May, 2016

• 9 May

  4 killed as extremists attack Somalia police headquarters

    MOGADISHU / AP A suicide car bomber struck the entrance of Somalia’s traffic police headquarters in the capital on Monday , killing four people and injuring nine others, said a police official. Two police officers were among the dead and two armed extremists who tried to storm the traffic police premises in Mogadishu’s Abdiaziz district were also shot dead, ...

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• 9 May

  Spain: 44 migrants rescued off Western Sahara

    MADRID / AP The maritime rescue service says it has picked up 44 sub-Saharan African migrants that set off in a boat from the west coast of Africa in a bid to reach Spain. The service said the 42 men and two women were taken to the port of Arguineguin in Spain’s Canary Islands late Sunday after being rescued off ...

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• 9 May

  Cameron evokes war, Churchill memory in bid to avoid Brexit

  

    Bloomberg Prime Minister David Cameron made a patriotic appeal to Britons not to vote to leave the European Union next month by evoking the memories of wartime leader Winston Churchill. “The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were at each others’ throats for decades,” Cameron said in a speech at the British Museum in central London on Monday. ...

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• 9 May

  Weather aids firefighters battling Canada blaze

  

    Fort McMurray / AFP Authorities battling a forest fire in Canada looked to Mother Nature for more help on Monday, as cooling temperatures and rain slowed the spread of the blaze that had forced the evacuation of an entire city. There was more good news too, with the amount of land charred less than originally feared and the last ...

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• 9 May

  Australia turns back 3 asylum-seeker boats

    Sydney/ AFP Australia has intercepted three asylum-seeker boats so far this year, including one carrying women and children from Sri Lanka, the country’s immigration minister revealed on Monday. Under Canberra’s hardline measures, asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia by boat are either sent back to where they departed or to remote Pacific island camps, where living conditions have been criticised. ...

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• 9 May

  The economy’s real drag – Consumers

  

    American consumers aren’t what they used to be — and that helps explain the plodding economic recovery. It gets no respect despite creating 14 million jobs and lasting almost seven years. The great gripe is that economic growth has been held to about 2 percent a year, well below historical standards. This sluggishness reflects a profound psychological transformation of ...

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• 9 May

  Brexit could be UK’s undoing

    Countdown for the historic June 23 UK vote on whether to stay or leave the EU is causing regional and international anxiety. Half of Europeans feel Brexit could spark a domino effect, as other states would follow suit. Britain first joined the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, and in a referendum two years later, the public backed ...

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• 9 May

  Great ball of money dooms China to bubbles

    Christopher Balding Chinese markets have rarely looked more like Vegas casinos. In recent weeks, investors have driven up trading volumes in China to astronomical levels, betting on everything from rebar to eggs. China traded enough steel in one day last month to build 178,082 Eiffel Towers and enough cotton to make at least one pair of jeans for every ...

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• 9 May

  Trumpism meets with its first defeat — in London

    Donald Trump became last week the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. presidential elections. But those condemned to agonizing suspense and anxiety until November should note that Trumpism, or the politics of hate and fear, also suffered a major defeat last week. I refer to the election of former human rights lawyer Sadiq Khan as London’s mayor. That the ...

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• 9 May

  Australian budget opens door to Islamic finance

  

    SYDNEY / Reuters The Australian government has proposed removing tax barriers to asset-backed financing arrangements as part of its federal budget, a move likely aimed at facilitating interest-free transactions used in Islamic finance. Islamic finance is gradually catching on in Australia, with National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB) helping fund a A$160 million ($114 million) Brisbane property purchase in February, ...

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