BAGHDAD / AP A senior Iraqi military commander says about 2,500 IS militants have been killed during a month-long offensive to recapture the city of Fallujah. The counterterrorism forces’ chief in the operation, Lt. General Abdul-Wahab Al Saadi, told the local al-Sumaria TV late on Monday that the number of IS fighters inside Fallujah ranged between 3,500 to 4,000 ...
Read More »Iran: Bahrain ‘will pay price’ for Shiites crackdown
Dubai / AFP Iran has warned Bahrain that it is fanning armed rebellion and “will pay the price” after an escalating crackdown on the country’s Shiite majority saw a top cleric stripped of citizenship. Washington and the United Nations have also raised concerns about moves by the Sunni-ruled kingdom against Shiites, who account for some 70 percent of the ...
Read More »Taliban kidnaps two dozen people in Helmand province
Kandahar / AFP Taliban on Tuesday kidnapped around two dozen people after pulling them off buses in southern Afghanistan, officials said, the latest in series of abductions on the country’s increasingly dangerous highways. The pre-dawn incident in Washer district of Helmand province comes a day after militants killed more than 20 people, including 14 Nepali security guards, in a ...
Read More »EU approves 6-month Russia sanctions rollover
Brussels / AFP EU ambassadors agreed to roll over damaging economic sanctions against Russia for six months in the absence of any progress on resolving the Ukraine conflict, European sources said on Tuesday. The measures target the oil, financial and defence sectors of the Russian economy and were first imposed after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 ...
Read More »Signs of possible fresh N Korea missile launch
Seoul / AFP North Korea appears to be readying another test of a powerful, new medium-range missile, following a series of failures for a ballistic weapons programme that aspires to threaten the US mainland, multiple reports said on Tuesday. Japanese and South Korean media quoted official sources as saying North Korea looked to have deployed a so-called Musudan missile near ...
Read More »Brazil’s Supreme Court fights rot at the top
Here’s something you probably already know about Latin America: In a region ravaged by graft and political payola, regard for elected authorities is dragging bottom. Serial corruption scandals are one of the main reasons why dissatisfaction with democracy is higher in this region than in any other. Here’s something you may not know: The long-flawed justice system is on ...
Read More »Solar Impulse set to propel clean technology
History of aviation is being rewritten in our lifetime, as the Solar Impulse 2 project is getting closer to completing a world tour in an ultralight one-man aircraft intended to demonstrate how best technology may provide solutions to combat global warming and advance aviation industry. The sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 set off from New York’s JFK airport early Monday, embarking ...
Read More »With climate change, doing the math matters
Mark Buchanan sometimes say that there’s no need to rush in addressing climate change — that our constantly increasing wealth will eventually make the problem relatively inexpensive to solve. Thanks to some careful mathematical research, that argument is looking increasingly wrong. Placing a value on something that may happen 50 or 100 years from now isn’t easy. Economists typically ...
Read More »International N-community should pressure China to accept India’s NSG membership
Bhavani Castro SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently embarked on an impressive five-nation tour that included countries as diverse as Afghanistan and Mexico. Modi’s international travels have rendered fruitful results, bolstering diplomatic ties and giving India more visibility in the international community. The six-day tour included visits to Afghanistan, Qatar, Switzerland, the United States, and ...
Read More »ECB readies to gauge appeal of paying banks to lend money
Bloomberg The European Central Bank is about to find out how attractive its offer to pay lenders to lend really is. Starting tomorrow, euro-area banks can bid for a four-year loan from the ECB at an interest rate that begins at zero and could ultimately be negative. The net take-up, after institutions repay their borrowings from an earlier and ...
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