Home / 2018 / October

Monthly Archives: October 2018

Malaysian ex-PM Najib Razak, former treasury chief charged with graft

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his ex-treasury chief have been jointly charged with criminal breach of trust involving 6.64 billion ringgit ($1.6 billion). The six new charges against Najib on Thursday come on top of 32 earlier counts of corruption, breach of trust and money laundering that he face linked to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state ...

Read More »

Sharp falls wipe out Wall Street’s 2018 gains

Wall Street fell on Wednesday in another day of losses, erasing the gains posted this year for two of the three main indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 2.4% to 24,583.4 points, while the S&P 500 plunged 3.1% to 2,656.1 points.   The losses pushed the two indexes into negative territory for the year.   The sell-off spread to ...

Read More »

Facebook simplifies Messenger app

Facebook on Tuesday announced an overhaul of its Messenger smartphone app in an effort to simplify the service for its 1.3 billion monthly global users.   The social network began rolling out a redesigned version featuring three tabs instead of nine, saying it was “going back to its roots” seven years after the standalone app’s launch.  “We build one feature ...

Read More »

Modi awarded 2018 Seoul Peace Prize

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been named as the recipient of 2018 Seoul Peace Prize, a biennial award instituted to crystallise the wishes of the Korean people for peace on the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world. According to a statement issued by the External Affairs Ministry on Wednesday, Modi has been awarded “in recognition of his dedication ...

Read More »

Palestinians: Israeli troops kill youth in West Bank clash

The Palestinian health ministry says Israeli troops have shot and killed a Palestinian youth who threw stones at the soldiers during West Bank clashes. The ministry says 21-year-old Mohammed Bsharat was shot in the chest early on Wednesday, during confrontations with Israeli soldiers in the village of Tamoun in northern West Bank. It says five other rioters were wounded by ...

Read More »

Saudi king, crown prince meet family of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with family members of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Riyadh on Tuesday, state media said. The Saudi rulers met with Khashoggi’s son Salah and brother Sahel at the royal palace, state-run news agency SPA reported.   The report said King Salman and Prince Mohammed offered their condolences to the ...

Read More »

World’s longest cross-sea bridge opens to public traffic

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge, the world’s longest cross-sea bridge, opened to public traffic at 9 a.m. Wednesday, reports Xinhua.   The bridge connects China’s mainland province of Guangdong with the country’s two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao.  Starting on Wednesday, the customs in Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macao will offer round-the-clock service for customs clearance to facilitate traffic ...

Read More »

Rome escalator accident injures 20 Russian soccer fans

At least 20 people were injured when an escalator in the Rome metropolitan system collapsed Tuesday night. A video shown on Sky TG24 shows the escalator accelerating suddenly, and the people riding down on it collapsing one onto another. The dramatic footage shows people on the parallel escalator trying to pull others to safety.   The cause was not immediately ...

Read More »

Italy budget: European Commission demands changes

The European Commission has told Italy to revise its budget, an unprecedented move with regard to an EU member state. The Commission is worried about the impact of higher spending on already high levels of debt in Italy, the eurozone’s third-biggest economy.   Italy’s governing populist parties have vowed to push ahead with campaign promises including a minimum income for ...

Read More »

Mars likely to have enough oxygen for life support

Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial life that emerged and flourished on Earth billions of years ago, researchers reported. In some locations, the amount of oxygen available could even keep alive a primitive, multicellular animal such as a sponge, they reported in the journal Nature Geosciences.   “We ...

Read More »