IDC predicts that 35 percent of leading organizations in logistics, health, utilities, and resources will explore the use of robots to automate operations by 2019. What does the future hold for robotics? It’s hard to say, given the rapid pace of change in the field as well as in associated areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. But one thing seems certain: Robots will play an […]
By Lisa Barrington and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT BEIRUT Syrian rebels shelled Aleppo and air strikes resumed around the city on Friday as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies said the insurgents’ withdrawal from the city could pave the way towards a political solution for the country. A day after the last rebels left their remaining pocket of territory in the city, the Syrian Observatory for […]
By Melissa Fares and Andrew Osborn | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW U.S. President-elect Donald Trump upped the stakes on Friday in a back-and-forth exchange with President Vladimir Putin over nuclear weapons that tested the Republican’s promises to improve relations with Russia. Offering a glimpse of how he might conduct diplomacy after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump reportedly welcomed a nuclear arms race […]
RAMALLAH, West Bank A U.N. Security Council vote to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements marks “a day of victory,” a senior Palestinian official said on Friday. “This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilized language and negotiation and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel,” Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters. “The international community has told […]
It isn’t magic but close. The Prisma app helps turn mere smartphone photographs into high-resolution artistic images with the use of its AI-based neural network servers. To enhance and tweak images on the app, Prisma performs precalculated algorithms. To keep its users, Prisma promises to deliver a continuous flood of new filters, features, and effects. Recently, the app also doubled the photo resolution to deliver high-quality output. […]
If any global sound is on the verge of blowing up in 2017, it’s the pan-African mélange known as afrobeats. Or, depending on who you ask, afropop, afrofusion or afropolitan – but not to be confused with political Fela Kuti-style afrobeat (singular), nor with any of the traditional music that has tended to find its way into the “world music” section of western music shops. Rather, this […]
UNITED NATIONS — Defying extraordinary pressure from President-elect Donald J. Trump and furious lobbying by Israel, the Obama administration on Friday allowed the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemned Israeli settlement construction. The administration’s decision not to veto the measure broke a longstanding American policy of serving as Israel’s sturdiest diplomatic shield at the United Nations. While the measure will have no practical […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS The Obama administration on Friday allowed the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, defying pressure from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as well as Israel and several U.S. senators who urged Washington to use its veto. The resolution was put forward at the 15-member council for a vote on Friday by New Zealand, […]
Panama City: From the Panama Papers to the impeachments of the presidents of Brazil and South Korea, 2016 was a year marked by corruption scandals, and by rising public outrage over graft. The question is, will that translate into a lasting demand for cleaner politics? “A new phenomenon” is being seen, said Jose Ugaz, a renowned Peruvian lawyer and the chairman of Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption […]
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. Most of us can feel unavoidably like Mongo in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles,” meaning a self-perception that “Mongo only pawn in game of life.” (YouTube) Yes, we all try to be philosophical but can lapse into merely being dim-witted, like […]
LONDON More than 4,000 homeless people in Britain are expected to use temporary shelters set up over Christmas by charity Crisis, which said the number of people sleeping rough was rising sharply. Staffed by an army of around 13,000 volunteers, the charity will provide food, shelter, haircuts, massages and dentistry services at shelters until Dec. 30. According to government statistics from 2015, more than 3,500 people sleep […]
BRUSSELS Belgian police found and neutralised a potential explosive device in a bag left outside an office used by a Turkish cultural association in Brussels on Friday. Police were called after a plastic bag was left in front of the building at around 1.30 p.m. (1230 GMT). Brussels prosecutors said the suspected device included gas cylinders and experts were still examining it to establish, for example, if […]
By Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was unfazed by President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to boost the U.S. nuclear arsenal, praising Trump for being in touch with U.S. public opinion while branding the Democrats sore election losers. Speaking at his annual news conference in Moscow, the Russian president said earlier comments he had made about his country’s own […]
The man suspected of attacking a Berlin Christmas market has been shot dead by police near Milan in Italy, closing a chapter on one of Germany’s worst terrorist incidents. Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian with links to Italy, died after being confronted by police near the Italian city early yesterday. Isis later released a video of Amri pledging allegiance to the militant group and promising to “slaughter” […]
Photo Passengers leaving the hijacked Afriqiyah Airways plane at Malta International Airport on Friday. Credit Matthew Mirabelli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — All 109 passengers and crew members on board a hijacked Libyan airliner en route to the capital, Tripoli, were released on Friday, hours after two men claiming to be carrying explosives forced the plane to divert to Malta, Malta’s prime minister said. The hijackers, […]
Christmas is almost here (and so is Hanukkah), and so it is time for the Long View to revisit the offices of Hindsight Capital LLC once more. Hindsight Capital, for the uninitiated, is the hedge fund that beats all others year in and year out because it is endowed with 20/20 hindsight; it can see the future. The returns to clairvoyance are potentially infinite, so it has […]
By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis | YANGON YANGON Before entering the courthouse in the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Shan State, Maw Maw Oo said it was ominous that several blue police vans were already waiting in the parking lot. “But I don’t want to guess what the court’s decision will be,” she told a Reuters reporter by phone. Hours later she was jailed for a month […]
VALLETTA All passengers were freed from a hijacked plane in Malta on Friday, but some crew remained on board with hijackers believed to be loyalists of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The aircraft was on an internal flight in Libya on Friday morning when it was diverted to Malta, 500 km (300 miles) north of the Libyan coast, after a man told crew he had a hand […]
Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), a developer of large-scale solar power plants and part of Saudi-based Abdul Latif Jameel Energy, has been awarded a 30-year 300MW solar project in Mexico. With this build-operate-own agreement, FRV said it is extending its global footprint into the Mexican market at a rate of $26.99/MWh for the first 15 years of the project. The construction of the plant will begin in mid-2018 […]
MOSCOW President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had all agreed that the Kazakh capital of Astana should be the venue for new Syrian peace talks. Russia, Iran and Turkey held talks in Moscow on Tuesday after which they said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. Putin has proposed holding the negotiations in Kazakhstan, a […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, asked for clarification his Thursday Twitter post about nuclear weapons, said: “Let it be an arms race,” MSNBC said on Friday. “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,” Trump said in an interview with MSNBC, the network reported, one day after the president-elect called for an expansion of U.S. nuclear capabilities in a tweet that alarmed nonproliferation experts. […]
Filipino beauty pageant winners Parul Shah and Maggie Wilson have emerged victorious on the fifth season of reality-TV programme The Amazing Race Asia. They beat fellow beauty queens Yvonne Lee and Chloe Chen from Malaysia, as well as married couple Eric Tai and Rona Samson, who are also from the Philippines, in the grand finale this week. It was the culmination of 10 legs of competition that […]
America’s biggest defence contractors cannot decide whether to be thrilled or terrified by Donald Trump. The titans of the US defence establishment beat a path to Mr Trump’s Florida resort on Wednesday to hear the president-elect warn that the US government is spending too much money on wasteful, over-budget, out-of-control defence programmes. At the same time, however, Mr Trump has consistently promised a build-up in America’s military — including his […]
But soon after their hometown fell to the Islamic State, their husbands died. The two widows, old friends, found themselves living together, and facing together the brutality of new rulers who stole their money and demanded they renounce their faith and convert to Islam. “Sometimes we prayed, and sometimes we cried,” said Ms. Gigues, who is blind and largely deaf, in a recent interview after Qaraqosh was […]
