Defensive sectors lift European shares after two-day rally

European stocks inched higher on Wednesday after marking their strongest two-day gain in more than a year, with defensive stocks rising as investors weighed the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the Omicron coronavirus variant. After jumping 3.8 per cent over the past two days, the region-wide STOXX 600 index nudged 0.1 per cent higher in…Continue Reading

Japanese shares extend rally as Omicron fears fade

SynopsisThe Nikkei share average jumped 1.4 per cent to end at 28,860.62, its highest close since Nov. 25, though it met a resistance around 28,910, where it has its 50-day and 200-day moving averages.APTOKYO: Japanese shares jumped on Wednesday, as investors grew hopeful that the Omicron coronavirus variant would be less disruptive for the global…Continue Reading

India Mobile Congress 2021: Industry bats for collaboration, reduced litigation and a shift towards 4G

Telecom Industry leaders KM Birla, Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani batted for the banking sector support, reduced litigation and migration of 2G customers to 4G. They spoke at the virtual India Mobile Congress event on Wednesday, December 8. IMC is a telecom, media and technology forum jointly organised by the Department of Telecom and Cellular…Continue Reading

Biden’s summit: What’s democracy got to do with it?

You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest, including news from around the globe, interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox every weekday.These are dark times for democracy. Seventy-three countries witnessed an erosion of freedom in 2020, the highest in 15 years. In 2021, tyranny…Continue Reading

Homegrown film on Haiti’s challenges stirs national pride, draws international acclaim

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The economy has collapsed. Crime is rising. Protests are paralyzing the country.Amid the chaos, a student, her two siblings and their single mother wrestle with an agonizing choice: Whether to stay in the only country they’ve ever called home or try to start a new life elsewhere.It’s a dilemma confronting many Haitians…Continue Reading

With vaccine resistance high, Poland faces surge of deaths

WARSAW, Poland — As 83-year-old Hanna Zientara endured subfreezing temperatures to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot in Warsaw, her 30-year-old grandson was starting a Canary Islands vacation while unvaccinated and stubbornly refusing his grandmother’s repeated pleas to protect himself.“I am worried about him, but I have no influence over him. None,” Zientara said. “He…Continue Reading

Indonesian militant given life sentence in 2005 attack

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic militant who eluded capture for 16 years to life in prison on Wednesday after finding him guilty of making bombs used in a 2005 market attack that killed 22 people.Upik Lawanga, known as “professor,” is a key member of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network, which the…Continue Reading

CAIRO — Fighting between troops loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels displaced over 25,000 people around a key port city last month, the United Nations said late Tuesday.The fighting in Hodeida flared up when rebels rushed in to areas abandoned by government forces, followed by a counterstrike by pro-government troops backed…Continue Reading

Healing ‘San Fransicko’

Michael Shellenberger’s new book appropriately diagnoses the drug problem on the West Coast, but there are better solutions. San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, by Michael Shellenberger (Harper, 2021), 416 pages.Michael’s Shellenberger’s San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities is both the most captivating and the most depressing book of 2021, a year ripe for depressing books.…Continue Reading

Destroying Notre-Dame

The restoration plans will make the great church, like the civilization that built it, a shell of itself. (Fabien Lemoine/Getty Images) “Vandalism has its newspapers, its cliques, its schools, its chairs, its public, its reasons. Vandalism has the bourgeoisie on its side. … There is nothing less popular among us than these sublime edifices made…Continue Reading