Saturday, 30 November 2019
Friday, 29 November 2019
The News,World
BERLIN: Tens of thousands of protesters, primarily in Europe and Asia, hit the streets on Friday to make a fresh call for action against global warming, hoping to raise pressure on world leaders days before a UN climate summit.Carrying signs that read "One planet, one fight" and "The sea is rising, so must we", thousands flocked to Berlin´s Brandenburg Gate for the latest "Fridays for Future" protest inspired by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg.In total, about 630,000 people demonstrated across more than 500 cities in Germany, the Fridays for Future movement said.In Hamburg alone, some 30,000 mainly young people gathered and another 17,000 congregated in Munich to voice alarm at rising temperatures, police said.Thunberg, meanwhile, was on a boat sailing across the Atlantic, but tweeted a photo of herself holding a sign that said "School strike for climate."Rallies took place across Europe, although on a smaller scale than during September´s wave of "climate strikes" when organisers said some four million people filled city streets around the world.Approximately 1,700 turned out in Madrid, the host city of next week´s 12-day COP25 conference, which aims to encourage governments to increase their commitments to cut emissions and combat climate change.In France, climate activists focused their anger on the "Black Friday" sales bonanza with protesters blocking a distribution centre of online retail giant Amazon outside Paris and others near Lyon and Lille.Protesters in Paris also formed a human chain at La Defense shopping mall that prevented people from reaching stores, to highlight the climate costs of consumerism.The Dutch branch of "Fridays for Future" said demos were taking place in around 15 cities, culminating in an evening march in Amsterdam where protesters would observe a moment´s silence for victims of the climate crisis.Several hundred young people also took to the streets of Lisbon, where Thunberg is expected to arrive shortly before making her way to Madrid.Turnout was low in the United States and Canada, with the protest taking place during the American Thanksgiving holiday weekend. A demonstration in Washington drew about 50 people, another in New York had 100."It´s important to keep showing up, keep being out there and talking to people about how this is not a problem that can go away, unless we address it head-on," said 24-year-old Frank Fritz in Washington.New York police arrested 23 anti-consumerism protesters who staged a sit-in outside Macy´s department store.In Montreal, environmental groups distributed second-hand clothing."We are trying to create an eco-responsible movement against mass consumption, so we are giving away clothes for free to encourage people to consume less," protester Germain Desloges told AFP.- Toxic smoke -The latest round of global climate demonstrations kicked off in bushfire-ravaged Australia, where hundreds rallied outside the Sydney offices of the Liberal party.The target of their ire was Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said earlier this month the suggestion that "individual actions of Australia" had an impact on the fires "doesn´t bear up to credible scientific evidence"."Our government´s inaction on the climate crisis has supercharged bushfires," said school strike leader Shiann Broderick, as Sydney was once again enveloped in toxic smoke from the fires.Australia, with a population of almost 25 million, has low carbon emissions compared with the planet´s biggest polluters but is one of the world´s leading coal exporters.Protests also took place in Tokyo, where hundreds marched through the teeming Shinjuku district."I feel a sense of crisis because almost no one in Japan is interested," said 19-year-old student Mio Ishida."I was really inspired by Greta´s actions."- Missed targets -In Delhi, about 50 school and college students marched to the environment ministry in the world´s most polluted capital, carrying placards and chanting slogans demanding that the government declare a climate emergency."This is about doing something that you believe in," said 23-year-old Saumya Chowdhury. "We want the government to acknowledge this and have a conversation on this issue with people."India is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases and has 14 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world, according to a UN study.Some 200 nations are meeting in the Spanish capital from Monday for talks on finalising the "rulebook" for the 2015 Paris climate treaty, which becomes operational in 2021.Scientists have warned that efforts to cap warming to 1.5 Celsius are failing and that carbon emissions -- which are on the rise -- would need to fall 7.6 percent a year to meet the target.The United Nations has reported that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, hit a record high last year.The UN has also warned that global temperatures are on track to rise almost 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which could make some places virtually uninhabitable.
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Thursday, 28 November 2019
The News,World
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook said it had restored service following an outage on Thursday that hindered access to the social platform and its other apps such as Instagram."Earlier today, people may have experienced trouble accessing Facebook´s family of apps. The issue has since been resolved, we are back to 100 percent for everyone and we´re sorry for any inconvenience," a company spokesman said in a statement.Facebook blamed "an issue in one of our central software systems" for snarling connectivity for several hours.Many users, often wryly, took to Twitter to comment on the crash.Downdetector, which monitors outages on the internet, said users of all Facebook platforms started having trouble at 1345 GMT.As is often the case with these outages, this one seemed to hit randomly around the world, with some regions affected and others not.Facebook says it has 2.45 billion active monthly users across its array of products.
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Wednesday, 27 November 2019
The News,World
NEW YORK: In New York, a city famous for always being on the go, grocery shopping can be time consuming.But grocery company FreshDirect promises to deliver within mere hours fruit, fish and bottles of water ordered online, and it relies on its high-tech Bronx warehouse to keep up with demand.Orders ramping up ahead of Thanksgiving, when families across the United States gather round the table for a huge feast. Everything at the FreshDirect depot is as well-regulated as a Swiss clock, thanks to the computer system.On the ground, employees manage palettes, scan labels and sort products. But above their heads, huge orange and green plastic bins -- the company´s signature colors -- seem to have a life of their own.They zip along on conveyor belts that spiral up to the ceiling, carrying the bins through countless levels of shelves.As soon as a customer starts placing a FreshDirect online order, the system recognizes them."The system knows you, where you live, what amount of groceries you usually buy, what truck it will fit on, and based on that, what time can be offered," explained Timothy Knoll, the chief operating officer.Orders are grouped by destination, and the boxes can then be sent out.- Nine miles -The conveyor belts run for almost nine miles (15 kilometers), criss-crossing the 400,000 square foot (37,000 square meter) depot. But their layout was designed to limit bins´ trips, which last between 25 to 30 minutes on average.For small products, robots will pick them out one by one from the massive shelving units and bring them to one of six packing stations.Once there, employees scan them, package them and put them in boxes that are quickly sent on their way with the touch of a big red button.Bottles of water, the most popular item, are stored near the conveyor belts.For fruits and vegetables, employees can see which products have been requested on tablets and employees set aside any that are damaged.In a refrigerated room, other workers cut the fish of the day, still soft in their boxes of ice."About 90 percent of our fresh connections are... with the farmers and the people that actually grow and raise our food," said Scott Crawford, the chief merchandising officer. This allows FreshDirect to eliminate middlemen and save time."You can order a pound of codfish seven days from now, that fish is still swimming in the ocean for another four or five days before we actually have it in-house," said Knoll.In order to accurately predict supply and avoid waste, "we are confident with our vendors, and we´re comfortable with how we handle things in the building to control the inventory," he added.Each item has a barcode denoting the type of product, where it came from and its expiration date.FreshDirect also relies on 20 years of data accumulated since its launch in 1999. The company knows how to anticipate consumer habits as accurately as traffic patterns, including by accounting for weather conditions.- Path to profitability -The company is not as prevalent as it has been in New York, but it still dominates: FreshDirect makes 68 percent of the grocery delivery market in the Big Apple, well ahead of Instacart (13 percent), Peapod (nine percent) and Amazon Fresh (nine percent), according to the data analysis firm Earnest Research.Sales slumped slightly just after the Bronx depot opened in the summer of 2018. As the system worked out any kinks, customers complained of incomplete or late orders.FreshDirect has regained some ground since then.The company, which has offered same-day delivery since March, said that online business "continues to grow, and we are operating better than ever before.""An online grocer´s biggest enemy is not Amazon -- it´s itself," said Paula Rosenblum, a retail technology analyst for RSR Research."There is clearly a market. There is just no clear path to profitability," she added, noting that sales margins for groceries are generally "pretty low."FreshDirect has not released specific figures, saying only that they have "thousands of orders daily."In any case, the company has already seen multiple economic cycles -- the average size of a Thanksgiving turkey varies in relation to economic growth -- and various consumer habits."Maybe 15 years ago, you would see more frozen fruits and vegetables being sold for the holiday," said merchandising chief Crawford.But now "people want to have that fresh broccoli and those fresh brussel sprouts.""If you don´t get it right in New York City," Crawford added, "you won´t be doing it long."
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The News,World
WASHINGTON: A US ambassador nominated by President Donald Trump who provided key testimony in his impeachment hearings was accused Wednesday of sexual misconduct by three women.Gordon Sondland, the US envoy to the European Union, denied the allegations, with his lawyer alleging that the accusers were trying to taint his credibility in the inquiry.The Portland Monthly published named accounts by three women who said that Sondland, a wealthy hotel owner from Seattle, retaliated against them professionally after they rejected him sexually.One of the women, Jana Solis, said she met Sondland in 2008 when she was seeking work in her position as a safety expert for hotels.She said Sondland met her for lunch and offered her a job as "my new hotel chick" before slapping her rear.She said Sondland later invited her to his Portland home to evaluate his personal art collection -- which included a picture of himself with then president George W. Bush -- and that he exposed himself in the pool house.She said Sondland at a later meeting also forcibly kissed her.Another woman, Nicole Vogel, said she met Sondland in 2003 over dinner to seek investment in a new magazine.He then took her to a hotel he owned and invited her to see a room, where he requested a hug and then "grabs my face and goes to kiss me," she said.Vogel said she refused and left. She pointed to an email afterward in which Sondland declined funding for her project.Sondland in a statement rejected all the accusations and accused Vogel of "underhanded journalism" out of anger that he did not invest in the magazine."These untrue claims of unwanted touching and kissing are concocted and, I believe, coordinated for political purposes," he said."They have no basis in fact and I categorically deny them," he said.Vogel owns the Portland Monthly, which published the article. The magazine said that, due to her implication in the story, it teamed up with ProPublica, a respected non-profit news group known for investigations.A lawyer for Sondland told the magazine the article was timed to damage the ambassador´s credibility in the impeachment inquiry.Sondland donated $1 million to Trump´s inauguration and was afterward named ambassador to the European Union.Despite his support for Trump, Sondland, testifying last week under oath before lawmakers, said he was following the president´s orders in demanding that Ukraine investigate domestic rival Joe Biden before he would agree to a White House summit.The accusation is key evidence for House Democrats as they look to impeach the tycoon turned president.
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Tuesday, 26 November 2019
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