BEIRUT Lebanese daily newspaper As-Safir printed its final edition on Saturday, forced to close after 42 years because of financial problems as other news outlets in the country face similar difficulties. The front page led with an editorial entitled “The nation without As-Safir”. “The economy is not well, and nor is politics. This cannot but reflect on and impact the press,” the article said. Chief editor Talal […]
CAIRO Egypt began on Saturday handing over to their families the bodies of those who died when EgyptAir flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean in May with the loss of 66 passengers and crew, the state news agency MENA reported. The remains of crew members were handed over on Saturday, with the handover of Egyptian, French and other foreign passengers expected to begin on Sunday. Among those […]
2017 – the sky’s the limit! Robin Harris The pace of storage change continues to accelerate, and its impact on us continues to grow. Digital storage is central to a digital civilization, and as we grow more digital, we grow more dependent on improvements in storage. Here’s what to expect in 2017. AI AI will make stored data – and therefore storage- more valuable. When you can […]
SHANGHAI One of China’s top coal-producing provinces has vowed to slash its level of fine particle pollution by one-fifth by 2020, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, citing the provincial government. China has adopted various measures from policing barbeques to halting industrial production in efforts to ease the yearly winter haze that hit the country earlier this month leaving cities veiled in foul-smelling smog. China’s […]
Alison Shan Price, the CEO and founder of the One World Actors Centre (OWAC) in Kuwait has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours list. Having been involved in theatre since she was five, Price has been in Kuwait for years, running OWAC with her daughter Eleni Rebecca, the managing director and chief choreographer, alongside a large team of artists. The British Government said Price […]
TOKYO Japan has approached China and South Korea about holding a trilateral summit in Tokyo in February aimed at deepening cooperation on such issues as a free trade deal, the environment and counter-terrorism, Kyodo news agency reported on Saturday. Disagreements over North Korea and historical issues have long dogged relations between the three Asian powers, though they have held several such trilateral meetings since 2008, most recently […]
One contentious subject crops up regularly on Cashmere, the debut album by Swet Shop Boys, a collaboration between rappers Riz Ahmed and Heems: airport aggravation. The opening track is T5, a reference to London Heathrow’s Terminal Five, where the transatlantic duo are often subjected to overzealous security checks. In one memorable Ahmed lyric, a guard apologises for the intrusive search, then asks if he’s “off that film”. […]
China, the world’s largest ivory consumer, will implement a comprehensive ban on the controversial trade by the end of 2017, in a move hailed by conservationists. The announcement by the State Council on Friday night follows through on a commitment made in September 2015 during a meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Barack Obama. The US enacted regulations banning the trade in July. […]
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups said on Saturday they would consider a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and Turkey “null and void” if the Damascus government’s forces and their allies continued to violate it. Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has urged the United Nations to give its blessing to the fragile ceasefire, the third truce this year seeking to end nearly six years of war in […]
BEIRUT: Russia urged the UN Security Council on Friday to give its blessing to a fragile cease-fire in Syria, the third truce this year seeking to end the nearly six-year-old war.The Security Council met behind closed doors for an hour to consider a proposed resolution endorsing the cease-fire that Russia and Turkey announced on Thursday.A vote is possible as early as Saturday, although Security Council members recommended […]
BAGHDAD Two bombs exploded at a busy market in central Baghdad on Saturday killing at least 21 people and wounding more than 40 others, police and medics said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Islamic State regularly targets civilians in the Iraqi capital. Police said the blasts went off near car spare parts shops in Sinak during the morning rush. One of […]
JAKARTA Indonesian authorities have issued a warning to airline PT Citilink Indonesia after videos circulated appearing to show an intoxicated pilot from the low-cost carrier going through security and then sounding incoherent on the aircraft’s public address system. Citilink, which is a unit of national carrier PT Garuda Indonesia, said that the company had fired the pilot after a Dec 28 incident at Surabaya airport ahead of […]
From Day One of eBay’s cloud journey, the e-commerce company has focused on keeping its developers happy, according to Suneet Nandwani, eBay’s senior director of cloud infrastructure and platforms. That’s led to several challenges and innovations at the company, the latest of which is the development of TessMaster — a management framework to deploy Kubernetes on OpenStack. With the emergence of Docker, it became clear that containers […]
By Ben Blanchard and Benjamin Kang Lim | BEIJING BEIJING China’s military has become alarmed by what it sees as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s support of Taiwan and is considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers said. Three sources said one possibility being considered was conducting war games near the self-ruled island that China considers as […]
Angela Merkel is to call on Germany to withstand the test of Islamist terrorism by countering the militants’ “hatred” with “humanity” and “unity,” days after the truck attack on a Christmas market. In her New Year’s address, the chancellor will condemn the Berlin attack in which 12 people were killed. It is believed to have been carried out by Anis Amri, a Tunisian who was killed in […]
And there is a red, or more conservative, Israel that thought the secretary of state was delusional and insulting, divorced from the harsh reality of the only real democracy in the Middle East struggling to preserve itself in a hostile neighborhood. Continue reading the main story Just as in the United States, many Israelis cling to their own facts, retreat to their own media outlets, advance their […]
BERLIN Islamist terrorism is the biggest test facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday in a New Year’s address to the nation, and she vowed to introduce laws that improve security after a deadly attack before Christmas in Berlin. Describing 2016 as a year that gave many the impression that the world had “turned upside down,” Merkel urged Germans to forsake populism and said Germany had […]
FIFA will continue to “put pressure” on Qatar about the treatment of migrant labourers building World Cup stadiums in the Gulf country for the 2022 tournament, its president has said. The world football governing body in the past admitted it was slow to act over concerns about the abuse of labourers in Qatar. It has since said human rights would be factored in to future World Cup […]
TAIPEI Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Saturday that Taiwan will be “calm” when facing issues to do with China, but uncertainties next year will test the self-ruled island and its national security team, even as she recommitted to maintaining peace. China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a […]
Much has been made in the last several years for the need of the CIO and CMO to align on technology plans, as marketing strategy increasingly must be realized largely or entirely within digital experiences. While the CIO has long owned the overall technology stack inside of the enterprise, the CMO has certainly had a say in it in most organizations since the rise of digital marketing […]
DUBAI – Dec. 30, 2016 Global developer Emaar Properties and Twitter announced today that they are partnering to live stream the New Year’s Eve firework displays in Dubai to a global Twitter audience. This is the first live streaming deal Twitter has announced with a partner based in the MENA region. The live show will air on New Year’s Eve, from Downtown Dubai at 11:30pm GST/11:30am PST […]
SHANGHAI China has recovered 2.3 billion yuan ($331.27 million) in losses from graft in the first 11 months of this year from across more than 70 different regions and countries, the country’s corruption watchdog said on its official website on Saturday. The news comes after Beijing shifted the focus of its corruption campaign to recover illicit funds taken overseas as part of the country’s multi-agency “Sky Net” […]
The search for extra-terrestrial life is one of the most mysterious subject areas one can study. The vastness of the universe is much too unfathomable for some, but even with the theory of its never-ending expansion, scientists are not perturbed and are continuing in their search for alien life. SETI Signals The name SETI stands for “search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” which is exactly what many scientists are doing. […]
BEIJING There is no space for Hong Kong independence in the “one country, two systems” agreement under which Beijing governs the former British colony, but there can be tolerance for differences in their systems, a senior Chinese official said. Chinese leaders are increasingly concerned about a fledgling independence movement in Hong Kong, which returned to mainland rule in 1997 with a promise of autonomy known as “one […]
