BEIJING Even as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledges to ensure that blue skies never become a luxury, a state-backed firm is doing brisk business selling 48 yuan ($6.95) cans of fresh air bottled in a forest in western China. Each bottle is good for two minutes of uninterrupted use. From air-filter necklaces to anti-smog stockings, Chinese companies are touting innovative – if not odd – products to […]
Dubai, UAE, 17 March 2017 For over five decades, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has played a significant role in supporting the social, economic, and environmental development of Dubai, using a set of pioneering programmes and initiatives. This has contributed to the leading position DEWA enjoys today, and has reinforced the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to be more inclusive and effective. DEWA has launched […]
BEIRUT Ahrar al-Sham, a powerful Syrian rebel group, on Friday said the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State was behind a deadly mosque attack near Syria’s Aleppo that a war monitor said killed dozens of people on Thursday evening. Jets hit around a mosque in al-Jina village near Atarib in the western part of Aleppo province, a few miles (km) from Idlib province on Thursday, killing at least […]
Gullible as they are, eating around 800 million tons of insects in a year, the spiders are nature’s gift — natural pest control at no cost. This goes without saying that not all insects are pests, which is particularly true with spiders that spied on other insects for meals. “Our estimates for spiders appear to be of the same order of magnitude as the prey killed by […]
Composer Mohammed Fairouz is somewhat of a rarity. Not only is he an Emirati working in the western classical tradition, but he also moonlights as a foreign-policy commentator for the likes of The Independent and The National. It’s perhaps unsurprising, considering he’s the son of an Emirati diplomat and grew up living on several different continents. These days, the 31-year-old may be based in New York, but […]
By Umaru Fofana | FREETOWN FREETOWN A Christian pastor has found one of the world’s largest uncut diamonds – weighing 706 carats — in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kono region. The stone, a photograph of which was posted on the president’s official website, is being stored in the country’s central bank, government sources said. A local chief from Kono handed the stone to President Ernest Bai Koroma on […]
By John Davison | MOSUL, Iraq MOSUL, Iraq After five months of intense fighting, Iraqi forces have begun to drive back Islamic State into the dense and narrow-alleyed Old City of Mosul, with the mosque where its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in 2014 firmly in sight. Iraqi leaders say the battle to recapture Mosul is reaching its final stages, trumpeting each gain made against […]
Bahrain’s tourism industry is growing rapidly and is expected to reach $1 billion by 2020, according to figures released ahead of Arabian Travel Market 2017. Bahrain witnessed an 8.4 percent increase in inbound traffic in the third quarter of 2016 and a peak of 1.4 million arrivals during the month of August, a statement said. It added that the Gulf kingdom expects to welcome 15.8 million annual […]
BEIRUT Syria’s army high command said in a statement on Friday Israeli jets breached Syrian air space early in the morning and attacked a military target near Palmyra in what it described as an act of aggression that aided Islamic State. It said its air defences shot down one of the Israeli jets over what it called “occupied ground” and damaged another. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing […]
ZURICH Switzerland has rejected a Turkish request for legal assistance in prosecuting a suspect accused of insulting President Tayyip Erdogan, ruling that the comments in question were protected by Swiss free speech provisions. Switzerland helps foreign prosecutors only if the crime they are investigating is a criminal offence in Switzerland as well, and that was not the case here, a spokesman for the Federal Office of Justice […]
KHOST, Afghanistan A suicide car bomb detonated near an army base in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Friday, killing one soldier and wounding several before the army repelled at attack on the base by four gunmen, the district chief said. The blast, 50 metres (yards) from the base, was heard several miles away and damaged several shops, homes and a school, Akbar Zadran, the chief […]
PANAMA CITY: Banks based in Panama managed a record level of assets last year – $121 billion – despite fallout from the “Panama Papers” scandal, an industry body in the Central American country said Thursday. The International Banking Center, which represents Panamanian and foreign banks, said members’ assets “reached the record level of $121.075 billion” – a jump of 3.3 percent over 2015. Panama has come under […]
Rachel Maddow may have taken flak for dangling her scoop in front of Twitter users for more than an hour, but the suspense appears to have paid major ratings dividends. The Rachel Maddow Show was the No. 1 cable news program on Tuesday, according to Nielsen ratings, drawing 4.13 million total viewers. Last week, Maddow’s show drew just 2.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen data provided […]
Today, the Internet Society hosted a special Community Forum, “Youth on the Internet.” Hundreds of participants from across 6 continents joined the conversation to share their views on what the Internet means to them. A special thanks to our Next Generation Leaders who were panellists – Evelyn Namara (Uganda), Veronica Arroyo (Peru), Yuza Setiawan (Indonesia) for a vibrant discussion on topics such as how young people can […]
Netflix announced today that it would ditch its standard five-star rating scheme in favor of a much more simple thumbs up or down option. The streaming service said it had been testing thumbs up and down ratings “with hundreds of thousands of members” in 2016 – and it led to 200% more ratings being given. This makes sense – giving a five-star rating takes some thought, especially […]
Last month, it was revealed that Sega was planning a panel for this year’s SXSW 2017 featuring everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog Sonic and his two upcoming games, the classic collection Sonic Mania and the yet-untitled Project Sonic 2017. Sega followed through on its promise and was present at SXSW 2017. However, the announcements that it made elicited mixed reactions from attendees. ‘Sonic Mania’ Delayed The first announcement that Sega […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for March 16, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film creenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. Aarti Jhurani rounds up 10 things to do today in the UAE. Want to see your event listed here? Email us with the details and contact information at [email protected] newslide Al Ain Horse show Book […]
WASHINGTON — The United States military said that it had carried out an airstrike against a meeting of Qaeda militants on Thursday in Syria and that a number of the extremists had been killed. The American military statement came as Syria activists reported that a mosque had been bombed and that scores of innocent civilians had been killed and wounded. A spokesman for the United States Central […]
Authored by Michael Jabara Carley via The Strategic Culture Foundation, On 10 January 2017 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired his minister of external affairs, Stéphane Dion, and replaced him with Chrystia Freeland, who was then minister of international trade. This cabinet shuffle might not have gotten much public notice except that Dion is a distinguished parliamentarian, former leader of the party and leader of the opposition, […]
By Colin Packham | SYDNEY SYDNEY Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will never recover from the impact of unseasonably warm waters, scientists said on Thursday, as more of the World Heritage Site comes under renewed threat from a recent spike in sea temperatures. Warm seas around the reef killed some two-thirds of a 700 kilometre (496.4 miles) stretch of coral last year after warm water caused […]
Katherine Pace, CEO of children’s lifestyle tech startup Elanation, believes that while children are born “digital natives”, the more they are handed iPads, computers, mobile phones, wearables, and smart garments, the more cases of childhood obesity and digital depression or addiction emerge. In response, Pace and her co-founder Aimee Atkins decided to build a suite of technology products for kids, with a health-focused twist on the usual […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. U.S. President Donald Trump said a decision by a U.S. federal judge in Hawaii to issue an emergency halt on Wednesday to his revised travel ban was an example of “unprecedented judicial overreach.” “This is in the opinion of many an unprecedented judicial overreach,” Trump told a rally in Nashville, Tenn. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson) ‘); $(‘.second-article-divide’).append($(‘.slider.slider-module’)); $(‘.third-article-divide’).append(”); var median = (relatedItemsTotal / 2); var […]
It’s a story that’s cherished in the hearts of journalism students across the United States: Two enterprising Washington Post reporters, hungry for a big story, dig deep into Richard Nixon’s secretive presidency and expose wrongdoing that eventually pushes him out of office. Except it didn’t happen that way. Not exactly. In fact, the enterprising heroes of Watergate, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, were mostly chroniclers of an […]
By Simon Lewis and Wa Lone | SITTWE, Myanmar SITTWE, Myanmar Since security forces swept into their villages in northwestern Myanmar late last year, around 75,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled across the nearby border to Bangladesh. Many now fear that the authorities in Myanmar could make their displacement permanent. At least once a year, local administrators go house-to-house in the Rohingya villages of northern Rakhine State, lining […]
