For 15 years, Chandran Nair led a top Asian environmental consultancy that was active in China. In 2006, he founded the Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Hong Kong think tank focused on a shift of global power from the West to Asia, at a time when China’s rise is changing the geopolitical balance. Mr. Nair, who was born in Malaysia to a large South Indian family, is the […]
Lately, cybersecurity has been the place where IT’s optimism goes to die. It’s been a tough road for companies and organizations the past few years as their network defenses have been bent and broken on a consistent, and often dramatic, basis. Hacks that topple over a billion user accounts are shocking and make a solution seem impossible. But IT is resilient despite on-going challenges in staffing, budgeting, […]
A UCI professor and colleagues have created an online survey platform called the Moral Machine to learn what people think a self-driving car should prioritize in the event of a fatal accident – and it’s not necessarily the lives of its occupants. Credit: Thinkstock Despite dramatic reductions in accident-related fatalities, injuries and damages, as well as significant improvements in transportation efficiency and safety, consumers aren’t as excited […]
The volcanic eruption that formed the Campi Flegrei caldera about 39,000 years ago is believed to be the largest eruption in Europe in the past 200,000 years. The supervolcano on the coast of Italy last erupted in 1538. Now, the 7.5-mile-wide cauldron-like depression of the volcano shows signs of stirring up again after nearly 500 years of inactivity. Sleeping Supervolcano Shows Signs Of Reawakening In a new […]
Photo An Airbus A321 featuring the Iranian flag at an Airbus plant in Hamburg, Germany, this week. The acquisition of modern planes is an important achievement for President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. Credit Fabian Bimmer/Reuters The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus completed a deal on Thursday to sell 100 jetliners to Iran, a move described by both sides as a major step toward revitalizing Iran’s aged commercial fleet […]
US trade policies under Donald Trump will be key to agricultural commodities next year, as the world continues to grapple with high levels of grain production and inventories, according to a leading forecaster. “The area of concern is whether anything is going to happen that is going to affect our trade with China, which is a big agricultural buyer,” said Don Riffe, senior vice-president for agribusiness intelligence […]
As journalists grapple with the rise of fake news, it’s worth examining what happens when policymakers embrace misinformation instead of evidence when it comes to climate change. In September, YourNewsWire breathlessly told its readers that thousands of scientists had declared climate change “a hoax.” This was big news — at least on Facebook — where the YourNewsWire post was shared more than 550,000 times, making it the […]
By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. consumer spending increased modestly in November as household income failed to rise for the first time in nine months, suggesting the economy slowed in the fourth quarter after growing briskly in the prior period. The economy, however, remains on solid footing as other data on Thursday showed new orders for capital goods rising last month amid demand for machinery, indicating […]
Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com, In the late 1400s, the city-states of Italy were among most dominant powers in the world. Most of the city-states had abandoned the feudal system that persisted across Europe. So Italy was one of the only places on the continent where anyone, including foreigners, could work hard, take risks, and become wealthy. People could start businesses and own private property– revolutionary […]
WASHINGTON Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden “has had and continues to have contact” with Russian intelligence services, according to newly declassified portions of a House Intelligence Committee report released on Thursday. The new material also said that the Pentagon found 13 undisclosed “high risk” security issues caused by Snowden’s disclosure to media outlets of tens of thousands of the U.S. eavesdropping agency’s most sensitive documents. […]
In this Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, file photo, Devin Greene sits in the front seat of an Uber driverless car during a test drive in San Francisco. Uber has pulled its self-driving cars from California roads. The ride-sharing company said Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016, California transportation regulators revoke registrations for the vehicles. The DMV confirmed that it had moved to revoke the registrations of 16 cars, saying […]
By Claire Milhench | LONDON LONDON Global investors’ equity holdings rose to six-month highs in December on bets that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s promised fiscal splurge would spur higher growth and inflation, a Reuters monthly poll showed on Thursday. Trump’s plans to cut taxes and boost spending have sent Wall Street .DJI .IXIC to record highs in December as investors pile into everything from banks, to energy […]
Google and Apple are the most valuable companies in the world, and undoubted winners from the smartphone boom. In their wake lies Nokia’s handset business, which was sold to Microsoft and later wound down. But, when it comes to defending themselves against the arsenal of patents Nokia built up in its years at the top, the US tech giants want the world to view them as victims […]
A study by RMIT University has found that around 2 million Australians are often risking data breaches by logging into internet banking and conducting other financial transactions on unsecured public Wi-Fi networks. In compiling its report [PDF] Practicing safe public Wi-Fi: Assessing and managing data-security risks, RMIT surveyed 1,200 adult Australians, asking explicitly what they do on public Wi-Fi networks, as well as what they know about […]
2016 was fact-checking’s finest year [1]. No it wasn’t, it was the year of “post-truth” [2] — some preferred “post-fact” [3] — and fact-checking is a fool’s errand. The discussion about facts in journalism worldwide has rarely been as fractured and animated as it has been in 2016, so we collected 366 links, one for each day of the year, to try and make sense of what […]
22 December 2016 MARC has affirmed South Korea’s foreign currency sovereign rating of AAA with a stable outlook based on its national rating scale. The rating reflects MARC’s opinion of the sovereign’s ability to meet its foreign currency obligations in full and on time. The government of South Korea (GoK) has no debt rated by MARC. The rating also serves as a country ceiling for ringgit-denominated debt […]
Asthma patients may want to consider cutting back on their consumption of cured meats. Findings of a new study have revealed that regularly eating cured meats such as ham, dried sausage, and salami is associated with aggravated symptoms of their respiratory condition. For the research published in the journal Thorax on Tuesday, Zhen Li, from the Inserm Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif, France, and colleagues looked at the […]
It is strange to think that the original plan for La La Land involved Miles Teller and Emma Watson in the lead roles, because this love letter to Hollywood and the golden age of the musical seems tailor-made for Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, its eventual stars. She is fresh off Broadway hit Cabaret, while he spent his early years singing and songwriting. This is their third […]
This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds You only need to look back to the tumultuous November in markets to see the growing significance of exchange traded funds that track bonds. While a bond from brewing behemoth Anheuser-Busch claimed the crown of being the most heavily traded corporate debt security last month, those volumes were dwarfed by bond ETFs. The average […]
BERLIN German police on Wednesday intensified a manhunt for the driver of a truck, who killed 12 people when he mowed into a Berlin Christmas market, and said they were following a number of good leads. After releasing a Pakistani asylum-seeker arrested near the scene, authorities warned that the attacker is on the run and may be armed. They have also said it is unclear if the […]
Perth’s Quantify Technology is developing technology to create intelligent buildings, with the same technology aiming to provide a foundation to enable the creation of secure Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Although Quantify is in the business of power points and light switches, founder and managing director Mark Lapins said there is more to his company than just that. “IoT is big and confusing and we’re trying to […]
Submitted by a Zero Hedge reader who wishes to remain anonymous: OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER-PRESIDENT SEEHOFER(Sent before the carnage in Berlin’s Christmas market) Dear Minister-President Seehofer, I would like to commend you on your opposition to mass uncontrolled immigration into Europe. One would think that it would be trivial to praise politicians – who are elected to uphold law and order, meaning our culture and values – […]
Friction between the two countries and their proxies is rising alarmingly at a time that mutual trust has reached a nadir. Tehran interprets Turkey’s Syria policy as primarily a product of a neo-Ottoman ambition to regain clout and empower pro-Turkey Sunnis in territories ruled by its progenitor. “What changed in Syria” after the civil war began “was neither the government’s nature nor Iran’s ties with it, but […]
Italian bank shares are on track for their best month in more than seven years as signs the government may intervene to support its financial sector gave fresh momentum to a rally. The FTSE Italia All-Share banks climbed 2.3 per cent in afternoon trading, leaving it up more than 22 per cent so far in December. The index is now on course for its best monthly showing […]
