Month: May 2019

The Iraqi Kurdish parliament on Tuesday elected Nechirvan Barzani, the nephew and son-in-law of veteran leader Masoud Barzani, as president of the autonomous region. The deputy leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party won 68 votes from the 81 members present in the 111-seat chamber. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of late Iraqi president Jalal Talabani,…

A TV mogul wanted in the US on money laundering and bribery charges was a mediator between Washington and Caracas officials, offering them sanctions relief in exchange for turning on the government, a new report says. One of the key figures behind the abortive April 30 uprising intended to oust President Nicolas Maduro in favor…

Mark Zuckerberg talks a big game when it comes to giving users what they want and serving the ‘community’ — but when push comes to shove, the Facebook CEO always follows the dollar signs in his eyes over user satisfaction. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for a cool $19 billion in 2014, Zuckerberg was acquiring a…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken out against anti-Semitism in Germany, and said that police have to guard every synagogue, Jewish school and daycare center in her country. “We have always had a certain number of anti-Semites among us,” Merkel told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview aired on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, there is to this…

French rights group ACAT sought on Tuesday to block the loading of what it said were munitions onto a Saudi Arabian ship docked in southern France, Reuters reports. As pressure mounts on Paris to stop military sales to the kingdom, ACAT said it had filed a legal challenge to prevent the vessel from taking delivery…

Beijing is considering a ban on exports of rare earth metals to the US, editor-in-chief of Chinese state-linked outlet Global Times has tweeted, warning it may not be the last retaliatory move by China as the trade war escalates. Reports that China may resort to the embargo have been circulating for weeks. If implemented, the…

Palestine will not accept the “deal of the century” with Israel which is in the works in Washington and rejects all of the recent ‘peacemaking’ proposals, the Palestinian ambassador to Russia has said. Abdelhafiz Nofal, speaking at a press conference in Moscow, has referred to the upcoming peace “deal of the century” advertised by US…

The long-delayed reckoning for Martin Luther King Jr is a chance for America to step back from immature social justice radicalism, and once again separate people’s personal lives from their public achievements. Accounts of the civil rights hero’s infidelity and voracious sexual appetite date back to his lifetime, but the latest accusations, presented by his…

Scientists have discovered an exciting collection of genes that are unique to humans and could hold the key to learning more about our species’ evolution. The find changes the previous understanding of DNA. Before now, these genes were thought to play similar roles across different organisms, but new computational analysis has found that they are…

If China follows through on its retaliatory threat of raising US liquefied natural gas (LNG) tariffs from 10 to 25 percent, US exports will be hit hard — but another country is waiting to gain from it. Australia is poised to fill the gap for China, with its booming LNG sector well positioned. Last year, China…