By Paul Carrel | BERLIN BERLIN The Berlin evening air was cool, the mulled wine warm and festive spirits high. Then, suddenly, chaos: A truck ploughed into the Christmas market, making no obvious attempt to stop, and smashing revellers in its path. “It happened so fast there was nothing we could do to stop it,” said Mike Fox, a tourist from Birmingham, England, who had just enjoyed […]
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 […]
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. Imagine if Snopes, PolitiFact and The Associated Press fact-checked our holiday cards and letters — or many of our daily declarations — for the truth. Facebook, of course, just announced it would team with PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press, ABC […]
Honda Motor Co Ltd said customer deliveries of its hydrogen fuel-cell car, dubbed Clarity Fuel Cell, began on Monday at select Honda dealerships across Southern California. Honda is one of the latest automaker to bring a small number of hydrogen-powered vehicles to market amid increasing zero emission vehicle mandates from California and other U.S. states. The company said that retail leasing of the car is now available […]
Google Maps has been receiving several new features recently, making the mapping app more valuable to its users. In a small but very important update, Google Maps has added a feature that will show whether a location is accessible by wheelchair, in what is the result of the efforts of a group of Google employees who dedicated a significant amount of their time for the cause. Google […]
Christine Lagarde was found guilty of negligence in public office by a special Paris court on Monday in a ruling that will cast a cloud over her position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Within hours, however, the former French finance minister won the support of her board, clearing the way for her to continue on at the head of the fund. The board’s decision came […]
WASHINGTON A 38-year-old Chinese man pleaded guilty on Monday to charges that he stole numerous sensitive military program documents from United Technologies Corp (UTX.N) and transported them to China, the U.S. Justice Department said. Yu Long pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in the theft of trade secrets to benefit a foreign government and one count of unlawful export and attempted export of defence […]
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 […]
If not for his colleague’s warning, the consequence could have been dire for Mr Muhamad Rozaidy. She called out: “Careful, there’s an oncoming vehicle!” Mr Rozaidy, 31, reacted quickly and drove his Kia Pregio from the middle to the left lane. Seconds later, a silver Mercedes blitzed past them against the traffic at a speed that he estimated was about 120kmh. He told The New Paper that […]
(Image: file photo) Cloud storage giant Box won’t say how many times it has turned over customer data to the government. The company’s policy stands out from the cloud storage crowd, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Dropbox, which along with other every internet and phone company in the Fortune 500 provide a biannual transparency report detailing the number of government requests and secret orders they receive. A […]
By Michael Nienaber | BERLIN BERLIN A truck ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday evening, killing nine people and injuring up to 50 others, police said, in what appeared to be one of the deadliest attacks in Germany in decades. Police said on Twitter that they had taken one suspect into custody and that another passenger from the truck had died as […]
SEATTLE Boeing Co’s (BA.N) commercial airplanes unit said on Monday it would cut more jobs in 2017 after slashing the workforce by 8 percent in 2016 as it battles to sell planes. The job cuts come as Boeing and rival Airbus (AIR.PA) face slowing demand for new aircraft, particularly twin-aisle jetliners such as the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330. Boeing said last week that it would cut […]
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 […]
In 1600, actor William Kemp was challenged to morris dance his way from London to Norwich. He accepted the bet and completed his journey – a distance of about 100 miles – in nine days (spread out over a few weeks). So was born the phrase “nine-day wonder”, to describe someone or something that suddenly gains fame, only to quickly fade from the spotlight. Fame no longer […]
Photo Jordanian security forces in the town of Karak on Monday. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press KARAK, Jordan — Gunmen involved in a rare terrorist attack in Jordan on Sunday had a large cache of weapons, explosives and suicide vests in the apartment where they had been living, the country’s interior minister said on Monday. The discovery of the cache suggested that the men were preparing for multiple […]
Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways are reviewing their workforce as overcapacity and a stronger dollar put pressure on earnings. The cutbacks show how the Gulf airlines’ rapid expansion of the past few years is slowing down against a more challenging economic backdrop. Dubai-based Emirates has offered redundancies to staff working in accounting, finance, IT and other departments in its head-office, sources […]
A truck plowed into a crowd at a busy Christmas market in western Berlin leaving at least nine dead according to Berlin police, and over 50 people injured. Local media, citing police at the scene, said first indications pointed to an attack on the market, situated near the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm avenue and at the foot of the ruined Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church that was kept as a […]
NEW YORK A self-proclaimed white supremacist convicted on charges he planned to use a “death ray” to kill Muslims and President Barack Obama was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in prison, federal prosecutors in New York said. Glendon Scott Crawford, 52, a Navy veteran and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was found guilty in August 2015 of conspiring with another man to build a […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS African states narrowly failed on Monday for a second time to halt the work of the first U.N. independent investigator appointed to help protect gay and transgender people worldwide from violence and discrimination. The attempt was voted down in the U.N. General Assembly 84 to 77 with 16 abstentions, a month after African states made a similar unsuccessful move […]
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 […]
Fitch Ratings-Dubai/London-19 December 2016 The ability of the UAE courts to interpret the federation’s new bankruptcy law and handle bankruptcy proceedings will be key to its effective implementation, Fitch Ratings says. The law is due to come into effect at the end of this month. It aims to create a clear and predictable framework for court-based bankruptcy proceedings as an alternative to liquidation. We think the new […]
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 […]
