December, 2016

• 18 December

  UK clean energy sector shrinks after govt subsidy cuts

  

    Bloomberg The UK’s renewable and low-carbon energy sector shrank by 8.7 percent last year, partly because of cuts to subsidies. The sector, from wind farms to electric vehicles, turned over $52.5bn in 2015, provisional figures by Office for National Statistics showed. That’s lower than the 46.2 billion pound recorded in 2014. Acquisitions of capital assets fell by 39 percent ...

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• 18 December

  Buses enter rebel Aleppo to resume evacuations

  

    Aleppo / AFP Buses began entering the last rebel-held parts of Aleppo on Sunday to resume the evacuation of thousands of increasingly desperate Syrian civilians and rebels trapped in the besieged enclave. As international alarm grew over the plight of the residents including women, children, the sick and wounded, the UN Security Council was to vote on whether to send ...

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• 18 December

  NATO chief defends decision to stay out of Syrian war

    Berlin / AFP NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday defended the alliance’s decision to refrain from stepping into the war in Syria, saying doing so would only make matters worse. All 28 NATO members belong to the US-led coalition battling the IS group but they are not directly involved in the Syrian conflict. “We are experiencing in Syria a horrible ...

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• 18 December

  Iraqi tribal paramilitaries executed prisoners: HRW

    Baghdad / AFP Iraqi pro-government tribal militiamen summarily executed four men suspected of being members of the IS group in the country’s north, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday. The rights group said that the killings took place on November 29 near the village of Shayalat al-Imam, located some 70 kilometres (40 miles) south of Mosul, the last IS-held Iraqi ...

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• 18 December

  48 Yemeni soldiers killed in IS extremist-claimed bombing

  

    Aden / AFP A suicide bomber from the IS group killed at least 48 Yemeni soldiers in Aden Sunday, the latest in a string of deadly attacks against recruits in the country’s second city. Military officials and medics said many others were wounded in the attack that targeted a crowd of servicemen who had gathered to collect their salaries near ...

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• 18 December

  Cash crunch closing WHO clinics in Sudan war zones

  

    Khartoum / AFP Dozens of health facilities supported by the World Health Organization in strife-torn areas of Sudan risk closure due to a lack of funds, exposing one million people to likely epidemics. Eleven clinics have already been shut in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan where years of fighting between government troops and black African rebels has forced tens ...

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• 18 December

  Mali ‘may let’ Burkina troops chase extremists into its territory

    Ouagadougou / AFP Mali’s president said on Sunday he could let Burkina Faso forces pursue extremist fighters when they flee across the border into his country, days after militants massacred 12 Burkinabe soldiers. Around 40 fighters attacked a base some 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the Burkina-Mali border on Friday in what local authorities called the biggest ever extremist attack ...

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• 18 December

  US ready to work with Duterte after latest outburst

  

    MANILA / AP The United States said on Sunday that it would work with the Philippine president to address any concerns after he threatened to terminate a pact that allows US troops to visit the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte was enraged after a US government aid agency deferred a vote on a renewal of a major development assistance package ...

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• 18 December

  13 killed in Indonesian military plane crash

    Jakarta/ AFP Thirteen people have died after an Indonesian military transport plane crashed in the east of the country on Sunday, officials said, marking yet another air accident for the armed forces. The Hercules C-130 plane took off from Timika city in Papua province carrying 12 crew and one passenger, but came down in a remote mountainous region shortly before ...

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• 18 December

  4 bandits killed in Chechen capital

    Moscow / AFP Four armed “bandits” were killed and two wounded in a shootout following an attack on police in the capital of Russia’s Chechnya region, strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov said. Regional boss Kadyrov said a “group of armed people” attacked a police officer and stole his car in the capital Grozny late Saturday. A shootout erupted as law ...

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