September, 2016

• 25 September

  Turkey could only join US Raqa operation sans Kurds: Erdogan

  

    Ankara / AFP President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey could join a US-led operation in Syria to retake the IS group’s stronghold of Raqa only if Kurdish fighters are not involved, a newspaper reported Sunday. US support for Kurdish forces in Syria is a sore point for Ankara, which considers such fighters to be “terrorists” linked to the Kurdish ...

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• 25 September

  Suicide bomber kills 7 Shiites in Iraqi capital

    BAGHDAD / AP A suicide bomber in Iraq killed at least seven people who were setting up tents on Sunday ahead of a major Shiite religious observance next month, officials said. The bomber struck as residents of Baghdad’s western Eskan neighborhood were preparing for Ashoura, which commemorates the 7th century death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, ...

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• 25 September

  India pledges to ratify Paris Agreement on climate change

  

    NEW DELHI / AP India’s prime minister said on Sunday that his country will ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change early next month. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government will ratify the agreement Oct. 2, coinciding with the birth anniversary of India’s independence leader Mohandas Gandhi. Modi made the announcement at a meeting of his Bharatiya Janata Party’s ...

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• 25 September

  Bosnian Serbs vote in referendum banned by top court

  

    BANJA LUKA / AP Bosnian Serbs voted in a referendum banned by the country’s constitutional court, risking Western sanctions against their autonomous region and criminal charges against their leaders. The vote on Sunday was whether to keep Jan. 9 as a holiday in Republika Srpska, commemorating the day in 1992 that Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state, ...

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• 25 September

  2 teenage girls held in France over ‘terror plot’

    Paris / AFP Two teenage girls from the French city of Nice are being held on suspicion of planning an attack directed by a notorious Syria-based French extremist, a source close to the investigation said on Sunday. The suspects, aged 17 and 19, live in the same area of Nice as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the radicalised Tunisian man who ...

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• 25 September

  Harvard does a trade you should never make

  

    The Harvard Management Co., which oversees Harvard University’s endowment and other investments, just released its 2016 annual report. It’s grim reading: The fund had a negative return of 2 percent and was worth about $2 billion less than a year earlier, underperforming its benchmarks by a significant margin. At $35.7 billion, the university’s endowment is the biggest in the ...

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• 25 September

  Climate change could be a tougher test than war

  Imagine an entirely plausible scenario for the effects of climate change in 2045. The Greenland ice sheet has melted entirely, adding 20 feet to the oceans. Unprecedented outbreaks of pests have ruined crops of corn, wheat and rice around the world, causing food shortages and riots. In the U.S., the army patrols major cities. In such a desperate situation, could ...

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• 25 September

  Why hire a corporate lawyer when a robot will do?

  

    Lawyers, beware. Robots really are coming for your jobs. Exhibit A: Venture-capital firm Invoke Capital just made a multi-million-dollar investment in Luminance, which is developing artificial intelligence to automate the legal drudgery involved in corporate mergers and acquisitions. The robot lawyer is just one of many — including offerings from Ross Intelligence and Kira Systems — aiming to replace ...

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• 25 September

  Ex-IMF boss on trial over bankers’ luxury sprees

  

    AFP Former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato stands trial on Monday accused of overseeing a “corrupt system” that helped him and other executives misuse funds on hotels, parties and luxury shopping when he was a Spanish bank boss. Uncovered in 2013 by a journalist who saw a hacked email alluding to “black credit cards,” the case threatens to land the ...

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• 25 September

  Citigroup sees record Mexico rate boost

  

    Bloomberg As far as Citigroup Inc. is concerned, Mexico has little choice but to carry out an unprecedented interest-rate increase to arrest a plunge in the peso triggered by Donald Trump’s recent surge in US presidential polls. Mexico’s exchange rate has tumbled 6 percent in the past month, the biggest slide among the world’s major currencies. Citigroup economist Sergio ...

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