April, 2016

• 26 April

  Trump, Clinton aim for sweeps of Northeastern primaries

  

    PHILADELPHIA / AP Donald Trump is aiming for a sweep of all five Northeastern states holding primaries on Tuesday, including Pennsylvania, leaving his rivals pinning their hopes of stopping the Republican front-runner on a fragile coordination strategy in the next rounds of voting. For Democratic leader Hillary Clinton, wins in most of Tuesday’s contests would leave little doubt that ...

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• 26 April

  2 Armenian soldiers killed in Karabakh despite truce

    Yerevan / AFP Two ethnic Armenian soldiers have been killed in a new upsurge in fighting between Azerbaijani forces and separatists from the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh, the separatist statelet said on Tuesday. “On the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Karabakh forces, the enemy violated a ceasefire 80 times using all types of artillery and armoured vehicles,” ...

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• 26 April

  Gambia court denies bail to opposition protesters

    Banjul / AFP A Gambian court denied bail to 37 opposition activists accused of rioting, illegal protest and other offences and ordered their lawyers to present a written bail application on Thursday, lawyers said. After Monday’s hearing in the High Court in Banjul, the secretary general of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), Ousainou Darboe, and 31 others ...

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• 26 April

  Spanish political parties throw up surprise, restart coalition talks

  

    Madrid / AFP Spanish parties restarted coalition negotiations on Tuesday in a surprise, eleventh-hour move just as the deadline to form a government draws to a close and fresh elections threaten. The negotiations kicked off again after Compromis—a small, regional grouping involved in coalition talks—submitted a last-ditch proposal for a government that includes measures to fight corruption and poverty. ...

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• 26 April

  Vietnam thwarts election bid by dissidents, pop star

  Hanoi / AFP Communist Vietnam has blocked a motley crew of independent candidates from running for its rubber-stamp parliament, according to official results released Tuesday, a move activists said highlights its empty gestures towards democracy. In an unprecedented showing this year more than 100 independent candidates — including dissidents, a taxi driver and a pop star — tried to run ...

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• 26 April

  Sombre mood marks 30th anniv of Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe

  

    Chernobyl / AFP Ukrainians held candlelit vigils on Tuesday to mark 30 years since the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl spewed radiation across Europe and left several thousand people dead or dying. Church bells rang and mourners lit candles and laid flowers at the site’s memorial as the clock turned 1.23 am—the exact moment when the plant’s reactor number ...

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• 26 April

  What’s the real gender pay gap?

  

  The gender pay gap is back in the news — and may become a major issue in the presidential campaign. It seems an open-and-shut case of job discrimination. Women earn only 79 percent of men’s average hourly earnings. Who could favor that? Actually, the comparison is bogus. A more accurate ratio, after adjusting for differences in gender employment patterns, is ...

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• 26 April

  Dubai takes the ‘smart’ dream forward

    The Dubai Smart City project is a brainchild of UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum. It started as a dream, but is now taking a concrete shape given the resolve and dedication demonstrated by Sheikh Mohammed to make the project a success. A small port city four ...

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• 26 April

  UK is leading a worldwide banking retreat

      U.K. banks are giving new meaning to the term “Brexit”: They’ve been pulling money out of the rest of the world at a pace not seen since the global financial crisis. The latest data from the Bank for International Settlements suggest that financial institutions have been beating a retreat just about everywhere. In 25 countries whose banks report ...

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• 26 April

  Argentina’s triumphant return to markets

    Last week, international capital markets enthusiastically granted redemption to Argentina, a serial defaulter on money it has borrowed from external creditors. The scale of this reaction is counter-intuitive and could provide the wrong incentive underpinnings for financial relationships that involve an important element of trust. Yet this kind of forgiveness has occurred regularly — for good and bad reasons ...

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