From "2 Days in the Valley" to "The Devil's Advocate" (with a little "Monster" thrown in for good measure), a search for the moment when Charlize became Charlize.
Etsy and eBay list thousands of dolls purportedly inhabited by everything from evil witches to judgmental spirits that might call you fat to young children and fairy spirits.
What it's like riding along with a valet driver at a San Francisco strip club, the city that the Chernobyl disaster left behind and other best photos of the week.
The village is your mission: you will either save it or destroy it. Werewolf is a beautiful party game that's easy to learn and supports up to 35 people — perfect for the holidays.
Sandler was in his early 20's when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. Two decades later, and a lot of money later, he recounts the day he was asked to leave.
Using "Wolf Of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort as his role model, Fyre Festivals's Billy McFarland is mapping out his comeback after serving his sentence for fraud.
In one of the deadliest cities in the world, an embattled group of young men had little but their tiny patch of turf — and they would die to protect it. Journalists from The New York Times spent weeks recording their struggle.
Take better care of your furry best friend with this DNA My Dog Breed Identification Test: it includes an easy cheek swab and testing kit so you can discover more about their personality traits, DNA composition, breed mix, predisposition to disease and more for just $59.
Interviews with key players — including US Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson and Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke — about how they kept the recession from sliding into a global depression.
The Star Wars canon just got bigger. So, what's the best way to go through all the canonical movies, TV shows and comic books? Let us do you a fan service by giving you our recommendation.
Perfect for the anti-aviary (or bird fanatic with a sense of humor), this snarky illustrated handbook is equal parts profane, funny, and — let's face it — true
Is engagement with current affairs key to being a good citizen? Or could an endless torrent of notifications be harming democracy as well as our wellbeing?
Trailers, today, are fully dramatized productions meant to extract maximum emotion towards a film. Back when "Star Wars" came out it didn't get this full treatment, so Tom F of YouTube decided to do it himself.
Big name actors don't just walk up to the mic, say a few words and walk away with a fat paycheck. Well, they sort of do that — but there is extensive work put in beforehand.
WNU Editor: This has not been a bad year for Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau. For those who may not know, charlatan means .... a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill; a fraud.
In this photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon, is harboured in Shanghai, after an 85-day scientific quest across the Arctic Ocean, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. (Pei Xin/Xinhua News Agency/Associated Press)
China has shown interest in the region for years and may be mapping submarine routes
China's growing involvement and interest in the Arctic could pave the way for a strengthened military presence in the region, including the deployment of submarines to act as deterrents against nuclear attack, the Pentagon said in a report released on Thursday.
The one-page assessment of the potential Chinese threat in the Arctic is included in the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on China's armed forces and comes amid growing interest within the U.S. military to beef up its own operations in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of the world.
The Pentagon's assessment notes that China has increased activities and engagement in the Arctic region since gaining observer status on the Arctic Council in 2013.
South Koreans take selfies as they tour the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, May 1. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
WNU Editor: The above picture came from this photo-gallery .... Photos of the week (Reuters).
Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre, under construction in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States accused China on Friday of putting well more than a million minority Muslims in "concentration camps," in some of the strongest U.S. condemnation to date of what it calls Beijing's mass detention of mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups.
The comments by Randall Schriver, who leads Asia policy at the U.S. Defense Department, are likely to increase tension with Beijing, which is sensitive to international criticism and describes the sites as vocational education training centres aimed at stemming the threat of Islamic extremism.
In line with Moscow's declared "turn to the East," Russian officials have been reaching out to Beijing with the aim of founding a new political and economic alliance. Yet Russia's elites, much like Russian society, view their Chinese partners with a certain degree of suspicion. In Russia today, opinions are divided about the current rapprochement with Beijing: is it a golden opportunity or a poisoned chalice?
Moscow's official line affirms the close partnership between the two countries. So close, in fact, that the Kremlin even invited over 3,000 Chinese soldiers to participate to its Vostok-2018 military exercises. At the same time Igor Sechin, one of Russia's most influential people and the head of state-owned oil giant Rosneft, confessed to the now jailed former minister Alexey Ulyukayev that he did not have high hopes for cooperation with China.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan testifies before a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Defense - FY2020 Budget request on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 1, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
* As the political turmoil in Venezuela deepened, the Pentagon on Friday downplayed concerns that the U.S. was operating with a lack of intelligence that could lead to a decision akin to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. * "I don't feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters. * Shanahan, like others in the administration, has previously said that all options are "on the table" when it comes to possible military action in Venezuela. He gave no further insight on Friday into the Pentagon's potential next steps.
WASHINGTON — As the political turmoil in Venezuela deepened, the Pentagon on Friday downplayed concerns that the U.S. was operating with a lack of intelligence that could lead to a decision akin to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
"I don't feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters Friday at the Pentagon. During President George W. Bush's administration, the U.S. invaded Iraq after citing faulty intelligence assessments that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Shanahan's comments came after he met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House national security advisor John Bolton on Friday at the Pentagon.
* Juan Guaido urged supporters to persuade the Venezuelan army to support him * In response, President Nicolas Maduro posed with several armed troops today * Maduro shook hands and exchanged fist bumps with soldiers at a military base
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro posed for a photo with thousands of soldiers today in a show of strength, after opposition leader Juan Guaidó tried to woo the armed forces to his side.
Days after Guaidó called in vain for a military uprising, national television showed Maduro wearing a camouflage hat as he shook hands and exchanged fist bumps with security forces during a visit to a military base. He watched some troops engage in a shooting exercise and received a chorus of applause from others.
'Loyal forever,' Maduro bellowed to a crowd of cadets in green uniforms.
* Military equipment part of a range that Beijing has sold to Caracas, its biggest Latin American customer
Authorities in Caracas have deployed Chinese-built armoured personnel carriers against protesters calling for the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Eight VN-4 "Rhinoceros" carriers were used on Tuesday against supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaidó in the country's capital, according to state broadcaster Venezolana de Televisión.
The carriers were rolled out a day after China sent emergency supplies to Venezuela, including about 65 tonnes of medicines and surgical products.
A member of the Libyan internationally recognised government forces fires during a fight with Eastern forces in Ain Zara, Tripoli, Libya April 28, 2019. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Gaza militants fired more than 250 rockets into Israeli towns and villages through Saturday, while Israel hit back with tank shelling and air strikes that Palestinian officials said killed four people.
Cross-border hostilities which broke out on Friday flared into a second day, with Palestinians fleeing Israeli strikes in Gaza and air-raid sirens sending Israelis running to shelters as interceptor missiles blew up rockets in the sky.
The escalation, which comes just ahead of both the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Israel's Independence Day holiday, prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene security chiefs.
Egyptian mediators, credited with brokering ceasefires in previous rounds of violence, were working to prevent further hostilities.
INDONESIA has sunk dozens of foreign boats within just hours to deter illegal fishing in its waters bordering the highly contended South China Sea, as the country continues to assert its sovereign authority over the area.
A SMUG looking Elon Musk was spotted enjoying a night out in Malibu with his girlfriend last night, jsut hours after signalling he will buy more than double the amount of Tesla shares he previously indicated he wanted.
RAMADAN is the holiest month in the Muslim calendar and it starts tomorrow on May 5. Here is a collection of Ramadan happy wishes, greetings, poems and Mubarak Kareem quotes.
ISRAEL has launched an air strike against more than 30 Gaza's militant strongholds, killing a toddler and a gunman after Palestinian dissidents fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
WASHINGTON has condemned Russia'a £8.35billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline project as a "geopolitical weapon" following claims it will increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas.
CANADIAN Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pushed tensions with US President Donald Trump aside amid reports the two have bonded over shared opinions of the media.
BRITAIN has "never felt comfortable" as a member of the European Union and it is not surprising the majority of voters chose to leave the bloc, Jean-Claude Juncker has said in a bombshell interview.
President Donald Trump initiated a lengthy call with his Russian counterpart on Friday, in which Vladimir Putin urged sanctions relief for North Korea and warned against interference in Venezuela, the Russian embassy in Washington said.
The leaders’ call lasted for 1.5 hours, according to a post on the embassy’s Facebook page, and the pair discussed a “shared commitment to step up dialogue in various areas, including on issues of strategic stability.” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday the leaders spoke for more than an hour.
Trump tweeted about the chat for a second time on Saturday, saying there was “tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia.”
Very good call yesterday with President Putin of Russia. Tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia, despite what you read and see in the Fake News Media. Look how they have misled you on “Russia Collusion.” The World can be a better and safer place. Nice!
Had a long and very good conversation with President Putin of Russia. As I have always said, long before the Witch Hunt started, getting along with Russia, China, and everyone is a good thing, not a bad thing….
On Friday, Trump told reporters at the White House that Putin had assured him Moscow isn’t seeking to “get involved” in the crisis in Venezuela, despite assertions by the U.S. president’s top national security advisers that the Kremlin is offering critical support to Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
“He is not looking at all to get involved in Venezuela other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela,” Trump said of Putin. “And I feel the same way.”
The conversation, which Trump went on to describe as “very positive,” appeared to be another example of Trump taking Putin’s claims at face value despite contrary evidence from his own government. Sanders said on Friday that Trump simply was “relaying what President Putin said to him. That’s it.”
The White House national security adviser, John Bolton, and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo both said earlier this week that the Kremlin talked Maduro out of leaving Venezuela after U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido attempted to end his regime on May 30 by calling for a military uprising.
In a video message posted Saturday on Twitter, Pompeo said that during an April visit to Cucuta, Colombia, on the Venezuelan border, he’d seen “first hand the misery that Maduro’s created, with the Russians’ and Cubans’ help.”
My message to the Venezuelan people is clear: the United States stands firmly with you in your quest for freedom and democracy. Your bravery and voices will put Venezuela on the path to liberty and prosperity, and we will partner with you every step of the way. #EstamosUnidosVEpic.twitter.com/poznzEPKYR
Russia’s take on Venezuela was that the South American nation has “the right to determine the future of their country” without outside interference, its embassy said. “Attempts to change the government in Caracas by force undermine prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.”
On North Korea, the Russian embassy said Putin and Trump “noted the importance of consistent progress towards denuclearization and achieving long-term normalization on the Korean Peninsula.” Putin briefed Trump about his April 25 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vladivostok.
Hours after their talk, North Korea fired numerous short-range projectiles off its eastern coast, according to South Korean authorities, a move seen as Kim’s latest and most provocative signal of frustration over talks with Trump following the pair’s failed summit in Vietnam in February.
Trump said Saturday on Twitter he was confident Kim “does not want to break his promise to me.”
Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!
President Donald Trump brushed off news of a possible weapons test by North Korea, vowing that leader Kim Jong Un “will do nothing to interfere” and that a denuclearization deal with the U.S. “will happen.”
Saturday’s tweet, posted while Trump was in a motorcade to the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, was the president’s first response to news overnight that Pyongyang had fired numerous short-range projectiles off its eastern coast on Saturday, according to South Korean authorities.
Anything in this very interesting world is possible, but I believe that Kim Jong Un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea, & will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him & does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!
The move was seen as Kim’s latest and most provocative signal of frustration over talks with Trump following the pair’s failed summit in Vietnam in February.
The significance of the test was difficult to assess as South Korea revised its account of the nature and scale of the weapons discharged from the eastern port of Wonsan just after 9 a.m. Saturday local time. After first calling them “missiles,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff later changed its description to “projectiles,” saying greater clarity would require more analysis.
The details are key since Trump has cited Kim’s self-imposed freeze on missile and nuclear weapons tests to support his decision to continue negotiations with the North Korean leader. South Korea’s descriptions of the incident suggested shorter-range rockets or artillery that would be less likely for the U.S. to interpret as a violation of Kim’s pledge to refrain from testing.
“We are aware of North Korea’s actions tonight. We will continue to monitor as necessary,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. National Security Adviser John Bolton briefed the president about the launch, according to a senior administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter.
The weapons were fired from the Hodo Peninsula, which has been the site of past live-fire artillery exercises, and traveled 70 to 200 kilometers (45 to 125 miles), the joint chiefs said earlier Saturday. The Yonhap News Agency later reported that the weapons fired were “not missiles,” citing unidentified lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials.
“Missiles are projectiles, but South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff might be using ‘projectile’ to imply an unguided rocket, like one of North Korea’s older rocket artillery systems,” said Ankit Panda, an adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. “This could also be a politicized attempt to make the word ‘missile’ not so prominent, in case that creates the kind of news cycle that Trump doesn’t want.”
The weapons test was nonetheless Kim’s most significant provocation since he launched an intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017, declared his nuclear weapons program “complete” and opened talks. South Korea President Moon Jae-in’s spokeswoman condemned the incident, saying in a statement that they “go against” a military agreement the two Koreas reached in September to halt “hostile activities.”
Kim has expressed increasing frustration since Trump refused his demands for sanctions relief and walked out of their second summit in Hanoi in February. After a year of talks, Kim has made only a pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” without defining the phrase.
The North Korean leader accused the U.S. of “bad faith” during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok last week. He had earlier told North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly that he would wait “with patience till the end of this year” for the U.S. to make a better offer.
A shorter-range test could also signal displeasure with South Korea’s participation in joint military drills with the U.S., despite Trump’s decision to scale down those exercises. North Korean state media has repeatedly complained about the drills in recent weeks and Kim pledged “corresponding acts” during his speech last month to the rubber-stamp parliament.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha discussed Saturday’s incident with U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo by phone, the ministry said in a statement. Nuclear envoy Lee Do-hoon made a separate call to U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun, who is slated to visit Japan and South Korea next week.
“This is an expected move from North Korea — not too provoking, but urging the U.S. to take a slightly stronger stance than their initial one,” said Kim Hyun-wook, of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy. “This seems like a message for Stephen Biegun’s planned trip to the peninsula.”
Japan’s defense ministry said Saturday that the country had not detected any missiles entering its exclusive economic zone and as such there was no immediate impact to its national security.
Although Saturday’s launch was the most significant since Kim’s detente with Trump, North Korea has announced more limited weapons tests in recent months. Kim personally oversaw the test-firing of a “new-type tactical guided weapon” last month, which South Korea later said appeared to be a system intended for ground combat and not a ballistic missile.
Descriptions of the current incident suggested weapons ranging from rocket-propelled artillery to multiple rockets fired from launchers, analysts said. Firing such a weapon could serve a range of goals from pushing back against South Korea, to reassuring Kim’s domestic audience of his leadership.
“The range they have would only be really good for hitting targets across the border in South Korea,” said Nathan Hunt, an independent defense researcher. “It could be seen that this was a signal to the ROK that the DPRK is losing patience,” referring to South Korea’s and North Korea’s formal names.
(DHAKA, Bangladesh) — A mammoth preparation exercise that included the evacuation of more than 1 million people appears to have spared India a devastating death toll from one of the biggest storms in decades, though the full extent of the damage was yet to be known, officials said Saturday.
Cyclone Fani packed winds of 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour when it made landfall in eastern Odisha state on Friday, equivalent in strength to a Category 4 hurricane, said Mohammad Heidarzadei, an expert on cyclones at Brunel University of London.
As of late Saturday, India’s National Disaster Response Force director S.N. Pradhan said three people had been killed, though the storm smashed thatched-roof huts, uprooted trees and power lines, ripped the roof off a medical college and sprayed the emptied coastline with debris.
“The precautions that have been taken should be continued,” Pradhan said.
Officials cautioned that the death toll could rise as communications were restored.
Fani crossed over India’s West Bengal state and moved northeast toward Bangladesh on Saturday, weakening from a severe cyclonic storm to a cyclonic storm.
At least a dozen people had been confirmed killed in Bangladesh as the cyclone hovered over the country’s southwestern coast early Saturday, delivering battering rain storms. Lightening killed at least six people, local newspapers and TV reported.
However, the death toll had not increased by Saturday afternoon, suggesting effective preparedness in Bangladesh as well.
Bad weather from the storm system was projected to affect around 100 million people in South Asia, from India’s distant Andaman Islands to Mount Everest in Nepal.
The relatively low casualty count demonstrates much improved disaster readiness in India since 1999, when a “super” cyclone killed around 10,000 people and devastated large parts of Odisha.
“In the event of such a major calamity like this — where Odisha was hit by close to a super-cyclone — instead of being a tragedy of humongous proportion, we are in the process of restoring critical infrastructure. That is the transformation that Odisha has had,” the state’s top government official, Naveen Patnaik, said in a statement.
India’s disaster response agency said authorities were working “on war footing” to restore power and communications, and clear roads of debris.
Widespread power outages, damaged water supplies and roads blocked by fallen trees and power lines made transport around the affected area difficult, officials said.
Pravat Ranjan Mohapatra, the deputy relief commissioner at Odisha’s emergency center, said his phone line and internet were down for most of Saturday.
“Earlier we were not able to connect with authorities for infrastructure damage, how many houses are damaged or how many people have died or were injured,” he said.
According to the Press Trust of India, one victim was a teenager killed by a falling tree in the district of Puri, a popular tourist area in Odisha. Another woman was killed while fetching water when she was struck by flying debris loosened from a concrete structure.
Another woman, age 65, died after a suspected heart attack at a cyclone shelter, PTI reported.
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Mumbai: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has clarified that the demand for burqa ban made in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana was not that of the Sena or its chief Uddhav Thackeray. In his weekly column published in Saamana's Sunday edition, Raut, who is the Marathi daily's executive editor, said, "The burqa ban was not the demand of Shiv Sena or Uddhav Thackeray. Saamana just published an analysis of the developments in Sri Lanka."
A Saamana editorial on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to follow Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's footsteps and ban burqas and other face-veils in India considering the "threat" they pose to the nation's security. Sri Lanka's decision came in the wake of the Easter Sunday terror attacks that killed over 250 people.
As the editorial created a flutter and drew sharp reactions from various quarters, senior Sena leader and MLC Neelam Gorhe on Wednesday said it was not the official stand of the party, which is an ally of the BJP. "It could be an individual's view…it is not the official stand of Shiv Sena," she said in a statement.
Hundreds of Muslim women on Friday protested against the Sena mouthpiece at Mumbra near here. Most of the women, who were wearing burqas or veils, shouted slogans against Raut, who is a Rajya Sabha member, and carried placards with the message 'Samvidhan Bachao, Desh Bachao' (save the Constitution, save the country).
On Thursday, veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar said he was not averse to enacting a law banning the burqa if it was accompanied with a similar action against the 'ghunghat' system prevalent among women in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, a Mumbai-based advocate on Saturday approached police and demanded action against Thackeray, Raut and others for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. Santacruz police station's senior inspector Shriram Koregoankar said they have received an application from advocate Munsif Khan but no case was registered.
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bharatiya Janata Party Bhopal candidate Pragya Singh Thakur has been sent a notice by District Election Officer here over a complaint of her campaigning during the 3-day period when she was barred by the EC from campaigning."
"I'm a Sanyasi. My life's base is spiritualism, Indian cultural symbols and values. If somebody stops me from practising this, I will leave it to their wisdom," said Thakur on the matter.
The Election Commission of India on Wednesday debarred Thakur from campaigning for three days in the Lok Sabha polls in the wake of her remark that she is proud of Babri Masjid's demolition. The remark was found violative of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by the poll body.
The district election officer sought a reply from Thakur on the notice.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has once again come out in support of right-wing personalities deemed "dangerous" by Facebook who have been banned on social media platforms, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and long-time Trump adviser Roger Stone.
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump not only defended members of the far-right but also retweeted Islamophobic content. "I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America — and we have what's known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!
"The wonderful Diamond and Silk have been treated so horribly by Facebook. They work so hard and what has been done to them is very sad – and we're looking into. It's getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!," he tweeted.
Diamond and Silk are two online personalities and outspoken supporters of the President. Trump also retweeted a video from Deep State Exposed, an alt-right account that contains Islamophobic tweets and conspiracy theories, including QAnon — a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by an alleged "deep state" against the President and his supporters.
Facebook and its photo-messaging service Instagram on May 2 banned several right-wing extremists it deemed "dangerous". Facebook and Instagram also banned the "Nation of Islam" leader Louis Farrakhan who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements.
Others who have been removed from Facebook and Twitter include Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer and Paul Nehlen "under the policies against dangerous individuals and organisations". Jones and Infowars — a far-right American conspiracy theory and fake news website — have already been removed from Twitter.
In 2017, Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim propaganda videos originally posted by Jayda Fransen, a leader of a far-right British political party called Britain First. More recently, the US President posted an edited video on Twitter that tried to link Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar to the 9/11 attacks, the media reported.
San Francisco: A former Google employee has revealed how a group of engineers plotted to kill Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 on its YouTube platform nearly 10 years ago. According to a report in The Verge on Saturday, YouTube in 2009 started displaying a banner to Internet Explorer 6 users, warning that support for Microsoft's browser would be "phasing out" soon. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Frustrated by supporting the aging browser, "we began collectively fantasizing about how we could exact our revenge on IE6", revealed Chris Zacharias, a former Google and YouTube engineer. "The plan was very simple. We would put a small banner above the video player that would only show up for IE6 users," he was quoted as saying. The message appeared on all YouTube pages – "at a time when IE6 users represented around 18 per cent of all YouTube traffic".
YouTube engineers created a special set of permissions called "OldTuber", so they could bypass Google's code enforcement policies and make changes directly to the YouTube codebase with limited code reviews. "We saw an opportunity in front of us to permanently cripple IE6 that we might never get again," Zacharias said.
Two Google lawyers wanted to know why YouTube had the banner in place. "They immediately demanded that we remove the banner," said Zacharias. "The lawyers were worried that Chrome was being promoted first as an alternative browser, prompting fears about EU regulators looking for anti-competitive behavior," the report noted.
YouTube engineers, however, had programmed the banner to randomly display browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer 8 and Opera. The result was a massive dip in Internet Explorer 6 traffic to YouTube.
"Within one month, our YouTube IE6 user base was cut in half and over 10 per cent of global IE6 traffic had dropped off while all other browsers increased in corresponding amounts," informed Zacharias. Google Chrome web browser, which is the leader today, was first released in September 2008 for Windows XP and later, with 43 supported languages, in December 2008.
Lucknow: Re-polling will be held in 10 polling stations in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. Eight centres in Shahjahanpur, one in Hamirpur and one in Agra will hold voting from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m.
The Election Commission has ordered re-polling as electronic voting machine (EVM) and VVPAT malfunctioning in these booths delayed the voting process by two or more hours.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday condemned the killing of a BJP leader in Jammu and Kashmir, saying there is no place for violence in the country. Militants shot dead BJP's district vice-president Gul Mohammed Mir in his house in Anantnag district on Saturday night.
"Strongly condemn the killing of @BJP4JnK leader Shri Ghulam Mohammed Mir. His contribution towards strengthening the party in J&K will always be remembered," Modi tweeted.
Strongly condemn the killing of @BJP4JnK leader Shri Ghulam Mohammed Mir. His contribution towards strengthening the party in J&K will always be remembered. There is no place for such violence in our country. Condolences to his family and well-wishers.
— Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 5, 2019
Extending condolences, he said, "There is no place for such violence in our country.
New Delhi: When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on April 24 that the company is actively working on to launch WhatsApp Pay in India, the message was clear to the digital payments leader in the country: Brace for the landfall.
The country's digital payments industry — estimated to hit $1 trillion by 2023 — is going to witness a seismic change this year with global players joining the bandwagon, creating flutters among the existing players, including Alibaba-backed Paytm which rules the market.
Amazon just announced the launch of Amazon Pay UPI for Android customers in the peer-to-peer (P2P) transaction market. Google Pay has also strengthened its presence — over 45 million users with recording $81 billion in transactions (at an annualised run-rate) in March.
Apple Pay would also arrive and with the lowering of iPhone prices in India, the service which has 390 million paid subscriptions globally and on track to reach 10 billion transactions — would reach more hands.
WhatsApp Pay, however, is going to be the real game changer — for a simple reason that it has the capability to become the top player in the Indian digital payments market with the word go.
WhatsApp currently has over 300 million users in India (Facebook has another 300 million in the country) and once it starts peer-to-peer (P2P) UPI-based payments service, the sheer numbers will take it beyond Paytm which last reported over 230 million users.
"Indians love WhatsApp, and will love the convenience of transacting through the app. I foresee a trend wherein entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises start embracing and using WhatsApp Pay," Prabhu Ram, Head, Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR, told IANS.
"This will contribute to, and increase their creditworthiness. In turn, this trend will enable them to easily borrow credit from formal sources, such as banks," Ram added.
Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma is aware that fierce global competition is coming his way. Sharma last year launched a Twitter attack on WhatsApp's parent company Facebook. "After failing to win war against India's open internet with cheap tricks of free basics, Facebook is again in play," Sharma had tweeted.
According to WhatsApp, almost one million people tested WhatsApp Pay to send money to each other in a simple and secure way. "In response to India's payments data circular, we've built a system that stores payments-related data locally in India," a WhatsApp spokesperson had told IANS. "WhatsApp Payment is useful for people in their daily lives and we hope to expand the feature to all of India soon so we can contribute to the country's financial inclusion goals," the spokesperson added.
The company on May 3 told the Supreme Court that it would comply with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) data localisation norms before launching the full payments service in the country.
According to Pavel Naiya, Senior Analyst, Devices and Ecosystem at Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, WhatsApp Pay will become an instant threat for products like Paytm Wallet and others who are using UPI as a method of transaction. "With the huge user base, WhatsApp Pay is already a good match to become a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platform for real-time payment," Naiya told IANS.
The entry of WhatApp Pay will give a significantly more positive and viral impetus to India's digital economy. "The rapid adoption of digital payments in India will be driven by WhatsApp, riding on its vast user base and strong vernacular language focus," added Ram.
Zuckerberg would finally merge all his platforms and the enormous user base would create a natural winner.
"In Instagram and Facebook, you have shopping and you have Marketplace, and you have all the tens of millions of small businesses that use Pages and a lot use Instagram for sharing their inventory and being able to help people discover and pay," the Facebook CEO told analysts during the earnings call.
According to Naiya, with Facebook and Instagram's platform support, "WhatsApp Pay is likely to further extend beyond P2P platform to become a payment gateway for the company's social commerce in the future". The die is cast. It is only matter of time when the Indian digital payments market sees a new leader.
Jerusalem: Israel attacked about 70 military targets of Hamas and Islamic Jihad organisations in the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Saturday, said a report by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli attack followed a barrage of more than 200 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel starting around 10 a.m., wounding two people, of whom was an 80-year-old woman seriously injured in the city of Kiryat Gat, Xinhua reported.
According to reports by the Israeli media, during the IDF attacks in Gaza Strip, a 14-month-old Palestinian infant was killed. The IDF announced that one of the destroyed Palestinian targets was an Islamic Jihad 20-metre-deep cross-border tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.
In addition, other Islamic Jihad targets were struck, including military compounds and refugee camps. According to the IDF, five military compounds of Hamas in the city of Gaza were also attacked, which are used for training and weapon manufacturing. One of the compounds, according to the Israeli army, serves the Hamas Naval Force. A joint compound belonging to both organisations was also under attack in the city of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold two public meetings in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior and Sagar cities on Sunday. The first meeting will take place at around 1.30 p.m. at the Kajalivan Maidan in Sagar, where he will meet Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and supporters.
At 4.30 p.m., Modi will preside over the second meeting at the Gwalior Vyapar Mela Ground. Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari are also slated to attend public events in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday.
Singh will meet the public in Guna and Dewas, while Gadkari will hold interactions in Ujjain and Bhopal.
Bengaluru: Shimron Hetmyer and Gurkeerat Singh Mann engineered an incredible turnaround that will linger long in IPL memory, powering Royal Challengers Bangalore to a four-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad here Saturday.
Both Hetmyer and Gurkeerat hit blazing fifties as RCB recovered from a hopelessly placed 20 for three in the third over to reach the 176-run target with four balls to spare. The win meant RCB ended what has been a forgettable season on a positive note, while SRH's hopes of securing a playoffs berth were kept on standby.
During their 144-run partnership for the fourth wicket, Hetmyer smashed half a dozen sixes and four boundaries for his 47-ball 75, while Gurkeerat made 65 in 48 deliveries with the help of eight fours and one maximum. This was the first time that RCB had a hundred-plus partnership since 2013 when Kohli and De Villiers were not involved.
After Parthiv Patel was snapped up early by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Virat Kohli got began RCB's riposte with two delightful strokes — a straight-driven boundary and a flicked six — but the mainstay nicked a length ball to stun the home crowd. More trouble was in store for RCB as they lost AB de Villiers, who snicked Bhuvneshwar to the first slip where Martin Guptill took a neat catch.
RCB were tottering at 20 for three in the third over but Shimron Hetmyer and Gurkeerat Singh Mann had other ideas. It rained sixes and fours as the duo of Hetmyer and Gurkeerat blunted the opposition attack with their exemplary batting, bringing the smiles back on the face of skipper Kohli and the faces of their faces. Gurkeerat was contend to play second fiddle to Hetmyer initially, when the Guyanese was dealing in fours and sixes, but opened up later.
Earlier, Kane Williamson dealt in fours and sixes as Sunrisers Hyderabad plundered 28 runs in the final over to reach a challenging 175 for seven. SRH were 147 for seven at the end of the 19th over but Williamson cut loose after that, smashing Umesh Yadav for two sixes and as many fours to finish the innings on a high. Williamson remained not out on 70 off 43 balls, hitting four sixes and five fours at the M Chinnaswami Stadium.
To make matters worse for Yadav, he was wrongly no-balled by umpire Nigel Llong. Sent into bat, SRH were off to a brisk start with Martin Guptill and Wriddhiman Saha (20) putting on 46 runs for the opening wicket in 4.3 overs, but the keeper-batsman failed to clear pacer Navdeep Saini as the visitors lost their first wicket.
After addition of another 14 runs to the team total, SRH lost their second wicket when Guptill was dismissed by Washington Sundar for a 23-ball 30. Manish Pandey, who stretched Mumbai Indians with his brave half century in their last game, fell cheaply, for nine, leaving the visitors in some trouble at 61 for three in the eighth over.
Picked in the World Cup bound Indian team for his 'three-dimensional' abilities, Vijay Shankar raced to 27 with the help of three sixes, but again failed to translate the start into a big score. Shankar was Sundar's third scalp of the evening and Yuzvendra Chahal picked up his 100th wicket in IPL when he lured Yusuf Pathan into playing an irresponsible shot to leave Sunrisers at 127 for five in the final ball of 16th over.
Even as wickets fell at regular intervals, Williamson looked to rotate the strike and also go for the big hits. Barring the opening stand, the only partnership that flourished a bit was the one between Williamson and Shankar, who ended up giving a catch while going for a slog sweep.
Williamson brought up his fifty in style, hoicking Yadav over long off for a six and followed that with some more lusty hits.
PM Modi condemns killing of BJP leader Gul Mohammad Mir in Anantnag Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday condemned the killing of BJP leader Gul Mohammad Mir, who was shot dead by the terrorists yesterday at Nowgam village in Anantnag district of south Kashmir.
'Will bring a 1000 people from UP and put them in your residence': BJP candidate Bharati Ghosh threatens TMC workers Ghosh, a former IPS officer who was once close to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said this while campaigning at Ghatal constituency shortly after the Trinamool Congress supremo warned her not to cross the limit of decency.
