May, 2016

• 28 May

  Turkey says 104 IS militants killed in air and land strikes

    ANKARA / AP Turkey’s state-run news agency says US-led coalition airstrikes and Turkish artillery fire against the IS group in Syria have killed 104 militants. Anadolu Agency said on Saturday said the strikes came late Friday, hours after rockets fired from Syria hit a southern Turkish town and wounded five people. It said the airstrikes and artillery fire also ...

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• 28 May

  ‘Westerner’ among 7 IS suspects arrested in Yemen

    Aden / AFP Yemeni authorities on Saturday arrested seven IS group suspects, including one ‘Westerner’, in second city Aden, a police officer said. The arrests are part of a government offensive against IS and Al-Qaeda, which have claimed a wave of deadly attacks in recent months in Yemen’s south and southeast. Among these were twin bombings claimed by IS ...

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• 28 May

  Hollande to push for ‘unity’ on WW I centenary

  

    Paris / AFP French President Francois Hollande will underline the need for European unity at a ceremony Sunday in Verdun to honour those killed in one of the bloodiest battles of World War I 100 years ago. To mark the centenary, Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will lay wreaths at cemeteries holding the dead of both sides in ...

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• 28 May

  Malaysia accepts 68 Syrian refugees

    Kuala Lumpur / AFP Malaysia on Saturday received 68 Syrian refugees including 31 children out of a total of 3,000 it hopes to allow into the predominantly Muslim country with hundreds more expected soon. Last December, the Southeast Asian country accepted the first batch of 11 Syrian migrants who had relatives in Malaysia. Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi said ...

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• 28 May

  Iran’s Khamenei warns of Western ‘schemes’ as new lawmakers meet

  

    Tehran /AFP Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged newly-elected lawmakers on Saturday to resist “schemes” from the West as parliamentarians met in Tehran for the first time since elections finished in April. “The turbulent state of the region and the world and the international adventurism of oppressors and their vassals have confronted the Islamic Iran with conditions more ...

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• 28 May

  Kurdish factions should make common cause

  

  WASHINGTON One cause for Syria’s torments is that regional powers have used proxy forces to advance their position in the “great game” of influence, without regard for the effects on the Syrian people. An example is the standoff between two Syrian Kurdish militia groups. One, known as the YPG, appears to be tacitly backed by an odd coalition that includes ...

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• 28 May

  Putin’s Greece visit a clear message for EU

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Athens appears economic at its face value, but it is also an attempt to demonstrate Moscow could move through its allies in Europe, notably Athens, to flout EU sanctions imposed by Brussels over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. Putin is quite aware that Athens could play a role in restoring rapprochement with Brussels amid ...

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• 28 May

  Trump can’t get past the door in Rust Belt homes

    Donald Trump has a personal problem with voters that transcends policy differences, partisan affiliations and political concerns: They don’t want him in their homes and aren’t eager to have their kids exposed to him. These are among the findings of an online poll of working-class voters in the Rust Belt. When asked which likely general election candidate would be ...

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• 28 May

  Tibet and ‘One Belt, One Road’

  

  It is no secret that Tibetan independence movements have long drawn the ire of Chinese authorities. Alongside heightened rhetoric in recent years over Tibetan unrest and the growing publicity of riots and self-immolations, China has sought to augment its capacity for crackdown in the restive province. The swiftness of Chinese response to previous swells of separatist sentiment is best illustrated ...

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• 28 May

  Shurooq eyes int’l investors for Sharjah

  

    Sharjah / WAM Promoting Sharjah’s array of investment opportunities to Germany’s business community was the basis of a recent visit to Berlin which was successfully concluded by the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) on Friday. During their visit, Shurooq was at the German capital as it organised the Sharjah-Berlin Seminar, while on the second day, it participated at the ...

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