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Simply getting onto the NBN, let alone making use of it, is impacting the functioning of 43 percent of businesses according to an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) survey [PDF] released on Tuesday. Only 22 percent of businesses said the NBN connection process was smooth, while businesses said the most common complaint was “ongoing service issues”, ACMA said. Conducted between April and May 2016, ACMA surveyed […]

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports fell in October by 176,000 barrels per day from the month before, despite high production, but its refined products shipments rose as the kingdom expands its refining power, official data showed on Monday. The world’s top exporter shipped 7.636 million barrels per day in October, down from 7.812 million bpd in September, according to data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI). […]

Six U.S. retailers will no longer require hourly employees to check whether they are still needed for work and risk having their scheduled shifts canceled with little notice, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will announce on Tuesday. Schneiderman and his counterparts in seven states, including California and Illinois, have sent letters to a number of companies in the last year requesting information about their scheduling practices. […]

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he feared genocide was about to start in South Sudan unless immediate action is taken, renewing his plea for the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the world’s newest country. “If we fail to act, South Sudan will be on a trajectory towards mass atrocities,” Ban told the 15-member […]

In moving 120 miles to the north, Spanos, of course, would risk alienating fans in San Diego, where the Chargers have played for more than a half-century. It is unclear how many of those fans would pay thousands of dollars for seat licenses and tickets, which would undoubtedly be more expensive in Los Angeles. “I’ll drive to L.A. to support them, but only a couple of games […]

Tuesday 02:20 GMT Overview Stock markets across Asia were largely on the back foot, with investors in the Japanese market treading particularly cautiously despite the yen weakening and the Bank of Japan keeping monetary policy meeting steady, as expected. Hot topic Global financial markets were beginning to quiet down in the lead-up to Christmas. Despite attacks in Germany and Turkey on Monday that added to geopolitical unease, […]

Reliance Jio is a great, big, and savvy Indian python that has recently slithered into the telecom space, threatening to swallow the lunch of existing incumbents like Airtel and Vodafone. The question is, will it end up swallowing itself tail-first as well? As I wrote a few months ago, and as you probably may well know, Mukesh Ambani, India’s oil to telecom billionaire who is not known […]

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aNewDomain — Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil chief who Donald Trump has tapped to be the next US secretary of state, was the director of a Bahamas-based US-Russian oil firm, according to leaked documents in the Panama Papers. Tillerson ended the association with the Exxon subsidiary, Exxon Neftegas, in 2001, Exxon rep Scott Silvestri said Monday, a day after the Guardian and reporters at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported the news. […]

By Tim Cocks and Aaron Ross | KINSHASA KINSHASA Gunfire could be heard in several districts of Kinshasa early on Tuesday as demonstrators demanded that President Joseph Kabila step down after his mandate expired at midnight, and measures to curb dissent fanned fears of more violence. Reuters witnesses in various parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city heard repeated gunshots, and one saw youths burning […]

Qantas Group has selected SAP executive Susan Doniz to fulfil the role of CIO after undertaking a global search for Luc Hennekens’ replacement. Hennekens revealed his intention to leave the national carrier in July after three years of leading its technology operations. He moved to France to join Airbus Group as CIO after working his last day at Qantas in September. Doniz will relocate from Canada to […]

Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian-born Hollywood siren perhaps better known for her love life than her movie credits, died on December 18. She was 99. Her husband, Frederic von Anhalt said the actress passed away at home after suffering a heart attack, surrounded by friends and family. The pair wed in 1986, making their union by far the longest of her nine marriages. Gabor, who in her […]

By Roberta Rampton and Eric M. Johnson | WASHINGTON/SEATTLE WASHINGTON/SEATTLE At least five Democrats who had been committed to back Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Electoral College cast ballots for other people on Monday, the largest number of “faithless electors” seen in well over a century. The 538 electors were voting across the country to confirm Republican Donald Trump as the next president. The event is normally […]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on December 19, 2016 that his artificial intelligence-imbued software “butler”, named Jarvis, is now in service Mark Zuckerberg’s artificial intelligence-imbued software “butler”—named Jarvis—is now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said Monday. Zuckerberg took on the personal project this year, devoting about 100 hours to making a system inspired by the “Iron Man” film character Jarvis as […]

Los Angeles-area leaders on Monday announced a $10 million “justice fund” that will help provide lawyers to local immigrants who are facing deportation proceedings without legal representation. Since winning the presidential election, has said he would prioritize the deportation of two million to three million undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. Democratic mayors […] (via WSJ)

Amazon’s Echo Dot, a hands-free voice-controlled Alexa-enabled device, has enjoyed pretty rave reviews upon its release, simply because the device, a minute puck-shaped plaything, is far more capable than what its size suggests. Yes, the tiny flat cylinder sports Amazon’s proprietary voice-enabled virtual assistant Alexa, which is by and large its headline feature. It hears its owners, even when outputting loud music from its speakers, and it […]

ABU DHABI // Pakistan’s ambassador to the UAE said he aims to help deepen bilateral defence and economic ties, particularly through the major new trade route traversing Pakistan to China, the Asian power that is set to become the GCC’s largest trade partner. “We really want to make this relationship more diversified, and deepen and expand it,” said Moazzam Ahmad Khan, who began his tenure as Islamabad’s […]

December 19, 2016 by: Guy Chazan in Berlin and Ralph Atkins in Zürich A truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital Berlin on Monday evening, killing nine people and injuring up to 50 others, in what police described as a deliberate attack. The incident occurred near the fashionable Kurfürstendamm, close to the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, one of Berlin’s most iconic landmarks. German […]

(Image: file photo) People buying new computers and devices in South Carolina would be blocked from accessing porn under a newly proposed law. A bill, pre-filed earlier this month by state lawmaker Bill Chumley, is called the Human Trafficking Prevention Act, and would require computer makers and sellers to install filters that would prevent users from accessing porn and other sexual material. The aim is to prevent […]

Our annual collection of media corrections is, undoubtedly, an excuse to chuckle at our industry’s missteps. But it’s also a recognition of an honorable practice that not everyone follows. Outlets that mark their corrected articles clearly or collect them in one easily searchable section (for example, The Guardian) may be over-represented in this list, but they should be commended. A note on selection: This is a list of media […]

Convoys of evacuees travelled from a rebel-held area of Aleppo and from two Shi’ite villages besieged by insurgents on Monday after a days-long stand-off. Dozens of buses carrying thousands of people from Aleppo’s tiny rebel zone reached insurgent areas of countryside to the west of the city, according to a United Nations official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. At the same time, […]

U.S. stocks were higher on Monday in light trading, with the three major indexes hovering near record levels, driven by a rise in technology shares. The S&P technology index .SPLRCT rose 0.94 percent, leading the 11 major sectors. Microsoft (MSFT.O), Amazon (AMZN.O) and Apple (AAPL.O) were up between 1-1.8 percent, providing the biggest boost to the Nasdaq and the S&P 500. “Traditionally, as you head into the […]

Yoga Book (Credit: Lenovo) As Microsoft prepares once again to embrace ARM processors in the name of thinner and lighter computing devices, the Lenovo Yoga Book may be a hint of things to come. In some ways, the device — available in Android and Windows versions and coming soon in a Chromebook variant — represents a hybrid between the original Yoga and the original Surface. True to […]

By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously called for U.N. officials and others to observe the evacuation of people from the last rebel-held enclave in Aleppo and monitor the safety of civilians who remain in the Syrian city. The 15-member council overcame long-held divisions – that have pitted Syrian ally Russia and China against western powers over the […]

A last-ditch attempt by Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the struggling Italian bank, to raise up to €5bn in capital was thrown into doubt after the country’s private bank rescue fund expressed “strong reservations” over the terms of a bridge loan that is key to the deal.  On Monday, MPS said in a statement that it was “in contact” with Quaestio Capital Management — which manages the […]

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