Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Since Jim VandeHei and John Harris proved most everybody to be idiots, VandeHei can only hope that reflexive suspicion of his new gambit again proves to be entrepreneurial bliss. The two journalists famously pitched the notion of an all-politics digital […]
Investors poured money into US equity funds and pulled it from European ones in a week dominated by hopes for an acceleration in US economic growth and anxiety over Italy’s referendum on constitutional reform this weekend. European equity funds lost $2bn in the week to November 30, according to data from EPFR, while US funds attracted $4.4bn. That takes the total inflow for US equity funds since […]
By Gavin Jones | ROME ROME With his political career on the line, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a final day of campaigning on Friday ahead of a Dec. 4 referendum, saying Italy would be the strongest nation in Europe if he wins. Financial markets and Europe’s politicians fear victory for the opposition ‘No’ camp could trigger political instability and renewed turmoil for Italy’s battered banks, pushing […]
A head of steam for Italian government bond yields. There are no signs of jitters in the eurozone’s third largest debt market this morning in the last day of trading before the country votes in a closely-watched referendum this weekend. Italy’s 10-year bond yields have fallen by as much as 10 basis points this morning (0.1 percentage points) to 1.95 per cent, outperforming a wider rally in […]
The Cohort is Poynter’s bi-monthly newsletter about women kicking ass in digital media. Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, I caught up on several post-election podcasts. Nearly all of the conversations veered towards self-care. From Another Round’s Heben Nigatu and Bim Adewunmi to Call Your Girlfriend’s Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow, the women I listened to checked in with each other and offered up their go-tos for feeling good. […]
Zahid says all component parties should help each other out, especially during the next general election. KUALA LUMPUR: Other Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties must work as hard as Umno, says the party’s acting deputy president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Zahid said he had met with the presidents of BN component parties to discuss this and was confident that a “huge change” would happen soon. “I have urged […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — At least 200,000 conservative Muslims rallied peacefully in the Indonesian capital on Friday in the second major protest against its minority Christian governor, who is being prosecuted for alleged blasphemy. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, a political ally of the governor who angered hard-liners by being out of the city during their first protest, unexpectedly went to the national monument to join Friday prayers […]
There aren’t very many tourists on my flight from New York to Kingston – it’s mostly Jamaicans going home. The tourists usually favour the trip to Montego Bay, from where they’re immediately shuttled into carefully cloistered resorts and served a jolly medley of reggae and other clichés of island life along with the necessary TVs, ATMs, fast-food chains, souvenir shops and multiple pools. Many travellers who visit […]
KUALA LUMPUR: Khairy Jamaluddin’s successor as the UMNO Youth chief must be highly prepared in facing the various challenges, and defending the party and president from political attacks. The wing’s deputy chief Khairul Azwan Harun said, the new leadership must also continue the legacy left by Khairy. “Execution standards have already been in place, probably only the approach would be different…if the new chief after KJ (Khairy […]
By Greg Torode and Marius Zaharia | HONG KONG/SINGAPORE HONG KONG/SINGAPORE As the impounding of Singaporean troop carriers in Hong Kong exposes rising tensions between China and Singapore, the Lion City is unlikely to budge on core security interests concerning Beijing – its military relationship with Taiwan, worries over the South China Sea and its hosting of the U.S. military. Singaporean officials, retired military officers and analysts […]
By Joseph Guyler Delva and Makini Brice | PORT-AU-PRINCE PORT-AU-PRINCE The winner of Haiti’s presidential election, Jovenel Moise, vowed on Thursday to reform the constitution and tackle corruption when he takes office next year. The electoral council said Moise won a majority of votes and prevailed by more than 25 percentage points, according to preliminary results for the Nov. 20 vote that Haitians hoped would put the […]
Photo Poulet à la Normande Credit Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Jerrie-Joy. “Ah, they are not rising!” Marianne Tober cried, in a near panic over her gougères. They weren’t just cheese puffs; they were her Burgundian birthright, well-salted dairy fat given airy form, and her mother’s recipe had never failed her before. But it was true: The gougères […]
By Jack Kim | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean opposition parties said on Friday they will hold a parliamentary impeachment vote on scandal-tainted President Park Geun-hye next week, while her own party remains undecided on whether to force her out of office. Park has offered to resign and asked parliament on Tuesday to decide how and when she should step down over the influence peddling scandal but the […]
US technology shares are on track to log their worst week in seven months as investors shifted their focus to equities that will benefit from the soaring price of oil and the policies of the Trump administration. The S&P 500 technology index, a measure of large companies in the sector, has declined by 3.3 per cent since last Friday. The fall would represent the steepest drop since […]
The pound climbed to its highest level against the euro in almost three months after a rare public comment from the government on its strategy for leaving the EU, adding further momentum to the currency’s November rally. The pound was worth €1.1940 for the first time since September 7 after David Davis, so-called Brexit secretary, told MPs the UK would consider paying for access to the single […]
By Emily Stephenson | INDIANAPOLIS INDIANAPOLIS President-elect Donald Trump warned on Thursday that U.S. companies would face “consequences” for outsourcing jobs abroad, as he touted his early success in persuading an air conditioner maker to keep about 1,000 jobs in the United States rather than move them to Mexico. “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen,” the Republican […]
December 1, 2016 by: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris François Hollande announced on Thursday night that he would not run for a second term in next year’s French presidential elections. The unprecedented decision was driven by his historically low popularity ratings, which left him little chance of success against centre-right candidate François Fillon and far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen. He would also first have had to […]
By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday he would not seek a second term in office in the presidential election in 2017, an unprecedented move that leaves the way open for other left-wing candidates. It is the first time in decades that an incumbent French president has not sought re-election. Hollande is the most unpopular president on record. “I am aware […]
President-elect Donald Trump has spoken with more than 40 foreign leaders since he won the Nov. 8 election, but his transition team has provided few details about what is discussed in those conversations. That has left plenty of room for the foreign leaders to offer their interpretations of these phonecalls, ranging from the discreet to the effusive. The latest example came Wednesday, with the Pakistani government issued […]
By Alastair Macdonald and Gabriela Baczynska | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS The Dutch government has lent its weight to calls for the EU to freeze Turkey’s membership talks, diplomats said on Thursday, raising the prospect of European leaders making such a move at a summit in two weeks. A Dutch suggestion that the Union consider suspending the accession process for six months in protest at President Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown […]
By Kristina Cooke | MENLO PARK, Calif. MENLO PARK, Calif. Facebook Inc (FB.O) is working on automatically flagging offensive material in live video streams, building on a growing effort to use artificial intelligence to monitor content, said Joaquin Candela, the company’s director of applied machine learning. The social media company has been embroiled in a number of content moderation controversies this year, from facing international outcry after […]
By Cheikh Sadibou Mane | BANJUL BANJUL Gambians voted on Thursday in the first serious electoral challenge to President Yahya Jammeh, who has said only Allah can remove him from office and once claimed he would rule the tiny riverside West African nation for “a billion years”. Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup, has made headlines by claiming to have a herbal cure for AIDS […]
Kuwait’s Emir reappointed Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah on Wednesday, state news agency KUNA said, days after a parliamentary election seen as a rejection of austerity measures brought on by low oil prices. Opposition candidates are estimated to have won around 20 seats out of 50 in the Kuwaiti elections on Saturday that saw most parliament members replaced. The results of Saturday’s vote are likely to […]
The Congress party’s official Twitter account was apparently hacked Thursday morning, a day after its vice president Rahul Gandhi’s feed erupted with abusive tweets following a similar breach. “Congress can kiss our ass” one tweet from @INCIndia read. Another promised a “full dump” of Congress emails in what it described would be a “Christmas special.” On Wednesday night, a series of tweets from @OfficeofRG ridiculed Mr. Gandhi and […]
