March, 2016

• 21 March

  Obama in Havana to cement thaw in USA-Cuba relations

  

  Astana / AFP President Barack Obama arrived in Havana for a visit that he hopes will help end a hostile US policy toward Cuba that he views as futile, lifting one of the biggest impediments to closer US alliances across Latin America. Air Force One touched down at Jose Marti International Airport at about 4:19 pm. Obama took an evening …

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• 21 March

  Russian court finds Ukraine pilot guilty over journos killing

  

  Donetsk / AFP A court in southern Russia on Monday found Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko guilty of murder over the killing of two Russian journalists in war-torn east Ukraine, at a trial condemned by Kiev and the West as a political sham. Savchenko “committed the premeditated murder as part of a group of people from the motives of hatred and …

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• 21 March

  Kazakhstan ruling party wins parliamentary poll

  Astana / AFP Energy-rich Kazakhstan’s ruling party has secured a landslide win in parliamentary polls that never threatened to trouble autocrat President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s long reign, official results confirmed Monday. According to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party won 82 percent of votes in Sunday’s election and will share parliament with the pro-government People’s Communist Party and …

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• 21 March

  Rousseff in trouble as impeachment drive accelerates; Lula fights back

  

  Brasília / AFP Brazil’s struggling leftist government is fighting on two fronts as impeachment proceedings threaten President Dilma Rousseff and legal battles harry her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Rousseff’s presidency appears to be in peril as she fights impeachment, protests, recession and scandal, and her decision to call Lula to the rescue backfired last week when a judge …

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• 21 March

  Spain probes ‘crash’ that killed 13 foreign students

  Tortosa / AFP Spanish investigators on Monday sought to establish the cause of a weekend coach crash that killed 13 female students from six countries, most of them Italians, as they were returning from a festival. The vehicle was carrying students from about 20 countries, many of them on the European Erasmus exchange programme in Barcelona, the seaside capital of …

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• 21 March

  Trade myths and realities

  

  In this bitter campaign, one area of agreement unites the major candidates: trade. Bernie Sanders brags that he’s opposed all recent trade agreements; Hillary Clinton now rejects the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Obama’s signature trade success that she once supported; and Donald Trump blames incompetent US trade negotiators for devastating job losses to China that might be cured by a …

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• 21 March

  Water wisdom can help avert crisis

  The quest for water, especially in arid regions worldwide, is rapidly becoming an overriding concern, as governments and research centres seek options on how best to address the issue. The scenario looks so gloomy with reports that as many as 3.5 billion people are expected to experience water scarcity in the next decade. Given this huge number, the problem is …

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• 21 March

  Mark Zuckerberg’s wooing of China

  “It’s great to be back in Beijing!” wrote Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post on Friday. “I kicked off my visit with a run through Tiananmen Square, past the Forbidden City and over to the Temple of Heaven.” This marks the latest in a series of attempts by the chairman and chief executive of Facebook to win the hearts and …

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• 21 March

  China’s economic planning dilemma

  According to the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Report on the Implementation of the 2015 Plan and on the 2016 Draft Plan for National Economic and Social Development, adopted March 16, considerable progress was made in 2015 and reforms were laid out for 2016. As China’s economy become more complex, planning has become more challenging. In 2015, the government’s …

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• 21 March

  Huawei bolsters ME presence

  

  Sunaina Rana / Emirates Business China’s leading telecommunications equipment and services company Huawei’s ‘honor’ model has announced that its ‘honor 5X’ smartphone launched in February, has sold five times more than its predecessor 4X device. Chris Sunbaigong, Vice president of Huawei honor, told Emirates Business, “Honor is the No 1 smartphone e-brand from Huawei. As a parent company, Huawei has …

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