Beirut / AFP Clashes around Syria’s second city Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda’s affiliate and allied rebel groups within a 24-hour period, a monitor said on Sunday. “Fierce fighting raged past midnight (Sunday) on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah ...
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April, 2016
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10 April
Militants kill 18 Philippine soldiers
Philippines / AFP A Philippine offensive against the extremist Abu Sayyaf group after a spate of kidnappings has left 18 soldiers and five fighters dead in the worst violence in the troubled south this year, authorities said on Sunday. Saturday’s clashes on the strife-torn island of Basilan came after an April 8 ransom deadline set by Abu Sayyaf, who had ...
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10 April
Taiwanese rally for death penalty after child’s beheading
Taipei / AFP Hundreds of Taiwanese rallied on Sunday to show support for retaining the death penalty, after the beheading of a child in a street attack shocked the island. Demonstrators dressed in black and held white roses in mourning for the four-year-old girl murdered on March 28 near a Taipei metro station. Many wore stickers reading “Death penalty is ...
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10 April
‘Saddam aide’ to reshape Sunni insurgency
BAGHDAD / Reuters A rallying cry to Iraqi Sunnis from former President Saddam Hussein’s top surviving aide aims to bolster the old ruling Baath party’s appeal with Sunni Muslims fearing new reprisals by Shi’ite militias, experts said. The footage purportedly featuring Ezzat Al-Douri was released on Thursday, the anniversary of the fall of Saddam’s Sunni-led rule when US troops stormed ...
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10 April
Refugees escape war, but face ‘germ threats’ in Europe
Amsterdam / AFP Having survived perilous escapes from war zones, refugees find themselves assailed anew in Europe by germs proliferating in crowded, unsanitary camps that could become outbreak hotspots, infectious disease experts have warned. Their systems weakened by physical exhaustion, a lack of safe food, clean water and medicine, refugees are sitting-duck targets for entirely preventable diseases that can scar, ...
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10 April
A testing year for American tolerance
Donald Trump tests the limits of campaign speech. He makes false statements and refuses to correct them. He attacks other religions and ethnic groups, inflaming domestic tension and foreign terrorist rage. He pledges to overhaul long-standing US commitments in ways that frighten allies. He cavalierly predicts a “massive recession,†undermining confidence in the US economy. When criticized, Trump adopts the ...
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10 April
Fair probe must before Rousseff impeachment
Massive recession and charges of juggling government accounts to disguise the depth of budget shortfalls during her 2014 re-election, combined to weigh heavily on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is currently facing imminent impeachment. But she and her supporters argue that this relatively technical accusation regarding the budget is not an impeachable offence. Indeed, the grip is tightening on Rousseff, ...
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10 April
The Fed should lower interest rates
Narayana Kocherlakota The steady improvement of the U.S. economy has led many to conclude that the Federal Reserve should keep removing stimulus by resuming interest-rate increases this year. I disagree: With inflation pressures low, there’s a lot more the Fed can and should do to get people back to work. To understand my point, consider three charts. The first shows ...
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10 April
What Hong Kong reveals about ASEAN’s economic future
The independence of Hong Kong’s economy, its transparency and its makeup has made it a regional benchmark for market players looking at the broader economic outlook. That was the case in the aftermath of the 1997/98 Asian Financial Crisis and the 2008 Great Recession. As the fallout from last’s year’s Great Fall of China continues, the former British territory is ...
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10 April
Stringent Shanghai homebuyer rules for outsiders as prices zoom
Bloomberg Shanghai unveiled a package of measures designed to stem a surge in property prices in the metropolis, underscoring how regulators in top-tier cities are shifting gears in an economy where housing has been a brake on growth in recent years. The local government will tighten approval criteria for non-resident homebuyers, raise down-payment requirements for some second homes and ban ...
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