Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Donald Trump is nothing if not transparent, especially when it comes to views of the press and outright evasions about his business holdings. That was self-evident at his Wednesday spectacle (labeled “press conference”) in which he bashed media and also […]
By Susanna Twidale | LONDON LONDON Britain should go ahead with “cost effective” plans to build what would be the world’s first tidal lagoon renewable power project, a government commissioned review said on Thursday. Britain needs to invest in major new infrastructure to replace aging coal and nuclear plants set to close in the 2020s, and also needs to reduce is greenhouse gas emissions to meet its […]
ABU DHABI // “We are all proud,” said Suhaib Al Bastaki, son of Mohammed Ali Zainal Al Bastaki, who was one of the five Emiratis killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday. Al Bastaki was the deputy director general of the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation and had dedicated his life to humanitarian work. “My father travelled the world to help the poor and orphans everywhere. Every week […]
Global investors sold the dollar and sought government bonds and gold on Thursday in the wake of Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration press conference, revealing the first sign of buyers remorse for a reflation rally that has dominated global markets since early November. Mr Trump’s press conference, his first as president-elect, was held in New York’s Trump Tower on Wednesday and was dominated by his ties to Russia, his […]
By Manuel Mogato | MANILA MANILA The Philippines is deferring plans to repair and upgrade features it occupies in the disputed South China Sea, the country’s military chiefs said on Thursday, to avoid provoking China while the two traditional foes seek to bury the hatchet. The Philippines would continue to observe a moratorium on construction in the Spratly islands that it adopted while an international tribunal handled […]
JERUSALEM Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said talks to discuss the Middle East peace process in Paris on Sunday would be “rigged” against Israel, which has announced it would not participate. “It’s a rigged conference, rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances. This pushes peace backwards,” Netanyahu said in public remarks on Thursday. “It’s not going to obligate us. It’s a relic […]
While we learned earlier that John McCain was responsible for handing over the 35-page “dossier” of compromising, if arguably fake, revelations about Trump’s connections to Russia over to the FBI, the identity of the actual creator, who was said to be an ex-British intelligence service, remained a mystery. No longer. Courtesy of the WSJ, we now know his name: the former MI-6 officer, now working for a […]
GENEVA Foreign ministers of Britain, Greece and Turkey were to meet in Geneva on Thursday in an attempt to thrash out a security deal for a post-settlement reunited Cyprus. For the first time in decades, the three countries were to address a 1960 treaty which allows intervention in Cyprus, a pretext used by at least one of them to intervene in the island in the past. Cyprus […]
SEOUL Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said upon returning to his native South Korea on Thursday that he would make a “selfless decision” soon with regard to his political career. Ban is expected to run for president but has yet to declare his candidacy. Ban told reporters and well-wishes at Incheon airport near Seoul that he would use his experience at the United Nations to solidify South […]
KUCHING: Sarawak has never before seen a leader who made such a great impact on the state and its people like Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem who died yesterday just two weeks shy of his 73rd birthday. He had succumbed to a heart ailment that left him with having to use a pace-maker to stabilise his heartbeat after hardly three years in office and six months […]
Having publicly trashed the US economy’s performance during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has become its most prominent cheerleader. The president-elect has in recent weeks claimed credit for surging consumer confidence, stellar equity prices and stronger end-of-year household spending, arguing there was “no hope” before he arrived on the scene. To Barack Obama’s supporters, claims from Mr Trump that the US was cloaked in economic gloom before […]
Saudi Arabia, 12 Jan, 2017 One of Saudi’s leading travel agencies, Mosaid Travel and Tourism Services, has renewed its ten-year exclusive relationship with global travel technology provider, Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), to support its vision to expand regionally, provide more personalised travel experiences and improve customer satisfaction. “The travel industry is fast-evolving with new trends and rapidly-changing traveller expectations,” said Nadir Kazalbash, General Manager, Mosaid Travel and […]
By Susan Cornwell | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate on Thursday took a first concrete step toward dismantling Obamacare, voting to instruct key committees to draft legislation repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program. The vote was 51-48. The resolution now goes to the House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on it this week. Scrapping Obamacare is a top priority for the Republican majorities […]
By Gopal Sharma | KATHMANDU KATHMANDU Nepal fired the head of its earthquake reconstruction agency and named his predecessor to the job in a game of musical chairs that critics say is only making conditions worse for the survivors of the 2015 disaster. Thousands of homeless people remain in temporary shelters after the 2015 quakes that left 9,000 people dead and destroyed more than 626,000 homes, monuments […]
TAIPEI Taiwan objected on Thursday to a Nigerian request to the island to relocate its representative office in the African country, a request Taiwan sees as more pressure by China to isolate it. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and to be taken back by force if necessary, especially if it makes moves toward independence. Taiwan has no diplomatic ties with Nigeria, […]
By Andrea Hopkins | OTTAWA OTTAWA Canada’s appointment of an outspoken Russia critic currently under sanctions from Moscow is a bold move by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he seeks to improve strained relations between the two countries. Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent and fluent in Russian, was made Canada’s top diplomat on Tuesday as part of the first major cabinet shuffle of Trudeau’s 14-month-old […]
Democrat shill, Chuck Todd, cannibalized the liberal media tonight by ripping into the Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed, Ben Smith, for publishing a 35 page dossier of laughable content, such as germaphobe Trump having Russian hookers urinate on him, or an irate Donald yelling at Ivanka to respond to her mother, whilst devouring a plate of chicken tenders, saying that if she didn’t her Mother would perish […]
The year-long mobile share tug-of-war between Apple and Android is far spicier now than it was this time last year, according to the latest data from Kantar. For the three months ending November 30, iOS saw a 3 percentage point increase to 43.5 percent in the United States compared to October’s numbers, and a large jump on the 37 percent reported a year ago. A similar pattern […]
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi. Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi was chosen by the Prime Minister to chair the EU’s Energy Council during Malta’s six-month rotating presidency, the Times of Malta is informed. Dr Mizzi lost his energy and health portfolios last May after his name surfaced in the Panama Papers leak. In stripping Dr Mizzi of his energy and health portfolios […]
In Senegal, ENGIE has been selected for the Dakar TER project in partnership with Thales for the design and production of infrastructures and systems, with a contract amounting to 225 million euros DAKAR, Senegal, January 11, 2017 ENGIE (www.ENGIE.com ) announces the signature of a partnership with ANER, the National Renewable Energies Agency in Senegal, to accelerate the development of renewable energies in the country. The first […]
|By Saifur Rahman| US President-Elect Donald Trump said he’s rejected a Dh7.3 billion (US$2 billion) deal with Damac Properties at a press conference on Wednesday, just nine days before his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States. “Over the weekend, I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man ‑ my friend Hussain [Sajwani] ‑ a […]
WASHINGTON A high-tech sea-based U.S. military radar has left Hawaii to monitor for potential North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile test launches, a U.S. defence official said on Wednesday. Earlier this month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that the isolated, nuclear-capable country was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the radar, known as the Sea-based X-band […]
By Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson expressed views on Wednesday at odds with President-elect Donald Trump’s positions on key foreign policy issues like nuclear proliferation, trade deals, climate change and relations with Mexico. In a nine-hour Senate confirmation hearing, the former chief executive of oil company Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) said he favoured maintaining U.S. sanctions against Russia for […]
By Melissa Fares | NEW YORK NEW YORK In his first news conference since the Nov. 8 election, President-elect Donald Trump set social media ablaze on Wednesday with remarks including harsh criticism of the press and a defence of his goal to improve ties with Russia. The session, held in the lobby of his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan, featured a number of viral moments, like an […]
