SEOUL Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologised to the country on Tuesday as she arrived at prosecutors’ offices for questioning as a criminal suspect in a widening corruption investigation that has already cost her the presidency. “I am sorry to the people. I will faithfully cooperate with questioning,” Park said in front of media at the steps of the office building, in her first comments directly […]
Rhetoric has recently trumped reality. It has become a misconceived bit of common “knowledge” that the United States of America is a bastion of free trade. Little could be further from the truth. The “freest” nation on earth, as we are taught to believe, imposes a staggering number of tariffs, import and export bans, sanctions and embargoes. Yet somehow “free trade” is blamed for the financial ills […]
By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Trump administration is considering sweeping sanctions aimed at cutting North Korea off from the global financial system as part of a broad review of measures to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threat, a senior U.S. official said on Monday. The sanctions would be part of a multi-pronged approach of increased economic and diplomatic pressure – especially on […]
Perched atop the Delta IV rocket as it blasted off in Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on March 18 was a US Air Force’s Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS-9) satellite. The WGS-9 will be the ninth member of the planned network of 10 military communication satellites in space. “WGS provides anytime, anywhere communications for soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and international partnership through broadcast, multicast, and point-to-point connections,” Robert Tarleton, […]
DUBAI // If the humanitarian and refugee crises affecting the region today are not properly addressed they will return as major issues for tomorrow’s generation, according to the Minister of Education. On Monday at the Youth Engagement and Global Refugee Crisis at the American University in Dubai, Hussain Al Hammadi said that the UAE was working on instilling a culture of volunteering in school curriculums to ensure […]
Bollywood A-lister Anushka Sharma has dismissed reports in the Indian media that her latest film, the Punjab-set romantic comedy Phillauri, was inspired by animated fantasy Corpse Bride. “I have seen those stories,” says Sharma. “I think what happens is when people see a film the first thing all they do is think of another film, and because there is a ghost and a love story, it is […]
Airline passengers travelling from eight Middle Eastern nations, including Jordan and Egypt, will be barred from carrying large electronic devices into the main cabin under new regulations from the Trump administration. The rules, which come into effect on Tuesday, also apply to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to a US official. Passengers from the eight countries will have to check laptop computers and other […]
Photo The bodies of migrants killed in an aerial attack on a boat off Yemen were brought to the port city of Al Hudaydah. Credit Abdel-Karim Muhammed/Associated Press The United Nations on Monday called for an inquiry into an aerial assault on a boat of migrants last week off Yemen’s Red Sea coast that left at least 42 people dead. The attack on the boat, believed to […]
By Steve Holland | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi thanked U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday for removing Iraq from a travel ban affecting several Muslim-majority countries and said he sought stronger cooperation in fighting Islamic State militants. The two leaders sat down face to face at the White House for the first time since Trump took office on Jan. 20. Abadi is trying to […]
NEW YORK Eric Trump, the 33-year-old middle son of U.S. President Donald Trump, said on Monday that his wife Lara was expecting to give birth to their first child in September. “We are adding a boy to #TeamTrump,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It’s been an amazing year. We are blessed!” Eric Trump and his wife, formerly Lara Yunaska, married in November 2014 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in […]
ATHENS Greek police intercepted eight suspect packages at a postal sorting centre in Athens on Monday, after the dispatch of booby-trapped deliveries to the International Monetary Fund in Paris and the German Finance Ministry. Authorities were on the lookout after the two packages laced with gunpowder slipped through checks last week. A Greek urban guerrilla group that sent letter bombs to foreign embassies in Athens and European […]
By Marwa Rashad and Celine Aswad | RIYADH/DUBAI RIYADH/DUBAI Saudi Arabia plans to tighten restrictions on foreign workers to pressure companies into hiring more Saudi citizens and reduce unemployment among Saudis, government sources said on Monday. The new policy could help the conservative kingdom achieve one goal of economic reforms launched last year to ease joblessness among Saudis from the current 12.1 percent to 9 percent by […]
(Image: Sighthound) Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sighthound has released an emotion recognizer on its Sighthound Cloud API for developers. The recognizer has a Detection API for person, face, gender, and facial landmark detections, and a Recognition API that developers can use for face and vehicle recognition applications. Its Cloud Recognition API makes it easy to add face recognition to applications. Currently, the API only supports Objects with a […]
The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 ripped through the AnTuTu benchmark, achieving a spectacular score no other smartphone has hit so far. Up until now, Apple’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus had been the top performers on the AnTuTu benchmark, scoring 172,001 and 181,316, respectively. On the Android front, the OnePlus 3T ruled the game, boasting a 162,423 score. Samsung Galaxy S8 AnTuTu Benchmark It now looks like […]
NEW YORK // A chilly climate isn’t keeping Norway from basking in the glow of being named the world’s happiest country. It surged from fourth place in last year’s UN assessment all the way to the top spot, according to the World Happiness Report 2017 released on Monday. Other top countries on the list included Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland, as well as nearby Switzerland. “All of […]
When Jhumpa Lahiri decided to learn Italian, she took the plunge. The Namesake author moved her entire family to Rome in 2013 and spent several years refusing to read or write another word in English. Born to Bengali-speaking Indian parents in London and raised in the United States, 49-year-old Lahiri decided the only way to fully immerse herself in an unfamiliar language was to renounce her own. […]
When Tim Armour graduated from Middlebury College, a liberal arts institution in Vermont, he faced a conundrum. He could either accept a graduate programme slot at a West Coast investment group, or go and run a windsurf shop in Florida. Because he loved to windsurf but did not want to turn down a more sensible job, he asked the asset manager whether he could put off the […]
UAE-based mother, baby and child e-commerce website Mumzworld has commenced talks to raise new funds for expansion across the non-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, its founder says. In February 2016, the company successfully closed its Series B funding with multi-million dollar investments led by Wamda Capital, twofour54, and Endeavor Catalyst, aimed to support its expansion in the GCC. “We are now across the GCC. The UAE and […]
By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Democrats raised questions on Monday about whether Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, would rule against abortion rights and gun control while favouring corporations as his Senate confirmation hearing began, with the court’s ideological balance at stake. Judiciary Committee Republicans praised Gorsuch, the conservative appeals court judge from Colorado nominated by Trump on Jan. 31, […]
It has been clear for months that Mosul will be liberated. And sure enough, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. assistance and firepower are now moving to clear the remaining western neighborhoods of Iraq’s second-biggest city. Islamic State leaders have reportedly fled the city and military operations will soon be complete. Success in Mosul is a testament to the determination of the Iraqi forces that have lead this […]
WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey on Monday confirmed the agency was investigating possible Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election including any links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow. Comey told a congressional hearing on Russian activities that the probe “includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any […]
NEW YORK Billionaire philanthropist David Rockefeller, former head of Chase Manhattan Corp and patriarch of one of the most famous and influential American families, died on Monday, a family spokesman said. He was 101. Rockefeller, who reportedly gave away nearly $2 billion in his lifetime, died in his sleep of congestive heart failure at his home in Pocantico Hills, New York, spokesman Fraser Seitel said in a […]
JUBA A plane belonging to a small South Sudanese airline crash-landed at the airport in the northwestern town of Wau on Monday, injuring several passengers, witnesses said. “No one died but there are a number of injured people right now,” one of the local aid workers near the scene of the crash told Reuters. Forty-four passengers were on board the plane belonging to South Supreme Airlines, officials […]
Credit: Disney Research Disney Research scientists have found innovative ways to enhance virtual experiences involving interactions with physical objects by showing how a person using a virtual reality system can use it to reliably catch a real ball. “Catching and feeling the real ball in your hand makes VR much richer, more believable, more exciting, more interactive, more dynamic, more real,” said Günter Niemeyer, senior research scientist. […]
