Buzzfeed closes news operations in Britain, Australia

SYDNEY — Groundbreaking website Buzzfeed said on Thursday that it would be shuttering part of its loss-making news operations in Britain and Australia, as it scales back global ambitions to cut costs.

“For economic and strategic reasons, we are going to focus on news that hits big in the United States during this difficult period,” a company spokesperson said.


Many news outlets have been hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with plummeting advertising revenues and already struggling operations pushed deeper into the red.

Ten staff in Britain and four in Australia will be furloughed, in a move that is expected to become permanent.

The company will no longer cover local news in the two countries, but said: “In the UK, we still plan on retaining some employees who are focused on news with a global audience — social news, celebrity, and investigations.”

The four Australian posts were “no longer essential during this time of sharply limited resources,” the company added.

Once maligned as a funnel for little more than celebrity gossip, clickbait lists and cat pictures, Buzzfeed has developed into a news force to rival more established outlets.

“BuzzFeed gave us space to experiment with covering politics for a young audience,” Australian news editor Lane Sainty tweeted.

She lauded her staff’s work to “tackle important and often under-covered beats like abortion, LGBTQ rights, Indigenous affairs, immigration and internet culture.”

“I’ve always been grateful for that & very proud of our work.”

More cost-cutting measures are expected, including in the United States, where “workshare programs” are being touted as a way of avoiding furloughs.



“Those options need to meet our savings goals, be legally and logistically workable, and allow us to keep producing kinetic, powerful journalism,” Buzzfeed said.

This year “news will spend about $10 million more than it takes in,” it added.

Agence France-Presse

Most Asian markets rise as 2018 rally extends

The equity rally that has kicked off 2018 continued on Friday, with Asian markets picking up the baton from another set of records on Wall Street.

Dealers are now turning their attention to the release later in the day of key US jobs data, which is expected to show the world’s top economy continuing to improve.

A forecast-smashing reading Thursday on private take-ups boosted optimism, which had already been bolstered by US tax cuts, healthy corporate profits and strong manufacturing figures from around the world.

Global markets powered ahead in 2017 as economies showed long-running improvements after years of faltering.

Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at AxiTrader, said in a note that data from the manufacturing and services sectors “suggests economic strength across the globe remains robust”.

He noted that an index of world factory activity was at its highest level in seven years.

On Wall Street, the Dow ended above 25,000 for the first time, leading records across Wall Street.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei ended up 0.9 percent at a 26-year high following its more than three percent jump Thursday, while Sydney added 0.7 percent.

Seoul rose 1.3 percent, with dealers buoyed by news that North Korea had accepted the South’s offer of talks next week, further easing geopolitical tensions in the region.

Hong Kong gained 0.3 percent to chalk up a ninth-straight gain, while Shanghai closed 0.2 percent higher but Singapore eased 0.2 percent.

Pause in oil?

While oil prices inched down in Asia, they remain elevated after recent rises to around three-year highs thanks to Middle East tensions, while the US sees stockpiles fall as it is hit by a severe cold snap.

The latest gains have given impetus to petroleum-linked firms, sending them rallying this week. In Hong Kong, Sinopec was up more than one percent while CNOOC and PetroChina were also higher. Woodside Petroleum in Sydney was up along with Santos, though Tokyo-listed Inpex eased.

However, Ric Spooner, a Sydney-based analyst at CMC Markets, told Bloomberg News: “There’s been a one-way, very steep and uninterrupted rally off the last minor low in mid-December near $56, so it won’t be surprising to see a pause here.”

On forex markets, the dollar rose slightly against the euro, but the single currency remains buoyant with the eurozone continuing to improve, which raises the chances of a reduction in the region’s massive stimulus programme, bringing monetary policy in line with the Federal Reserve.

McKenna added: “It’s again the story of a weaker US dollar as the fact its data is solid and improving is lost on traders focused on expectations that the EU strength will drive the European Central Bank to chase the Fed, and that synchronised global growth will, in fact, drag most central banks along the tightening path.”

In early European trade, London was flat, Paris rose 0.3 percent and Frankfurt added 0.4 percent.

source: business.inquirer.net

Time is running out for BuzzFeed, Mashable

BuzzFeed has given up on going public for now and Mashable is looking for an emergency buyer. The honeymoon period looks to be over for online news websites — left fragile by a model built almost entirely on advertising.

Less than two years ago, blog turned news site Mashable was valued at $250 million, with Time Warner among its investors.

Today, its value has plummeted by 80 percent, and it’s reportedly about to be sold to Ziff Davis. The publisher did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, revenues that fell short of expectations at BuzzFeed — built on a combination of pop culture and social networks — mean it is no longer expected to go public next year.

The website has just announced it is letting go of around 100 of its 1,700 employees.

These sites — like others founded in the last 10 years — promised investors huge growth driven by advertising as traditional media battled for survival.

But in the space of a few months, the tide has turned — as Google and Facebook’s chokehold on the online advertising market reaches a critical point.

In 2017, the two internet giants have snapped up 63 percent of advertising revenue, compared to 58 percent last year, according to market researcher eMarketer. Next year, they are projected to rake in a 67 percent share.

“Advertisers are increasingly demanding more granularity in targeting capabilities to reach consumers,” Monica Peart, eMarketer’s senior director of forecasting, said in late September.

“Google and Facebook have positioned themselves at the front of this demand curve.”

‘It’s not magic’

“It’s not magic,” said Alan Mutter, a professor at the University of California Berkeley specializing in the relationship between journalism and technology.

“Web publishers can publish an unlimited number of pages and get an unlimited number of page views but there’s only a limited number of people buying advertising.”

In this standoff with the two Californian behemoths, it’s new players who stack up the disadvantages — as two thirds of their traffic come from social networks and search engines, mostly controlled by Facebook and Google.

And “if you’re spending money on creating content, you’re competing with the masters of the internet who spend nothing” on producing content, Mutter explained.

But despite the brutal reality, few believe these new media will collapse completely — like the internet bubble of the early 2000s.

It may be 20 percent lower than projected, but with revenue of $280 million according to US media, BuzzFeed is still set to end the year with growth.

For Charlie O’Donnell, founder of seed stage investment fund Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, a website financed entirely by advertising is “still viable.”

“But is it viable to the tune of a billion-dollar exit? That’s tough,” he said.

Promised returns on investment and plans to enter the stock market are likely nothing but memories now — except for Vice, the only organization that has reached a viable scale.

Without reaching such a size, success requires building an audience around a specialized subject and consequently attracting advertisers — as seen with Politico, Eater and technology site The Verge.

But for those starting out today, prospects for success are limited.

“I would have to hear a very compelling story that you’re going to serve some new vertical that nobody ever thought of before,” former journalist Mutter said of investing in a new venture.

“I don’t know what that would be. This is very hard to do.” AB

source: business.inquirer.net

Shooter kills student at Oregon high school

PORTLAND - A gunman walked into an Oregon high school and fatally shot a student on Tuesday before authorities found him dead a short time later.

Reynolds High School in the northern Oregon city of Troutdale was on lockdown after the shooting and students were being evacuated from the school room by room, police said."

A gunman entered the high school this morning, shot one student. Unfortunately, that student has died," Troutdale Police Chief Scott Anderson said at a news conference.

He said the gunman was also found dead.

Anderson gave no further details and did not say whether the gunman was killed by police or took his own life.

CNN said earlier that some injuries had been sustained in the shooting, but neither of two fire departments that responded to the scene nor a private ambulance service, American Medical Response, reported taking any patients from the school.

Police said 30 to 40 Troutdale officers were on the scene. Multnomah County Sheriff's deputies also responded, police said.

Television footage showed police officers in helmets and tactical gear, leaving armored vehicles and running near the school’s perimeter with long rifles. Students were seen streaming out of the school with their hands raised.

"I do know that the students are being evacuated room by room by the police. The shooter is confirmed dead. They're evacuating students that were on lockdown one room at a time," Troutdale Mayor Doug Daoust told CNN. "We do have a huge police presence in front of the school."

The violence in Oregon was the latest in a string of U.S. shootings in recent weeks, including one at a Christian college in neighboring Washington state last week, that have renewed a protracted debate over gun regulations.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Six arrested for credit card fraud in Makati

Six suspects allegedly involved in credit card fraud were arrested following an operation by the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Makati City, a report on GMA News' “24-Oras” said Tuesday.

The report identified two of the suspects as couple Angelo and Evangeline Suyo, residents of Barangay Cembo who were subjects of an arrest warrant.

The couple, along with four others, were arrested while evidence such as laptops, cellphones and cameras were seized during the operation.

Also confiscated were over a hundred credit cards and three skimming devices believed to be used by the suspects in their illegal activities.

According to PNP-Anti-Cybercrime Group chief Senior Supt. Arnold Gunnacao, the group was in cahoots with a restaurant manager who gave them the credit card information of their customers through a skimming device.

“After one week binigyan siya [manager] ng P10,000 [as commission] dahil sa pagkokopya lang ng data ng credit cards,” Gunnacao said.

The manager coordinated with authorities and resigned from the restaurant after their mode of operation was discovered.

Gunnacao said a certain Joseph Pastor was the mastermind behind the operation.

The suspects, who are facing charges for violating the Access Device Regulation Act and Anti Cybercrime Act, denied the accusations, the report said. —Andrei Medina/KBK, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

L.A. County cops raid Justin Bieber's home, arrest man for drugs

LOS ANGELES - A police search of teen pop star Justin Bieber's California home on Tuesday in a vandalism case linked to the singer, resulted in the arrest of a man after drugs were found in the house, the Los Angeles County Sheriff said.

Detectives raided Bieber's home at about 8 a.m. after the "Boyfriend" singer was accused of pelting his neighbor's home with eggs in an incident on Jan. 9.

Bieber, 19, was detained at his Calabasas home, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles while a dozen deputies searched for evidence.

"He has not been arrested nor has been exonerated," Sheriff's Lt. David Thompson said at a news conference in nearby Malibu following the search.

"We were looking at things that would put him or anything else at the scene," Thompson said, adding that Bieber's attorneys were not present during the search and the singer was not questioned.

It was the latest in a string of incidents that have overshadowed Bieber's music career in the last year as the Canadian star who shot to fame at age 15 transitions to adulthood.

Bieber's representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The sheriff's department said the investigation sought to collect any evidence in the alleged egg attack on the singer's home video surveillance and other possible leads.

A unnamed person in Bieber's home at the time of the search was arrested for narcotics possession when deputies found cocaine in plain view, Thompson said.

NOT 'A MESSAGE'

Celebrity news website TMZ.com identified the man as aspiring 20-year-old rapper Lil Za, who is often photographed with Bieber. The website published photos and video of Lil Za, whose real name Xavier Smith, handcuffed and being led to a deputy's car.

The rapper is being held on $20,000 bond, according to country records.

The vandalism case is being treated as a felony because it caused $20,000 in damages according to the homeowner, the sheriff's department said.

"We didn't do this search warrant to send a message, that's not what we do," Thompson said. "This has nothing to do with him being a celebrity. This is a felony crime."

Thompson said the cost of damages was high because the exterior of Bieber's neighbor's home was made of imported wood and brick.

It is not known what triggered the alleged incident between Bieber and his neighbor, but the Canadian-born pop star has had several publicized run-ins with neighbors.

Last year, Bieber was accused of speeding through the neighborhood in a Ferrari sports car and also spitting on his neighbor during a confrontation over parties at the singer's home. Prosecutors did not bring charges against Bieber in either case.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Israel hits back after rockets fired from Lebanon

MARJAYOUN - The Israeli military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in retaliation on Sunday after Katyusha-style rockets slammed into the Jewish state, officials said.

The exchange of fire hit uninhabited areas of both Israel and Lebanon without causing casualties or damage, officials on both sides said.

The Israeli government accused the powerful Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah of being responsible for the rocket fire and threatened an even tougher response to any further attacks.

The UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon (UNIFIL) said two rockets fired from the El Khiam area had struck open ground near the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

The Israeli army responded with 32 rounds of artillery fire directed at the area from where the rockets originated, it said.

Tension has spiked on the border between the two countries since Lebanese troops gunned down an Israeli soldier driving near the frontier on December 16.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of being involved in the rocket fire.

"Hezbollah deploys thousands of rockets and missiles among the civilian population. So it is committing a double war crime under the patronage of the Lebanese government and its army, who do nothing," he said.

Netanyahu's defense minister warned Beirut that tougher reprisals could follow.

"We will not tolerate fire from Lebanon on our territory... We consider the Lebanese government and army responsible for this morning's fire," Moshe Yaalon said.

"The Israeli army responded by firing a large number of shells at the area from where the rockets were fired. If necessary, it will be even tougher," he added.

UNIFIL commander Major General Paolo Serra called on both sides to "exercise maximum restraint".

"This is a very serious incident... and is clearly directed at undermining stability in the area," he said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon echoed the call for calm.

"The secretary general urges all actors to exercise maximum restraint and prevent further incidents with destabilizing and escalatory potential in the region," his spokesman said.

Lebanese troops and UNIFIL peacekeepers were carrying out patrols in the area after the exchange of fire, an AFP correspondent reported.

The Lebanese army said it had found four rocket launchers.

Israel's border with Lebanon has been largely quiet since the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

The last time a soldier was killed on the frontier was in August 2010, when two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist also died.

In August, four Israeli soldiers were wounded by an explosion some 400 meters (yards) inside Lebanese territory, in a blast claimed by Hezbollah.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah said one of its top leaders was killed near Beirut and blamed Israel for his murder, a charge denied by Israel, which warned against any retaliation.

UN peacekeepers were deployed along the border following the 34-day war in 2006 which killed some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

23 killed in fire on train in southern India – minister

NEW DELHI — A fire on an overnight train killed at least 23 people Saturday in southern India as it ripped through a carriage packed with sleeping passengers, officials said.

Railways Minister Mallikarjun Kharge told AFP that the blaze was believed to have been caused by a faulty air-conditioning system on one of the coaches which caught fire around 3:30am as it travelled from Bangalore to Nanded.

Television reports said that some of the passengers had leapt out of the carriage in a bid to save themselves but others were overcome by the thick fumes. Two of those who died were children, the reports added.

The tragedy comes little over a year after another train in the same state of Andhra Pradesh killed 32 people and once again shines the spotlight on the Indian rail network's woeful safety record.

"Twenty-three people have died and we have eight injured," Kharge confirmed to AFP, five of whom were being treated in a nearby hospital.

He said that a team of investigators who had been sent to the site of the disaster, around an hour outside the city of Nanded, had reported that the fire was "because of an electrical short circuit".

A more detailed report would be compiled later, he added.

"An inquiry has been instituted under the chairmanship of the railway board," said Kharge.

The local police chief confirmed to AFP that there had been fatalities and that rescue operations were under way but would not give a number of the dead.

Speaking to The Hindu newspaper from the scene of the fire, a local police inspector said that the driver had stopped the train when he saw flames around an hour from its destination.

"The fire is being doused. The bodies will be brought out once the smoke subsides a little," Railway Police Inspector Sai Prassad, who was overseeing the rescue effort, told the newspaper's website.

"We are expecting at least 23 casualties although the exact figure can be given only after the rescue operation is over," he added.

A total of 67 people were traveling in the carriage, said the minister.

The carriage had been completely gutted by the fire and adjacent coaches also bore scorch marks, video footage from the scene showed.

In a statement on his official Twitter account, Prime Minister Manmohan Sigh expressed his "shock and grief at the loss of life in the train accident in Andhra Pradesh".

"PM directs railway and state government authorities to extend all possible help to the victims in rescue and relief operations," the statement added.

The railways ministry has set up a special hotline for families to see if relatives have been caught up in the tragedy and an initial compensation package has been unveiled worth around 500,000 rupees ($8,000) per family.

India's accident-prone rail network is still the main form of long-distance travel in the huge country despite fierce competition from private airlines.

Thirty-two people were also killed in Andhra Pradesh in July last year on an express train carrying sleeping passengers to the southern city of Chennai.

India's worst rail accident was in 1981 when a train plunged into a river in the eastern state of Bihar, killing an estimated 800 people. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Snowden warns of loss of privacy in Christmas message

LONDON - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed details of electronic surveillance by American and British spy services, warned of the dangers posed by a loss of privacy in a message broadcast to Britain on Christmas Day.

In a two-minute video recorded in Moscow, where Snowden has been granted temporary asylum, he spoke of concerns over surveillance in an age of huge technological advancement.

"We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go. Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person."

"A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all," said Snowden. "They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."

The "Alternative Christmas Message", broadcast annually on Britain's Channel 4 television since 1993, mimics the format of the yearly address to the nation by Queen Elizabeth.

Previous participants have included then President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2008 and popular cartoon characters Marge and Lisa Simpson in 2004.

On Tuesday, Snowden - who disclosed thousands of confidential documents - said in an interview published in the Washington Post that he had achieved what he set out to do.

"For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished," he said.

Snowden left his NSA post in Hawaii in May and went public with his first revelations from Hong Kong a few weeks later.

In June, he left for Russia and stayed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport for nearly six weeks until the Kremlin granted him temporary one-year asylum.

The United States has revoked his passport and demanded he be sent home to face charges for stealing secrets.

Earlier this month there were signs of thawing attitudes when Richard Ledgett - a top NSA official who leads a task force at the agency responding to the leaks - left open the option for Snowden to return to the United States in an amnesty.

"It's worth having a conversation about," he told CBS.

"I would need assurances that the remainder of the data could be secured and my bar for those assurances would be very high," Ledgett said. Senior officials in the Obama administration remain opposed to such a move.

Last week a White House-appointed panel proposed curbs on some key NSA surveillance operations, recommending limits on a program to collect records of billions of telephone calls, and new tests before Washington spies on foreign leaders.

"The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it," Snowden said in the Christmas address.

"Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying." — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

South Africa buries ‘greatest son’ Mandela

QUNU, South Africa - South Africa held a state funeral for Nelson Mandela on Sunday, closing one chapter in its tortured history and opening another in which the multi-racial democracy he founded will have to discover if it can thrive without its central pillar.

The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27 years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was honoured with ceremonies that mixed military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan.

The funeral drew 4,500 guests, from relatives and South African leaders to Britain's Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

"The person who is lying here is South Africa's greatest son," Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress party who was acting as one of the masters of ceremonies, said as the service got under way.

Fellow anti-apartheid veteran Archbishop Desmond Tutu was also among those who arrived shortly after dawn at a vast, domed tent erected in a field near Mandela's home, having resolved a last-minute mix-up over his invitation.

As Mandela's flag-draped coffin was borne from the house on a gun-carriage, a battery of cannons positioned on the hillside fired a 21-gun salute, sending booms echoing across the sun-drenched valley.

The coffin was followed into the huge tent, decked out inside in black, by Mandela's grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President Jacob Zuma.

It was then placed on black and white Nguni cattle skins in front of a ring of 95 candles as the service started with a choir singing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, the evocative national anthem adopted after the end of apartheid in 1994.

Mandela died in Johannesburg on Dec. 5 aged 95, plunging his 53 million countrymen and millions more around the world into mourning, and triggering more than a week of official memorials to the nation's first black president.

As many as 100,000 people paid their respects in person at his lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he had been inaugurated as president, an event that brought the curtain down on more than three centuries of white domination.

When his body arrived on Saturday at his ancestral home in Qunu, 700 km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that Madiba, the clan name by which he was affectionately known, had "come home".

"After his long life and illness he can now rest," said grandmother Victoria Ntsingo, as military helicopters escorting the funeral cortege clattered overhead.

"His work is done."

"Don't call me"

Mandela served just one term as leader of Africa's biggest and most sophisticated economy, and formally withdrew from public life in 2004, famously telling reporters at the end of a farewell news conference: "Don't call me, I'll call you."

His last appearance in public was at the 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, waving to fans from the back of a golf cart.

Yet such was his influence as the architect two decades ago of the historic reconciliation between blacks and whites that his passing has left a gaping hole in the heart of South Africa.

With an eye on elections in five months, the ruling ANC, the 101-year-old former liberation movement Mandela once led, has seized on his death as a chance to shore up popularity that is ebbing even in its black support base.

The strategy has not been without its risks, not least because it has highlighted the gulf in stature between South Africa's first black president and its fourth, the scandal-plagued Zuma.

It backfired spectacularly at a mass Mandela memorial at Soccer City on Tuesday when Zuma, under fire for a $21 million security upgrade to his private home, was booed and jeered in front of world leaders including US President Barack Obama.

But barring an upset next year, Zuma looks set for another five years in office, during which he will have to address an economy struggling to shake off a 2009 recession and the fragmentation of a vital ANC alliance forged with the unions in the common struggle against apartheid.

With unemployment at 25 percent and racial inequality still painfully evident - the average white household earns six times more than the average black one - pressure for radical economic transformation is only likely to increase.

Against that backdrop, the party is desperate for strong and decisive leaders to guide South Africa through the myriad complexities of the 21st century global economy and allowing it to claim what it believes is its rightful place at the world's top table.

Both inside and outside the party, there are doubts whether Zuma, a polygamous Zulu traditionalist with no formal education, is the right man for the job.

"We need to raise the level of leadership," former president Thabo Mbeki, who was unceremoniously ousted by Zuma as ANC leader six years ago, said in eulogies to Mandela last week.

"The transformation of South Africa is a very difficult task, I think in many respects more difficult than the struggle to end the system of apartheid." — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Obama marks Newtown school shooting anniversary with call for gun control

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama marked the anniversary of the Newtown school shootings on Saturday by calling for tighter gun control and expanded mental health care.

"We haven't yet done enough to make our communities and our country safer," the President said in his weekly address. "We have to do more to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on a gun so easily. We have to do more to heal troubled minds."

The President did not mention the shooting at a Colorado high school on Friday where a student armed with a shotgun wounded at least two classmates before apparently taking his own life. The president's address is recorded in advance.

Obama is due later Saturday to observe a moment of silence at the White House and light candles in memory of the 20 children and six school workers who died in a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school a year ago.

Legislation that would have extended background checks for gun sales made online and at gun shows and to ban rapid-firing "assault" weapons failed to clear the US Senate this year. Opponents argued it is essential to hold the line on protecting Americans' right to keep and bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

State legislatures have been more aggressive in enacting gun control legislation but those measures have faced some backlash.

Colorado passed gun control measures, but gun rights activists used recall elections to oust two state senators who backed them.

The White House has proposed spending $130 million to help teachers and other people who work with youth recognize the signs of mental illness and help people get treatment, but Congress has not yet allocated those funds.

So the administration will spend $50 million from its Health and Human Services budget to help community health centers hire more mental health professionals and provide more services and another $50 million from the Agriculture Department budget to improve mental health facilities in rural areas, the White House has said. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Imelda Marcos hospitalized

MANILA - The jet-setting former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos has been hospitalized after suffering "fatigue," an aide said Sunday.

The widow of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had just returned to the capital after a lengthy road trip from the province of Ilocos Norte, over 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Manila, when she decided to check in to a hospital, said her media consultant Lito Gorospe.

"She was suffering from severe fatigue so she decided to be confined," he told AFP.

He declined to comment on the condition of the 84-year-old Marcos, who is a legislator representing the province of Ilocos Norte, home to her husband's family.

ABS-CBN, citing hospital officials, said that Marcos "came in for control of her blood sugar," and that she had checked in to the hospital on Saturday night.

Marcos rose to fame as the wife of Ferdinand Marcos, who was elected president in 1965.

She became widely criticized for her extravagant lifestyle, spending heavily on clothes and jewelry and amassing a massive collection of shoes, even as most Filipinos remained trapped in poverty.

Her husband declared martial law in 1972 and appointed her as a special envoy, as well as handing her several top government positions. Her widespread power further fuelled resentment over corruption and abuse under the Marcos regime.

A popular revolt toppled the president in 1986 and sent the family fleeing into exile.

After her husband died in Hawaii in 1989, Imelda Marcos was allowed to return to the Philippines where she made a political comeback, elected to the legislature repeatedly. — AFP

source: gmanetwork.com

Gerard De Villiers, prolific French spy author, dead at 83

PARIS - Prolific spy novelist Gerard De Villiers, the creator of the top-selling SAS series with a hero often described as France's answer to James Bond, has died aged 83 in Paris.

Friends and family said he had died on Thursday after being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

Never a darling of the critics, De Villiers was nonetheless a publishing phenomenon, claiming his thrillers sold up to 150 million copies worldwide.

The 200th book in the series—"SAS: The Kremlin's Revenge"—was released last month.




Instantly recognizable by their lurid covers inevitably featuring a femme fatale brandishing a handgun or assault rifle, his work was shunned by France's literary establishment.

But outside literary circles, De Villiers was often praised for his geopolitical insights and was known for cultivating a vast network of intelligence officials, diplomats, and journalists who fed him information.

In a profile early this year headlined "The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much," The New York Times said his books were "ahead of the news" and "regularly contain information about terror plots, espionage and wars that has never appeared elsewhere."

His death came as he seemed on the verge of realizing a long-cherished dream of breaking into the English-language market, with reports he was working on a deal with a major US publisher.

In an interview with newspaper Le Monde this summer, De Villiers said Random House had offered him $350,000 (260,000 euros) for the rights to five SAS books that would be translated into English. He said he hoped the deal would eventually lead to Hollywood films.

De Villiers gleaned much of his information from field trips around the world, giving credence to the exploits of his aristocratic Austrian hero, Malko Linge, who works as a freelance agent for the CIA to fund the restoration of his family chateau.

The books stuck to a well-trod formula—fast-moving plots, exotic locales, and generous doses of graphic sex.

"I never had any pretensions of being a literary writer," De Villiers told AFP in an interview this year. "I consider myself a storyteller who writes to amuse people."

He was also considered eerily prophetic, detailing a plot to kill the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat a year before his actual assassination in 1981 and describing a secret CIA command centre in the Libyan city of Benghazi in early 2012.

The true existence of the CIA site eventually came to light after an attack on US facilities in Benghazi in September 2012 that left four dead, including US ambassador Christopher Stevens.

His work was reportedly required reading in some intelligence circles and followed by spies far outside France.

"The (intelligence) services used SAS novels countless times to send messages to their counterparts," said De Villiers's longtime lawyer, Eric Morain.

Born in Paris on December 8, 1929, De Villiers was working as a journalist when he drew inspiration from the success of Ian Fleming's James Bond series to write his first novel, "SAS in Istanbul," in 1965.

He went on to publish an average of four SAS novels—so-called after Linge's honorific "Son Altesse Serenissime" (His Most Serene Highness)—every year, writing them over a month on an aged typewriter.

He was often lambasted for his right-wing views and his overtly sexual portrayals of women, and accused of racism.

But De Villiers was unapologetic.

"Some women are sexual objects in my books but others are beautiful, intelligent and brave. And I am always warmly welcomed in Africa, where I have very many readers," he said.

De Villiers's wife Christine said he had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer since May.

"The last weeks he was conscious but very weak. He could not endure the chemotherapy," she told AFP. "It is exactly the death that he did not want." — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Remembering 9/11 with reflection, respect

Once again, the threshold of 9/11 is on us.

That date is such a grim reminder of what took place on September 11, a dozen years ago. More than 3,000 lives were lost that day. That date changed the world forever.

Terrorism was defined in the cruelest and the most inhumane way when it came to what attained worldwide notoriety as ‘9/11.’

How air travel since then has been direly affected is an everyday reminder: when passengers traveling by air are required by law to follow whatever measures must be observed join the daily scenes at airports.

On many an occasion, this writer is not the only one who hears how ‘inconvenient’ it is to fly; remembering the many inconveniences whose origins go back to that date when terrorism didn’t just rock New York City, but the rest of the world. After-shocks tell volumes where blackened-out areas still stand out.

Inevitably, the subject of 9/11 arises when friends and kin talk about what happened, told and retold to them by scenes on TV, not only on that day but each time air carriers accompanied the news.

Just to recall the scenes, how commercial airlines were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seemed far from real; the viewer would not err when she/he would think what she saw was on reel, a story on science. But those spectra did happen. They were real. Not reel.

The attack on the Pentagon caused the death of 184 people. Forty were killed on United Air Lines (UAL) Flight 93 in Pennsylvania when determined and dauntless passengers were able to prevent another building in Washington to be struck by their own plane piloted by terrorist hijackers.

Had those passengers failed in their plan of attack on the cockpit where terrorists had taken over flight control, who knows whether or not the Capitol or even the White House could have been spared.

It was still breakfast on the West Coast then. The phone rang incessantly. It was Jason, our grandson, a plebe at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland (class 2005) who was on the line. He assured us “all was well,” and not to worry about him. That was the ‘alert’ he gave. Then, he was off the line in just moments. No time for queries nor comments came from us, his family.

Later, we put two and two together. Their grounds, close to the Pentagon were identified by news reports as ‘that close’ to the terrorists’ target when that UAL flight came down.

One question that ensued that day and has morphed into more queries many a time thereafter: “Where were you when 9/11 took place?” That query almost parallels one such question: “Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?”

What everyone was doing then doesn’t necessitate slow recollection. Numbers among us can recall what was going on in our lives when 9/11/2001 descended in untold destruction, not only in terms of lives and property, but the inner spirit as well.

A new definition of terrorism emerged.

Panic-stricken scenes ensued. There were pathetically narrated losses seen and heard. Of lives. Of morale. Of sole wage earners. Of budding careerists in their respective fields. Of brave men and women. Of public servants. Of medical teams rushing to save lives. Of how 9/11 became a tragedy of immeasurable proportions. Of nameless and unidentified heroes. Of attempts to scamper to safety from sky-high edifices whose facilities ceased working. Indeed, so many scenes unfolded that did appear over a long period of time on tape.

Remembering 9/11/2011 is today’s reality.

Oftentimes, the term ‘remembering’ takes on an affectionate connotation.

Returning to ‘9/11’ is replete in sadness as it comes to the fore. Yes, it is ‘remembering,’ to a boundless extent. Threats of terrorism cannot be shunted aside.

If only to recall the lessons learned, 9/11/2011 is one date to be together in quiet. Not in any form of celebration. Just respect. Just a few moments of remembrance meant to defer to those who unselfishly gave up their lives so more lives could be spared. — The FilAm

source: gmanetwork.com

700 migrants rescued off Italian coast

ROME - The Italian coast guard said Saturday it had rescued more than 700 migrants and refugees, including many Syrians and Egyptians, from four struggling boats, the latest in a surge of refugee arrivals.

Coast guard and navy vessels rescued the migrants from troubled boats off the coast of Sicily on Friday and Saturday, rushing four of them -- a mother, father and their two young children -- to hospital for emergency care, the coast guard said.

One broken-down boat was carrying 207 migrants from Nigeria, Ghana and Eritrea, including six children and two women in the late stages of pregnancy.

Another boat was carrying 212 migrants including eight children and was being towed toward the tiny island of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost point. The coast guard did not say where the passengers were from.

Two other boats carrying a total of 293 Syrians and Egyptians were brought Friday to Augusta, on the eastern coast of Sicily.

The number of refugees trying to reach Italy in dinghies and other boats has increased in recent months because of surging violence in Syria and Egypt and calm summer weather that has tempted many to try their luck on the seas.

The Italian interior ministry says 3,000 Syrians arrived in Italy from the beginning of the year to the end of August, mostly arriving by boat in eastern Sicily. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

POEA warns vs. work permit scam victimizing nurses

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Friday warned prospective overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) against a new scam involving work permit visa coaching for nursing jobs at Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

Lee Wanhui of SGH's human resource division wrote POEA administrator Hans Leo Cacdac about the "false acclamation of offer" where the victims are requested to pay P3,800 as "Singapore Work Permit Visa Coaching Fee."

"In the emails which were sent to the candidates allegedly under SGH’s name, the candidates were requested to make payment of (P3,800) through a bank account (not owned by SGH) as Singapore Work Permit Visa Coaching Fee. In addition, these emails were sent by forging our Nursing Director’s name," the email said.




The text of the email was posted on the POEA's Facebook page, while Cacdac posted a link to it on his Twitter account.


 SGH also said the fake employment offers were issued with the email address sgh_recruitment@outlook.com to "a number of candidates" from the Philippines for the position of Staff Nurse and Enrolled Nurse in SGH.

It added the sender of the scam emails used SGH's online job advertisement without the hospital's approval.

"We would like to put on (record) that our (organization), SGH, did not authorize any company under the email of sgh_recruitment@outlook.com and/or its personnel to make any offer of employment on behalf of SGH and neither did we request for any form of payment to be made to us or to any bank account," Lee said.

Lee said the SGH learned of the scam after it started receiving email inquiries on Thursday from candidates who were verifying the authenticity of the emails.

"We had immediately responded to these candidates to inform them that the emails which they had received were forged and not authorized by SGH," Lee said.

Lee asked the POEA to "investigate and/or stop this scam." — KBK, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Indian police make second arrest in Mumbai rape case

NEW DELHI - Indian police arrested a second man in connection with the gang-rape of a journalist in Mumbai, an official said on Saturday, in a case that has drawn comparisons with an attack in December that led to nationwide protests and a revision of rape laws.

News of Thursday's attack sparked street protests and uproar in parliament and put the spotlight back on women's safety in India, where memories of the rape and murder of a student in New Delhi last December are still fresh.

Many Indians have questioned whether, despite a toughening of rape laws after last year's attack, India is any safer. The latest assault was in the financial capital Mumbai, which is generally considered India's safest city for women.

The 22-year-old victim, a photo journalist, was admitted to hospital where she is in a stable condition. Police have released sketches of three other suspects and say they will ask the government to have the case conducted in a fast-track court.

One man was arrested on Friday in connection with the attack and Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh told reporters a second suspect had been arrested.

"He has admitted that he has done wrong," Singh said, adding that the other suspects may have fled to the city's suburbs.

The attack took place shortly before sunset in a former industrial district that is now one of the city's fastest-growing neighborhoods. The woman was at an abandoned textile mill on assignment with a male colleague.

They were separated by the attackers and the woman's colleague was tied up with a belt while she was assaulted, Singh told a Friday news conference.

Indian TV news channels and newspapers, citing police sources and statements purportedly made by the victim, have disclosed some details of the assault.

According to the Mumbai daily Mid Day, the attackers threatened to slash the victim with a broken beer bottle. They also threatened to reveal her identity if she reported the incident, it reported.

The Times of India on Saturday quoted a statement by the victim from her hospital bed.

"I want no other woman in this city and country to go through such brutal physical humiliation," she was quoted as saying. "The perpetrators should be punished severely as they have ruined my life."

Reuters was unable to independently verify those statements. Himanshu Roy, Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, declined to comment when contacted by telephone. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Jeff Bezos has two words for you: ‘No comment’

When journalists pressed William Henry Vanderbilt in 1882 about his plan to discontinue his railroad’s popular but unprofitable mail run, the richest man in the world reportedly exclaimed, “The public be damned!” Whether Vanderbilt said “be damned” or not — he claimed to have been misquoted — business titans of the Gilded Age routinely assumed this default posture.

Extending the big buzz-off to the press and the public is a tradition that Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. has restored to the commonweal, as the New York Times slyly noted yesterday in its business section feature about the $25 billion man. As many journalists noted, the piece quotes James Marcus, former Amazon employee and current executive editor of Harper’s magazine, talking about the company’s sense of reserve. “Every story you ever see about Amazon, it has that sentence: ‘An Amazon spokesman declined to comment,’” said Marcus. The next line of the Times story went completely meta, reading, “Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman, declined to comment.”

It doesn’t matter whether the topic is Amazon operations, the number of Kindles it has sold, the company’s video plans, a new Kindle commercial that tweaks the iPad, Bezos’s plans for his Blue Origin rocket or Bezos’s recent salvage of the sunken Apollo 11 rocket engines: “no comment” is the default response by Bezos and the company. Today, when the entire Amazon site went down for about 45 minutes, some reporters couldn’t even reach a company spokesman to gather an explanation for the outage.

The company’s disdain for the press seems to know no limits. In 2011, for example, when the Allentown Morning Call reported that Amazon workers in Pennsylvania warehouse were being baked alive, the company offered only a mechanical response to the paper’s questions. After consumers protested the working conditions but before next summer’s heat hit, Amazon spent $52 million on air conditioners. But even then, company avoided the Morning Call’s specific questions about the ameliorations.

Amazon and Bezos aren’t alone in avoiding the press corps’s questions. Unless the product cycle has produced a new gadget that needs selling, Apple habitually sneers at questions from non-captive reporters. Amazon probably keeps its lips tight because 1) it rarely has a new product to sell and 2) Bezos so dominates the company no rogue powers exist inside it to dare speak out of turn. Or perhaps Bezos and Amazon think they can remain mute and avoid criticism because the good-will bucket overflows with warm fuzzies of their happy customers.

“No comment,” of course, is a comment, as the many guides to public relations explain. It makes the speaker look like he’s hiding something embarrassing. It sounds like a guilty plea or like stalling. It makes the speaker sound like he’s saying “it’s none of your business.” To a reporter’s ear it sounds like, “Hey, you might be onto something there. Keep on digging and you might find a story.”

As much as journalists would like to believe they’re proxies for the public and the people’s court all wrapped up in one, companies have every right to remain silent to their inquiries. Only the courts and the regulators can demand them to speak, and even then the lawyers act as mediators.

Ever since the courts had bestowed upon corporations the legal status of “person” in the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the public has had good reason to regard corporations as “soulless,” as historian Roland Marchand put it in his 1998 book Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business. Considered cold and aloof by the public from the beginning, fixated on profits above all, the large corporations birthed by the industrial revolution did little to counter this image. “I owe the public nothing,” said J.P. Morgan. “Silence is golden,” John D. Rockefeller said to his questioning public, presaging Bezos’s refusal to brindle his actions with explanation and qualification.

Some early corporations played offense, as Chris Roush reported in his history, Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and Its Role in Society. Hotels, railroads, and steamboat lines started using public relations firms in the 1880s to manage and sometimes “thwart” newspaper articles. As far as corporations were considered, the less the public knew about corporate operations the greater the profit, as one scholar wrote.

As the muckrakers of the 1890s and early 20th century exposed corporate perfidy, some firms employed public relations firms to temper the journalistic message. Over the 20th century, Marchand wrote, much of corporate America adapted to this kind of criticism by reshaping their identities through public relations gestures and advertisements. The outreach and ads were designed to make the corporations to appear neighborly (General Motors), a member of your family (Westinghouse), patriotic (Ford), or heralds of a brighter future (General Electric).

For the most part, Amazon has avoided such image fluffery, probably to its credit. But that leaves it more vulnerable to critics who would brand it a sweatshop operator. Some wealthy corporations and tycoons committed massive acts of philanthropy (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, et al.) in part to transmute their namesakes into beneficent overlords. This almost always works. Does anybody who matters have a mean word to say about Bill Gates now that he’s giving his Microsoft billions away? So far, Bezos has been a philanthropic low-baller, giving little to charity while building a 10,000-year clock for his own amusement. Meanwhile, he has expressed the view that for-profit systems are a better way to solve social problems than philanthropy. While I think he’s right, this libertarian position is still a very hard sell with the public.

Depending on your personal temperament, a Bezos-style snub angers you less than the image-massages so many company’s engage in. After all, when a company spokesman snubs you, at least he isn’t giving you the runaround. Idealists will find equal outrage in both tactics, and wonder why corporations just won’t speak straight. (The answer, of course, is their lawyers often won’t let them because the truth can be incriminating.) As long as we’re at it, let’s rebuke the corporate press for shunting questions about its conduct and content to its own neutered mouthpieces. Bezos can honestly say his company does the same thing the New York Times and scores of lesser newspapers do regularly.

Bezos’s recent purchase of the Washington Post will make him both the person who declines inconvenient questions from the press and the commander in chief of an army of inconvenient question-askers. Cracking this paradox will be one of Bezos’s first tasks as owner of the Post. I hope he doesn’t decide the 1-click solution is “silence is golden.” — Reuters

 

source: gmanetwork.com

 

Cisco revenue in line, investors await CEO comments

Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc on Wednesday reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue in line with Wall Street expectations, helped by continued strength in its enterprise business.

Shares of the world's biggest network equipment maker fell 2 percent after hours, as investors waited for the company's latest forecasts and comments on its business later on Wednesday.

Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers' commentary is closely watched by investors as Cisco is regarded as a strong indicator of the general health of the technology industry because of its broad customer base.

Cisco had a net profit of $2.3 billion, or 42 cents per share, in the quarter. That compared with a profit of $1.9 billion, or 36 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $12.4 billion, matching analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Excluding some items, the company reported profit of 52 cents per share, which was a penny better than analysts' average estimate.

The results were in line with the company's forecasts three months ago, based on what it called "encouraging" signs.  — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.om

Motorola unveils its first Google smartphone

SAN FRANCISCO - Motorola on Thursday introduced the keenly-anticipated Moto X, a Google-centric smartphone that buyers get to design themselves.

Moto X is the first Motorola smartphone created in collaboration with Google since the Internet titan completed its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility in May of last year.

"At Motorola our roots are deep in mobile hardware -- we invented mobile communications," Motorola Mobility Canada general manager Odile Guinot said in a release.

"Now, as a Google company, we've become the kind of company that can build a smartphone like Moto X," Guinot added. "It fuses our history of mobile innovation with the best of Google mobile services."

Moto X will be available in the US by the end of August or early September at a starting price of $199 if bought along with a two-year service contract with a telecom service company.

It will also be available at that time in Canada and Latin America.

People can visit an online Moto Maker studio to customize colors, accents, memory capacity and other aspects of handsets, which will be assembled in the United States and delivered free of charge within four days, according to Motorola.Cand

Moto X smartphones are powered by Google's Android software and features include sophisticated voice controls and anticipating what users might want from the Internet at any given moment.

Motorola also streamlined the ease with which smartphone pictures can be taken.

"Moto X promises to be unlike any device we've offered before," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president of devices at US telecom giant AT&T.

Moto X will work on an array of telecom networks, according to Motorola. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com