April, 2016

• 24 April

  Austrian far-right triumphs in presidential election

    Vienna / AFP Austria’s anti-immigration far-right triumphed on Sunday in the first round of presidential elections, dealing a wake-up call to Vienna’s cosy political establishment two years before the next scheduled general election. Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) won 36.7% of the vote, projections showed, with candidates from the two governing parties failing to even make it ...

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• 24 April

  14 die in regime, rebel attacks in Syria’s Aleppo

    Aleppo / AFP Rebel and regime bombardment in Syria’s Aleppo on Sunday killed at least 14 civilians, emergency workers and a monitor said, on the third day of renewed violence in the battered city. Rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the northern city killed six civilians, including a woman and two children, said the Syrian Observatory for Human ...

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• 24 April

  Clashes between Iraqi Kurds, Turkmen kill 9

    Kirkuk / AFP Kurdish peshmerga forces and Turkmen Shiite paramilitaries were Sunday engaged in clashes that have killed at least nine people in a flashpoint town during the past 24 hours, officials said. Tuz Khurmatu, part of a swathe of territory claimed by both Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region and Baghdad, has been divided between Turkmen and Kurds since fighting ...

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• 24 April

  Sending troops to Syria would be ‘mistake’, warns Obama

    London / AFP US President Barack Obama warned on Sunday that it would be a “mistake” to send Western troops into Syria to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Al Assad. In an interview with the BBC, he said the United States would continue strikes against the IS group while continuing efforts to broker a transition deal between the ...

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• 24 April

  Yemen troops, Saudi-led coalition attack Al Qaida militants in south

  

  SANAA / AP Hundreds of Yemeni troops loyal to the internationally recognized president have launched an operation to drive Al Qaida and IS fighters out of southern coastal areas the extremists have seized amid the country’s complex civil war, security officials said on Sunday. They said the forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are receiving air support from ...

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• 24 April

  Nepal marks 1 year since quake as frustration mounts

  

    Kathmandu / AFP Nepal held memorial services on Sunday for the thousands killed in a massive earthquake one year ago, as victims still huddled in tents across the country accused the government of failing them. Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli laid flowers at a destroyed 19th-century tower in Kathmandu, where hundreds gathered to remember the devastating quake that ...

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• 24 April

  The ‘settled’ consensus du jour

  

  Authoritarianism, always latent in progressivism, is becoming explicit. Progressivism’s determination to regulate thought by regulating speech is apparent in the campaign by 16 states’ attorneys general and those of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, none Republican, to criminalize scepticism about the supposedly “settled” conclusions of climate science. Four core tenets of progressivism are: First, history has a ...

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• 24 April

  Sustainable farming must for food security

    The 7th session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ministerial Conference on Food Security and Agricultural Development and the inaugural General Assembly of the Islamic Organisation for Food Security (IOFS) to be held in Astana will throw spotlight on food security. Starting Tuesday, the conference will delve into the current state of agriculture and food security in the ...

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• 24 April

  China’s steel glut still a problem

    Sara Hsu SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS China has faced a steel glut since 2014, when a real estate and debt shock forced demand for construction materials into a nosedive. China has been trying to cope with excess inventories both by cutting capacity in the sector and by reducing existing stocks of steel. China’s leadership is now encouraging steel overcapacity ...

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• 24 April

  Singapore wants new rules to defuse Asia’s tensions

    Asia needs to craft regional rules and norms to defuse lingering tensions and safeguard the stability which has undergirded its prosperity, Singapore’s defense minister stressed at a security conference in Malaysia this week. In his address at the 4th Putrajaya Forum in Kuala Lumpur – a biennial defense meeting – Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said that ASEAN must ...

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