Microsoft has unveiled a new chatbot named Zo, but this time, she’s available on Kik, instead of Twitter, where earlier this year, her predecessor—known as Tay—went on a rather racist tirade before being shut down. I’ve never heard a clear explanation as to why Microsoft is making chatbots, and I have to assume the worst: They are on track to deliver ads. If you ever […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
If you set out to make a positive investment case for Italy 20 years ago, the best hope was to play down the myriad structural inefficiencies that blighted the corporate sector and argue that this was a good economy burdened by an unworkable state. Now, after years of no growth accompanied by stubbornly high public debt, a positive case looks even harder to make, especially after the […]
Yet now, on the eve of his second season as the coach at the Patrick School, Rice may be well positioned to continue his career rehabilitation in a major way: with a job on a much bigger stage. His Patrick School team, which opens the season Dec. 16 at the City of Palms tournament in Florida, is loaded with talent and will appear in several nationally televised […]
Photo Destroyed buildings dominate an eastern Aleppo neighborhood as pro-government troops advanced toward the area on Monday. Credit George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BEIRUT, Lebanon — With the Syrian rebel enclave of eastern Aleppo shriveling, Russia said on Monday that it would start talks with the United States this week on a deal for holdout insurgents to leave, and that any who refused would be regarded […]
MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he was confident Moscow and Washington can reach a deal in talks this week on the withdrawal of all rebels from the eastern part of the Syrian city of Aleppo.He told a news conference once the deal was reached, rebels who stay in the besieged eastern part of the city will be treated as terrorists and Russia will […]
In the United States, too, I found resistance to the idea that Brexit was a harbinger of a Trump victory. I was assured over and over by liberal friends that Trump would never be president. American voters were too sensible to fall for his hateful demagogy. Trump, I was told, was a product of peculiarly American strains of populism that flare up periodically, like the anti-immigrant nativism […]
Photo Secretary of State John Kerry with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in New York in September. At the Saban Forum in Washington on Sunday, Mr. Kerry called the building of Israeli settlements an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Credit Darren Ornitz/Reuters Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians. In […]
Two days after Donald Trump created a diplomatic dispute with China over Taiwan, the president-elect took to Twitter on Sunday evening to criticise Beijing and defend his decision to speak with the Taiwanese president. China issued a protest on Saturday after Mr Trump spoke on the phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the first such contact with a Taiwanese leader since the US severed diplomatic ties in 1979. Although […]
It has been a bad week for Conservative Eurosceptics, their worst since their EU referendum victory in June. The sight of Zac Goldsmith, a leading Brexiter, losing his 23,000 majority in a by-election to the pro-European Liberal Democrats capped it. “The result doesn’t change anything,” said a Conservative spokesman, pointing out that Theresa May was still committed to starting Brexit by the end of March 2017, whatever […]
ALEPPO, SYRIA: Syrian government forces have recaptured half the former opposition stronghold of east Aleppo, a monitor said, with the UN now facing a “race against time” to aid children forced out by the bloody offensive.President Bashar Assad’s forces have made swift gains since their offensive against Aleppo — once Syria’s commercial powerhouse — began on November 15.Tens of thousands of civilians have streamed out of the […]
Authored by William Blum, originally posted at Strategic-Culture.org, On November 16, at a State Department press briefing, department spokesperson John Kirby was having one of his frequent adversarial dialogues with Gayane Chichakyan, a reporter for RT (Russia Today); this time concerning U.S. charges of Russia bombing hospitals in Syria and blocking the U.N. from delivering aid to the trapped population. When Chichakyan asked for some detail about […]
SANA, Yemen — The Houthi movement and its allies formed a new government in Yemen on Monday, a surprise that angered their Saudi-backed rivals and complicated United Nations efforts to end a conflict that has ravaged the Arab world’s poorest country for much of the past two years. The announcement of the new government, reported by the Houthi-run state television and Saba news agency, said it was […]
Wells Fargo has changed its boardroom rules to require the roles of chief executive and chairman be kept separate, adding to pressure on other US banks to end the contentious practice of combining the top jobs. The bank, which has been in the spotlight for months over sales malpractice in its branches, had prised apart the two positions when John Stumpf quit suddenly in October. He was […]
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 […]
Syrian rebel leaders are in secret talks with Russia to end the fighting in Aleppo, according to opposition figures, a development that shows how the US could become sidelined in some of the Middle East’s most pivotal conflicts. Four opposition members from rebel-held northern Syria told the Financial Times that Turkey has been brokering talks in Ankara with Moscow, whose military intervention last year on the side […]
By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry | BEIRUT BEIRUT Syrian rebels on Wednesday vowed to fight on in east Aleppo in the face of sudden government advances that have cut the area held by the opposition by a third in recent days and brought insurgents in the city to the brink of a catastrophic defeat. Gains by the Syrian army and its allies since last week have […]
Privacy is the pull, but that’s hardly the only draw to a private island. There’s something about the prospect of having a world within the world to yourself – and the people you choose to have along with you there – that takes you back to the intense childhood fun of creating a secret hideaway. A den, a clubhouse, a place that feels like it belongs outside […]
With the Trump cabinet filling up, but a number of key positions still to be announced, vice-president-elect Mike Pence told Fox News tonight that “there will be very important announcements tomorrow.” Vice President-elect @mike_pence: There will be very important announcements tomorrow. #NewsAlert pic.twitter.com/VOAXMsBhMa — Fox News (@FoxNews) November 29, 2016 So who will it be? POSTS ALREADY FILLED WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF * Republican […]
Donald Trump was due to meet former critic Mitt Romney for a second time on Wednesday as aides to the president-elect stepped up a public rearguard action against the possible appointment of the one-time Republican nominee as secretary of state. Mr Trump has narrowed the list of candidates to several frontrunners, including Mr Romney and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a faithful ally of the […]
November 28, 2016 by: Jessica Dye in New York and John Paul Rathbone in Miami Donald Trump on Monday threatened to end the Obama administration accord that restored diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba if the former Cold War foe did not negotiate a better deal with his government. Following the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Friday, the US president-elect tweeted that he […]
November 26, 2016 by: Madison Marriage in London and Andres Schipani in Bogotá Fidel Castro, the controversial Cuban leader who seized power in 1959 and ruled over the communist state for the following five decades, has died aged 90. Castro came to power as a charismatic guerrilla leader after his army of revolutionaries marched into Havana 49 years ago when he was just 32 years old. His […]
He seized power audaciously in 1959 and commanded to the last a powerful personal following inside and outside Cuba. But during more than half a century in office Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90, metamorphosed from a popular and charismatic guerrilla leader into a traditional caudillo, an autocratic holdover from another age. At his life’s end, although bolstered by the emergence of a […]
Updated Nov. 26, 2016 2:23 a.m. ET Fidel Castro burst on the world scene in 1959, spawning the very image of a revolutionary with his scruffy beard, rifle and cigar, ruling Cuba for a half-century while rankling 11 U.S. presidents and helping bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Mr. Castro, who was suffering from undisclosed illnesses, died at 90 years old, his brother, President […]
Johnson & Johnson, the world’s largest healthcare group, confirmed on Friday it is in preliminary discussions with Actelion, Europe’s largest biotechnology company, over a potential deal. Its statement came after days of speculation among investors that J&J had been preparing a bid for Actelion, although the Switzerland-based biotech had earlier warned “there can be no certainty that a transaction will result” from the J&J approach. People close […]
As Wall Street traders departed for Thanksgiving this week, they could celebrate a rare achievement. On Monday and Tuesday, the four most widely cited indices of US stocks — the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite and the Russell 2000 — hit all-time highs simultaneously. The last time a “grand slam” happened was on New Year’s Eve 1999, at the height of the […]
Ashley Lane rounds up the winter activities in destinations ranging from Monaco and Manila to Brazil and Antarctica. • Read this and more stories in Ultratravel magazine, out with The National on Thursday, November 24 newslide Monaco Though temperatures are lower than normal, heading to Monaco in December means fewer crowds and lower prices. There are also plenty of festivals and activities to keep visitors busy. Those […]
The Abu Dhabi F1 party got started on Thursday on the Abu Dhabi Corniche. The free music festival, Beats on The Beach, kicked off with over 20,000 people in attendance to see a varied programme featuring the likes of Filipino pop sensation Yeng Constantino, Emirati singer Shamma Hamdan and UK rap duo Krept and Konan. With all the artists blessed with their own dedicated fan base, the […]
A Malaysian businessman and his partner have been charged with orchestrating the single biggest fraud in the history of Singapore’s stock exchange, which wiped out S$8bn in value and triggered a lasting loss of investor confidence. Soh Chee Wen, also known as John Soh, faced charges in a Singapore court on Friday in relation to an alleged fraud in which three publicly listed stocks soared in valuation […]
Not only was the long-rumored Boba Fett Star Wars Anthology movie a going concern, but a teaser reel was prepped to be shown at Star Wars Celebration 2015 alongside an official announcement, before being axed “at the last minute” following a split between Disney and mooted director Josh Trank. This comes courtesy of Entertainment Weekly sources, who say that the project has now been backburnered. Trank seemingly left […]
