The saga of Housing.com, once a red-hot tech startup in India, has reached a conclusion of sorts after the company was sold to rival PropTiger in a deal announced this week. Housing.com was once heralded as a trailblazer for its efforts to digitize the sale and rental of property in India. But a fall from grace, which included the ejection of its outspoken CEO and the removal of […]
Bjarni Benediktsson, leader of the conservative Independence Party, is Iceland’s new prime minister. (Halldor Kolbeins/Agence France-Presse) The Panama Papers — a huge leak of documents detailing the alleged secret offshore holdings of a global elite — were released in April 2016. The leak made headlines all over the world, but its impact was probably most keenly felt in Iceland. Just two days after the leak appeared, Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson […]
DUBAI Five Emirati humanitarian workers were killed in a bomb attack in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) official news agency reported on Wednesday. The five were killed on Tuesday while engaged in humanitarian, educational and development work, state news agency WAM reported, adding President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan had ordered flags flown at half mast for three days in mourning. […]
Singaporean telecommunications carrier Singtel has launched 450Mbps speeds across its entire 4G network for customers with compatible smartphones, and has also announced attaining speeds of up to 1Gbps in a trial of its 4G network with Ericsson. The network upgrade was achieved by making use of 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) technology, which increases efficient use of spectrum by increasing the number of unique radio waveform shapes […]
Jan 11, 2017 10:15 am IST A senior Indian government minister predicted upcoming state elections would be a “complete sweep” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, which is hoping that a strong mandate will help it push through more policy changes in the second half of Mr. Modi’s term. Piyush Goyal, the power minister and a influential leader in the Bharatiya Janata Party, said he was comfortable using the […]
By Jonathan Landay and John Walcott | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Classified documents that the heads of four U.S. intelligence agencies presented last week to President-elect Donald Trump included claims that Russian intelligence operatives have compromising information about him, two U.S. officials said Tuesday evening. They told Reuters the claims, which one called “still unsubstantiated,” were contained in a two-page memo appended to a report on Russian interference in […]
Apple CEO Tim Cook touring a Foxconn facility. While Apple isn’t Foxconn’s only partner, it’s the biggest. (Image: File photo) Key iPhone supplier Foxconn Technology Group has posted its first annual sales decline since it went public in 1991, thanks to slowing sales of the iPhone, according to Nikkei. For full year 2016, Foxconn posted revenues of roughly $136.38 billion, down 2.81 percent from a year ago. […]
By Hamid Shalizi | KABUL KABUL A Taliban suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday killed more than 30 people and wounded some 70 others, as twin blasts hit a crowded area of the city during the afternoon rush hour. Saleem Rasouli, a senior public health official, said 33 people had been killed and more than 70 wounded on the Darul Aman road, near an […]
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Senior U.S. Republican and Democratic senators will introduce legislation on Tuesday seeking to impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Syria and Ukraine. The legislation is sponsored by 10 senators – Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse and Rob Portman and Democrats Ben Cardin, Robert Menendez, Jeanne Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar […]
By Parisa Hafezi | ANKARA ANKARA The death of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani deprives Iran’s reformers of a powerful ally, boosting anti-Western hardliners before a presidential election which will determine how open Tehran is to the world. The loss of Rafsanjani’s skills as a factional powerbroker also means rivalries in Iran’s unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule could grow unchecked, testing the stability […]
Good morning. Elites caught in a bubble? John Oliver and Meryl Streep bashed Donald Trump and praised journalism. Donations soared for two nonprofits praised by them: ProPublica and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hip, hip, hoorah. Truth and justice win out over the forces of darkness. Or did they? You couldn’t try harder, or be more articulate, than Streep. “It was simply stunning: eloquent and urgent, the […]
They did, and in a finish that was frenzied and frenetic. Trailing by 24-14 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Tigers cut the deficit to 3 with a 4-yard touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson to Mike Williams. After both teams traded missed opportunities, Clemson finally took the lead for the first time in the game with just four minutes remaining when Williams made an acrobatic […]
Over 13 years, consumption of gasoline rose in countries that lowered taxes or raised subsidies The average tax on petrol in 157 nations fell 13 percent from 2003 to 2015, even as the world acknowledged the need to slash greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, researchers reported Monday. Over 13 years, consumption of gasoline rose in countries that lowered taxes or raised subsidies, they said in a study […]
Submitted by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute, Sharia courts administering Islamic justice in Britain are run by clerics who believe some offenders should have their hands chopped off, according to Muslim scholar Elham Manea. She described the prevailing attitude as “totalitarian” and as more backward than some parts of Pakistan. Teaching children fundamental British values is an act of “cultural supremacism,” according to the National Union […]
By Ellen Wulfhorst UNITED NATIONS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Sweden’s top diplomat has a question: “Where are the women?” Taking a seat on the United Nations’ influential Security Council, Sweden will use its clout to press its feminist foreign policy, Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said on Monday. That policy, coined when Wallstrom took office two years ago, seeks equal rights, decision-making roles and fair allocation of resources […]
Photo The United States guided missile destroyer Mahan in the Mediterranean in 2013. Credit Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacob D. Moore/U.S. Navy, via Reuters WASHINGTON — In a vivid illustration of the tensions between the United States and Iran, an American Navy warship fired warning shots at Iranian boats that were racing toward it near the Strait of Hormuz, Defense Department officials said on Monday. The […]
By David Morgan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and top members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team on Monday discussed a controversial plan to tax imports during an evening meeting on Capitol Hill, a Trump adviser said. Trump’s incoming chief strategist Stephen Bannon said the meeting examined two provisions of Ryan’s “Better Way” tax reform blueprint, including a border-adjustability measure intended to […]
The military, security experts and soldiers at the scene quickly rejected that notion. “Those who ran from the scene were not concerned about Azaria, but about their own well-being,” said Yehuda Ben Meir, an expert in national security and public opinion at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Continue reading the main story Still, the argument — unfolding in full volume on Israeli […]
The real reason Windows has sunk below the 50-percent mark is that smartphones and tablets are continuing to grow while the desktop keeps shrinking. Image: Nate Ralph/CNET Windows is still the most popular end-user operating system, but it’s now used by less than half of the visitors to the federal government’s websites. Windows has fallen to less than half of web visitors to US government websites. The […]
ROME Italy is sending its ambassador back to Libya, its foreign ministry said on Monday, making it the first Western diplomatic mission to reopen in the divided country. Italy closed its embassy in Libya in 2015 as rival factions descended into a conflict which has let people smugglers operate with impunity and Islamic State establish a firm foothold. The foreign ministry said in a statement the ambassador […]
Green Bay’s Randall Cobb caught the football in the back of the end zone, where he was standing behind every Giants defender. Later, Landon Collins, the Giants’ All-Pro safety, said that he did not think there was enough room for Cobb to make a catch in the back of the end zone. He was wrong. One sure way to know if there was room would have been […]
By Kay Johnson | ISLAMABAD ISLAMABAD Pakistan’s government said on Monday it was seeking to amend the constitution to keep special military courts for civilians charged with terrorism, days after the mandate expired for the secret courts that had been accused of fostering rights abuses. It was unclear how long an extension the government was seeking for the military tribunals, which proponents said were necessary because of […]
Amazon’s Echo – and the built-in Alexa service: coming to a home near you, soon? Amazon’s Alexa service has been a surprise hit; the digital assistant wrapped up in the Amazon Echo smart speaker that is rapidly turning itself into the leading smart home hub. Alexa can be used for anything from playing music, setting timers and writing shopping lists, to controlling smart home systems, domestic appliances […]
Here’s what the next round of the N.F.L. playoffs looks like. The Giants dominated most of the first half, but they managed only two field goals by Robbie Gould before Rodgers invigorated the bundled-up crowd with two touchdowns in the final three minutes. The second was spectacular, a 42-yard heave to Randall Cobb that six Giants in the end zone failed to knock down as time ran […]
