June, 2016

• 11 June

  West slams Syrian regime over barrel bombings of Daraya

  

    Beirut/ AFP Western powers lashed out at Syria’s government, accusing regime forces of dropping barrel bombs on the town of Daraya hours after it received its first food aid in almost four years. The strikes, using crude unguided explosive devices, came as Arab-Kurdish fighters said they had encircled a stronghold of IS fighters in northern Syria, cutting off a ...

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• 11 June

  US imprisons man for violating Syria sanctions

    Los Angeles / AFP A California man was sentenced to 32 months in prison for conspiring to skirt US sanctions against Syria by sending tactical military equipment to extremists in the war-torn country. Amin Al Baroudi, 50, a Syrian-born naturalized US citizen, pleaded guilty in January to purchasing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tactical equipment, including night ...

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• 11 June

  Shabaab says it executed 4 ‘spies’ in Somalia

  Mogadishu / AFP Shabaab extremists in Somalia have publicly executed four men they accused of spying, including one they claimed helped kill their supreme leader in a US drone strike, the Al-Qaeda-linked group and local sources said on Saturday. The executions took place on Friday evening in a village in the Bay region in the centre of the country, the ...

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• 11 June

  Libyan forces ‘retake port’ in extremist bastion Sirte

  

    Tripoli / AFP Forces allied with Libya’s unity government said on Saturday they had recaptured the port in the extremist stronghold of Sirte from IS group fighters who are now surrounded inside the city. The fall of Sirte, the hometown of ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi, would be a major setback to the extremists who have also lost territory in ...

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• 11 June

  Pistorius faces return to jail for lover’s murder

    Johannesburg/ AFP Disgraced South African Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius will appear in court on Monday for a sentencing hearing set to send him back to jail for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp three years ago. The double-amputee killed Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, saying he mistook her for an intruder ...

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• 11 June

  B’desh detains 1,600 ‘radicals’

    DHAKA/ AP Authorities have rounded up about 1,600 criminal suspects, including a few dozen believed to be radicals, in a nationwide crackdown aimed at halting a wave of brutal attacks on minorities and activists in Bangladesh, police said on Saturday. The attacks — including two Hindus in the last week — have alarmed the international community and raised questions ...

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• 11 June

  This campaign broke the US two-party system

  

    Americans find it hard to imagine that the two-party system could ever break down. “Democracy works, this country works when you have two parties that are serious and trying to solve problems,” President Barack Obama said recently. Yet U.S. democracy and the country itself would be better served if politicians started acting as if there were more parties — ...

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• 11 June

  UK exit from EU would hit poor families hard

  

    With the U.K. set to vote on European Union membership in less than a month, economists, politicians and pundits are endlessly debating how an EU exit would affect the country’s economy. However, for many families, the types of figures being thrown about — which can run to the billions of pounds — may seem abstract and remote from their ...

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• 11 June

  Why US leadership on climate change still matters

    Anthony Kleven SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS As the United States hosted the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial in San Francisco on June 1-2, the Obama administration sought to demonstrate global leadership on green energy and climate change. Those efforts, however, are being undercut by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. Just a few days before the meetings ...

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• 11 June

  EU to miss Sept deadline for swap rules

  

    Bloomberg The European Union will push back the completion of collateral rules for the multi-trillion-dollar swap market to the end of the year, breaking with US authorities who have set a September deadline for the biggest banks to comply. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, won’t be able to meet the deadline adopted by the US — and ...

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