Israel’s offensive on Gaza has drawn sharp condemnation around the world, particularly from the online community. The US, however, has advocated Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorists, while the UN reached an impasse in negotiations. Egypt, which withdrew its ambassador from Israel following the latter’s announcement that it would intensify its military campaign, ordered
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The European Union has approved a US$6.3 billion financial aid package for Egypt. The news comes as Europe is paralyzed by a general strike and mass protests as people are tired of deepening recession and strangled by constant budget cuts. The European Investment Bank is to grant Egypt 2 billion euro ($2.55 billion), the European
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Hamas fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel on Thursday, killing three people, and Israel launched numerous air strikes across the Gaza Strip, threatening a wider offensive to halt repeated Palestinian salvoes. Israeli police said the three died when a Palestinian rocket hit a four-story building in the town of Kiryat Malachi, some 25 km
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A flawless deep-blue diamond sold at auction on Wednesday night for 10.27 million Swiss francs ($10.86 million), a world record for a blue diamond per carat and more than twice its pre-sale estimate, Sotheby's said. London luxury jeweller Laurence Graff, bidding by telephone, bought the drop-shaped stone which weighs 10.48 carats and is about the
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The euro zone debt crisis dragged the bloc into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter despite modest growth in Germany and France, data showed on Thursday. The French and German economies both managed 0.2 percent growth in the July-to-September period but their resilience could not save the 17-nation bloc from contraction as
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Text and video messages designed to help people quit smoking that come in on their cell phones nearly doubled the success rate for attempted quitters compared to people who didn't have such assistance, according to a New Zealand study. Researchers, whose work was published in The Cochrane Library, found that nine percent of would-be quitters
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NASA was informing employees this week that a laptop computer with personnel information such as social security numbers was stolen from a locked car two weeks ago, potentially putting thousands of workers and contractors at risk. The laptop, issued to an employee at NASA headquarters in Washington, was password protected but its disk was not
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The road to recovery can be measured in exclamations, some of execration, some of joy. "It's like a living hell," said Latoya Miller, 29, of Red Hook, one of the New York neighborhoods submerged by the rising sea during Superstorm Sandy. "If it wasn't for the people giving out food and blankets, I don't know
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BP Plc is expected to pay a record criminal penalty and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster through a plea agreement it has reached with the U.S. Department of Justice that may be announced as soon as Thursday, according to sources familiar with discussions. Three sources, who spoke to Reuters
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* Gov't seeks better terms, revenue from bidders * The Cyprus government has gotten itself into a muddle, again. Only this time, it seems to have favoured a lower-rated consortium in the second licensing round for exploration in the four offshore gasfields, with one of the partners being a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom.
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