Dubai / Emirates Business The Dubai Courts launched the third phase of ‘Aoun’, a leading initiative designed to provide financially challenged litigants with assistance under the supervision of a group of volunteer legal experts. This move complements the Courts’ efforts to support the national movement towards establishing the concept of giving as an inherent value within society in response ...

  Ras Al Khaimah / Emirates Business Ras Al Khaimah’s largest real estate developer, Al Hamra Real Estate Development (AHRED), has launched a new payment plan for its much sought-after Al Hamra Village properties. Potential buyers can own properties in the luxury development from just AED3,300 per month over a five-year period. This compares to AED55,000 for the annual rent ...

  PARIS / AP Fearing a new eruption of violence in the Middle East, more than 70 world diplomats gathered in Paris on Sunday to push for renewed peace talks that would lead to a Palestinian state. The conference is meant to be a forceful message to US President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that much of the ...

  DUBAI / AP Bahraini authorities on Sunday put to death three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police, the kingdom’s first executions since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising rocked the country in 2011. The executions of the men drew swift criticism from human rights groups and sparked outrage among opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges ...

  BAGHDAD / AP US -backed Iraqi government troops on Sunday fully liberated the sprawling complex of Mosul University, an Iraqi military spokesman said, a major step in the massive operation to retake the IS group-held city of Mosul. The spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, declared the campus was under the full control of Iraqi special ...

  NEW YORK / AP Donald Trump’s feud with civil rights icon John Lewis is highlighting the president-elect’s willingness to attack any and all political rivals even with his inauguration less than a week away. The Republican billionaire slammed the Democratic congressman — and his Atlanta-area district — on Saturday, a day after Lewis described Trump as an illegitimate president. Lewis, ...

  BEIJING / AP China’s foreign ministry on Sunday again rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that he might use American policy on Taiwan as a bargaining chip between the two sides. Spokesman Lu Kang said Sunday that the “one China” policy is “non-negotiable.” Since recognizing Beijing in 1979, Washington has maintained only unofficial ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing ...

  MANILA / AP Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he has ordered his troops to bomb extremists who flee with their captives in a bid to stop a wave of kidnappings at sea, calling the loss of civilian lives in such an attack “collateral damage.” Duterte has previously stated that he had told his Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts their forces can ...

  China’s leaders are hardly disguising their fears about money leaving the country. They’ve imposed new disclosure rules limiting how Chinese — who are allowed to convert up to $50,000 worth of yuan into foreign currency each year — can spend that money overseas. Simultaneously, they’re striving to tamp down worries about the tumbling yuan, which has fallen to an ...

  Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, has been portrayed as a bizarre, Moneyball-type machine in which employees’ every move is monitored and assessed, increasingly by computer algorithms. Awful as that may sound, what if it’s actually a step toward a happier and more prosperous world? Granted, descriptions of the place — including a recent Wall Street Journal article to ...