Companies hoping to go public are often accused of over-promising would-be investors — especially those that listed in and around the dotcom bubble — but the pledge of one that listed 20 years ago on Monday seems almost positively euphemistic. “Amazon.com intends to use technology to deliver an outstanding service offering and to achieve the significant economies inherent in the online store model,” the company said in […]
They became the latest casualties of a long war that is leaving children dead or wounded in record numbers. Continue reading the main story On Monday, the United Nations said that the violence across Afghanistan in the first four months of the year had killed 283 children and wounded another 704, a 21 percent increase over the same period last year. “The children were playing outside their […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister during their meeting last week, potentially jeopardising a source of intelligence about Islamic State, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing current and former U.S. officials. The newspaper said the information Trump relayed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak had been provided by a U.S. partner through a […]
MEXICO CITY An award-winning Mexican journalist was gunned down on Monday in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, the fifth reporter killed in the past three months as the country struggles to contain resurgent bloodshed among warring drug cartels. Journalist Javier Valdez was shot and killed when an unknown number of assailants opened fire on his car, according to the website of online media outlet RioDoce, which he […]
By Aidan Lewis and Steve Scherer | TRIPOLI/AQUARIUS RESCUE SHIP TRIPOLI/AQUARIUS RESCUE SHIP Italy gave the Libyan coast guard four repaired patrol boats on Monday to beef up Libya’s efforts to stop people smuggling, but the support worries humanitarian groups operating rescue ships near the Libyan coast. Italy and the European Union promised in February to spend millions of euros to help the Tripoli government upgrade its […]
Credit: Steffen Thoma/Public Domain The research, led by the International Council on Clean Transportation and Environmental Health Analytics, LLC., in collaboration with scientists at the University of York’s Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI); University of Colorado; and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, examined 11 major vehicle markets representing more than 80% of new diesel vehicle sales in 2015.’ Of these markets, they found vehicles emitted 13.2 […]
By Guy Faulconbridge and Dustin Volz | LONDON/WASHINGTON LONDON/WASHINGTON The global WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack spread more slowly on Monday with no major infections reported, as attention shifted to investment and government policy implications of lax cyber security. There were 213,000 infected machines in 112 countries as of 1000 GMT on Monday, according to Czech security firm Avast, making it one of the largest coordinated attacks to […]
Authored by Gwynne Dyer via BangorDailyNews.com, “I am no Mussolini,” Venezuela’s beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro insisted on television early this month. But if things go on this way, he could end up like Mussolini. That would be very unfortunate for him and also for Venezuela. The daily street protests against Maduro’s rule are in their second month, and around 40 people have already been killed, most of […]
PARIS France’s new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe took the job offered to him by President Emmanuel Macron because the country is in a “unique situation”, he said on Monday hours after his appointment was announced. “I told myself that the situation we were in was so unique that we should try something that had never been tried before,” he said on TF1 television. He also reaffirmed Macron’s […]
DUBAI // Couples should look beyond a fertility clinic’s success rate before signing up for an in-vitro fertilisation scheme, and avoid cut-price deals, doctors warned. Couples would “get what they pay for” and should prepare for a significant financial commitment if they want the IVF treatment to be successful, said doctors at a Dubai Health Authority event marking International Family Day. Couples who conceived children through treatments […]
As the UAE Pavilion was readied for the opening of the Venice Biennale, paper aeroplanes were strewn across a brick floor with yellow markings. To the untrained eye, they might have looked like the result of some celebratory fun and games from the young members of staff who had just finished the week-long installation work at the Sale d’Armi (Weapons Room) in the Italian city’s old fort, […]
Criminal hacking groups have repurposed a second classified cyber weapon stolen from US spies and have made it available on the so-called dark web after the success of the WannaCry attack that swept across the globe on Friday. The hacking tool, developed by the US National Security Agency and codenamed EsteemAudit, has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, according to security analysts. As with […]
ROME A total of around 20 migrants are feared to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean on Saturday, the United Nations refugee agency said, citing testimony from survivors arriving in Italy. Seven men were found dead during Saturday’s rescues, but survivors brought to Trapani in Sicily indicated a further 13 had been lost at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said. “When they saw the rescuers coming […]
A newly developed printable elastic conductor retains high conductivity even when stretched to as much as five times its original length, says a Japanese team of scientists. The new material, produced in paste-like ink form, can be printed in various patterns on textiles and rubber surfaces as stretchable wiring for wearable devices incorporating sensors, as well as give human skin-like functions to robot exteriors. The development of […]
By Angus McDowall and Ayat Basma | BEIRUT BEIRUT The Middle East’s protracted conflicts have caused a region-wide health crisis that goes beyond war wounds to heightened resistance to antibiotics and a collapse in vaccination drives, leading to a resurgence of diseases tamed in peacetime. Health threats are so varied that one of the Middle East’s main teaching hospitals, the American University of Beirut Medical Center, has […]
When you look at the popular, artificially intelligent “assistants” on the market today, they’re really just voice-recognition engines, coupled with pattern- and image-recognition and search engines. But those capabilities, when allowed to ‘learn’ over time, start to form the basis of cognition, inference, and then reasoning. Add attitude, subjective opinion, and feelings, and we get close to the human-brain benchmarks that all machine-learning scientists are pursuing. 25 […]
DAKAR Armed groups have agreed to allow for the evacuation of some civilians from a mosque in Central African Republic’s southeastern town of Bangassou after two days of fighting, a senior U.N. official said on Monday. Around 1000 people in the town had sought refuge from attacks inside and then found themselves trapped there by the militias, said U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Central African Republic Najat Rochdi. […]
U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday as a rise in oil prices boosted energy stocks, soothing some nerves following a massive cyber attack that locked up 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries. Oil hit a three-week high after top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia said supply cuts needed to last into 2018, a step toward extending an OPEC-led deal to support prices for longer than originally […]
ABIDJAN Ivory Coast authorities will maintain a “firm line” faced with a four-day nationwide army mutiny, government spokesman Bruno Kone said on Monday, as the revolt spread, paralysing much of the West African cocoa grower. “The government has taken a firm line and it will maintain this line,” he told Reuters, adding that, while no negotiations were under way with the soldiers, “discussions were continuing” even as […]
Tesla has started taking orders for its innovative new solar roof, tile-sized solar panels that the company unveiled back in October last year. Coming from the makers of supercar-speed electric vehicles and reusable rockets, they’re not your ordinary solar panel: they’re aesthetically pleasing and won’t require ripping off existing tiles inside the home for installation. The Solar Roof, Tesla’s first post-SolarCity acquisition offering, is expected to sell […]
A committee of the Philippine parliament on Monday found an impeachment complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte was “insufficient in substance,” rejecting it and effectively putting an end to the case. The complaint, filed in March, alleged that Duterte had adopted a state policy of extrajudicial killings during his war on drugs, leading to the death of more than 8,000 people in the first eight months of his […]
French president Emmanuel Macron has appointed Edouard Philippe, a little-known centre-right politician, as his prime minister in an attempt to build a majority in parliament for his year-old centrist party. Mr Macron’s poaching of Mr Philippe to lead his government was announced on the new president’s first full day in office. Less than a month before legislative elections, it is a new blow to the conservative Republican […]
Mr. Qalibaf had been under pressure from fellow hard-liners to fall in behind Mr. Raisi. Two other minor candidates are expected to withdraw before Friday, making the race a showdown between Mr. Raisi and Mr. Rouhani, clerics who hold strongly opposing views of Iran’s future. Mr. Rouhani said on Monday that he needed a strong victory to gain the mandate to carry out changes leading to more […]
MADRID Spanish police seized more than two tons of cocaine from a ship with a Venezuelan flag in the Atlantic Ocean and arrested the seven crew members, Spain’s interior ministry said on Monday. The operation, carried out alongside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the UK’s National Crime Agency and Portuguese police, took place earlier this month, on May 4. The seven people on board were Venezuelan nationals, […]
