Photo Rifaat al-Assad in Paris in 2011. A Spanish judge ordered the seizure of numerous properties associated with him or his family. Credit Michel Euler/Associated Press LONDON — Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, was named on Tuesday in a European money laundering investigation. A Spanish judge, José de la Mata Amaya, ordered the seizure of properties in Spain that are controlled by […]
Here is a selection of five charts that FT Markets believes are important signals for investors as the second quarter begins. 1. US equities How expensive does the US equity market look? This is perhaps the biggest question facing money managers. The answer is “very”, based on the S&P 500’s 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio, divided by the current low level of Vix, or implied volatility, as the […]
In this Monday, April 3, 2017, photo, Tim Berners-Lee poses outside his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Berners-Lee, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, is this year’s recipient of the A.M. Turing Award, computing’s version of the Nobel Prize. The honor comes with a $1 million prize funded by Google, one of many companies that made a fortune […]
The ‘Panama Papers‘ scandal was one of the biggest data leaks in history. But a year on from the exposé by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), it appears to be simply ‘business as usual’; as few governments have meaningfully tackled the issues of tax avoidance and evasion. Unparalleled leaks The leak was huge. It contained 11.5 million documents, and named more than 200,000 companies, 14,153 clients in […]
SEATTLE Bertha, one of the world’s largest boring machines, will cut through a thick concrete wall at midday on Tuesday if all goes according to plan, completing the most difficult phase of building a highway under the heart of downtown Seattle. Reaching open air through 5 feet (1.5 m) of concrete is a major step in one of the most ambitious American municipal projects in recent years. […]
JOHANNESBURG President Jacob Zuma said South Africa’s fiscal policies will not change and that people should remain calm after its credit rating was cut to junk following a political reshuffle that he defended as bringing new blood into the cabinet. But moments later, the ANC-allied Cosatu, South Africa’s largest trade union, said Zuma must step down after his change of finance ministers triggered the credit rating downgrade. […]
Tiny ‘black holes’ on a silicon wafer make for a new type of photodetector that could move more data at lower cost around the world or across a datacenter. (via WSJ)
MOSCOW Russia’s state investigative committee said on Tuesday that the deadly St Petersburg metro blast was caused by a bomb that had possibly been detonated by a man whose body parts were found in one of the train carriages. “It has been ascertained that an explosive device could have been detonated by a man, fragments of whose body were found in the third carriage of the train,” […]
HAMBURG Airbus (AIR.PA) has developed a new, slimmer staircase for its A380 super jumbo to allow for more seats in its latest effort to improve sales of the world’s largest airliner. Reuters reported last month that Airbus was considering doing away with the front “grand staircase” to lower the double-decker’s operating costs and boost fuel efficiency. Airbus cabin marketing executive Ingo Wuggetzer said that introducing a slimmer […]
Head and neck scans are one of the areas where Google’s DeepMind will be finetuning its health skills. Image: AKO Kung, Getty Images/iStockphoto Healthcare has always been seen as rich pickings for artificial intelligence: when IBM first decided to kit out Watson for use in the enterprise, its earliest commercial test was in cancer care. There are a number of reasons why health and artificial intelligence might […]
MANILA China and Southeast Asian countries have made progress in talks on a code of conduct for the disputed South China Sea, the Philippine acting foreign minister said on Tuesday. China claims almost the entire waterway, through which about $5 trillion in sea-borne goods pass every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. “We have made good progress on coming up with a […]
A day after an explosion ripped through St Petersburg’s metro system killing at least 14 people, authorities in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan identified a suspect in the attack as a Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen. There were conflicting reports as to whether the suspect was a suicide bomber or whether he had fled the scene. Citing an unnamed official at Kyrgyzstan’s national security committee, the Russian news […]
For traders trying to decipher if Opec’s output cuts are finally tightening the oil market, the evidence may lie out at sea. Data provided to the Financial Times show that crude oil being shipped over the oceans or stored on supertankers has dropped by as much as 16 per cent since the beginning of the year, in a signal that supplies could be dropping faster than many […]
BEIRUT A suspected gas attack by Syrian government or Russian jets killed at least 35 people, including nine children, in the northwestern province of Idlib on Tuesday, a British-based war monitoring group said. The Syrian army could not immediately be reached for comment. Damascus has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. The attack caused many people to choke or faint, and some had foam coming out of their […]
Submitted by James Durso “The lion is back in his den!” Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt, walked free last week after six years in detention on charges of murder and corruption. What does the U.S. have to show for it? Nothing. In January 2011, Egyptian activists planned protests against corruption, lack of economic growth, and the heavy-handed police tactics of the recent years. The protests were […]
Saudi Arabia posted its first rise in non-oil exports for eight months in January, according to latest data released by the country’s Central Department of Statistics and Information. The value of Saudi Arabia’s imports shrank 11.6 percent to SR43.2 billion from a year earlier in January while non-oil exports rose by 10.3 percent to more than SR14 billion over the same period. Non-oil exports traditionally account for […]
LONDON A common antibiotic called doxycycline can disrupt the formation of negative thoughts and fears in the brain and may prove useful in treating or preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to research by British and Swiss scientists. In a specially designed trial involving 76 healthy volunteers who were given either the drug or a placebo dummy pill, those who were on doxycycline had a 60 […]
KINSHASA, Congo — On Oct. 4, 2016, Etienne Tshisekedi made his final address to a crowd gathered in the courtyard of his party’s headquarters. The longtime leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s opposition was visibly frail, and the speech, slow and hesitant, lasted only three minutes. But the old man still managed to rev up his followers, many of whom strained to hear from the […]
Knowledge+™ provides Saudi leaders the skills to lead their own communications teams 04 April 2017Knowledge+™ provides Saudi leaders the skills to lead their own communications teams Al Riyadh – Leading public relations and communications agency Hill+Knowlton Strategies (H+K) has launched Knowledge+™, a communications training academy created as a solution to the talent development needs of the Middle East and North Africa region. Bridging the skills gap through […]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. The California Senate approved legislation on Monday to restrict police agencies statewide in assisting federal efforts to deport illegal immigrants, after the bill was amended to give local law enforcement more leeway in dealing with those who are violent offenders. Senate passage of the bill comes amid a heated debate in California and across the country over the “sanctuary” movement, in which many local government […]
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico A Mexican newspaper in the border city of Ciudad Juarez is shutting down due to the risk of violence after a string of killings of reporters around the country, the paper’s owner said on Monday. “Norte” ran a headline that said “Adios” on the front page of its Sunday edition and its owner, Oscar Cantu, explained in a letter he was shutting the newspaper […]
Benjamin J. Rhodes, who was a foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter: “Kushner in Iraq before the National Security Advisor or Secretary of State. Totally normal.” Continue reading the main story That was not the only way the trip broke with usual government practice: On Sunday evening, as word of Mr. Kushner’s trip began to spread, the White House incorrectly told reporters on […]
By Jane Wardell | WELLINGTON WELLINGTON The tail-end of powerful Cyclone Debbie, which left a trail of destruction in northeast Australia, lashed New Zealand on Tuesday, closing highways and causing a major landslip. The storm hit parts of New Zealand still recovering from a devastating earthquake last November and the New Zealand Met office warned of several days of heavy rain, with some regions set to receive […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Top White House officials met moderate and conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday in an effort to revive a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Key members of the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, invited a group of moderate Republicans known as the “Tuesday Group” to the White House. Pence then went to Capitol Hill to […]
