August, 2016

• 15 August

  US nukes at Turkish airbase at risk of IS seizure: Report

  

    Washington / AFP Dozens of US nuclear weapons stored at a Turkish air base near Syria are at risk of being captured by “terrorists or other hostile forces,” a Washington think tank claimed Monday. Critics have long been alarmed by America’s estimated stockpile of about 50 nuclear bombs at Incirlik in southern Turkey, just 70 miles (110 kilometers) from ...

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• 15 August

  1mn S Sudan refugees face dire conditions: UN

  

    Washington / AFP Nearly a million refugees fleeing the brutal conflict in South Sudan, most of them women and children, are suffering dire conditions in camps across the region, the UN said on Monday. Refugee agency UNHCR said arrivals in Uganda alone had peaked at “more than 8,000 in one day” last month after an outbreak of fresh fighting in ...

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• 15 August

  Gunfights rock Kashmir on Independence Day

  

    Srinagar / AFP A police paramilitary commander was shot dead in Kashmir’s main city while at least two suspected separatist militants were killed in gun-battles on Monday as violence flared in the disputed Himalayan region on Indian Independence Day. The unnamed commander was critically injured in an ambush and died in hospital, a senior officer of India’s Central Reserve Police ...

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• 15 August

  Saudi-led coalition to allow aid flights to Sanaa

    Riyadh / AFP The Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen said it would allow humanitarian flights into Sanaa’s international airport from Monday, after several days’ closure due to renewed hostilities around the capital. “Sanaa international airport will be reopened to United Nations flights and those of other agencies from Monday,” a coalition statement said. The airport in the rebel-held capital ...

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• 15 August

  Russia ‘close’ to join forces with US on Aleppo: Minister

    Moscow / AFP Russia is close to joining forces with the United States around Syria’s ravaged second city of Aleppo, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments aired on Monday. “Step by step we are getting closer to the situation in which — and I’m only speaking about Aleppo here — we will be able to begin battling together so ...

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• 15 August

  5 dead, 20,000 rescued in Louisiana floods

  

    Washington / AFP Emergency crews in flood-devastated Louisiana have rescued more than 20,000 people after catastrophic inundations that left at least five dead, news reports said on Monday. As many as 10,000 people are living in shelters after a weekend of torrential rains that has prompted the federal government to declare a disaster, according to Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards. ...

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• 15 August

  51 hacked to death in DR Congo

    Goma / AFP Civil society groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday said the number of people hacked to death in the restive east this weekend has risen to 51. “Our team on the ground has counted 51 bodies slain with machetes,” said Teddy Kataliko, a member of a local alliance of NGOs and unions working in the ...

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• 15 August

  The brave new world of robots and lost jobs

  

    Job insecurity is a central theme of the 2016 campaign, fueling popular anger about trade deals and immigration. But economists warn that much bigger job losses are ahead in America — driven not by foreign competition but by advancing technology. A look at the numbers suggests that America is having the wrong debate this year. Economic security won’t come ...

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• 15 August

  Private equity falls head over heels

  

    The buyout Masters of the Universe are getting creative in Silicon Valley. This year, technology companies have made up about 19 percent of all US private equity buyouts, the industry’s largest share of PE deals since at least 2004, according to Bloomberg data. Some of the eye-catching private equity tech takeovers in 2016 were Thoma Bravo’s $3 billion buyout ...

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• 15 August

  Junk-bond bears to the world

    The junk-bond bears have been terribly wrong this year. But they’re sticking with their pessimistic calls. Distressed-debt investor Anchorage Capital, for example, which lost 1.48 percent in the first six months of the year, has urged clients to start preparing for a downturn, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. The founders of rival King Street expressed a similar sentiment in a ...

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