Yangon / AFP Myanmar’s army has seized an important outpost from a powerful rebel faction during a bout of intense fighting, state media and insurgents confirmed on Sunday, in the latest blow to peace efforts. Fighting has blighted Myanmar’s border regions for decades, pitting various ethnic minority groups seeking autonomy or independence against the notoriously abusive military. The latest ...

  There is no mystery about Barack Obama’s greatest presidential achievement: He stopped the Great Recession from becoming the second Great Depression. True, he had plenty of help, including from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and from the top officials at the Treasury and Federal Reserve. But if Obama had made one wrong step, what was a crushing economic slump ...

  The unemployment rate is down to 4.6 percent, which sounds pretty good. But the unemployment rate doesn’t count people who’ve given up looking for jobs, which is why the employment-to-population ratio, especially the “prime-age” ratio for those 25 through 54, may be a better measure of the health of the labour market. After I wrote about this metric, several ...

  If only congressional Republicans were as confident in their ideas for replacing Obamacare as they are in their plans to repeal it. Then maybe the quick strike against the law that they have scheduled for the new year would be accompanied by a constructive debate about the vast yet troubled federal program that tens of millions of Americans have ...

  The Pentagon has accused China of seizing an unmanned naval probe in international waters in the South China Sea. The incident can stoke tensions around Beijing military presence in the disputed area. Reports that emerged after the incident said that the underwater vehicle was taken around 50 nautical miles (90 kilometers) northwest off Subic Bay in the Philippines. The ...

  This week, after four and a half years of faithful service, I finally replaced my old laptop. I will not bore you with the litany of troubles that led to this decision. The only interesting thing about my decision to replace my old 15-inch Macbook Pro is what I chose to replace it with: a nearly identical Macbook, about ...

  Last week, ECB chief Mario Draghi promised another nine months of quantitative easing, but cut his bond purchase program. While the move is a deft way to introduce the prospect of tapering without triggering a market meltdown, the economic backdrop suggests it’s still too soon for tighter monetary conditions. By reducing the dose while extending the prescription, the ECB ...

  Facebook has detailed its plan for combating fake news. It will effectively outsource the fact-checking of news stories flagged by users as possibly fake to third-party groups that should, at a minimum, be signatories to a code developed at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism training organization. But by making a small group of vetters the arbiters of “truth,” ...

  Reuters Stock markets in the Gulf posted small gains on Sunday after crude oil prices climbed back towards 17-month highs at the end of last week, but trading volumes shrank across the region. Foreign buyers continued to bid up shares in Egypt. Brent futures rose 2.2 percent to settle at $55.21 a barrel on Friday after Goldman Sachs boosted ...

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will begin taking orders for shares on Monday as it aims to complete raising 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) by the end of the year to avoid a rescue by the Italian government. Monte Paschi will sell stock to institutional investors through Thursday, while the offer for retail investors will end ...