Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. So what if Donald Trump strong-armed media advertisers in the same way he’s trying to get companies to keep jobs in the United States? The subject was broached by a faraway observer after Trump’s angry and rambling anti-press rhetorical screed […]
In an isolated area of Ecuador’s Amazon, the face of Lenín Moreno, the anointed successor of fiery leftist President Rafael Correa in Sunday’s presidential election, is plastered on billboards proclaiming “the future is unstoppable”. That future worries Mercedes Cabrera, a peasant leader in the village of Santiago de Panantza. She says she was snatched from her bed by state security forces and branded a terrorist after a policeman […]
Credit: Microsoft “Dear #MongoDB users, we welcome you in #Azure #DocumentDB.” That’s the heading on a February 16 Microsoft blog post that’s attempting to appeal to MongoDB devs who may have been affected and/or spooked by recent ransomware attacks on unsecured MongoDB databases. In January, as many as 27,000 poorly configured MongoDB servers were compromised, with attackers wiping data and demanding ransom for its return. In its […]
Oman Air has revealed that a fake Twitter account has been set up in its named in an effort to damage its image and reputation. The national carrier said in a statement that a video clip posted by a citizen aimed at damaging Oman Air has encouraged further similar activities, including the Twitter account. It said any information or communication coming from the account, @omanairline, is “unauthorised […]
MUNICH Russia was behind a false report of a rape by German soldiers in Lithuania that was intended to undermine support for NATO’s new eastern force, a senior NATO general said on Saturday, warning Europe to expect more such “fake news”. Petr Pavel, who heads NATO’s military committee, said he also hoped to hold the first telephone call in more than two years with Russia’s military chiefs […]
SEOUL Handcuffed and tied with white rope, the scion of one of the world’s biggest conglomerates, Samsung Group, was taken on Saturday for questioning by South Korean authorities after spending a night in a small detention cell. Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was arrested on Friday for his alleged role in a corruption scandal that has led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. The 48-year-old […]
ABU DHABI // The bodies of Emirati servicemen Lance Corporal Soliman Mohammed Soliman Al Dhohouri and Sergeant Nader Mubarak Eisa Soliman, who were martyred in Yemen, have been buried by their families. The General Command of the Armed Forces announced that the two died while performing their duty as part of Operation Restoring Hope, being conducted by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition to support and restore the legitimate […]
A North Korean national has been arrested by Malaysian police in connection with the killing of Kim Jong Nam, brother of North Korea’s leader, as tensions flared between the two countries over the investigation. Police on Saturday announced a fourth arrest in connection with the death of Mr Kim, whose face was smothered with a wet cloth in an apparent poisoning at Kuala Lumpur international airport on […]
By Melissa Fares | NEW YORK NEW YORK Joyce Nakamura Okazaki was 7 years old in 1942 when her family left their Los Angeles home and reported to a World War Two internment camp for Japanese Americans in California’s remote desert. She recalls crowded rooms filled with cots and embarrassment that the toilets at Manzanar War Relocation Center had no privacy. “Like Nazi Germany, we Japanese Americans […]
By Laila Bassam and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT BEIRUT (Story corrects headline and paragraph 1 to show source said Hezbollah speeches aimed to draw “red lines” to prevent action against Lebanon, removes reference to hitting U.S. interests by targeting Israel which the source did not say.) The Hezbollah leader’s harsh words for Israel and U.S. President Donald Trump this week were aimed at drawing “red lines” to […]
Deleted your Yahoo account? Think again. Several Yahoo users, who last year decided to leave the service, told us that their accounts remained open for weeks or months after the company said they would be closed. News broke in September of a massive state-sponsored cyberattack that led to the theft of 500 million records — then thought to be the largest theft of records in history. That […]
DIYARBAKIR (Story corrects paragraph 5 to show conflict flared up again in 2015 not last year.) A car bomb exploded in the garden of a housing complex in Turkey’s southeastern town of Viransehir on Friday, killing a child and wounding 17 other people, the provincial governor’s office told Reuters. Initial findings showed that an unidentified individual thought to be between 18 to 20 had parked the car […]
In the early days of the Trump administration, no news organization has been a bigger target than The New York Times. The Gray Lady has been unsparing in its coverage of President Trump and frequently provoked his ire on Twitter. So, does all that abuse affect the paper’s coverage? “I think the answer is no,” said Carolyn Ryan, who ran The New York Times’ campaign coverage. “…When […]
Land Rover really started something when it rolled out the first Range Rover – now known simply as the “Classic” – in 1970. Bearing in mind that the existing all-terrainers at the time were slow, noisy, lumbering devices with all the grace of an elephant stomping through the jungle, the “Rangie” was a comparative gazelle. The Range Rover was no less off-road capable than its Toyota Land […]
Amazon Echo: Now with Outlook.com calendars. Users of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker can now set Outlook as a default calendar for the Alexa service to access. Outlook users can set Microsoft’s web-based calendar as the default option for their Amazon Echo and other Alexa-powered devices: Microsoft said this includes accounts with email addresses ending in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com and @live.com. 10 steps How to secure your IoT deployment […]
By Tulay Karadeniz | ANKARA ANKARA Turkey’s military said on Friday it was close to taking the northern Syrian city of al-Bab from Islamic State, a victory that would deepen Turkish influence in an area where it has created a de facto buffer zone. Al-Bab, an Islamic State stronghold 30 km (20 miles) from the border, has been a key target in an offensive launched by Turkey […]
By Syed Raza Hassan | SEHWAN SHARIF, Pakistan SEHWAN SHARIF, Pakistan Wailing Sufi devotees thronged a blood-stained shrine in southern Pakistan on Friday, shouting at police a day after a suicide bomber killed at least 77 people in an attack claimed by a regional branch of Islamic State. The bombing of the famed Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh province was Pakistan’s deadliest attack in two years […]
By Hyunjoo Jin and Joyce Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was arrested early on Friday over his alleged role in a corruption scandal rocking the highest levels of power in South Korea, dealing a fresh blow to the world’s biggest maker of smartphones and memory chips. The 48-year-old Lee, scion of the country’s richest family, was taken into custody at the Seoul […]
Samsung’s heir apparent Lee Jae-yong has been arrested for bribery, embezzlement and perjury in connection with a massive corruption scandal, in a huge setback for South Korea’s largest conglomerate that could hinder its succession and restructuring plans. The 48-year-old de factor leader of Samsung is the highest-profile business figure engulfed by the influence-peddling scandal that is poised to topple President Park Geun-hye. The arrest of Samsung’s chief […]
By Dan Levine | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO U.S. President Donald Trump will replace his executive order suspending travel from seven Muslim-majority countries “in the near future,” according to a Justice Department court filing on Thursday. Given the upcoming executive order, the Justice Department said a federal appeals court should not reconsider a ruling that suspended Trump’s Jan. 27 order. “In so doing, the President will clear […]
RAS AL KHAIMAH // The small mountain town of Al Qour was filled with mourners on Thursday as people went to pay their respects to Juma Al Kaabi, the UAE Ambassador to Afghanistan who died in hospital in France on Wednesday. The father of five was receiving treatment for wounds suffered in a bomb attack in Kandahar last month. He was laid to rest after funeral prayers […]
Photo The site of a car bomb explosion that killed dozens in Baghdad on Thursday. Credit Ahmad Mousa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images ERBIL, Iraq — A car bomb exploded in a crowded Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Baghdad late Thursday afternoon, the latest terror attack in the capital claimed by the Islamic State, security officials reported. At least 51 people were killed and at least 58 more wounded […]
Containers are great, having to re-invent persistence to use them, not so much. But that is changing. You’re not the only one concerned about container persistence: 82 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they’d deploy containers within two years if storage challenges could be resolved. That is a legitimate concern, as containers can offer great versatility and efficiency compared to virtualization, but being forced to […]
By Maria Tsvetkova and Humeyra Pamuk | ISTANBUL ISTANBUL Turkey has increased scrutiny of Russian-speaking Muslim communities in the past few months following a series of attacks blamed on Islamic State, a concrete example of the renewed relationship between the two countries. Turkish police have raided the homes of Russian-speaking immigrants in Istanbul, detained many and expelled others, according to interviews with Russian Muslims living in the […]
