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By Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro announced on Monday the creation of a new popular assembly with the ability to re-write the constitution, which foes decried as a power-grab to stifle weeks of anti-government unrest. “I don’t want a civil war,” Maduro told a May Day rally of supporters in downtown Caracas while elsewhere across the city security forces […]

Cisco has announced that it is acquiring Viptela, a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) startup based in San Jose, California, in a deal worth $610 million. Founded by former Cisco engineers Amir Khan and Khalid Raza, Viptela delivers end-to-end network virtualisation that allows for application aware routing, service chaining, centralised policy, and orchestration capabilities. The company has raised more than $108 million since its founding in 2012. […]

22 February 2016 – Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia posted the first major hint that the biggest scandal in Maltese history was about to break. “It’s traditional to eat lamb on Easter Sunday, so Konrad Mizzi and his estranged wife Sai Mizzi Liang will be getting theirs from New Zealand, courtesy of their fixer Brian Tonna, who has a desk at the Auberge de Castille”. […]

ROME Matteo Renzi, staging a political comeback less than five months after resigning as Italy’s prime minister, easily regained the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday with an overwhelming victory in a primary election among party supporters. According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country. About 2 million party members voted in […]

Before comedian Hasan Minhaj got up to poke fun at the assembled White House press corps last night, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein got up to celebrate it. The legendary Watergate duo gave a speech evoking their investigative reporting of the Nixon administration and calling on the current generation of journalists to practice careful, thorough and relentless reporting on the current White House. Below are their remarks, […]

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Scott Helme’s blog, and was reprinted to ZDNet with permission. I was recently invited to take part in some research by BBC Click, alongside Professor Alan Woodward, to analyse a device that had quite a lot of people all excited. With slick marketing, catchy tag lines and some pretty bold claims about their security, nomx claim to have cracked […]

When newspaper industry executives gather in New Orleans this evening for their annual three-day MediaXchange convention, the crowd will be thinner than at last year’s edition in Washington, D.C. “(That) just reflects industry conditions coming off a difficult end to 2016,” said David Chavern, CEO and president of the News Media Alliance, which organizes the convention. For those who do make it, Chavern promises plenty of practical […]

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‘Burdensome new regulatory regime’ During the most recent fiscal year, the government entered into or modified contracts with nearly 70,000 companies or their subsidiaries to deliver hundreds of thousands of distinct goods and services. To figure out which companies to hire, agencies begin by posting solicitations, usually on FedBizOpps.gov, where registered contractors can sift through opportunities. When an agency puts out a solicitation, dozens of companies might […]

Many discussions of digital transformation focus on marketing metrics such as page views, clicks, and even mentions in the press. Although marketing is important, this limited and unsophisticated view ignores underlying issues such as improving business speed, agility, and responsiveness to customers. Only by rethinking business models can we meaningfully gain benefit from digital transformation in departments across the company including operations, supply chain, manufacturing, and customer […]

Hedge funds have slashed their bets against the British pound to the lowest level since the Brexit vote in June last year, after the currency enjoyed its best month against the dollar in two years. The pared-back “short” bets, which would profit on a drop in the pound, followed Theresa May’s decision to call snap elections in June, a move that investors said would allow the ruling […]

President Trump wasted no time before skewering the media at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday, calling the press “fake news” as journalists less than 200 miles away in Washington, D.C. were putting on ball gowns and bow ties for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. “Media outlets like CNN and MSNBC are fake news. Fake news.” Trump said, to a chorus of boos from […]

By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD A top Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul in May despite resistance from militants in the densely populated Old City district. The battle should be completed “in a maximum of three weeks”, the Iraqi army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah on Sunday. A U.S.-led international coalition is providing […]

Even before the first details of Nintendo’s Switch games console were unveiled to the world in early January, the industry knew it would be a cross between a home console and a handheld gaming machine and could sense an all-in bet coming. On Friday, behind the hoopla of the company’s latest game launch, analysts spotted the same tell: a giveaway sign of a company that desperately wants […]

The pope said he did not know enough about French politics to respond, but, he said, “Europe is in danger of breaking apart, this is true.” He noted that the migrant crisis fueled fears that destabilized the Continent, “but we mustn’t forget that Europe is made by immigrants.” Continue reading the main story “Centuries and centuries of immigrants,” he said. “It’s us.” That inclusive message has proved […]

By Philip Pullella | ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE Pope Francis said on Saturday a third country, such as Norway, should try to mediate the dispute between North Korea and Washington, to cool a situation that had become “too hot” and posed the risk of nuclear devastation. Francis said he believed “a good part of humanity” would be destroyed in any widespread war. Speaking […]

Viewers in the Arab world are still waiting for the first locally produced Netflix Original content. We were assured last week at a promotional event in Dubai for the streaming service that bosses are looking for the “right material” and Arabic production remains a key priority. Meanwhile, Netflix’s stable of international productions continues to grow with release of its first Spanish production, Cable Girls (Las Chicas del […]

ABU DHABI // Children as young as 15 are being diagnosed with a liver disease normally suffered by adults, with doctors blaming poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis fatty liver is caused by a build-up of fat around the organ, leading to inflammation. It has become a growing problem among youths, doctors say. The fat damages the liver, affecting its function, and in up to 30 […]

Etihad Airways plans to stand by Air Berlin even after its German partner reported soaring operating losses as a strategic overhaul struggled to gain traction. Germany’s second-largest carrier is shedding tourism and point-to-point operations, shrinking its fleet by half to transform itself into a network airline. The process contributed to pushing the operating loss to 667 million euros ($739 million) last year, more than twice the 2015 […]

It has a granite fountain and a bosque of shade trees. And to some rightwing Americans, the new headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a monument to all that went wrong under eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. The budget for the refurbishment of the Washington DC building, at about $363 a square foot, makes it more expensive than the Venetian hotel in Macau or […]

President Donald Trump’s populist views, reality television stardom, and penchant for Twitter insults all but guaranteed an out-of-the-ordinary first 100 days for the billionaire political neophyte. A look at the data reveals how Mr Trump compares with previous Oval Office occupants. Bills signed into law Enacted legislation for last seven presidents in first 100 days Source: govtrack.us The White House touts that Mr Trump has accomplished more […]

BEIRUT Fighting between rebel groups in the biggest insurgent stronghold near the Syrian capital Damascus entered a second day on Saturday, while government forces pressed an offensive against the besieged enclave, a war monitor said. The clashes broke out in part of the densely-populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta which has been besieged by Syrian government forces since 2013. The Syrian Observatory […]

By Ahmad Sultan | MEHTAR LAM, Afghanistan MEHTAR LAM, Afghanistan In his first public speech since signing a peace deal with the Afghan government, one of Afghanistan’s most notorious warlords on Saturday called for the Taliban to stop fighting and begin negotiations. “I invite you to join the peace caravan and stop the pointless, meaningless and unholy war,” Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said to a gathering of his followers […]

Emerging from an Hermès store in Shanghai with a shiny new watch costing “tens of thousands” of renminbi, Zhao Feifei is emblematic of a younger generation of Chinese consumers driving a rebound in sales of European luxury brands. “I’m earning more than before so I’m more willing to spend,” says Ms Zhao, who works in an internet finance company. The 30-year-old is one of the many customers […]

It has been a long time since an HP business device made me sit up and take notice, but the latest Elitebook x360 has changed that. In a world where manufacturers continue to push tablets with keyboards as productivity devices, I’m increasingly convinced that convertible laptops are the superior option. The Elitebook x360 1030 G2 is first and foremost a very good laptop, and the ability to […]

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