Abu Dhabi / WAM The visit by Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, to the UAE, beginning tomorrow, will help achieve humanitarian and cultural goals and highlight the UAE’s role as a bridge for cultural interaction, said Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC). In a statement made on Saturday to mark the historic ...

NEW YORK / WAM In meetings with senior United Nations (UN) officials and nongovernmental organizations this week, Dr. Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, reiterated UAE commitment to achieving a political solution to the conflict in Yemen, while expressing serious concerns about the continued obstruction of peace efforts in Yemen by the Iranian-backed Houthis. The minister reconfirmed the ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The Global Conference of Human Fraternity opened on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, with the participation of 700 leaders, thinkers and representatives of different faiths to discuss the critical importance of fraternity and peaceful coexistence. The conference is being held at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al ...

Bloomberg Russia withdrew from a landmark 1987 nuclear disarmament treaty as President Vladimir Putin signaled he’s open to new talks, the Kremlin said, a day after Donald Trump announced the US is pulling out of the agreement citing years of Russian violations. Putin disclosed the plan to suspend the Ronald Reagan-Mikhail Gorbachev agreement during a working meeting on Saturday with ...

Bloomberg At least eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured when soldiers clashed with IS-inspired militants in southern Philippine province of Sulu. A heavy firefight started on Saturday morning and lasted for nearly two hours between members of a scout ranger battalion and at least 150 members of the Abu Sayyaf group headed by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan ...

Bloomberg An earthquake with magnitude 6.1 on the Richter scale hit western Indonesia on Saturday, though Xinhua reported that officials see no risk of a tsunami. The epicenter was 166 kilometers south-south-east of Muara Siberut in Indonesia, the United States Geological Survey said. The quake had a depth of 10 kilometers. The main shock struck at 4.27 pm local time ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unleashed a populist election-year budget designed to shore up support ahead of national polls, but it may have come too late to dampen criticism of his government’s inability to create millions of jobs. The budget contained $13 billion worth of measures including payouts for farmers, a pension program for informal sector workers and tax ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump lashed out at US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling her “bad for our country,” undercutting the White House’s message that the president plans to make an optimistic plea for bipartisanship in his State of the Union address next week. “I think she’s very bad for our country,” Trump said in an interview with CBS, referring to the ...

Bloomberg Opponents of Venezuela’s socialist regime marched in Caracas as pressure builds at home and abroad for President Nicolas Maduro to step down. Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who’s vying to set up a caretaker government, rallied his supporters to the streets as a deadline imposed by several European Union countries to hold a presidential election expires. The US and two ...

Bloomberg Alberta is easing mandatory oil curtailments after prices for heavy crude from the Canadian province surged while producers were getting exasperated. The new target for output next month will be 3.63 million barrels a day, up from 3.56 million in January, the provincial government said in a statement. Inventories have dropped by 5 million barrels, reducing a glut that ...