BAGHDAD / AP An Iraqi policeman was killed during anti-government protests in the Iraqi capital on Saturday, according to police and hospital officials who said seven other policemen were injured along with dozens of protesters. Demonstrators loyal to influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad demanding that the commission overseeing the local elections schedule this year be overhauled. ...
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Germany to elect new president; Frank-Walter Steinmeier favorite
BERLIN / AP A German parliamentary assembly will elect the country’s new president on Sunday, with a respected former foreign minister who last year called Donald Trump one of the world’s “hate preachers” the overwhelming favorite to win. The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority. The new head of state will succeed ...
Read More »Powerful quake kills 6 in southern Philippines
SURIGAO / AP A powerful nighttime earthquake in the southern Philippines killed at least six people and injured more than 120, with officials combing through cracked buildings and nearby towns on Saturday to check on the damage and other possible casualties. The magnitude 6.7 quake roused residents from their sleep late Friday in Surigao del Norte province, forcing hundreds ...
Read More »13 dead, thousands caught in flooding in central Indonesia
JAKARTA / AP Up to 40,000 people were caught in severe flooding following days of torrential rain in central Indonesia, where the death toll from landslides on Bali resort island rose to 13, officials said on Saturday. Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency said that incessant rains in the past five days caused rivers on Sumbawa Island to break their banks ...
Read More »Is corporate ‘short-termism’ a myth, or is it rising?
You’ve heard the criticism. Too many American corporate managers are addicted to “short-termism.†They postpone investments and other costs, sacrificing future performance for present profitability. Either they’re pressured by “activist investors†or want to inflate the value of their stock options. If true, it could help explain the economy’s lackluster performance. Now, a new study asserts that it is ...
Read More »Twitter gets more users but can’t seem to sell them advertisements
At this point last year, Twitter was a company that had a hard time attracting new people to surf and tweet, but it was quite skilled at generating ad dollars from its die-hard users. Now Twitter’s problem has reversed. It’s still a mess of a company, but in a fresh way. People are using Twitter more, but advertisers are ...
Read More »Trump needs an Afghanistan plan
The news from Afghanistan is as relentless as it depressing: six aid workers murdered by IS, at least 20 dead from a suicide bombing at the Supreme Court, more territory lost to the Taliban, more opium growing in the fields. Maybe that explains Donald Trump’s silence on the war since becoming president. But it does not excuse it. The ...
Read More »What India’s demonetization means for investors…
On November 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India surprised investors and consumers by declaring that 86 percent of the nation’s money stock would no longer be a medium of exchange or store of value. In meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi recently, I learned that the move was intended to ferret out illegally garnered funds, and that the ...
Read More »Meet Facebook, your new financial regulator
Maybe it’s not so bad to have algorithmic overlords — at least when they are pressured into protecting people rather than exploiting them. Earlier this week, Facebook declared that it will no longer let certain kinds of advertisers engage in racial profiling. Specifically, it will prohibit credit, housing, and employment advertisers from using “ethnic affinity†categories — marketing profiles ...
Read More »When the fake news is about your company
Fake news on social media stymied the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Now, businesses are wondering what they should do if they’re targeted next. For some, it’s too late. Pepsi’s chief executive never told Trump supporters to “take their business elsewhere,†but websites still falsely claimed she did. Coca-Cola had to deal with bogus reports that a “clear parasite†...
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