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Showing posts from December 14, 2017

World markets dive as Trump sparks trade, North Korea worries

Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain

Somalia’s Shabaab kill 18 police in academy bombing.

A suicide bomber from Somalia’s Shabaab insurgents killed 18 police officers and wounded 15 others on Thursday when he blew himself up inside the country’s main police academy, the force’s chief said. Witnesses said the police were gathered in a square ahead of their early morning parade when the bomber attacked in the capital Mogadishu. “Eighteen members from the police were killed, and 15 others were wounded, after a suicide bomber blew himself inside the academy,” acting police chief General Muktar Hussein Afrah told reporters. The attacker disguised himself in a police uniform to access the camp, Afrah said. “Some of the police were already in lines, and others were gathering, when the man in police uniform entered and blew himself up,” said bystander Hussein Ali, describing the carnage. Medics and ambulance teams rushed to take the wounded to hospital and collect the corpses. Officers said the toll could have been far worse had the attacker killed himsel

Berlin police raid properties of suspects ‘linked to Isis’.

Raids in the nation’s capital have been taking place since early in the morning on Thursday. Police are searching the properties of suspected perpetrators allegedly connected with the terrorist organization Isis, the public prosecutor’s office in Berlin tweeted. GenStA Berlin @GStABerlin Ermittlungen der GStA wegen Ausreisen zum „IS“: Durchsuchungsmaßnahmen im Stadtgebiet dauern an. 8:07 AM - Dec 14, 2017   Replies     25 25 Retweets     27 27 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy These people may have links to Anis Amri, the man who  ploughed a hijacked truck into Breitscheidplatz Christmas market  in Berlin last year, reported Bild. 12 people were killed in the attack and dozens more were injured. According to Berliner Zeitung, the raids are mainly being conducted in the Neukölln district of the capital. Armed police officers have searched apartments in a high-rise building in Neukölln, reported the German Press Agency (DPA). Sever

NDLEA arrests six, recovers 1000 kg of illicit drugs in Jigawa – Commander.

The Jigawa Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Thursday said it arrested six suspected drug dealers and recovered 1000.64 kilograms of assorted illicit drugs. Josephine Obi, Jigawa State Commander of the NDLEA, told newsmen in Dutse that the suspects were arrested between Dec. 9 and Dec. 11 at various locations in the state. Obi said that two suspects were arrested with cannabis along Kano-Gumel road while four others were nabbed with over 900 grams of Tramadol tablets in Guri, Dutse and Hadejia Local Government Areas of the state. Obi said that all the suspects had been charged to court. She called on well-meaning individuals and organisations to support the NDLEA in curbing drug abuse and trafficking in the country.

South Korea prosecutors seek 25 years for ex-president’s friend.

The powerful secret confidante at the centre of the sprawling corruption scandal that brought down South Korean president Park Geun-Hye should spend the next quarter of a century in prison, prosecutors demanded Thursday. Park’s longtime friend Choi Soon-Sil — the daughter of her religious guru — was vilified at the massive nationwide protests last year that rocked Asia’s fourth-largest economy and led to Park’s impeachment. Choi was “the alpha and omega of the scandal”, a prosecutor told the Seoul Central District Court, “the very person who created a national crisis which resulted in the country’s first-ever impeachment of a president”. She “took advantage of presidential authorities to seek personal profit, undermined constitutional values and rattled the government system”, he added. “Please sentence Choi to 25 years in prison.” He also sought fines and asset seizures totalling 126.2 billion won — around $116 million. The 61-year-old is accused of colluding with

Creatives Not Likely to Blanch at iMac Pro's $5K Price.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will ask EU leaders to move Brexit talks to the next stage at a summit starting on Thursday, just hours after a damaging parliamentary defeat threatened to undermine her negotiating position. The other 27 leaders are expected during the two-day meeting in Brussels to endorse an interim deal on the terms of Britain’s divorce that May sealed with the EU last week after months of torturous negotiations. But on the eve of the summit May’s own lawmakers rebelled to demand that the British parliament have the final say on any Brexit agreement before Britain leaves the European Union on March 29, 2019. The fresh blow to May’s authority will renew fears in Brussels about her mandate for negotiations on the second phase, which will cover a future EU-UK relationship, including moves towards a trade deal, and a post-Brexit transition period. EU President Donald Tusk said the second phase of Brexit talks would also be a test for the bloc’s own

Wage inequality in Germany now at same level as a century ago: study.

The best-selling French economist Thomas Piketty released a study on wage equality across the globe on Friday. His team found wages in Germany were as unequal as before the First World War. The top 10 percent in Germany earn 40 percent of overall income, the study found. “This proportion has been growing since the middle of the 1990s,” said Charlotte Bartels from the  German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), which studied the German data. “The bottom 50 percent have lost out significantly in recent years in terms of their cut of the overall income. In the 1960s they earned a third of the total, now that has dropped to 17 percent,” Bartels said. But she also added that “if you include social transfers, which aren’t revealed in data on pre-tax income, the numbers for the lower earners are probably better.” Meanwhile the percentage of overall earnings taken home by the middle classes has remained relatively stable at 40 percent over the past six decades. “On the whole wage i

Eniola Badmus Shows Off Her BAE On Social Media .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy1nLjHaW5E&feature=youtu.be [/url] Eniola Badmus Shows Off Her BAE on Social Media  Nollywood Actress, Eniola Badmus aka Gbogbo Big Girls recently shared a photo of her bae on social media

MSF estimates more than 6,700 Rohingya killed in Myanmar.

At least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the month after violence broke out in Myanmar in August, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says. Based on surveys of refugees in Bangladesh, the number is much higher than Myanmar's official figure of 400. MSF said it was "the clearest indication yet of the widespread violence" by Myanmar authorities. The Myanmar military blames the violence on "terrorists" and has denied any wrongdoing . More than 647,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh since August, MSF says. Is the refugee crisis 'textbook ethnic cleansing'? Seeing through the official story in Myanmar The injured sheltering in Bangladesh What sparked the Rakhine violence? The aid group's survey found that at least 9,000 Rohingya died in Myanmar, also known as Burma, between 25 August and 24 September. "In the most conservative estimations" at least 6,700 of those deaths have been caused by violence, including at least 730 childre

Don’t sleepwalk into war over North Korea, warns UN boss.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres Thursday warned the world against “sleepwalking into war” over North Korea, as he called for diplomatic efforts to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. Speaking on a visit to Japan, Secretary-General Guterres said: “The worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances.” The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions over the past year against North Korea over its increasingly powerful missile and nuclear tests. Guterres said those sanctions need to be implemented “by North Korea first of all, but also fully implemented by all the other countries whose role is crucial”. He urged “diplomatic engagement that allows for…denuclearisation (of the Korean peninsula) to take place in a peaceful way”. “It is important for all parties to understand the urgency of finding a solution,” he told reporters at a later briefing. Speaki

Film-maker Morgan Spurlock confesses to sexual misconduct.

US documentary film-maker Morgan Spurlock  has publicly confessed to a history of sexual misconduct , referring to himself as "part of the problem". Spurlock, who made the hit film Super Size Me, wrote on Twitter that he had been accused of rape and had paid to settle a claim of sexual harassment. He also admitted cheating on "every wife and girlfriend I have ever had". The US entertainment industry has been rocked by claims of sexual abuse and harassment going back decades. In a lengthy statement, Spurlock said that after months of such revelations he had come to the conclusion that "I am not some innocent bystander, I am also a part of the problem". "As I sit around watching hero after hero, man after man, fall at the realisation of their past indiscretions, I don't sit by and wonder 'who will be next?' I wonder, 'when will they come for me?'," he wrote. Skip Twitter post by @MorganSpurlock Morgan