Apple said Monday it would commit $2.5 billion over the next two years to help address the shortage of affordable housing in California and reduce homelessness. The move by Apple follows similar initiatives from Silicon Valley peers Google and Facebook, which each have pledged $1 billion for housing programs. “Before the world knew the name […]

China is seeking the roll back of U.S. tariffs on as much as $360 billion of Chinese imports before President Xi Jinping agrees to go to the U.S. to sign a partial trade deal with President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. Negotiators asked the Trump administration to eliminate tariffs on about […]

The United States Government on Saturday said 250 journalists were jailed around the world in 2018, with Turkey, China and Egypt among the worst offenders. The assertion came in a statement by Spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State, Ms Morgan Ortagus, to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. Ortagus […]

More than 200,000 people, half of them children, have fled their homes following massive floods that have left most of a town in central Somalia under water, Save the Children said on Thursday. People have been evacuated using tractors and boats from neighborhoods that have been submerged in water in Beledweyne town after days of […]

A fire has swept through a historic castle on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa , destroying much of a structure that had come to symbolise the ancient Ryukyu kingdom and the island’s recovery from the second world war. Flames engulfed Shuri castle, a Unesco world heritage site located in the island’s capital Naha, at […]

  Hong Kong has plunged into deep recession after its economy was hit by a double whammy of violent street protests and the US-China trade war. Activity contracted by 3.2% in the three months to September as a loss of exports was compounded by a collapse in consumer spending and a loss of revenue from […]

  Consumers in African countries are paying some of the highest rates in the world for internet access as a proportion of income, according to a new report released Tuesday. The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) assessed 136 low and middle-income countries for their annual Affordability Report. Middle-income examples from the report include Malaysia, Colombia, […]

Heavy fighting broke out in northern Mexico after the security forces seized one of the sons of jailed drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Fighting raged for several hours after Ovidio Guzmán López was found during a routine patrol in the city of Culiacán. Eventually, Police withdrew without Mr Guzmán in their custody to avoid […]

A bus crash in the Saudi city of Medina killed 35 foreigners and wounded four others  a police spokesman cited by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said. The privately chartered bus collided with a heavy vehicle, the Medina police spokesman said. The victims were Arab and Asian expatriates, he added. The Prophet Mohammed’s mosque […]