Facebook users in the Middle East will spend an extra 57 million hours on the social media platform during Ramadan, according to new research. New data released by Facebook IQ research shows usage during the Holy Month is expected to increase by five percent. Millions of people in the Middle East will spend more time on Facebook during Ramadan than usual, with research showing the a […]
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 […]
Rolls-Royce lagged behind a London market rally on Monday that lifted the FTSE 100 to a fresh record high. Rolls was under pressure after Investec questioned whether management can hit a target of delivering more than £1bn in free cash flow by 2020. The cost of developing a new engine for Boeing could be “a material headwind” to that goal, the broker warned. Boeing is reportedly finalising […]
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 […]
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 […]
Photo The Sednaya Prison complex outside Damascus, Syria. Credit Amensty International/Forensic Architecture WASHINGTON — The State Department released satellite images on Monday that officials said showed that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has built a crematory at a military prison outside Damascus to hide a large number of executions. Stuart E. Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said officials believed that the […]
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 […]
Puerto Rico’s once-influential Government Development Bank has won agreement from some of its creditors to cut its debt burden and restructure its obligations. The organisation, which for years acted as the territory’s primary fiscal agent and evolved into a lender of last resort in times of distress, will transfer its assets into a new entity and issue new bonds in a deal that will see creditors take […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hours before Germany formally declared war on France in WWI, Marcel Proust penned a letter to his financial advisor that anticipated the horrors to come. “In the terrible days we are going through, you have other things to do besides writing letters and bothering with my petty interests, which I assure you seem wholly unimportant when I think that millions of men are going to be massacred […]
Having surged to its highest since Oct 2014 early in the year on the back of Trumptopian exuberance, Empire Fed’s manufacturing survey crashed back to -1.0 in May 4 standard deviations below expectations. This is the worst (and first) contractionary print since October 2016 as New Orders crash from 7-year highs to 7-month lows. Prices paid and received both fell (deflationary threat from China), inventories […]
France has today announced a 31-year government bond, in a sign of further market optimism after the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the recent presidential election. The debt, which is expected to price later this week, had been previously planned as part of the country’s funding programme for the year. The timing of the syndicated deal comes just over a week after Mr Macron’s victory in the […]
A state of emergency was declared in Yemen after an outbreak of cholera on Sunday, May 14. At least 115 people have been killed in war-torn nation in the past couple of weeks because of cholera. Yemen is ill-equipped to handle any disease outbreak as most of the country’s hospitals and health centers have been ravaged in the last two years of the war. The nation’s news […]
The cyberattack crippled IT systems and forced doctors and nurses to work with pen and paper notes. Image: iStock NHS hospitals are still struggling in the fight against a global ransomware attack, with computer systems in several hospitals locked three days after the initial outbreak and previously unaffected hospitals revealed to have fallen to WannaCrypt ransomware. During the weekend more than 200,000 victims in over 150 countries […]
Italy’s Atlantia has launched a bid to buy its Spanish rival Abertis in a deal that values the target at €16.3bn and would create one of the world’s largest toll road and infrastructure companies. Atlantia announced its bid on Monday even though it did not have the full backing of the Abertis cornerstone shareholder Criteria, the Barcelona-based holding of the powerful Caixa foundation. The offer is structured […]
Capabilities of MicroScan Presented to HCPs in a regional roadshow across Kuwait and Abu Dhabi 15 May 2017 Kuwait City – Beckman Coulter, a worldwide leader in developing clinical diagnostic products and solutions, has introduced the workflow efficiency boosting MicroScan range of solutions to healthcare providers (HCPs) and members of the medical community in Kuwait. MicroScan products offer choice in panel formats, setup and speed. Its unique […]
Asia Pacific The Philippines has been forced to turn to China and Russia for arms supplies because of conditions imposed by its long-time ally and former colonial ruler the United States, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Monday. FILE PHOTO: Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana speaks during the opening ceremony of Philippines and U.S. military joint exercises called Balikatan in Quezon city MANILA: The Philippines has been […]
Lattice Data Apple has acquired Lattice Data, a data mining company which could give Apple a stronger talent pool in the artificial intelligence and analytics fields. Over the weekend, TechCrunch reported that Lattice Data, born out of the statistical inference Stanford research project DeepDive in 2015, had been quietly purchased by Apple. The company’s mission is to “unlock the value in dark data for critical real-world problems,” […]
German stocks hit a new high on Monday morning, as higher commodity prices boost stocks across Europe. The Dax climbed as much as 0.48 per cent to 12831, with energy group RWE the biggest gainer despite reporting an 18 per cent drop in first quarter profits. German stocks have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of renewed investor desire for European assets, after Emmanuel Macron’s victory in […]
Oil prices jumped after the energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and Russia said they backed extending an Opec-led agreement to cut output until March 2018. Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak met on Monday in Beijing and discussed oil output policy. Russia is the world’s biggest oil producer, while Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter. The two ministers said in a joint […]
In November, Mr. Sadeghi gave a speech in Parliament accusing the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Amoli-Larijani, of maintaining a secret bank account to collect diverted public funds. After the speech, representatives of the judiciary tried to arrest him, but were stopped when dozens of people gathered in front of his house to protect him. Continue reading the main story Nevertheless, change for Mr. Sadeghi and many […]
A report from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has revealed that only 53 percent of people it surveyed were able to nominate an organisation to report the misuse of their information to. The OAIC said that when asked, only 47 percent admitted awareness of a Privacy Commissioner — either federal or state level — but a mere 7 percent said they would report misuse […]
