DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Syria’s drug problem casts shadow over Assad’s rehabilitation
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Nadeen Ebrahim | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Jordan was one of the biggest proponents of its rehabilitation, being one of the main victims of Syria’s drug trade, but it feels now that the regime is either unwilling or unable to clamp down on the trade. He blamed the lack of progress on normalization with Arab nations on the incompetence of Arab politics. Gulf states and Jordan routinely report drug busts, with massive amounts of the drug found in everything from building panels to baklava shipments. Assad may not have found a powerful enough incentive to give up his lucrative drug trade. Arab states may now find themselves backed into a corner.

Persons: Bashar al, Assad, Ayman al, Assad’s, Jordan, “ Jordan, “ Bashar, al, Jordan …, disgruntlement, Hossam Zaki, “, ” Zaki, Emile Hokayem, it’s, ” Hokayem, isn’t, ”, he’d, ” Hellyer, Safadi Organizations: CNN, Jordanian, Arab League, Al, Awsat, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Sky News, Hellyer, Carnegie Endowment, International, United Arab Locations: Syrian, Syria, Jordan, Captagon, Saudi, Damascus, London, United Arab Emirates

More than a year after her mother died, Alla Kotliarova buried her for the third — and she hopes final — time. There was no priest, no tearful neighbors, no ceremonial procession to the cemetery sitting among thin pine trees at the end of town. But there was at least some measure of closure for Ms. Kotliarova, 62, who laid her mother, Tamara Kotliarova, to rest in the family plot. No official cause of death was listed, though her mother had long grappled with diabetes, but Ms. Kotliarova is convinced that the stress of the Russian invasion and occupation hastened her demise. “If it weren’t for this war, she wouldn’t have died,” said Ms. Kotliarova, as she wiped tears from her eyes with a small handkerchief and placed flowers and snacks on the sandy funeral mound.

Persons: Alla Kotliarova, Kotliarova, Tamara Kotliarova, wouldn’t, ”

☆ Samoa name former Australia star Leali'ifano to start against Chile
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Lawrence White | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Summary Rules change means former Wallabies flyhalf eligibleSamoa target Chile clash as most winnable Pool D gameFormer All Blacks Luatua and Sopoaga also featureTOULOUSE, France, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Samoa have selected 35-year-old Christian Leali'ifano, who scored the most points for Australia at the 2019 World Cup, as flyhalf in their opening Pool D clash against Chile in Bordeaux on Saturday. Samoa are taking advantage of a relaxation in World Rugby's eligibility rules, which means players who stand down for three years from appearing for one country can then play for another for which they qualify. That means they can also field former All Blacks Steven Luatua, who starts at number eight, and the versatile Lima Sopoaga as a replacement back. Former Highlanders and Wasps player Sopoaga can play at flyhalf or fullback and, while New Zealand-born, qualifies for Samoa through his family background. Samoa will target Chile, the lowest ranked team at the tournament, as their most winnable game in a pool also containing England, Argentina and Japan as they look to progress from the pool stage for the first time since 1999.

Persons: Sopoaga, Leali'ifano, Blacks Steven Luatua, Theo McFarland, James Lay, Seilala Lam, Michael Alaalatoa, Chris Vui, Agaese Seu, Fritz Lee, Steven Luatua, Jonathan Taumateine, Nigel Ah, Danny Toala, Duncan Paia'aua, Jordan, Paul Alo, Emile, Sam Slade, Sa Jordan, Ed Fidow, Lawrence White, Ken Ferris Organizations: Wallabies, Blacks, Australia, Chile, Saturday, Samoa, Lima, Former Highlanders, Wasps, flyhalf, The Pacific Islanders, English, Saracens, Manu, Junior, Jordan Lay, Lima Sopoaga, Thomson Locations: Samoa, Chile, TOULOUSE, France, Bordeaux, New Zealand, England, Argentina, Japan, Fiji, Lima

☆ Russian and Turkish Leaders to Meet Amid Push to Revive Grain Deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-04 | by ( Gaya Gupta | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Image Grain stored in a warehouse in the village of Moloha, in Ukraine’s Odesa region, in July. The meeting was announced after talks on Thursday between the countries’ top diplomats in Moscow ended with no apparent progress in resurrecting the deal, which Russia withdrew from in July. Moscow complained that the deal was being carried out unfairly, and has since repeatedly bombarded Ukrainian grain facilities and threatened civilian ships heading to Ukrainian ports. On Monday, the two leaders also are expected to discuss a proposal to build a gas distribution hub in Turkey that Russia could use to reroute its gas exports. Establishing a gas hub in Turkey could make Ankara a powerful player in international gas markets and give Russia an intermediary through which to reach European buyers.

Persons: Emile Ducke, Vladimir V, Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia’s, António Guterres, Guterres, Erdogan, Mr Organizations: The New York Times, Turkish, Initiative, United Nations, NATO Locations: Moloha, Ukraine’s Odesa, Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Ukrainian, Ukraine’s, Turkey, Kyiv, New York, Sochi, Russian, Turkish, Ankara

☆ Ukraine Steps Up Evacuation Calls as Russia Attacks in Northeast
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Ukrainian forces retook it in a lightning counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region last September. But since then, Russian forces have constantly pounded the area with artillery, making it practically impossible to go back to everyday life. Farther south, in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that five people died in Russian strikes. The prosecutor’s office of the Donetsk region said on Telegram that Russian forces had most likely used cluster munitions in their attack. Both Russia and Ukraine have used the controversial weapons, which are known to cause indiscriminate harm to civilians.

Persons: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy, Oleh Syniehubov, Mr, Syniehubov, Emile Ducke, Pavlo Kyrylenko, Thomas Gibbons, Neff Organizations: Reuters, The New York Times, RUSSIA Kyiv Kharkiv Kupiansk Locations: Kupiansk, Ukraine, Russian, Ukrainian, Kharkiv, RUSSIA, RUSSIA Kyiv Kharkiv Kupiansk Dnipro R, UKRAINE Volgograd, Azov CRIMEA, Donetsk, Russia

A billboard at the main entrance to the city of Kupiansk illustrates the tenuous nature of Ukrainian control in a region that has become one of the most active parts of the 750-mile front line in the war. “Kupiansk is Ukraine!! !” it proclaims to anyone entering the city. The other side of the sign, visible to those in the city center, hints at why the first proclamation is so urgent. It shows an armed soldier standing in front of a helicopter, along with a phone number and a question: “Do you have information about traitors to Ukraine?”At the outset of the war, Kupiansk, only 25 miles from the Russian border, fell to Moscow’s forces without a fight and remained under occupation for six months before being retaken in a lightning Ukrainian thrust in the Kharkiv region in the country’s northeast in September.

Persons: Kupiansk Organizations: ” Locations: Kupiansk, Ukraine, Russian, Kharkiv

A commotion sounded at the entrance of the building, and a shout went up. Soldiers carried in two men on stretchers, one his lined face taut in a grimace, a third, with bloodstained pants, following behind. Within seconds the men were lifted onto operating tables and medics swarmed in, cutting off bloody clothes, hooking up drips, talking to the men in low voices. “Brother, you will make it,” the third soldier, Batya, called out to his friend with a chest wound. “Hold on, we have more to do.”Wounded just 40 minutes earlier on Ukraine’s southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region, the soldiers from the 110th Brigade had arrived at a stabilization point, one of a dozen medical stations set up by the Ukrainian Army within a few miles of the front line to ensure critical, lifesaving care.

Persons: “ Organizations: 110th Brigade, Ukrainian Army Locations: Zaporizhzhia

The mansion’s destroyed gardens spilled down over a ruined residential complex, and burned bricks lay strewn across the sidewalk. “I feel pain, and I want revenge,” said Ms. Sulzhenko, 74. “I don’t have the words to say what we should do to them.”She gestured toward other buildings in various stages of ruin. The fact that those who live next to us, and lived among us, could do this to us — we can never forgive this. Never.”Hers was a common sentiment in Odesa this past week after a series of missile strikes damaged the city’s port and 29 historic buildings in its Belle Époque city center, including the Transfiguration Cathedral, one of Ukraine’s largest.

Persons: Nina Sulzhenko, ”, Sulzhenko, “ Organizations: Scientists Locations: Russian, Ukrainian, Belle Époque

☆ What it was like to live at the Los Alamos lab site during the Manhattan Project
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Los Alamos National LaboratorySituated 7,300 feet above sea level and roughly 35 miles from Santa Fe, the Los Alamos site seemed ideal for a secret laboratory. Constant constructionCompared to the Chicago labs, where some of the work on the Manhattan Project was being done, Los Alamos was starting from scratch. The commissary is where many Los Alamos residents did most of their grocery shopping during the Manhattan Project. Mary Palvesky is the daughter of Harry Palevsky and Elaine Sammel, who both worked at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. After the US dropped the bombs, the site became the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Persons: J, Robert Oppenheimer, he'd, Oppenheimer, Abraham Pais, Laura Fermi, Enrico Fermi's, Robert Wilson, Leslie Groves, John Henry Manley, would've, McAllister Hull, Richard Feynman's, Groves, you'd, Robert Serber, Serber, John Manley, Leon Fisher, Phyllis, Emile Segré, Leon, Phyllis Fisher, wouldn't, Ruth Marshak, Elsie McMillan, Enrico Fermi, Jane Wilson, Charlotte Serber, Kitty Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, Lucie Genay, they'd, Edward Teller, Bernice Brode, Robert Brode, Jean Bacher, Thomas Mann's, Fisher, Mary Palvesky, Harry Palevsky, Elaine Sammel, Palvesky, Joseph Rotblat, Hans Bethe, Pavlevsky, Bethe, couldn't, Marcos, Maria Gómez Organizations: Manhattan Project, Service, Manhattan, Trinity Test, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos National, Los Alamos Ranch School, Manhattan Project . National Security Research, Los Alamos, Alamos lab's Tech Area, National Security Research Center, Residents, Carpenters, Tech, Security Research, Los, Nuclear Weapons Industry, couldn't, Trinity, Chicago Met Lab, Japan Locations: New Mexico, Los Alamos, Wall, Silicon, Alamos, Santa Fe, Chicago, Los, Mexican, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Berkeley, New York

There are no longer walls behind the main altar of the Transfiguration Cathedral, a landmark heavily damaged when Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Detritus floated down from the roof as building inspectors, United Nations employees and priests donned hard hats to assess the damage to a cultural icon. Outside, residents gathered around the entrance to the cathedral, which is now boarded up with plywood. Many stopped to kiss an icon of the patroness of their city, which an employee of the church said had been pulled from the rubble. Others came simply to witness the destruction, walking by the church with smartphones in hand filming videos, their mouths wide open.

Persons: ”, Oleksii Organizations: United Nations Locations: Russian, Ukrainian, Odesa

☆ French police scramble to find missing toddler in remote Alpine village
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

Reuters —French police searching for a 2-year-old boy who went missing from his grandparents’ garden in the French Alps on Saturday said on Tuesday they had no clues as to what could have happened to him. The boy, Emile, was last seen walking down the street of his grandparents’ house – located in a remote mountain outpost with only two dozen inhabitants – by two witnesses on Saturday afternoon, a prosecutor said. “At this point, we don’t have any clues allowing us to follow any particular theory (on his whereabouts),” the local public prosecutor told Franceinfo radio. French authorities at the weekend opened a telephone hotline and released a photograph of the boy, a yellow flower tucked behind his ear. French media reported the boy went missing while his grandparents were preparing a car for a ride.

Persons: Emile, ’, Emilie’s Organizations: Reuters, Police, Twitter

☆ In French banlieues, distrust of police runs deep
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Layli Foroudi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Rioters have torched cars and public transport but also targeted town halls, police stations and schools - buildings that represent the French state. Some said Nahel, who was shot dead on Tuesday, could have been any of them, or their sons, brothers or friends. Yann Bastiere, a representative of the Unite SGP police union, said the officer who shot Nahel was innocent until proven guilty. Belaidi said teachers were not replaced and hospitals lacked resources, which has led to a feeling of abandonment by the state. Reporting by Layli Foroudi; additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Angus MacSwanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Benjamin Belaidi, Belaidi, Emmanuel Macron, Mohamed Jakoubi, Nahel, Yann Bastiere, Bastiere, Karima, Emile Chabal, Chabal, Olivier Klein, Layli Foroudi, Elizabeth Pineau, Angus MacSwan Organizations: PARIS, Reuters, police, Unite SGP police, Edinburgh University . Investment, France Inter, Thomson Locations: Paris, Nanterre, France, Nahel, Blanc Mesnil, Clichy

☆ American companies are draining their cash at the dumbest possible time
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —Companies are sitting on a lot less cash than they were last year, largely because they’re spending it on share buybacks and corporate dividends. What’s happening: A new report from Moody’s Investors Service finds that nonfinancial companies’ corporate cash declined 12% last year to $2 trillion. But debt was flat year over year, meaning that companies didn’t use much of their cash reserves to pay down outstanding loans. Now that it’s more expensive to borrow, companies in the US should reconsider the amount of money they’re spending on buybacks, he added. Preventing companies from repurchasing their own shares, they argue, would free corporate cash to invest in growth and raise wages instead.

Persons: Emile El Nems, ”, Ben Lofthouse, Janus Henderson, ” El Nems, Joe Biden, buybacks, “, Brian Moynihan, Moynihan, CNN’s Poppy Harlow, Nathaniel Meyersohn, That’s Organizations: CNN Business, Bell, New York CNN — Companies, Moody’s Investors Service, Moody’s, Federal Reserve, Bank of America, Corporations, ”, CNN, Commerce Department, UBS Locations: New York, buybacks

☆ Brandon Taylor Loves to Read Romances and European History
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-25 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

What’s the last great book you read? Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time? Most classic novels are classic novels I’ve only read recently for the first time. Like, bad prose isn’t the same thing as prose that isn’t brilliant or good or whatever. Bad prose, to me, is bad thinking.

☆ UFC maintains links with Russian fighters and fighters connected to sanctioned Chechen warlord despite Ukraine invasion
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

We have been saying for some time that these sports organizations need to prohibit Kadyrov’s fighters to perform,” he said. There’s also its decision to allow Russian fighters in general to compete in the world’s premium mixed martial arts organization. Some critics have suggested Russian fighters in general should be suspended, like has happened in some other sports, for the country’s involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC/Getty ImagesUFC’s primary focusThere are 20 active Russian fighters currently competing in their organized events, according to the UFC website. CNN approached all 20 of those Russian fighters, only two responded initially and ultimately none of them agreed to an interview.

☆ Liverpool boss Klopp wary of Spurs threat
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

On Sunday, Liverpool host European qualifying rivals Spurs, who are without a win in their last three games and were humbled by third-placed Newcastle last Sunday, conceding five goals in the opening 21 minutes. I had something else to do, wanted to watch the game a bit later, when I came back it was 5-0," Klopp told reporters. "I honestly thought something was wrong with the television screen, something like a joke or something like that. Spurs are fifth in the league standings with 54 points but seventh-placed Liverpool can overtake them with a win at Anfield. The odds will be heavily stacked against Spurs, who have won just once in their last 20 league games against Liverpool, but Klopp said he was wary of the wealth of talent within the Spurs squad.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the law, which instructed the U.S. Circuit said the law "makes clear" that those leases are no longer subject to requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a thorough look at environmental impacts of proposed major federal actions. Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda, who represented the environmental groups, said in a statement that the decision will harm Gulf communities and ecosystems. A spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute called the order a “positive step toward more certainty and clarity for energy producers.”The Interior Department, which did not appeal the lower court decision, declined to comment. v. Debra Haaland et al., U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, case No.

☆ Sam Altman is building his utopia, whether you want it or not
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

Altman told Insider, "We debate our approach frequently and carefully." "I don't think anyone can lose your dad young and wish he didn't have more time with him," Altman told Insider. Altman told Insider that his thinking had evolved since those posts. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

But, "you do at some point need to start having contact with reality," he told Insider. The plan was still only a rough sketch, Blania told Insider, but that didn't seem to matter to his host. "He always wanted to understand everything at a very deep level," Thrun told Insider in an email. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ Jesus at the double as Arsenal steam on towards title
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Jesus, starting a league game for the first time since returning from a knee injury last month, converted a 35th-minute penalty after being clipped in the box by Luke Ayling. Ben White doubled Arsenal's advantage from Gabriel Martinelli's pass before Brazilian Jesus, signed from Manchester City last summer, struck again from close range in the 55th minute from Leandro Trossard's assist. Leeds had troubled Arsenal in the opening period but once Jesus put the hosts ahead it was relatively plain sailing as they restored their eight-point lead over champions Man City. The most important thing is that everyone that has come in has played good," Jesus said. His persistence and trickery earned Arsenal a nerve-settling penalty on Saturday as he jinked into the box and Ayling, rather unluckily, conceded the spot kick as Jesus tumbled.

☆ Three Years Into Covid, We Still Don’t Know How to Talk About It
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Jon Mooallem | Photographs Ashley Gilbertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +53 min

It will play out and reverberate for years or decades, Hagen told me. “The pathological normal,” Hagen calls it: a patchwork of homespun, bespoke realities, each one invested in a different story about what exactly happened when Covid ruptured the story of our lives. garb.”More than once, life seemed to be attaining “an uncanny resemblance to normal life,” as one man put it. But because we don’t totally understand where that experience has delivered us, we don’t know the right gloss to give it. “The days are strange,” one public-school teacher told Milstein toward the end of his first interview, in May 2020.

☆ Kane's record-breaking goal seals Tottenham win over Man City
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Martyn Herman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/4] Soccer Football - Premier League - Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City - Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London, Britain - February 5, 2023 Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane scores their first goal past Manchester City's Ederson and becomes Tottenham Hotspur's all time top goalscorer REUTERS/David KleinLONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Manchester City's bid to chop Arsenal's Premier League lead to two points was scuppered as Harry Kane's record-breaking goal earned Tottenham Hotspur a 1-0 win over the champions on Sunday. Kane's 15th-minute effort punished some sloppy City passing and made him the north London club's all-time top goalscorer with 267, taking him past former great Jimmy Greaves whose record had stood since 1970. Tottenham then withstood a late City siege with some tenacious defending to clinch a third win in four league games over Pep Guardiola's side. Tottenham, whose manager Antonio Conte was absent after having surgery to remove his gallbladder, are fifth on 39 points from 22 games, one behind Newcastle United. "Sooner or later it is going to change, but it is strange we haven't scored one goal," Guardiola said of City's troubles with Tottenham.

But a new survey suggests a “disturbing” lack of awareness about the Holocaust in the Netherlands, where she and her family hid for years before being discovered and deported to a Nazi concentration camp. Equally disturbing is the trend toward Holocaust denial and distortion,” Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor said in a press release accompanying the survey. Some of them, a small part, do not even know about the Holocaust,” Dutch Holocaust survivor Max Arpels Lezer, 86, told NBC News by video call from his home in Amsterdam. A memorial at the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands, where Dutch Jews were kept before being sent to concentration camps. In 1961, Lezer married Sofia, now 86, who as a child had been hidden by a Dutch family during the war.

☆ Arsenal look real deal, Newcastle relentless and Tottenham fickle as battle resumes
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Martyn Herman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

ARSENAL BEGIN WHERE THEY LEFT OFFWhen Mikel Arteta's table toppers went behind early on against struggling West Ham United there were mutterings around the Emirates Stadium -- with fans perhaps fearing Arsenal's pre-break momentum had been lost. TOTTENHAM CONTINUE TO PUZZLETottenham's inability to show consistency, even throughout 90 minutes, was evident again in a 2-2 draw at Brentford. But, as so often this season, they showed that when in a self-inflicted hole, they can actually look like a good side. West Ham United look a shadow of the side that were so impressive last season and a fourth straight defeat heaped more pressure on manager David Moyes. Like West Ham, Everton are just above the drop zone but a home loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers was ominous and manager Frank Lampard will need positive results quickly to silence his critics.

☆ Classy Newcastle go second, Lopetegui off to ideal start with Wolves
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Richard Martin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Spanish coach Julen Lopetegui got off to a strong start in charge of Wolverhampton Wanderers after his side came from behind to sink Everton 2-1 with a last-gasp goal and increase the pressure on Frank Lampard. Later on Monday, Aston Villa were in action against Liverpool, while leaders Arsenal host West Ham United. Eddie Howe's side have 33 points after 16 games, one more than third-placed Manchester City although the champions have two games in hand. The victory pulled Wolves off the bottom of the table and into 18th on 13 points, one point and one place below Everton. Southampton sunk to the bottom after their defeat at home to Brighton, who moved up to sixth.

Search resuls for: "Émile"

25 mentions found