Caracas / AFP Venezuela’s opposition vowed to speed up efforts to oust President Nicolas Maduro after he defied lawmakers by securing emergency powers to intervene in the crisis-hit oil state’s economy. The maneuvers intensified a political standoff that has raised fears of unrest and deepening economic suffering in the oil-rich, violence-plagued South American state. The Supreme Court overruled opposition from ...

ALKESH SHARMA Emirates Business Emirates’ Information and Technology industry is at an all-time high, courtesy the UAE government’s progressive policies and presence of world-class IT growth catalysts in the country. It expects a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nearly 3.6 percent over the period of 2015-2019, suggests a Business Monitor International (BMI) Research report. According to the survey, the ...

Athens / AFP Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Athens on Saturday in solidarity with farmers who have blocked dozens of highways and border crossings in recent weeks in protest over a pensions overhaul. An estimated 12,000 people gathered in the Greek capital’s central Syntagma Square outside parliament, police said. More than half were members of the communist-leaning Pame trade union, ...

Mumbai / afp Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi renewed his call on Saturday for firms to invest in India and turn it into a global manufacturing hub, painting the country as a bright spot for investment in an uncertain world economy. The right-wing prime minister was addressing a gathering of industry leaders, CEOs and foreign dignitaries in the commercial capital ...

Seoul / AFP The United States has temporarily deployed an additional Patriot missile battery in South Korea following North Korea’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, US Forces Korea said on Saturday. The move came as the two allies plan to start detailed discussions on bringing in an advanced, high-altitude US missile defence system opposed by China as early ...

Munich / AFP The world has plunged into a “new Cold War”, the Russian premier said on Saturday, as East-West tensions over Ukraine and Syria took centre-stage at a gathering of world leaders in Germany. “We have slid into a new period of Cold War,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the audience at the Munich Security Conference. “Almost every day ...

Budapest / AFP Thousands of Hungarians angry at the state’s tight grip on public education rallied on Saturday in Budapest, in one of the biggest street protests against Prime Minister Viktor Orban in recent years. Soon after coming to power in 2010, his rightwing government launched sweeping reforms of the public education system, which it said was too liberal and ...

Istanbul / AFP Turkey and Saudi Arabia could launch a ground operation against IS extremists in Syria, the Turkish foreign minister said on Saturday, adding the kingdom was already sending jets to a Turkish base to attack the extremists. The coordinated plans by Riyadh and Ankara, who are pursuing an increasingly tight alliance, add a new element to the explosive ...

Munich / AFP More major attacks in Europe are a “certainty”, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told an audience at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. “We have entered—we all feel it—in a new era characterised by the lasting presence of ‘hyper-terrorism’,” said Valls, whose country was hit by two attacks last year. “We must be fully conscious of the ...

Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s outgoing president has scrapped a planned trip to the US next week in order to oversee the power hand-off to Aung San SuuKyi’s new government, a presidential spokesman said on Saturday. Thein Sein was due to attend a summit for leaders from the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc hosted by US president Barack ...