Turkish monitors on Greek islands for migrant deal

ATHENS / AP Monitors from Turkey have arrived on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios to help supervise an agreement aimed limiting the number of refugees flowing into the European Union via smugglers’ boats. The officers arrived on Monday and were to stay for at least one week, as Greek authorities scrambled to implement the landmark deal reached last ...

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1,600 more migrants land in Greece

Athens / WAM A total of 1,662 migrants have landed on Greek islands near Turkey since a landmark EU-Turkish deal on curbing the influx took effect on Sunday, a Greek coordination panel said Monday. Half of the migrants—830—arrived on Chios and 698 others on Lesbos, two islands in the northeast Aegean which lie close to Turkey, according to the SOMP ...

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UN slams Israel’s ‘lack of accountability’

Geneva / AFP The UN expert on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories voiced scathing criticism of Israel on Monday, as he stepped down over what he said was a lack of access to areas he was meant to monitor. Makarim Wibisono, who took on the role of Special Rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories in ...

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North Korea fires five more short-range missiles into sea

Seoul / AFP North Korea on Monday fired five short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast—the latest in a series of launches ordered by leader Kim Jong-un amid rising military tensions. They came just days after the North test-fired two medium-range missiles in what the UN Security Council described as an “unacceptable” violation of UN resolutions. Tensions have ...

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China urges Indonesia to release crew after sea confrontation

Jakarta / AFP A Chinese envoy called on Indonesia on Monday to release eight crew members of a Chinese fishing boat detained during a maritime confrontation, after he was summoned by furious Indonesian ministers. Jakarta says Indonesian vessels were on Saturday trying to detain a Chinese fishing boat operating illegally near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, when ...

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Did China just break its ‘diplomatic truce’ with Taiwan?

The Gambia, formerly one of a handful of countries that recognized Taiwan, has officially resumed diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese and Gambian foreign ministers, Wang Yi and Neneh MacDouall-Gaye, signed a joint communique officially resuming diplomatic ties on March 17 in Beijing. Part of the communique, as is standard procedure for Beijing, had Gambia officially ...

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Companies should experiment with minimum pay raises

Recently, McDonald’s decided to raise wages for many of its hourly restaurant workers. The rise is modest, from about $9 to about $10, but already the company’s executives claim that they are seeing improvements in service quality: “It has done what we expected it to — 90 day turnover rates are down, our survey scores are up—we have more staff ...

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Emirates Securities Market down by -0.03 percent

ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Emirates Securities Market Index has decreased by -0.03% to close at 4484.64 points. Accordingly the Market Capitalization has lost AED 202.89 million attaining AED 727.47 billion. A total of 0.75 Billion Shares were traded with a total value of AED 0.95 billion during the trading session of 21-03-2016 through 8672 transactions. The number of companies which ...

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Global market volatility falls to two-month low; Pound declines

BLOOMBERG Volatility across global financial markets is at a two-month low as signs central banks will keep borrowing costs lower for longer to settle investor nerves that frayed at the start of the year. European shares slipped on Monday after a measure of global stocks posted the strongest close since Jan. 1 last week following five weeks of gains. The ...

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Saudi Arabia wants foreign banks to disclose finances

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is telling international banks to publicly disclose financial statements for the first time as the kingdom’s regulator seeks to boost transparency. The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is requiring financial institutions it regulates to publish the information on their websites from April 1, an official at the Riyadh-based regulator said in an e-mailed response to questions, without giving ...

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