President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that 34,000 troops – about half the U.S. force in Afghanistan – will withdraw by early 2014, bringing the United States one step closer to wrapping up the costly, unpopular war. Obama announced the withdrawal in his annual State of the Union address, as he renewed his pledge to
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The "ugliest woman in the world" was buried in her native northern Mexico on Tuesday, more than 150 years after her death and a tragic life spent exhibited as a freak of nature at circuses around the world. Born in Mexico in 1834, Julia Pastrana suffered from hypertrichosis and gingival hyperplasia, diseases that gave her
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Chocolate hearts for loved ones on Valentine's Day are so last year – at least in Japan where one Tokyo design firm offered up its 3D scanner to make miniature chocolate replicas of faces. In a one-off celebration for Valentine's Day, KS Design Lab (http://www.ksdl.co.jp ) invited people to be scanned with its 3D body
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The yen hovered near three-year lows against the dollar and the euro fell on Tuesday after the G7 nations urged countries to refrain from competitive devaluations and a U.S. official backed Japan's new anti-deflation policies. The Group of Seven industrialised nations published a statement saying it remained committed to "market-determined" exchange rates, reacting to weeks
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Iran said on Tuesday that all nuclear weapons should be destroyed, shortly after North Korea said it had conducted its third nuclear test in defiance of existing United Nations resolutions. "We think we need to come to a point where no country will have any nuclear weapons," said Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast at
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In the centre of Cairo, young men hold up a burning flag for the cameras to show their fury at a nation they believe is meddling in their country and the wider Middle East. It's a familiar image. But it's not the U.S. flag they are waving, it is that of Qatar, the Gulf state
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Barclays is axing at least 3,700 jobs and pruning its investment bank as its new boss put his stamp on the troubled British bank by aiming to cut 1.7 billion pounds ($2.7 billion) in annual costs and raise standards after a series of scandals. The plans form part of an overhaul which Chief Executive Antony
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An agreement of assignment of 30% of Noble’s hydrocarbons exploration rights on block 12 to Israeli companies Delek and Avner was signed, in Nicosia, on Monday. Speaking after the assignment was signed Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Neoklis Sylikiotis referred to the establishment of “a new era of strategic partnership between Cyprus and Israel”,
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Cyprus is a country that poses a systemic risk for the Eurozone and this is something we have pointed out, Government Spokesman Stephanos Stephanou has said, invited to comment on statements made by Jorg Asmussen, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank. In an interview with German business daily “Handelsblatt” published on
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Home governance and the economy were the focus of the final debate, on Monday evening, of the three main candidates for the presidential elections of February 17, namely Nicos Anastasiades, Stavros Malas and Giorgos Lillikas. The debate was held at the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC), with a panel of news directors from the four largest
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