty created WP Curve three years ago as a catch-all services provider for WordPress sites. It offers services such as boosting security, increasing search engine traffic and more. It has almost 1,000 subscribers and over 44,000 orders completed since its conception. Specific details […]
A man holds up his mobile phone showing a M-Pesa mobile money transaction page for the photographer at an open air market in Kibera in Kenya’s capital Nairobi (Reuters/Noor Khamis). This post features a conversation with Georgia Levenson Keohane, executive director of the Pershing Square Foundation, adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, and author of Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is […]
NEW DELHI—Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the powerful chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu whose fervent following was matched by few other Indian politicians, died late Monday after she failed to recover from cardiac arrest. The daughter of an actress in Tamil-language films, Ms. Jayalalithaa’s first career was in show business. She was featured in more than 100 movies, which catapulted her to fame before she turned to the political arena […]
By Angus McDowall , John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay | BEIRUT/GENEVA BEIRUT/GENEVA Syria’s army and allies closed in on areas near Aleppo’s Old City on Tuesday, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five year civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold. Rebels said on Tuesday they would never abandon Aleppo, after reports that U.S. and Russian diplomats […]
MOSCOW: Russia’s top diplomat on Tuesday accused Washington of backtracking on planned talks in Geneva over a pullout of opposition forces from Syria’s Aleppo to “buy time” for those battling leader Bashar Assad.“It looks like an attempt to buy time for the rebels to have a breather, take a pause and replenish their reserves,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists, saying Moscow had the impression “a serious […]
By Ahmed Rasheed and Patrick Markey | BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq Iraqi army units surged towards the centre of Mosul on Tuesday in an attack from the city’s southeastern edges that could give fresh impetus to the seven-week-old battle for Islamic State’s Iraqi stronghold. Campaign commander Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah was quoted by Iraqi television as saying troops had entered Salam Hospital, less than a […]
Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. It’s so quaint that politicians still get pissed at the press and utter some version of Mark Twain’s, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” That was underscored again Monday by Donald Trump, who tweeted, […]
By Katy Migiro NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Food rations to more than 400,000 refugees in Kenya have been halved due to severe funding shortages, and existing supplies will run out completely at the end of February, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Kenya hosts 434,000 refugees from 21 countries, mainly from war-torn neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia, in two overcrowded camps on its northern borders. “We […]
InfoComm MEA Opens Today as Region’s Leading A/V Event, Showcasing Holograms, Videoboards, and Audio and Lighting Systems DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – 6 December 2016 Holograms, massive videoboards, and state-of-the-art audio and lighting displays will be among the audiovisual innovations set to make Expo 2020 in Dubai the world’s most technologically advanced event. The UAE is one of the fastest-growing professional audiovisual markets in one of […]
The vast majority of UAE-based CEOs are confident about prospects for their organisations over the next three years, according to the KPMG 2016 CEO Outlook report. The survey findings revealed that 76 percent of polled UAE-based CEOs – compared to 41 percent of global CEOs – believe that their business will change significantly over the next three years. The survey also found that UAE bosses believe that […]
In interviews with The New York Times, a former Taliban finance minister described how he traveled to Saudi Arabia for years raising money while ostensibly on pilgrimage. The Taliban have also been allowed to raise additional millions by extorting “taxes” by pressing hundreds of thousands of Pashtun guest workers in the kingdom and menacing their families back home, according to Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser. […]
BAGHDAD Iraqi army units launched a fresh assault in southeast Mosul on Tuesday and a senior commander was quoted as saying an armoured division had advanced to within less than a mile (1.5 km) of the Tigris River running through the city centre. Iraqi television quoted operations commander Lieutenant-General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah as saying troops had entered the Salam Hospital in the southeastern neighbourhood of Wahda, […]
DUBAI // A security guard was stabbed in the buttocks after he was tied up by four men who were attempting to steal electrical cables from a construction site. The Pakistanis defendants, aged between 34 and 44, were spotted by the guard as they sneaked into the site in Jebel Ali in August this year. “I spotted three men sneaking under the metal fence at 1am, one […]
