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 […]
DUBAI A Saudi court on Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death for spying for Iran, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television reported. The 15 were among 32 people — comprising 30 Saudi Shi’ite Muslims, one Iranian and an Afghan — who were detained in 2013 on charges of spying for Iran and went on trial in February. There were no immediate details on the outcome of the trial for the […]
Submitted by Brian Cloughley via Strategic-Culture.org, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the world’s five «nuclear weapons states», a description officially recognised in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which lays down that «each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices…» It is apparent that the word ‘transfer’ involves ownership and not location, […]
ABU DHABI // As ties between Turkey and the UAE grow increasingly warm, Ankara’s new ambassador — formerly the most senior Middle East official in the Turkish foreign ministry — says his appointment shows his country is serious about improving bilateral ties. “That is my mission here,” Ambassador Can Dizdar, who began his tenure in October, told The National. “I want to increase the pace, and achieve […]
Israeli audio social media company HearMeOut is now trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) after raising AU$6.5 million at 20 cents per share from a consortium of domestic and international institutional investors. The top shareholder in HearMeOut is Russian VC firm Vaizra Investments, launched by the founders of Russian Facebook rival VK.com. The funding will be used for investment in media and automotive partnerships as well […]
By Hamid Shalizi | WAMA, Afghanistan WAMA, Afghanistan Afghan authorities are appealing to local elders in the remote eastern province of Nuristan to help prevent militants loyal to Islamic State from expanding into new territory. The initiative comes as fighters and their families, scattered in recent months by U.S. and Afghan air strikes and special forces ground operations, seek new safe havens. The mountainous and thickly forested […]
Muscat, December 06, 2016 Bank Sohar endeavours to provide its customers with the highest possible level of banking security at all times. The recent introduction of ‘Chip and Pin’ technology into its Excel Debit Cards comes as part of this commitment and the distribution of these cards to customers is now well under way across the Bank’s branch network. Customers still using the older magnetic stripe cards […]
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday he would name retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser require Senate confirmation: DEFENCE SECRETARY: JAMES MATTIS Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general known for his tough talk, […]
By Roberta Rampton and Ben Blanchard | WASHINGTON/BEIJING WASHINGTON/BEIJING The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s leader last week, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing. The statement from a spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted concerns about the potential fallout from Trump’s unusual call with Taiwan President […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS Russia and China on Monday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have demanded a seven-day truce in Syria’s Aleppo, with Russia arguing it would allow rebels to regroup and that time was needed for talks between Washington and Moscow. It was the sixth time Russia has vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria since the conflict started […]
The stable version of the Android 7.1.1 Nougat was previously reported to be launching on Dec. 6. The operating system update is said to coincide with the December security patch. However, a report claims that Google has started to roll out Android 7.1.1 Nougat earlier than the mentioned date, which means that owners of the devices who will receive the update can expect it to arrive very […]
By Dominic Evans and Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD Western-backed Iraqi forces have begun shelling parts of west Mosul, residents said, in preparation for a new front against Islamic State seven weeks into a difficult campaign to drive the militants from the city. Federal police forces, stationed a few miles (km) south of Mosul, on the west bank of the Tigris river that divides the city, have […]
ATHENS A Greek court ruled against the extradition to Turkey of three Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece after an abortive coup attempt against President Tayyip Erdogan in July, their lawyer and court officials said on Monday. Turkey said the soldiers, eight in total, were involved in a July 16 coup attempt, an allegation they have denied. “I am very pleased with the ruling, they shouldn’t have […]
BEIJING Iran’s nuclear deal with six major powers should continue regardless of changes in the internal situation of participant nations, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iran’s visiting foreign minister during a meeting in Beijing on Monday. The future of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear programme has been thrown into jeopardy with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office next month. During his election campaign […]
Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu and one of India’s most powerful politicians, was in “very critical” condition Monday, a day after she suffered a cardiac arrest, according to authorities at the hospital where she is being treated. Ms. Jayalalithaa, who has a cult-like following, was on life support systems, Apollo Hospitals said in statement Monday afternoon. Four doctors from New […]
BEIJING China’s Foreign Ministry expressed displeasure on Monday after President Barack Obama blocked a Chinese investment fund from acquiring the U.S. business of German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron (AIXGn.DE). Obama’s executive order barring China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC) from completing the acquisition of a German company with American assets was one of only a few such instances in which a U.S. president has blocked a […]
By Idrees Ali | ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT While the fight to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State is going to be difficult, it is “possible” it could be complete before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen are participating […]
In late July, Moussa Aksar, the director of Niger’s L’Évènement newspaper, answered his phone and heard a familiar voice warning him that he was, once again, in danger. “Be careful,” a friendly source told Aksar. “Look out for yourself and be careful what you say on the phone.” Aksar had just published Niger’s first exposé from the Panama Papers, the investigation based on a leak of documents […]
Following a successful listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on November 17 with a market capitalisation of AU$23 million, conversational commerce company Flamingo is now looking at Australia as a key market, with online lending marketplace DirectMoney being announced as its first local client. Born in Australia and based in the US, Flamingo is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that provides an “intelligent guided selling platform” to […]
The Department of Human Services (DHS) has implemented an online compliance system that is using automation to help locate funds owed to the Commonwealth. Approximately AU$4.5 million that has gone awry is being pointed to each day by the online compliance system, allowing DHS to kick off the process to reclaim the funds. Before the new system, only AU$295,000 in missing funds was highlighted every 24 hours. […]
BEIRUT As Syrian government forces advanced into Aleppo’s rebel-held al-Sakhour district, Hasan al-Ali said he faced the choice of staying put and being caught by the army, or fleeing into a shrinking rebel enclave under relentless bombardment. A father of three children, he opted for the latter, though food, fuel, water and medicine are running critically low in rebel-held areas, such is his fear of the Syrian […]
Boston Dynamics has already developed a robot that can maintain its balance in uneven terrain involving a four-legged robot called BigDog. Now, the company through a third-party technology has just achieved the same feat but this time it involves a humanoid robot. IHMC Algorithm The new development is attributed to an algorithm developed by the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Robotics Lab in Florida, which allows humanoid […]
By Ali Sawafta | RAMALLAH, West Bank RAMALLAH, West Bank Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas kept a strong grip on his Fatah movement in an election in which his loyalists remained dominant in its top decision-making body, final results showed on Sunday. The outcome of the voting, held on Saturday during the first congress of Abbas’s Fatah party for seven years, signalled no change in a policy of […]
