February, 2017

• 11 February

  South Sudan general resigns

    JOHANNESBURG / AP A South Sudanese general has resigned while telling President Salva Kiir “you have disgraced yourself” by subjecting the civil war-torn country to ethnic bias and “unacceptable cycles of violence.” The resignation letter, dated Saturday and seen by The Associated Press, comes from Lt. Gen. Thomas Cirillo Swaka, the deputy chief of general staff for logistics. Government ...

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• 11 February

  Striking military police in Brazil agree to return to work

    RIO DE JANEIRO / AP The government of Brazil’s southeastern state of Espirito Santo and military police have reached an agreement to end a strike that had paralyzed several cities and led to an uptick in violence. The agreement reached late Friday came after a week of strikes led by family members of the officers. Wives and other relatives ...

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• 11 February

  7 Pakistani fishermen jailed in Yemen for 10 years returned

    ISLAMABAD / AP Seven Pakistani fishermen who remained jailed in Yemen for over a decade have been returned home. Najum Abbasi, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said on Saturday that the fishermen who hail from coastal areas in the provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh, had crossed international water boundaries 10 years ago and were ...

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• 11 February

  Cop killed during anti-govt protests in Baghdad

  

    BAGHDAD / AP An Iraqi policeman was killed during anti-government protests in the Iraqi capital on Saturday, according to police and hospital officials who said seven other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters. Demonstrators loyal to influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad demanding that the commission overseeing the local elections schedule this year be overhauled. ...

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• 11 February

  Germany to elect new president; Frank-Walter Steinmeier favorite

    BERLIN / AP A German parliamentary assembly will elect the country’s new president on Sunday, with a respected former foreign minister who last year called Donald Trump one of the world’s “hate preachers” the overwhelming favorite to win. The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. The new head of state will succeed ...

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• 11 February

  Powerful quake kills 6 in southern Philippines

  

    SURIGAO / AP A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least six people and injured more than 120, with officials combing through cracked buildings and nearby towns on Saturday to check on the damage and other possible casualties. The magnitude 6.7 quake roused residents from their sleep late Friday in Surigao del Norte province, forcing hundreds ...

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• 11 February

  13 dead, thousands caught in flooding in central Indonesia

    JAKARTA / AP Up to 40,000 people were caught in severe flooding following days of torrential rain in central Indonesia, where the death toll from landslides on Bali resort island rose to 13, officials said on Saturday. Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said that incessant rains in the past five days caused rivers on Sumbawa Island to break their banks ...

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• 11 February

  Is corporate ‘short-termism’ a myth, or is it rising?

  

    You’ve heard the criticism. Too many American corporate managers are addicted to “short-termism.” They postpone investments and other costs, sacrificing future performance for present profitability. Either they’re pressured by “activist investors” or want to inflate the value of their stock options. If true, it could help explain the economy’s lackluster performance. Now, a new study asserts that it is ...

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• 11 February

  Twitter gets more users but can’t seem to sell them advertisements

  

    At this point last year, Twitter was a company that had a hard time attracting new people to surf and tweet, but it was quite skilled at generating ad dollars from its die-hard users. Now Twitter’s problem has reversed. It’s still a mess of a company, but in a fresh way. People are using Twitter more, but advertisers are ...

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• 11 February

  Trump needs an Afghanistan plan

    The news from Afghanistan is as relentless as it depressing: six aid workers murdered by IS, at least 20 dead from a suicide bombing at the Supreme Court, more territory lost to the Taliban, more opium growing in the fields. Maybe that explains Donald Trump’s silence on the war since becoming president. But it does not excuse it. The ...

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