By Stephen Kalin | DEBAGA, Iraq DEBAGA, Iraq While fleeing Islamic State rule in northern Iraq three months ago, Laila saw two of her daughters die in front of her. Crippled by grief and the trauma of that night, she now struggles to walk and hardly eats. Running under the cover of darkness after more than two years under the jihadists’ harsh rule in Shirqat town, south […]
The company rolling out Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) has warned of possible civil works disruptions after announcing that it will begin extending fibre and cable broadband into major cities this year. Much of the disruption will occur as NBN needs to gain access to pits and existing infrastructure within high-density cities. “As the NBN network rolls out into cities, we will be met with new problems […]
TOKYO Nearly six years after Noriko Matsumoto and her children fled Japan’s Fukushima region, fearing for their health after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, they confront a new potential hardship – the slashing of vital housing subsidies. Matsumoto is among nearly 27,000 people who left areas not designated as mandatory evacuation zones, spooked by high levels of radiation after nuclear meltdowns unleashed by a powerful […]
Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, has acquired a stake in Hywind Scotland, a 30-megawatt (MW) floating offshore pilot wind farm in the North Sea, it was announced on Tuesday. Through the transaction, Statoil and Masdar have agreed to share the development risk and Masdar will cover 25 percent of previous and future costs. Due to start commercial operation in late 2017, Hywind Scotland is the world’s […]
LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday she would put the final agreement on Britain’s exit from the European Union to a vote in parliament. May said there would have to compromises in the negotiations but it was important to provide “as much certainty as possible” and there would be proper scrutiny. “When it comes to parliament, there is one other way I would like […]
The adventurous spirit of The Flaming Lips extends to both music and words. The 15th album from the American psychedelic rockers is titled Oczy Mlody (pronounced “Oxlee Melody”), a Polish phrase chosen after frontman Wayne Coyne found it in a second-hand book he bought because he liked the cover. He didn’t care that the book, Blisko Domu (Almost Home), was in a language he does not speak. […]
PARIS In May last year, then French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron sat down with Socialist lawmaker Christophe Sirugue in the steel town of Le Creusot and asked him to join his new political movement. He said No. Eight months on, others are saying Yes. A political outsider who has never run for office and hopes to transcend the classic Left-Right divide, Macron suddenly seems to have a […]
Computers have long helped us with our analytic tasks at work. But new technology options mean we can now work with them in more collaborative and intuitive ways. At one level, this is nothing new: computers have been making business decisions for a long time. For example, people used to decide how much airline seats should cost or whether a credit card transaction was fraudulent. Computers now […]
The richest 1% of Indians hold 58% of the country’s total wealth, according to Oxfam India. The stark inequality in India is worse than the global data put out by the organization, which show that the richest 1% have more than 50% of the total world wealth, Oxfam said. The anti-poverty advocacy group released a report, “An Economy for the 99%” this week to coincide with the […]
By Kylie MacLellan and William James | LONDON LONDON Britain will not seek a Brexit deal that leaves it “half in, half out” of the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Tuesday in a speech setting out her priorities for divorce talks which indicates she is prepared to leave the single market. Sterling, which has traded at the lowest levels against the U.S. dollar for […]
MOSCOW Allegations of Russian cyber attacks are fabricated, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. Lavrov said at a news conference that U.S. intelligence agencies who had tried to prove that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump had links to Russia have drawn a blank and should be fired. The Russian minister also described as a charlatan the former British spy who wrote a dossier on Trump’s alleged […]
ISTANBUL The suspected gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day was born in Uzbekistan and received training in Afghanistan, Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said on Tuesday after police caught him in a city suburb. Sahin told reporters that the alleged attacker, whom he named as Abdulgadir Masharipov, born in 1983, had admitted his guilt and his fingerprints matched those at the […]
Facebook is throwing its weight behind French tech by choosing Paris to launch its first official start-up incubator, as the battle heats up among European capitals to lure the best tech companies following the Brexit vote. The social media giant announced on Tuesday it had become a founding partner in Station F, a €250m start-up campus in central Paris that is set to be the largest in […]
Photo Celebrations erupted in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. Credit Mohamed El-Shahed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Monday upheld a ruling that said the government cannot transfer control of two key Red Sea islands to its main financial backer, Saudi Arabia, deepening a rift between the two Middle Eastern countries. The alliance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the […]
Baidu has announced the appointment of Dr Qi Lu as its group president and chief operating officer, who will be responsible for the organisation’s products, technology, sales, marketing, and operations, effective immediately. Lu joins the search engine giant from Microsoft, where he served as the company’s global executive vice president and led Microsoft’s Office business. Prior to Microsoft, Lu was senior vice president in charge of search […]
By Tom Westbrook and Jonathan Barrett | SYDNEY SYDNEY The deep-sea search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 ended on Tuesday without any trace being found of the plane that vanished in 2014 with 239 people on board, the three countries involved in the search said. The location of Flight MH370 has become one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries since the plane disappeared en route to […]
MANILA Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte will meet on Tuesday with China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, the most high-profile Chinese visitor since he took power last year and launched surprise moves to engage with historic rival Beijing. Duterte will meet Liu late in the day in what presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said was nothing more than a courtesy call. Liu was meeting foreign ministry counterparts to discuss […]
By Daren Butler | ISTANBUL ISTANBUL Turkish police have captured the suspected gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day after a two-week nationwide manhunt, with state media saying he was seized along with four other suspects at a hideout in the city. State-run Anadolu news agency said the alleged attacker, whom it and other media named as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was detained […]
By Noah Barkin | DAVOS, Switzerland DAVOS, Switzerland Chinese President Xi Jinping will defend globalisation in the face of mounting public hostility in the West on Tuesday in a speech at the World Economic Forum that will underline Beijing’s growing global role. Xi’s appearance, a first for a Chinese leader at the annual meeting of political leaders, CEOs and bankers in Davos, comes as the part the […]
BEIJING Cadillac, General Motors Co’s (GM.N) luxury brand, is predicting a double digit growth rate in China sales this year, the brand’s country chief Andreas Schaaf told Reuters on Tuesday. The brand – which opened its first dedicated factory in China last year, helping boost Cadillac sales in the country by 46 percent – expects China to become its top market in less than five years, Schaaf […]
ABU DHABI // The UAE is positioning itself as a “centre of gravity” for energy, officials said at the opening of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week on Monday. Tens of thousands of people from more than 170 countries were welcomed at the event, which is the first major international gathering in 2017 aimed at mitigating climate change. Issues such as growing energy and water needs, challenges of urbanisation […]
Your daily guide to community and cultural activities across the Emirates for January 17, 2017, including performances, festivals, art exhibitions, film screenings, health and fitness events, talks, classes, workshops and family fun. newslide Abu Dhabi Performances Swiss performers take to the stage for Swiss Days 2017 over two days in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. On the first night, Inmotion (pictured) will present mind-boggling yo-yo tricks, throws and […]
By Kylie MacLellan | LONDON LONDON Britain will not seek a Brexit deal that leaves it “half in, half out” of the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Tuesday, according to her office, in a speech setting out her 12 priorities for upcoming divorce talks with the bloc. Those priorities will include leaving the European Union’s single market and regaining full control of Britain’s […]
BISHKEK A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said. According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to […]
