Amid all the attempts to guess what Donald Trump’s election means for Europe’s trade, security and populist politicians, one conclusion stands out: his administration may be good news for the European Central Bank. The reason is not any particular act by the president-elect; rather, it is the reaction of markets, which could help the European economy and give the central bank more room to act. Foreign exchange […]
CAIRO — An Egyptian criminal court sentenced a police officer to life in prison on Wednesday for fatally shooting a man who refused to give him a free cup of tea. It was an unusual move by a court in a country where the police are generally allowed to act with impunity, human rights activists said. The shooting in April, in which the tea vendor was killed […]
In June this year, a video titled The DNA Journey went viral. In it, 67 people from all over the world took a closer look at their ancestry. After a quick spit into a jar, their DNA was sent away and the participants were asked to return two weeks later. Many of the results were, to say the least, surprising. Those who expressed a strong sense of […]
Photo The remains of Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty were carried by an Army team at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last week. Credit Steve Ruark/Associated Press JERUSALEM — American officials said on Wednesday that they were investigating the killing of three United States soldiers at a Jordanian air base this month as a possible terrorist attack and dismissed suggestions that the three had done anything […]
Donald Trump has pushed back on claims that infighting is hampering the critical process of putting in place his cabinet and top officials, insisting that his presidential transition is on track despite a series of dismissals and resignations. “It is going so smoothly,” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday, saying reports of chaos inside the team now headed by Mike Pence, his vice-president, were “totally wrong”. He also denied the transition […]
ABU DHABI // The security of the Gulf states is a shared responsibility where a threat against one will be considered a threat against all, Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, said on Wednesday. “We will protect our common security in the Gulf region in actions not in words. We will build an insusceptible barrier to fend off any threat to […]
Photo Destroyed buildings in the Syrian village of Kfar Jales, near Idlib, on Wednesday, following air strikes by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Credit Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images LONDON — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in his first remarks since the American election, has called President-elect Donald J. Trump “a natural ally, together with the Russians, Iranians and many other countries” in the struggle against […]
German security officials have warned that Russia may try to interfere in Germany’s parliamentary election next year amid claims that Moscow meddled in this month’s US presidential poll. Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the domestic BfV intelligence agency, expressed concern that the Kremlin was seeking “to influence public opinion and decision-making processes” in Germany. His warning echoes comments by Chancellor Angela Merkel who said last week that there were […]
JEDDAH: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned a bill by the Israeli occupation government aimed at legitimizing colonial settlement areas in the occupied Palestinian territories including Al-Quds Al-Shareef.In a statement issued on Tuesday, it stated that these illegitimate measures undertaken by Israel with a view to consolidating its occupation and colonial settlement are null and void by virtue of international law and relevant UN resolutions.The […]
Russia launched its long-awaited offensive across Syria on Tuesday just hours after Vladimir Putin discussed the conflict with Donald Trump amid growing questions about how the incoming American president will deal with his Russian counterpart. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the air strikes were targeting Isis and Syrian jihadis, their ammunition depots and training camps, in the provinces of Idlib and Homs. Opposition activists said the […]
Long-simmering tensions between Donald Trump and the Washington foreign policy establishment burst into the open on Tuesday after a respected former congressman quit the transition team and a leading neoconservative publicly warned colleagues not to join the incoming administration. Mike Rogers, former chair of the House intelligence committee who had been one of the senior figures advising the transition on national security, stepped down as head of […]
By Steve Holland and Emily Stephenson | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump closed in on naming two early Wall Street backers to key economic positions but jettisoned a national security expert from his transition team on Tuesday, a sign of the premium he places on loyalty as he confronts the task of building his administration. Trump, a Republican outsider who won a surprise election victory […]
MARRAKECH // The UAE is investing in “rain-enhancement” as lack of water could become a matter of national and environmental security, meteorologists have told the Conference of Parties 22. Scientists have been looking at techniques such as cloud-seeding and the first annual grant of US$5 million has been awarded to researchers seeking solutions. “Rain enhancement is a possible solution to water security, which is in turn related […]
Photo Mohamed Morsi, the ousted Egyptian president, during his trial in Cairo in June. Credit Mohamed Hossam/European Pressphoto Agency CAIRO — One of Egypt’s highest courts overturned a death sentence imposed on Mohamed Morsi, who was the country’s first democratically elected president and was ousted in 2013 by the military. Mr. Morsi, who is serving a life sentence in prison for offenses related to espionage and inciting […]
BERLIN — A German organization that calls itself the True Religion and that is known for distributing German-language copies of the Quran was outlawed on Tuesday, after the authorities accused it of recruiting jihadists to fight in Iraq and Syria. Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister, said the government had banned the True Religion organization, which is also known as Read (as in the instruction to […]
CAIRO — One of Egypt’s highest courts overturned a death sentence imposed on Mohamed Morsi, who was the country’s first democratically elected president and was ousted in 2013 by the military. Mr. Morsi, who is serving a life sentence in prison for offenses related to espionage and inciting violence, is likely to remain in prison indefinitely. The annulment of his death sentence — as well as the […]
November 15, 2016 by: Kathrin Hille in Moscow Vladimir Putin has urged Donald Trump to co-operate on the war in Syria and develop economic ties in his first push to improve strained Russian relations with the US following America’s election. The Russian president spoke by telephone with Mr Trump, the US president-elect, late on Monday and expressed a “willingness to build a dialogue between partners with the […]
DUBAI // A gang loading stolen cables from a du signal station fled leaving even their vehicle when they were spotted by a security guard, Dubai Criminal Court heard on Tuesday. Prosecutors said that on April 18 last year the 22-year-old Pakistani defendant and a number of unidentified men stopped their van near the du station in Jebel Ali at about 4pm and broke the lock to […]
Photo Donald Trump at a rally against the Iran deal in Washington last year. He vowed during his campaign to renegotiate or renounce the agreement. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Seventy-six national security experts urged President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday to reverse his hostility to the nuclear agreement signed with Iran last year and to use it as a tool to ease other tensions with […]
Tokyo is struggling to find out who is advising Donald Trump on Japan policy, as the president-elect prepares to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York this week in what will be his first meeting with a foreign leader since his victory over Hillary Clinton. Four former US officials said the Japanese embassy had been contacting Asia experts in Washington to identify Trump advisers on Japan […]
Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and other rightist politicians jumped to make hay of the change. Continue reading the main story Yoav Kish, a Likud member of Parliament, called for the expansion of Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank; Meir Turgeman, the chairman of Jerusalem’s municipal planning committee, said he would now bring long-frozen plans for thousands of Jewish homes in the fiercely contested […]
ABU DHABI // Three people were jailed on Monday by the Federal Supreme Court for joining terror groups. The Emirati was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the court’s state security division, aftering being convicted of joining a terrorist organisation and taking on a leadership role. The court also placed the man under observation for three years after he serves his jail term, reported Wam, the […]
14 November 2016 The Middle East and Africa (MEA) will experience the fastest rate of digitization in the world according to analysts IHS Markit. Shipments of LTE technologies* increased by more than 300 per cent in 2015, and the MEA region is projected to be one of the world’s fastest growth markets for TETRA critical communications technology Led by TETRA, the MEA PMR market was the fastest […]
By Hugh Bronstein | BUENOS AIRES BUENOS AIRES Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president raises concern that Washington may increase the intrusiveness of domestic intelligence gathering, former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden said on Monday, warning that democratic checks and balances were losing ground to authoritarianism. Snowden lives in Moscow under an asylum deal after he leaked classified information in 2013 that triggered an international furore […]
