Category: World News

Syrian army re-enters town of Palmyra as IS defenses crumble

Syrian government forces battling the Islamic State group re-entered Palmyra on Thursday in their quest to again take the historic town they had lost to the militants in December, state media reported. The Kremlin’s spokesman said President Vladimir Putin was informed by his defense minister that Syrian troops had gained control of Palmyra, with support from Russian warplanes.

North Korea ties at worst point in decades, South Korea says

North Korea relations have fallen to their worst point in decades and talks are off the table until Kim Jong Un’s regime is ready to give up its nuclear weapons, South Korea Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo said in an interview. “It’s been over 20 years since North Korea’s nuclear threats started, and tensions are at their worst,” Hong, who oversees policy on North Korea, said on Thursday in Seoul.

Merkel visits Egypt for talks on stemming migration

Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said ahead of the trip that Germany wants to help Egypt strengthen its coast guard and crack down on illegal trafficking across the Mediterranean, where thousands of migrants die at sea each year. Merkel held talks with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi shortly after her arrival, and is expected to meet with businessmen, civil society representatives, and Muslim and Christian leaders before heading to Tunisia on Friday.

Abu Dhabi hosts military drill amid Yemen war, Iran tensions

The capital of the United Arab Emirates has hosted a major military exercise before a public audience as the nation fights alongside Saudi troops in Yemen and tensions with Iran remain high. Such maneuvers before the public are rare in the United Arab Emirates, a major Western ally that hosts U.S. troops involved in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Croatia creates panel to study its pro-Nazi, Communist past

Croatia’s conservative government on Thursday formed a council to deal with the country’s previous pro-Nazi and Communist regimes in a bid to overcome the deep divisions that still exist over the Balkan nation’s past. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that the move is an attempt to resolve the issues of the past for the future of new generations in the European Union’s newest member state.

China makes another jab at US in SCS war of words

A senior Chinese politician A defended Beijing’s right to build facilities on artificial islands in the South China Sea in comments that were seen as a veiled attack on the United States. The remarks on Thursday by Wang Guoqing, spokesman for the country’s top political advisory body, came after a US aircraft carrier group was sent to the disputed waters, and the PLA Navy staged combat exercises in the Western Pacific.

The Latest: N. Korean envoy rejects Malaysian autopsy

Media film and photograph a North Korean diplomatic vehicle leaving the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday, March 2, 2017. Malaysia is scrapping visa-free entry for North Koreans traveling into the country, the state news agency said Thursday in the latest fallout from a deadly nerve agent attack at Kuala Lumpur airport.

Sights set for modest achievements in Syria talks

Syria’s main opposition High Negotiations Committee leader Nasr al-Hariri, informs the media after the round of negotiation with the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, March 1, 2017. less Syria’s main opposition High Negotiations Committee leader Nasr al-Hariri, informs the media after the round of negotiation with the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de … more GENEVA – Diplomats and negotiators have set their sights on modest achievements in the latest round of Syria talks in Geneva, after a week of discussions centering on setting an agenda for future talks.

BRIEF-Hongkong Land posts FY profit after tax attributable of $847.8 mln

* Declaration of a fourth interim dividend for year ending 31 december 2016 of 3.274 pence per share Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ZURICH, March 2 GAM Holding’s management has met with activist investor RBR Strategic Value, Chief Executive Alexander Friedman said on Thursday but he declined to give any details on what was said at the meeting.

BRIEF-Deutsche Boerse says expects 68 mln eur from BATS stake sale in Q1

* Declaration of a fourth interim dividend for year ending 31 december 2016 of 3.274 pence per share Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ZURICH, March 2 GAM Holding’s management has met with activist investor RBR Strategic Value, Chief Executive Alexander Friedman said on Thursday but he declined to give any details on what was said at the meeting.

Qatar tells banks to obey new FX limits by April 1

Qatar’s central bank told commercial banks on Thursday that they would have to obey new restrictions on their open positions in foreign currency by April 1. In April 2016, the central bank had said it planned to introduce a ceiling on total foreign currency positions – surplus or deficit – of 30 percent of each bank’s capital and reserves. On Thursday, the central bank said the rule, which would “limit the risks of foreign currency open positions”, would also apply to Qatari banks’ foreign branches.

LPC-Park Square and SMBC to launch a 3bn direct lending JV

Park Square Capital and SMBC are setting up a new 3bn direct lending fund which will be a joint venture between the two firms, banking sources said on Thursday. Fundraising is expected to close shortly on the joint venture, which will provide unitranche loans to European mid-market companies, the sources said.

Want to become a councillor? Here’s your big chance

With the Scottish council elections taking place in less than three months, the countdown is on for anyone who is thinking about standing as a candidate. Voters will go to the polls on Thursday, May 4, to elect 22 councillors to serve the seven wards which make up the East Dunbartonshire area.

Hebron shooter’ Elor Azaria appeals already lenient sentence

An Israeli soldier , sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank last year, has filed an appeal against his manslaughter conviction and already-lenient jail term. In the petition to the court, the lawyer asked that the date his client is due to arrive to serve his time, slated for March 5, be deferred until the end of legal proceedings.

MP says hospital will ‘succeed’ despite remaining in special measures

Watford MP Richard Harrington says he remains “committed” to Watford General Hospital after it emerged yesterday that it would remain in special measures. England’s chief hospital inspector Mike Richards said West Hertfordshire Hospital Trust, which runs the hospital along with St Albans and Hemel Hempstead, still required improvement despite it making progress since 2015.

[Interview] Sikorski: Let’s give Trump time to be ‘educated’

Sikorski: “I hope EU leaders will have enough statesmanship and persuasive power on things that are out of the ordinary.” The election of Donald Trump has added to the “deep trouble” that Europe is in, but the new US president might change when he learns how the world works, according to former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

Nepal seeks foreign investment to help recovery from quake

Nepal made a pitch to foreign investors Thursday for help in developing its struggling economy as the Himalayan nation recovers from a devastating 2015 earthquake. The government hopes to attract at least $1 billion in new foreign investment during the two-day conference in the capital, Kathmandu.

Malaysia to release, deport N. Korean in nerve agent probe

This file image provided by Star TV of closed circuit television footage from Feb. 13, 2017, shows Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, left, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, who police say was arrested in connection with the death of Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Because of a grainy security camera photo that went viral, she is now known to many as the LOL assassin.

Akfen Working With Morgan Stanley, Goldman on Asset Sales an hour ago

Turkey’s Akfen Group is in talks with banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to advise on the sale of assets after completing its restructuring this month. The Ankara-based company is also in discussions with Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG to find potential buyers for its overall holding businessAkfen Holding AS or stakes in individual companies such as Mersin International Port and renewable energy producer Akfen Yenilenebilir Enerji AS, Akfen Group Chairman Hamdi Akin said.

Breakfast Inequality: Some Work Nine Hours to Buy Milk and Toast

Residents of Abu Dhabi, Osaka and Zurich can earn enough in less than five minutes to buy their first meal of the day, according to the Bloomberg Global City Breakfast Index. Ghanaians in Accra need closer to an hour, and people in Caracas, where inflation is While budgeting for breakfast may be an afterthought in richer economies, prohibitively priced staples have led to malnutrition and food riots in poorer countries, including protests that engulfed more than a dozen Middle Eastern and North African nations in 2010 and 2011.

.com | Land reform favours businesses, not the poor – study

The land reform system in South Africa favours agricultural businesses and sidelines the intended beneficiaries, research in the Eastern Cape suggests. In a recent study of land reform in the Sarah Baartman district in the Eastern Cape, researchers Ruth Hall and Thembela Kepe found that none of the 11 beneficiaries investigated had any documented rights to their land, GroundUp reported.

Demolition in Jerusalem leaves 30 Palestinians homeless

Last month, Israeli authorities demolished at least three homes in Issawiya in a singe day, and in January, a man in the neighborhood was forced to demolish his own home in compliance with an order from the municipality. I sraeli forces demolished a building in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya on Wednesday morning without giving prior warning, leaving 30 Palestinians homeless, under the pretext that the building lacked the nearly impossible to obtain construction permits required by Israeli authorities.

Saudi Arabia to grant Indonesia $1B for economic development

Jakarta and Riyadh also inked an agreement that builds on an existing $6 billion deal between state-owned energy firms Aramco and Pertamina to expand an Indonesian oil refinery. Saudi Arabia and Indonesia Wednesday signed agreements in areas ranging from trade to aviation as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman visited the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

The White House is considering direct military action to…

In a dramatic shift from traditional policy, an internal White House review on North Korean strategy revealed that the option to use military force, or a regime change to curb the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons was on the table, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. This review comes at the heels of a report claiming President Donald Trump believed the ” greatest immediate threat ” to the US was North Korea’s nuclear program.

Lawyers sue Chinese authorities for not getting rid of smog

Lawyer Cheng Hai has an itemized list of compensation demands from Beijing authorities over the city’s smog: 65 yuan for having to buy face masks, 100 yuan for seeing a doctor for a sore throat and 9,999 yuan for emotional distress. Fed up with what they consider halfhearted efforts to fight air pollution, Cheng and like-minded lawyers are putting China’s legal system to the test by suing the governments of the capital and its surrounding regions.

RPT-Freight and fridge sales: Indian economists seek GDP clues amid data doubts

NEW DELHI, March 1 Surprised again by India’s strong official growth statistics, economists are relying increasingly on high-frequency indicators like bank credit and rail freight to gauge the real health of Asia’s third-largest economy. For India’s cash-reliant economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision in November to outlaw old 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes came as a big shock.

Agriculture seen as No 2 environmental problem

Results of the 2016 Public Perceptions of New Zealand’s Environment survey were revealed on February 17 in an 82-page report by Profs Ken Hughey, Geoff Kerr, and Ross Cullen. Asked to identify the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand today, 31.1% of survey respondents said ”water related”, 9.9% said ”agriculture related”, 8.8% said ”greenhouse gases, climate change and ozone”, and 8.4% said ”waste”.