February, 2016

• 14 February

  Rescuers end hunt for quake-hit Taiwanese

  

  TAIPEI / AP Rescuers in Taiwan pulled out the remains of the final victims of last week’s earthquake and with a minute of silence ended the search with the death toll of 116, most of them in a collapsed high-rise apartment building. All but two of the dead came from the 17-story Weiguan Golden Dragon residential complex, which toppled when ...

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• 14 February

  Migrants share their ordeal at ‘human library’

  

  Nicosia / AFP Inside a vintage-style Cypriot cafe, 18-year-old Ibrahima Yonga recounts to a stranger how he escaped the Boko Haram group in Cameroon and spent months at sea to reach Europe. Seated at tables nearby, a Palestinian, a Congolese and a Sudanese also share their tales with members of the public, against a soothing background of light acoustic music. ...

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• 14 February

  1,000 pages of Clinton emails released

  WASHINGTON / AP The State Department has released more than 1,000 new pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Eighty-one messages were classified, mostly at the lowest level of sensitivity. None was declared top secret. The department has now released more than 45,000 pages of emails from the private account Clinton used as secretary of state. It plans to finish making her ...

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• 14 February

  Syrian oppn slams truce deal

  

  Munich / AP A senior figure in the Syrian opposition movement on Sunday criticised the truce deal forged by the US and Russia, saying Moscow was continuing its onslaught on civilian areas. “We have gotten used to conferences and hope put into words but what we need is action, and the action I see is that Russia is killing Syrian ...

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• 14 February

  Tsipras chides EU, IMF for reform assessment delay

  

  Athens / AFP An assessment of Greece’s attempts to reform its struggling economy is being held up by disagreements between the European Union and the IMF, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said. “Negotiations on the reform plan have fallen behind, which is in nobody’s interest,” he said on Sunday, cited by the Avghi daily, close to Tspiras’ Syriza party. Greece ...

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• 14 February

  Hopes for peace as C Africans vote in presidential run-off

  

  Bangui / AFP Voters in the Central African Republic were casting their ballots on Sunday in delayed legislative elections and a presidential run-off which they hope will bring peace after the country’s worst sectarian violence since independence in 1960. The nation, dogged by coups, violence and misrule since winning independence from France, could take a step towards rebirth if the ...

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• 14 February

  EU in final push for difficult ‘Brexit’ deal

  Brussels / AP The quest to prevent Britain crashing out of the European Union faces its moment of truth this week, with EU chief Donald Tusk touring key capitals in a final push for a deal at a crucial Brussels summit. Many of Prime Minister David Cameron’s demands for reforms ahead of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the crisis-hit ...

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• 14 February

  Budget fairy tales

  

  We have a candour deficit President Obama last week submitted his $4 trillion 2017 budget, using the occasion for self-congratulation. Deficits are down. Employment is up. He plugged proposals to improve cyber-security, early childhood education and “clean” energy. All this is routine political advertising. What’s missing is candor and context. We now have a government that’s doing less and costing ...

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• 14 February

  UAE’s medical tourism industry on right track

  While improving the overall infrastructure nationwide which is giving a boost to the healthcare sector, the UAE has been wooing more visitors, including medical tourists who visit the country to spend their holidays and receive medical treatment as well. The UAE has turned into a hub for medical tourism and it has worked very hard to achieve this status. Both ...

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• 14 February

  Obama shows how not to sell a carbon tax

  President Barack Obama’s proposal this week for a $10-a-barrel tax on oil, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by Republicans, could make it easier for the next president to pass a carbon tax — by demonstrating how not to go about it. Obama made three mistakes. First, he targeted a single industry, and one that many Americans believe he doesn’t like. ...

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