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By David Ljunggren and Rod Nickel | OTTAWA/WINNIPEG OTTAWA/WINNIPEG Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking a low key approach to dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking to avoid clashes while indirectly signalling the two leaders’ differences to a domestic audience. Insiders acknowledge the cautious strategy could anger progressives whose support helped bring Trudeau to power in 2015 but say for now, he has no choice […]

By Isabel Coles | RASHIDIYA, Iraq RASHIDIYA, Iraq His name was Ayman, but the couple who brought the boy home to their Iraqi village after buying him for $500 called him Ahmed. Islamic State militants had killed or enslaved Ayman’s parents in their purge of the Yazidi religious minority to which he belongs, then sold the four-year-old to Umm and Abu Ahmed, who are Muslims. For the […]

ANKARA A bill to change the Turkish constitution and usher in the executive presidency long sought by President Tayyip Erdogan has been formally presented to Erdogan, broadcaster NTV, a procedural step that will pave the way for an April referendum. Once Erdogan approves the bill, which is he is widely expected to do, the referendum will then likely be held on a Sunday in early April. (Reporting […]

Police stormed a prison building in Delaware on Thursday to end an 18-1/2-hour hostage standoff by prisoners that left one corrections officer dead and another injured. The officers, who had been held as hostages, were removed at about 5 a.m. from the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in the town of Smyrna after state police officers retook the prison’s C Building, Delaware’s Department of Correction said in […]

Tiger Woods felt the pain, figuratively at least, after the former world number one failed to make a single birdie in recording a miserable five-over 77 on the opening day of the Dubai Desert Classic on Thursday. The creaking American, now ranked 666th after his long injury layoff, trailed Spain’s early leader Sergio Garcia by 12 shots and with only three players below him on the leaderboard […]

Days after Gmail users all over the world fell victim to a phishing scam, it seems that PayPal users are vulnerable as well as they are being targeted by hackers to give up login credentials. According to this phishing scam, fake PayPal pages have been prepared to trap unsuspecting users into giving up their personal data. The pages are highly convincing as baits because they look very real […]

Why Frankfurt? The Frankfurt of common conception and the Frankfurt of reality are very different things. Before arrival it tends to be a hazy cross between a giant conference centre churning through huge trade shows and bank HQs in modern glass towers. There is something to this – there’s surely nowhere else in the world that comes down as far on the business side of the business […]

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La Villette, a corrugated iron convention hall on the northern rim of Paris, was meant to be François Fillon’s launch pad towards the French presidency after winning the centre-right nomination in a landslide. But on Sunday he stood in the packed venue, days after claims emerged that the Republican candidate had allegedly employed his wife in a fake parliamentary job for years and, suddenly, victory seemed to […]

For Syrians, Mr. Trump is merely pushing to extremes a process that has been going on for years. The situation of the refugees, and the underprivileged in general, has been worsening everywhere for a generation. Syria exemplifies a greater global failure. Continue reading the main story The executive order barring Syrians and the citizens of six other countries was among Mr. Trump’s very first actions in the […]

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump told a national prayer breakfast on Thursday that the world is in trouble, the United States is being taken advantage of, and that he was having “tough phone calls” as he worked to address issues. “The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out, OK? That’s what I do – I fix things,” Trump said after saying that freedom […]

ANKARA German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she stressed the importance of press freedom and freedom of opinion in Turkey during talks with President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in Ankara. “With the (attempted) putsch, we saw how the Turkish people stood up for democracy and for the rules of democracy in Turkey,” said Merkel, with reference to July’s failed coup. “That is exactly why, in this decisive phase, […]

KINSHASA The death on Wednesday of Congo’s opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi leaves opponents of President Joseph Kabila seriously weakened in their bid to force Kabila to quit power after he defied constitutional term limits to stay on last year. Democratic Republic of Congo has never experienced a peaceful transition of power and Kabila’s refusal to stand down when his final term expired in December has raised fears […]

Saudi Aramco is likely to list its shares simultaneously on more than one exchange but this is still under evaluation, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday. Asked by reporters if Aramco would list first on the Saudi bourse and then on another exchange abroad, Falih said: “It will probably be done concurrently, but we have not announced. We are evaluating. All our options are open.” The […]

PARIS French investigators have widened a probe into allegations that presidential candidate Francois Fillon paid large sums of money to members of his family for work they may not have done, to include two of his children, sources said on Thursday. The sources, who are close to the inquiry, said the investigation was being extended to look at work carried out by Marie and Charles Fillon for […]

By Christopher Johnson | LONDON LONDON Oil prices rose on Thursday as evidence that OPEC and other big exporters were cutting production outweighed a sharp rise in U.S. crude and gasoline stockpiles. Brent crude was up 50 cents at $57.30 a barrel by 1115 GMT (6:15 a.m. ET) after settling up $1.22 in the previous session. U.S. light crude gained 30 cents to $54.18 after climbing by […]

In Cultural Amnesia, Clive James’s A-Z anthology of those responsible for moving and shaking the 20th century, we find in section “H” a sobering essay on a man who needs no introduction – Adolf Hitler – and an enlightening piece on a woman who does. Ricarda Huch (1864-1947) was a groundbreaking historian, novelist and philosopher. Thomas Mann called her the First Lady of Germany. James introduces her […]

Targeting the weak The us-versus-them dynamic is “easy for many people to rally around,” said Jonathan D. Weiler, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina. Targeting feared or unpopular minorities is a way of “setting a boundary,” said Sheri E. Berman, a political scientist at Barnard College — a way to distinguish between “us” deserving of protection, and “them” who are a threat. Continue reading […]

EDINBURGH London will not help Scotland to hold another referendum on seceding from the United Kingdom during the current parliament ending in 2020, British defence minister Michael Fallon said on Thursday. “No, forget it,” Fallon replied in an interview with the Herald newspaper of Scotland, asked if he would facilitate a new vote on independence. Asked about that again on BBC Radio Scotland, Fallon said: “We’ve made […]

ROME World food prices rose to a near two-year high in January, driven by surges in sugar quotations and export prices for cereals and vegetable oils, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 173.8 points in January, versus a revised 170.2 […]

PARIS Pressure on French presidential candidate Francois Fillon to pull out of the election race grew on Thursday as some lawmakers in his own camp urged him to abandon his bid in the face of a fake work scandal to save the conservatives from defeat. The scandal, which surfaced a week ago when a newspaper said the wife of the 62-year-old ex-prime minister, Penelope, had been paid […]

MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday he intended to write an executive order that would allow the military to help in his fight against illicit drugs, which he said was a national security threat. Duterte reiterated he had no need to declare martial law, as he has threatened to do on numerous occasions. The Philippines on Monday suspended all police operations in the drug crackdown, […]

Nintendo wants the Switch to be the first thing you reach out when you wake up in the morning and the very thing you hold on to for rest of your day. Its Super Bowl ad has made the case for it while promoting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the process. Why Switch The 30-second clip will not claim any award, and it certainly […]

This worldview borrows from the “clash of civilizations” thesis of the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, and combines straightforward warnings about extremist violence with broad-brush critiques of Islam. It sometimes conflates terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State with largely nonviolent groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and, at times, with the 1.7 billion Muslims around the world. In its more extreme […]

Almost a decade on from the financial crisis, a global deadline for reform of the $544tn derivatives market has triggered a last-minute scramble by hundreds of small banks, insurers and pension funds. Many of these institutions use bespoke derivatives such as swaps to protect their operations from sudden changes in asset prices. In a month’s time they face higher costs and regulatory burdens. Plenty are not ready. […]

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