By Crispian Balmer | ROME ROME A ‘No’ vote in Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reform would be a slap in the face to Europe, said the head of the rightist Northern League, pledging to pull Italy from the euro if he wins the next national elections. Matteo Salvini, who has said he would run for prime minister, has helped lead the campaign against the government’s planned overhaul […]
GENEVA About 30,000 people are receiving aid after fleeing the besieged eastern zone of the Syrian city of Aleppo in the past few days, taking the total number of displaced people in the city to 400,000, U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday. The U.N. has food for 150,000 people ready in western Aleppo but it still cannot reach roughly 200,000 who remain in the […]
Saudi Arabia is boosting the firepower of its sovereign wealth fund to accelerate deal-making and lessen the country’s dependence on oil. The Public Investment Fund is receiving a 100 billion-riyal ($27 billion) transfer from official reserves, according to a statement Wednesday on the SPA official news agency, increasing its existing assets by about 17 percent. The injection will help the fund diversify investments and revenues, it said. The […]
DUBAI // The UAE flag was raised after a minute’s silence in tribute to the country’s heroes, and Obaid Al Qasbi’s heart swelled with patriotism and pride. Mr Al Qasbi, 70, an Emirati from Dubai, watched along with hundreds of others as Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of State for Tolerance, hoisted the country’s flag at the Commemoration Day ceremony at Zayed University. “This day is one […]
The early idealism of the Internet was imagined as some great network that would somehow free the world’s oppressed people and lead to a grand utopian future. All the world’s information would be available at the touch of a button, greater participation in government by the people would be easy, and so on. None of this has happened or will happen. Instead, the American public […]
OPEC has agreed its first limit on oil output since 2008, an OPEC source told Reuters after Saudi Arabia said it was prepared to accept “a big hit” on production and agree to arch-rival Iran freezing output at pre-sanctions levels. Brent crude futures jumped 8 percent to more than $50 a barrel on hopes Riyadh had finally reached a compromise with Iran after insisting in recent weeks […]
OPEC clinched a deal to curtail oil supply, confounding skeptics as the need to clear a record global crude glut — and prove the group’s credibility — brought its first cuts in eight years. Crude rose as much as 8.8 percent in London. OPEC will reduce output to 32.5 million barrels a day, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters in Vienna Wednesday. The breakthrough deal showed […]
In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016, file photo, a driver uses her mobile phone while sitting in traffic in Sacramento, Calif. The government wants smartphone makers to lock out most apps when the phone is being used by someone driving a car. The voluntary guidelines unveiled Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, are designed to reduce crashes caused by drivers distracted by phones. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) The government […]
Thanks to mysteriously escalating prices, channels you don’t want, and a lack of competitive options, cable TV and Internet companies are widely hated in the US. Cord cutting is supposed to save us from at least some of that. But AT&T’s new DirecTV Now plan just transplants the cable model into the cord-cutter world. It’s full of traps and pitfalls for consumers, the biggest of […]
Ulster Bank Parent RBS Fails Bank of England Stress Test “Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)(RBS.L) will cut costs and sell assets to boost capital levels, it said on Wednesday after failing this year’s Bank of England stress test, which warned of a “challenging” outlook for Britain’s financial system. The state-backed lender rushed out a statement following the announcement to say it would take a range of actions, including […]
Toyota wants to release a new version of its hydrogen-powered Mirai in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, underscoring its commitment to fuel-cell vehicles despite joining the global market for battery-powered cars. “The 2020 Olympics could be the venue to showcase [the new Mirai] to the world,” Kiyotaka Ise, head of advanced research and development at Toyota, told the Financial Times. The world’s top selling carmaker this […]
By Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler | VIENNA VIENNA OPEC began on Wednesday debating a deal to curtail oil production and prop up the price of crude, with Iran and Iraq resisting pressure from Saudi Arabia to participate fully in any action. Ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries started an informal meeting at 0700 GMT at the Vienna Park Hyatt hotel and were […]
Submitted by Kelli Sladick via Tenth Amendment Center, During the last eight years, the Obama administration failed to live up to its promise reverse the Bush era’s mass surveillance of American citizens. In fact, it was expanded and justified. If you were silent, the sweeping power controlled by the president may not be on your radar for the right reasons. While there is a deep fear resonating, […]
COLOGNE, Germany Ford (F.N) wants to raise profitability in Europe by adding higher-margin versions of the Fiesta subcompact, its best-selling regional model, the carmaker’s top European executive said. High-volume carmakers such as Ford have for several years been squeezed in a downmarket expansion by luxury rivals including Daimler’s (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) Audi. But Ford, which already targets premium buyers with higher-end versions of some of […]
Submitted by Giuseppe Macri via InsideSources.com, The Obama administration’s revolving door with Google has been anything but subtle over the last eight years, and a new report from a government watchdog out this week shows the Silicon Valley giant hoped to extend that relationship to what many expected would be a Hillary Clinton presidency. According to Campaign for Accountability, a non-profit government watchdog, that door was already […]
DUBAI // Pupils across the UAE continue to improve their maths and science skills, but are still performing below international average, according to a global study released on Tuesday. More than 600,000 students around the world participated in TIMSS, or the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies, a large-scale international assessment of mathematics and science education for pupils in grades 4 and 8 that is carried […]
By Jonathan Stempel Shmaltz Brewing Co says some of its beer names, including several with Jewish themes, “can be a bit unorthodox.” Now a large California winery wants one of those names to be reformed. Sutter Home Winery Inc sued Shmaltz late on Monday, accusing the brewery of infringing its “Menage a Trois” trademark by selling a 12-pack of its beers with the “MANNAge a Trois” name. […]
Apple’s iPhone is apparently the most coveted holiday item this year, according to a survey conducted by investment firm Piper Jaffray. While Apple stirred a bit of a controversy with its latest devices, particularly the iPhone 7 with no headphone jack and the MacBook Pro with redesigned (read: missing) ports, it still tops the holiday wish lists this year. Apple devices have always been in high demand, but it […]
5836 25 by Shannon K. O’Neil November 11, 2016 A man displays a new 2000 Indian rupee banknote after withdrawing from a bank (Reuters/Mukesh Gupta). France’s Anticorruption ReformsAfter years of criticism for failing to prosecute foreign bribery, France adopted a new anticorruption law that will force companies doing business on its soil to take more aggressive preventative measures, and also gives the government stronger tools to fight […]
Iran and Iraq are resisting pressure from Saudi Arabia to curtail oil production, making it hard for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to reach a global output-limiting deal when it meets on Wednesday. OPEC sources told Reuters a meeting of experts in Vienna on Monday failed to bridge differences between OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, and the group’s second- and third-largest producers over the […]
FRANKFURT Europe’s space agency expects its member states to back major programmes such as the International Space Station and the ExoMars mission to the Red Planet this week, even if it does not receive the full 11 billion euros ($11.6 billion) of funding it is requesting, its director general said. “If we get only 90 percent of the funding then this is not a catastrophe,” Jan Woerner […]
Government Communications Headquarters, the UK signals intelligence agency, in Cheltenham, United Kingdom. (UK Ministry of Defence). Alex Grigsby is the assistant director for the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Two weeks ago, with much fanfare, the United Kingdom released a new strategy that sets out UK government’s approach to improving the country’s cybersecurity over the next five years. It follows the UK’s previous […]
But the changes were not enough. Alexandrians dug deeper into provincialism and their faith. In a city once famed for its European-style liberalism, the Muslim Brotherhood became a powerful force. The ultraconservative Salafi movement built its base. And on New Year’s Day in 2011, the city became the scene of some of Egypt’s worst sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians in modern history. The seeds of the […]
I never thought it could happen. I never thought that Donald Trump would become President of the United States. I just couldn’t conceive of a world in which a celebrity competition reality star, oft-failed businessman, former Comedy Central Roastee, and friend of Grimace would be tapped to lead the greatest economy and military the planet has ever known. And I wasn’t the only one. […]
