A three-year downturn in Dubai's property market will likely continue until at least 2020, Standard & Poors said today, citing low oil prices, the introduction of VAT and a Gulf diplomatic crisis.
A glut of housing units and weak demand were also key reasons for the decline, the credit ratings agency said in a report.
The emirates real estate sector has been on the slide since 2014, when crude oil prices crashed, dealing a harsh blow to many Gulf investors.
Home prices dropped more than 15 per cent between then and mid-2017.The downward trajectory continued through to the end of last year, the S&P report said, with prices of residential units falling a further five to ten per cent.
It said the introduction of a value added tax and a prolonged crisis between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours, including the United Arab Emirates, had also put pressure on real estate prices.
S&P called the downturn a "correction" but said the sector may start to bounce back when Dubai hosts a ...

Dubai property slump to continue: S&P

PTI Automatic

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics was hit by a third doping scandal today, casting a shadow over the magic on ice served up by peerless Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
On a day when the first unified Korean Olympic team took an emotional bow, the Games suffered a fresh doping blow with the suspension of Slovenian ice hockey player Ziga Jeglic.
It came soon after a Russian bronze medallist in curling was suspended for failing a doping test and a Japanese short-track speed skater was similarly kicked out of the Games in South Korea last week.
Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky tested positive for the banned substance meldonium and Moscows sports minister waded into the controversy on Tuesday when he said the athlete was innocent of knowingly taking the drug.
"In this case, the athlete could not have used the banned drug intentionally, it would be simply pointless. Curling, as a whole, is not the kind of sport in which dishonest athletes use doping," said Pavel Kolobkov.
It ...

Games face new doping blow as Canadian skaters serve up magic

Alex Hales announced today he is turning his back on Test cricket after signing a new limited-overs contract with county side Nottinghamshire following a similar decision by England team-mate Adil Rashid.
Rashid last week said he intended to focus solely on shorter, white-ball cricket for Yorkshire this season and Hales has penned a deal until the end of the 2019 season that will see him feature only in 50-over and 20-over formats of the game.
Haless decision is likely to strengthen fears that Englands top limited-overs internationals could abandon first class, or red-ball, cricket, which includes five-day Test matches, in favour of playing in lucrative domestic Twenty20 competitions around the world.
The opening batsman proved crucial in Nottinghamshires domestic white-ball double in 2017 and is a regular in Englands limited-overs set-up with 58 one-day and 52 T20 international appearances.
But the 29-year-olds decision seemingly ends his hopes of adding to his 11 Test caps, the last 

Hales turns back on Test cricket

A wealthy Japanese man was today granted "sole parent" rights to 13 children he fathered through Thai surrogate mothers, in a court ruling that paves the way for him to take them to Japan.
Mitsutoki Shigeta, 28, became the centre of a "baby factory" scandal in 2014 after Thai police found a plush Bangkok apartment packed with infants under the care of 24-hour nannies.
A probe later found he had fathered 19 children in total, 13 surrogate babies living in Thailand and six others living in Cambodia and Japan, according to an official from Thailand's Social Development and Welfare Department.
Four of the six children living in Cambodia and Japan were from Thai surrogates.
Shigeta's bizarre case threw a spotlight on the kingdom's unregulated rent-a-womb industry, prompting authorities to bar foreigners in 2015 from paying for Thai surrogates.
Shigeta, reportedly the son of a Japanese IT tycoon, left the country in the wake of the scandal and has never directly explained why he fathered so 

Japanese 'baby factory' man wins custody of 13 kids born to Thai surrogates

North Korean hackers are becoming more aggressive than their Chinese counterparts, a leading US cybersecurity firm warned today, as it identified a Pyongyang-linked group as an "advanced persistent threat".
It was the first time that FireEye had used the designation for a North Korean-based group.
Analysts say the isolated and impoverished but nuclear-armed North has stepped up hacking operations partly to raise money for the cash-strapped regime, which is subject to multiple sanctions over its atomic weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
North Korea has previously been blamed for the WannaCry ransomware that briefly wreaked havoc around the world last year -- an accusation it angrily denies.
FireEye said North Korean operatives had expanded their targets beyond South Korea and mounted increasingly sophisticated attacks, adding it had identified a suspected North Korean cyberespionage group it dubbed "APT37" -- standing for "advanced persistent threat".
APT37 was "primarily based .

N Korea cyber threat more aggressive than China: US firm

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi has met the leader of opposition Renamo as part of efforts to broker peace between the group and his ruling Frelimo party.
Renamo rebels fought a 16-year war against Frelimo until 1992, and unrest again boiled over between 2013 and 2016.
Nyusi travelled to the remote Gorongosa mountains yesterday for talks with Renamos leader Afonso Dhlakama who has been in hiding since October 2015.
The meeting follows a pledge by the president earlier this month to change the constitution to allow for the devolution of power in an effort to persuade the opposition to sign a peace deal.
The proposed constitutional changes will now go before parliament.
"I had a meeting with Afonso Dhlakama...to discuss military matters, specifically on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration," Nyusi said in an emailed statement.
The fighting between 2013 and 2016 often centred on the country's main roads, with Renamo attacking government convoys and civilian vehicles, and ...

Mozambique president presses peace deal with opposition

Turkey's government said today it would consider introducing chemical castration for child abusers after several cases of sexual assault on children have sparked public outcry.
"The courts will decide on the use and duration of chemical castration to limit or eliminate sexual desire. We wish to establish this again within a few days," said Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul.
The government was putting the issue back on its agenda, he added.
Turkey introduced a measure to chemically castrate those convicted of sex crimes in 2016, but the country's highest administrative court, the Council of State, stopped its implementation last August, saying its definition and limit were "vague".
In the latest case to cause widespread outrage in the country, a 20-year-old man has been accused of sexually assaulting a four-year-old in the southern province of Adana.
Prosecutors today demanded 66 years in prison for the man after the alleged assault at a wedding on February 10, state-run news agency ...

Turkey considers chemical castration for child abusers

Three people were arrested in France today for alleged links to a suspect in last year's deadly jihadist attacks in Barcelona and a nearby seaside resort, the Spanish interior ministry said today.
The arrests were made during a joint operation with French and Spanish police in the south and southwest of France, the ministry said in a statement.
A total of 16 people were killed when a van drove into crowds on the popular Las Ramblas boulevard in the heart of Barcelona and in a knife attack in the nearby resort of Cambrils in August 2017.
The three arrested were suspected to have links with Moroccan national Driss Oukabir, who was alleged to have rented the van used in the Barcelona rampage.
Oukabir was arrested shortly after the attacks - which were claimed by the Islamic State group - and remanded in custody on terror-related offences.

France arrests three linked to Barcelona attacks: Spain

Almost three- quarters of fruit and more than two-fifths of non-organic vegetables contain traces of pesticide in France, with grapes and celery the most affected, a report said today.
Samples of 19 fruits and 33 vegetables were studied in the report by Generations Futures, a French environmental group that campaigns against pesticide and GMOs, using 2012-2016 data from consumer protection agency DGCCRF.
"For fruit we found that on average pesticide residue was present in 72.6 percent of the samples analysed," the group said in a statement, with 2.7 percent of those cases exceeding the authorised limit.
Eighty-nine percent of the grapes sampled contained traces of pesticide, the report found, followed by 88.4 percent of clementines and mandarins, and 87.7 percent for cherries.
Cherries had on average the most cases above the authorised limit with 6.6 percent, while mangoes and papayas had 4.8 per cent.
For vegetables, 41.1 percent of the samples were found to have traces of ...

Pesticide traces in three-quarters of French fruit: report

Air strikes hit Syria's Eastern Ghouta for a third straight day today, bringing the civilian death toll to nearly 200 as the UN warned the situation in the rebel enclave was spinning "out of control".
Air strikes and rocket and artillery fire have battered the rebel-held enclave since Sunday in apparent preparation for a government ground assault on the besieged region.
At least 194 civilians have been killed, among them 57 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
On Monday alone, 127 civilians, including 39 children, were killed in the bombardment -- the single bloodiest day for Eastern Ghouta in four years.
Fresh air strikes this morning killed at least 50 civilians, including 13 children, the Britain-based war monitor said.
Held by rebels since 2012, Eastern Ghouta is the last opposition pocket around Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad is keen to retake it with an apparently imminent ground assault.
The UN's regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria Panos ...

Nearly 200 dead in Syria enclave as UN warns situation out of control

Oxfam said today it was investigating 26 new cases of sexual misconduct which had been reported since a scandal broke earlier this month over its handling of a 2011 case in Haiti.
The British charity's chief executive Mark Goldring told a parliamentary committee in London that 16 of the cases related to its international operation.
"There are 26 cases that have come forward... They range in time frame from more recent events to long historic events where people did not report them at the time," Goldring said.
"We really want people to come forward," he added.
Goldring apologised "wholeheartedly" on behalf of Oxfam to the committee, which said it would conduct its own inquiry into abuses in the foreign aid sector.
The chief executive said safeguards had been put in place following an internal investigation in 2011 into the behaviour of some Oxfam staff in Haiti but admitted that the charity had not gone far enough.
Last week, Oxfam unveiled an action plan to tackle sexual harassment ...

Oxfam probing 26 new cases of sexual misconduct: chief

Iranian rescue teams struggled to recover bodies today from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in hazardous terrain near a mountain peak two days earlier with 66 people on board.
"Deep and dangerous crevices in the area of the crash have made it impossible for helicopters to land," Ghafoor Rastinrooz, director of the regional medical centre, told official news agency IRNA.
"The bodies must be transferred by hand to the foot of the mountain which will be time-consuming," he said.
Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared from radar as it flew over the Zagros mountain range on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight.
After two days of heavy snow and fog, the weather finally cleared on Tuesday morning, allowing a helicopter crew to spot a piece of the wreckage with the company's logo.
A pilot told state broadcaster IRIB he had seen "scattered bodies around the plane" and that it was located on one of the Dena mountains at a height of around ..

Hazardous effort to recover bodies from plane crash in Iran mountains

Two Kenyan pilots held for over a month after crash-landing their plane in rebel-held South Sudan have been released, a rebel spokesman said today.
The two men were flying South Sudanese aid workers close to Akobo in the east of the country early last month when they were forced to make an emergency landing, resulting in the death of one civilian and the pilots subsequent detention.
They were handed over to Kenyan officials on Monday in exchange for $108,000 (87,000 euros) which rebel spokesman Lam Paul Gabriel said was "compensation" for the loss of life and damage to property, including some houses and "two cattle pens".
Gabriel said the money was handed over by "seven Kenyan officials" while Kenyan newspaper The Daily Nation said the money was paid by the airline company and its insurer.
A Kenyan foreign ministry official confirmed the release of the pilots but denied the payment of any ransom to secure their freedom.
South Sudan plunged into civil war in late 2013 when President ..

Two Kenyan pilots released by S Sudan rebels

Residents of drought-stricken Cape Town received good news today when city officials said they now face losing piped water to their homes by July 9 -- a month later than last forecast.
But Capetonians are not yet out of the woods. If drastic consumption reductions are not achieved by so-called "Day Zero" -- the last day of normal water supply -- people will have to queue at 200 standpipes for daily rations of 25 litres (6.6 US gallons).
The city, which attracts millions of tourists every year, has enforced strict waste controls including prosecuting homeowners who use significantly more than the current 50-litre daily limit.
"The Groenland water transfer and the reduction in our weekly average demand has had a dramatic impact on the Day Zero date," said deputy mayor Ian Neilson in a statement, referring to a recent transfer of water from a region that had experienced good rains to South Africa's parched second city.
"Today I urge the residents of Cape Town not to ease up on their ...

Cape Town now faces dry taps by July 9

Indonesian authorities early today seized 1.6 tons of crystal methamphetamine hidden on a Singapore-flagged ship in their second major drug bust this month, officials said.
Customs inspectors said they spotted the vessel  between Indonesia's Sumatra island and Singapore and reported it to police.
A subsequent search of the ship turned up the huge haul of narcotics stuffed into some 81 rice sacks. Four Taiwanese crew were arrested including a 69-year-old man.
"We are currently weighing the drugs and questioning four Taiwanese crew," tax and customs agency spokesman Deni Sirjantoro told AFP.
Indonesian authorities said they had been looking for the ship for several months on suspicion it was shipping drugs to Indonesia and Australia, adding that it may have flown flags from different countries to avoid detection.
Earlier this month the Indonesian navy seized 1.3 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine and arrested four Taiwanese crew on a ship spotted in the strait between Singapore and ...

Indonesia police seize over a tonne of crystal meth

A cholera outbreak in Malawi described as "very difficult to contain" has claimed nine lives and affected a total of 541 people nationwide, health officials said today.
The outbreak began in November near the landlocked southern African nations northern border with Tanzania and has since spread to other regions of the country.
UNICEF's representative to Malawi Johannes Wedenig told local media that "as long as people in Malawi dont change the behaviour of using unsafe water, itll be very difficult to contain".
He urged Malawians to follow strict sanitation rules and stressed the importance of hand-washing before eating or preparing food.
Cholera is a water-borne diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated, but is easily cured with oral rehydration, intravenous fluids and antibiotics.
Clean water and hygiene standards are critical to controlling transmission.
The country has also received 216,000 oral cholera treatment packs from the World Health Organization which .

Malawi cholera outbreak kills nine

Getting fresh chicken out to 900 restaurants across the country is pretty complex, says KFC

Chicken shortage results in shut down of over 700 KFC stores in UK

Press Trust of India

Turkey today released the former co-leader of the country's main pro-Kurdish party, the group said, after she was detained over her opposition to Ankara's offensive in northern Syria.
Police arrested Serpil Kemalbay of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) in Ankara on February 13, two days after she handed over her job to a successor.
"Our former co-leader Serpil Kemalbay has been released. Defending peace is not a crime; it is an obligation, an honour!" the party said on Twitter.
Kemalbay, who still faces charges and has been placed under judicial control, will have to report regularly to the authorities and cannot leave the country, an HDP official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Kemalbay succeeded Figen Yuksekdag as co-leader in May 2017 after Yuksekdag was stripped of her status as lawmaker in February of the same year.
At a party congress on February 11 Pervin Buldan took over Kemalbays job.
Turkish media reported that Kemalbay had been taken into custody over calls for ...

Turkey releases leading pro-Kurdish politician

German prosecutors said today they have asked judges to fine three scientists at the prestigious Max Planck Institutes for animal cruelty over experiments on monkeys' brains.
Investigators in southwestern university town Tuebingen said the three men aged between 49 and 67 were accused of "ending experiments on three monkeys too late and thereby causing the animals' ongoing pain for a longer period."
In German law, animal cruelty can be punished with a sentence of up to three years in jail, depending on the seriousness of the crime.
This case deals with experiments by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics that were approved by authorities -- on the condition that the monkeys be killed if signs of suffering became apparent.
"Against the specified conditions for ending the experiment, (the accused) delayed in euthanising the animals, thereby causing significant and longer-lasting harm to their well-being," the prosecutors said.
"The accused should have recognised their ...

Germany seeks to fine scientists over monkey experiments

An Uzbek asylum seeker who killed five people last year in a Stockholm truck attack testified today that he wanted to pressure Sweden's government to end its support of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
On the first day of his trial last week, Rakhmat Akilov, 40, pleaded guilty to stealing a beer truck on April 7, 2017, and mowing down pedestrians on a busy shopping street, swerving wildly to hit as many people as possible.
Three Swedes were killed including an 11-year-old girl, as well as a 41-year-old British man and a 31-year-old Belgian woman. Ten other people were injured.
The assault mirrored other truck attacks in 2016 that left scores dead, one in Nice in southern France, the other in Berlin. Unlike those attacks, however, the one in Stockholm was never claimed by the jihadist group.
Speaking calmly in Russian through an interpreter, Akilov expressed no remorse or regret for his actions.
He told the court today he wanted "Sweden to end its participation in the ...

Uzbek attacker wanted to pressure Sweden to end fight against IS

Singapore has agreed not to cane a man accused of carrying out a rare bank robbery in the city-state if Britain extradites him to face charges, officials said today.
David Roach, a Canadian citizen, is wanted in Singapore for allegedly stealing Sg$30,000 ($22,700) from a Standard Chartered bank branch in 2016 after strolling in and presenting a threatening note.
He fled to Bangkok, where he was jailed on charges related to bringing the stolen cash into Thailand but authorities refused to send him to Singapore as the countries do not have an extradition treaty.
After his release, he was detained in January at Londons Heathrow Airport while in transit en route to Canada and Singapore has requested that he be deported to the city-state. Singapore and Britain have an extradition treaty.
Flogging with a heavy rattan cane is a common punishment in Singapore and is a legacy of British colonial rule, with convicted bank robbers facing a minimum penalty of six strokes, as well as at least two .

AFP

AFP

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