December, 2016

• 22 December

  Soaring in the sky among migrating swans

  

    DPA Biologist Sacha Dench recently took to the skies in a powered paraglider to follow flights of swans on their 7,000-kilometre winter migration. The number of Bewick’s swans migrating from the Russian tundra to north-western Europe fell by over a third between 1995 and 2010. The Flight of the Swans project by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) aims ...

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• 22 December

  Manhunt for Berlin suspect intensifies

  

    Aleppo / AFP German authorities came under fire on Thursday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous extremist. Prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro ($104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning he ...

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• 22 December

  European populists link Berlin attack to Merkel policies

    London / AFP Populists across Europe have seized on the truck attack in Berlin as a way to criticise Germany’s immigration policy but key players have held back on jumping to conclusions as the investigation continues. Former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, a key ally of US President-elect Donald Trump in Europe, said the attack which killed ...

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• 22 December

  Russia bids farewell to slain Turkey envoy

  

    Moscow / AFP President Vladimir Putin on Thursday bade farewell to Andrei Karlov at a packed memorial ceremony in Moscow for the diplomat who was assassinated in Turkey by an off-duty policeman. Dozens of colleagues and relatives attended the ceremony for Karlov, the ambassador to Turkey whose death was labelled by Moscow as an act of terror while President ...

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• 22 December

  Japan sends troops to fight massive fire

  

    Tokyo / AFP A rapidly-spreading fire engulfed more than 100 buildings and sparked evacuations in a northern Japanese city on Thursday, leaving two people injured and forcing authorities to mobilise the military. Aerial footage broadcast live on Japanese TV showed massive orange flames and thick grey smoke spewing out of buildings throughout much of the day in the city ...

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• 22 December

  Monte dei Paschi woes in focus as stock markets ease

  

    London/ AFP European equities drifted mostly lower on Thursday in quiet pre-holiday trade, with investors awaiting news on the fate of crippled bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS). Wall Street also eased at the opening, slipping further away from the elusive 20,000 target on the Dow index. “The long awaited 20,000 benchmark on the Dow isn’t breached yet ...

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• 22 December

  Saudi edges up before budget, Egypt’s uptrend slows down

  

    Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market edged up on Thursday before the release of the kingdom’s state budget for 2017, while Egypt’s uptrend slowed. Other Gulf markets were mixed in modest trading volumes. The Saudi stock index added 0.4 percent. Much activity focused on second-tier stocks such as Saudi Printing and Packaging, which jumped 10 percent. Saudi Electricity climbed 0.7 ...

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• 22 December

  ‘Energy ‘Tsunamis’ threaten to drag crude down to $10’

  

    Bloomberg The oil industry must brace for five energy “tsunamis” that threaten to drag prices as low as $10 a barrel in less than a decade, according to Engie SA’s innovation chief. The falling cost of solar power and battery storage, rising sales of electric vehicles, increasingly “smart” buildings and cheap hydrogen will all weigh on crude, Thierry Lepercq, ...

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• 22 December

  Saudi to boost 2017 spending as it cuts into huge state deficit

  

    RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had successfully cut into its huge state budget deficit this year and will increase government spending in 2017 to boost flagging economic growth. The deficit shrank to 297 billion riyals ($79 billion) in 2016. That was well below a record 367 billion gap in 2015, and below the government’s projection ...

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• 22 December

  Iraq says Kurds, foreign firms agree to cut output

  

    Bloomberg Iraq said most international oil companies working in the country, along with the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, have agreed to cut crude output to fulfill an OPEC accord. Iraq is fully committed to delivering on OPEC’s Nov. 30 agreement to reduce supplies, Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said on Thursday in Cairo at a meeting of the Organization of ...

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