April, 2016

• 5 April

  Hundreds flee IS fight in Mosul

  

  Iraq / AP Fighting between Iraqi forces and militants affiliated with the IS group close to Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has displaced over 2,000 people in the past week. On one recent night, around a hundred people arrived on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, in Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, having fled violence. The journey ended in ...

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• 5 April

  47 Indian police get life for killing Sikh pilgrims

  India / AFP A special court in India has sentenced 47 policemen to life in prison for killing a group of Sikh pilgrims in 1991 whom they had claimed were militants, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. The officers were convicted of shooting dead the pilgrims to try and earn promotions in Uttar Pradesh state which at the time was hit ...

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• 5 April

  Merkel to open new Syrian refugee centre in Turkey: PM

  Ankara / AFP German Chancellor Angela Merkel will next week inaugurate a new centre for Syrian refugees in the southeastern Turkish city of Kilis built with EU funds, Turkey’s prime minister said on Tuesday. “We are going to inaugurate a school and a hospital built in Kilis thanks to EU financing with European leaders led by Mrs Merkel,” said Turkish ...

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• 5 April

  World splurges on military weapons

  

  Kabul / AFP Global military spending has begun rising in real terms for the first time since the US began its withdrawal of troops from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Defense budgets rose 1 percent to $1.68 trillion in 2015, making up about 2.3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, Sipri ...

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• 5 April

  Turkey to take in 200 more migrants from Greece today

  Turkey / AFP Turkey is to receive around 200 more migrants from Greece on Wednesday under a controversial deal with the EU after taking in a similar number at the start of this week, a Turkish official said. The new wave of around 200 migrants would be shipped from the Greek island of Lesbos into the Turkish harbour town of ...

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• 5 April

  Libyans regain hope with new unity govt head in Tripoli

  

  Turkey / afp Residents of Tripoli have started to breathe a little easier since the head of a new unity government came to town promising a way out of Libya’s political and economic crises. Prime minister-designate Fayez Al Sarraj’s arrival last Wednesday came at a time of sandstorms combined with fears of clashes between rival armed groups that have failed ...

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• 5 April

  Fantasies over facts

  

  Trumpanomics doesn’t compute. The media keep piling on Donald Trump, because he keeps saying things that are controversial, impractical, undesirable and — in some cases — simply impossible. Into this last category has now tumbled something new: Trump told Washington Post reporters Robert Costa and Bob Woodward that he could eliminate the $19 trillion federal debt over “a period of ...

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• 5 April

  Heed to economic impact of climate change

  Economists have once again sounded an alarm in a study that trillions of dollars worth of financial assets may be under threat from global warming by 2100, if no appropriate measures are taken to mitigate its impact. The World Economic Forum had also cautioned in January that climate change could be the biggest potential threat to the global economy in ...

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• 5 April

  History repeats in S Korea’s crumbling opposition party

  Elaine Ramirez SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Four years ago, a backpack-toting software engineer strutted on to South Korea’s presidential campaign stage with the vow to reform the two-party system and heal the bipartisan split with a new shade of politics. The self-made entrepreneur, antivirus creator, and former school dean Ahn Cheol-soo attracted swarms of young voters who pinned hopes on ...

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• 5 April

  China’s role in North Korean puzzle

  

  Last week the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States were in Washington, D.C. to remount a political charge against North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s recent behavior. It’s encouraging to see President Xi Jinping chip in for world peace alongside Asia’s other power brokers, as it is to see Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean ...

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