SAN FRANCISCO / AP A federal appeals court will decide whether to reinstate President Donald Trump’s travel ban after a contentious hearing in which the judges hammered away at the administration’s motivations for the ban, but also directed pointed questions to an attorney for two states trying to overturn it. It was unclear which way the three judges of ...

  KABUL / AP Gunmen killed six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, the aid group said, adding that two other staffers were missing. The eight-person team was delivering livestock materials near the northern town of Shibirghan, capital of the Jowzjan province, when the gunmen attacked their convoy, it said. “We condemn ...

  MOSCOW / AP A Russian court on Wednesday found opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty in the retrial of a 2013 fraud case, which formally disqualifies him as a candidate for president next year. However, the first time Navalny was convicted, his sentence was suspended and he was allowed to be a candidate for mayor of Moscow. An associate said ...

  WARSAW / AP Poland’s ruling party leader says his talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel were held in “good atmosphere” and that he believes her visit will bring “good results.” Poland’s most powerful politician, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, met with Merkel late Tuesday during her half-a-day visit to Warsaw. TVN24 on Wednesday showed him kiss Merkel’s hand in greeting, a vanishing, ...

  ANKARA / AP CIA Director Mike Pompeo will visit Turkey on Thursday in his first overseas visit to discuss security issues, including Turkey’s fight against a movement led by a US-based cleric accused of orchestrating a failed military coup, Turkish officials said, in a sign of improving relations between the allies. Pompeo’s visit was decided during a 45-minute telephone ...

  BEIJING / AP China is drafting policies to attract Taiwanese to live and work on the mainland, a government spokesman said on Wednesday, in a direct appeal to the island’s population amid a deepening political standoff between the governments in Taipei and Beijing. The Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office said on Wednesday that residents of the self-governing island democracy will ...

  MOSCOW / AP A prominent rebel leader in eastern Ukraine has been killed in an explosion in his office, his associates said on Wednesday. The rebels’ Donetsk News Agency said Mikhail Tolstykh, better known under his nom de guerre Givi, died early Wednesday morning in what it described as a terrorist attack. The agency said 35-year old Tolstykh was ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM A staggering AED3 billion business activity was generated by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company, ADNEC, in 2016. Its key venues include Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Al Ain Convention Centre, AACC, and together, the centres hosted more than 1.5 million visitors across 480 local and international events, an increase of 30 percent over 2015. ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and the American University of Sharjah (AUS) announced that the launch of the nanosatellite Nayif-1 will occur between February 14 and 25, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, on board a PSLV-C37 rocket. Nayif-1 is expected to be launched on the morning of February 15, if ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business With genetics and genes responsible for a person’s day-to-day state of health and predisposition to develop disease, the ability to take genomics from the laboratory bench in hi-tech labs literally to the patient’s bedside will play a very important role in the future of the health of patients across the UAE. Delegates at the MEDLAB ...