Shocking Syria withdrawal plan is pure Trump
Updated 0609 GMT (1409 HKT) December 20, 2018
President Donald Trump once famously said he knew more about ISIS than US generals do. Now he wants to prove it.
His big gamble on a sudden and rapid Syria pullout, which broke on Wednesday, is classic Trump in execution and content after he effectively declared mission accomplished and the defeat of ISIS.
The President announced an apparently impulsive decision that shook the world, showed little sign of nuanced consideration, confounded top advisers and by the end of the day left Washington in chaos and confusion.
Google’s Earth: how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us
We knew that being connected had a price – our data. But we didn’t care. Then it turned out that Google’s main clients included the military and intelligence agencies. By Yasha Levine
The internet surrounds us. It mediates modern life, like a giant, unseen blob that engulfs the modern world. There is no escape, and, as Larry Page and Sergey Brin so astutely understood when they launched Google in 1998, everything that people do online leaves a trail of data. If saved and used correctly, these traces make up a goldmine of information full of insights into people on a personal level as well as a valuable read on larger cultural, economic and political trends.
Google was the first internet company to fully leverage this insight and build a business on the data that people leave behind. But it wasn’t alone for long. It happened just about everywhere, from the smallest app to the most sprawling platform.
Der Spiegel admits star reporter falsified stories 'on a grand scale'
Claas Relotius, the winner of the German Reporter Award 2018, admitted to cheating and resigned. Der Spiegel said the incident marked a "low point in the 70-year history" of the magazine.
Germany’s weekly news magazine Der Spiegel revealed on Wednesday that one of its star reporters had for years falsified stories "on a grand scale."
Less than three weeks ago, Claas Relotius, a 33-year-old staff writer at Der Spiegel, won the German Reporter Award 2018 in the category "best reportage" for a story about a young Syrian boy.
After the fraud came to light, following an in-depth internal investigation, the journalist admitted to cheating and resigned last week.
Gold medals, grey zones: Tokyo 2020 budget sparks dispute
Should weather forecasting satellites or roomy black cabs with distinctive logos be included in a country's Olympic budget?
That is a problem Japan and Tokyo 2020 organisers are wrestling with as they try to work out just how much they will end up spending on the Olympics.
Organisers will unveil the latest version of their budget on Friday and they face intense pressure to keep costs down.
The current budget for the Games -- last updated this time last year -- stands at 1.35 trillion yen ($12 billion at current exchange rates) and organisers have pledged it will not increase.
War and PestilenceThe Ongoing Fragmentation of Yemen
There are hopes that a cease-fire could end the fighting in Yemen's civil war. But a visit to the front near Hodeida shows that even if the violence stops, it will be difficult to keep the country together.
Even from a distance, the contours can be seen jutting out of the yellow-gray desert: mortar-riddled walls, sandbags on half-destroyed roofs, wrecked cars. A house with an interior of blue tiles has been stripped naked, its exterior walls largely destroyed but for the concrete pillars. A gas station sits unscathed in the middle of the ruins. It has no gas to sell, but still.
It's the last intersection before the battlefield, and its name could hardly be more misleading: al-Gabalayah, "the mountainous." The Tihama plain, which extends for hundreds of kilometers from north to sough, stretching flatly between the Red Sea and the shimmering mountain ranges of southwestern Yemen -- scorched, forgotten land.
Japan to pull out of IWC to resume commercial whaling
Japan has decided to pull out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), officials told AFP on Thursday, as Tokyo reportedly gears up to resume commercial whaling activity next year.
Such a move would spark international criticism against Japan over whale conservation and deepen the divide between anti- and pro-whaling countries.
"We are considering all options" including the possibility of withdrawal from the 89-member IWC, Fisheries Agency official Yuki Morita told AFP. Another official at the foreign ministry confirmed "all options are on the table but nothing formal has been decided yet".
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