Abu Dhabi / WAM Airport International Group (AIG) – a consortium led by Abu Dhabi-based financial services company Invest AD, the Abu Dhabi Investment Company, completed the second phase of a project to rehabilitate, expand and operate Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) in Amman, Jordan. The inauguration ceremony was conducted in the presence of the Crown Prince of Jordan HRH ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has begun implementing a new initiative that aims to promote happiness among TRA employees and create a positive atmosphere in the workplace through cooperation, trust and love, which is expected to help strengthen the positive relations among employees, develop concern for each other’s issues and motivate them to excel in ...

  Beirut / AFP Beijing came under pressure at an Asian summit on Wednesday over its “illegal” island-building in the South China Sea, after the Philippines produced photos it said showed fresh construction activity at a flashpoint shoal. Any artificial island at Scarborough Shoal could be a game-changer in China’s quest to control the South China Sea and raises the risk ...

  Strasbourg / AFP Turkey’s foreign minister on Wednesday pledged cooperation with the top European rights watchdog to ensure the effort to bring the leaders of July’s failed coup to justice is clear and straightforward. “We (will) cooperate with the Council of Europe to make this process very transparent,” said Mevlut Cavusoglu, after meeting in Strasbourg with the group’s head ...

  Tbilisi / AFP NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday said ex-Soviet Georgia has moved closer to membership, in a show of support for the tiny Caucasus nation despite fierce opposition from Russia. “You are continuing to strengthen your democracy and civic institutions and this has helped Georgia to move closer to NATO,” Stoltenberg told a news conference after ...

  El Fasher /AFP President Omar al-Bashir on Wednesday declared that peace had returned to Sudan’s war-torn Darfur despite a deadlock in African Union-brokered ceasefire talks and persistent fighting that has driven thousands from their homes this year. Bashir made the declaration in the North Darfur state capital El Fasher at a ceremony attended by Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin ...

  Sittwe / AFP People forced from their homes by religious violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state gathered on Wednesday to meet former UN chief Kofi Annan, as the envoy toured displacement camps during his peace mission. Annan has been asked by the leader of Myanmar’s new government, Aung San Suu Kyi, to head a commission tasked with trying to heal ...

  Geneva /AFP More than 100 countries pledged on Wednesday to clear unexploded cluster munitions used in conflict zones worldwide by 2030, a new step in the unfinished battle to prevent deaths by the weapons. Parties to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions set their first target date for clearing the explosives which are estimated to have killed and maimed ...

  Hong Kong/ AFP US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden sought shelter among Hong Kong refugees after he leaked a huge trove of secret documents in the southern Chinese city, reports said on Wednesday. The former intelligence contractor had quit his job with the National Security Agency and travelled to Hong Kong in May 2013 where he initiated one of the ...

  Vientiane / AFP President Barack Obama attends a farewell dinner with Southeast Asian leaders on Wednesday, capping eight years of careful courtship that has created new friends, but left links frayed with America’s oldest regional ally—Thailand. When Obama looks around the gala dinner table in Vientiane, he will find a bevy of new partners. His engagement with former Communist foes ...