VIDEO: From tyres to shoes in Ethiopia

VIDEO: From tyres to shoes in Ethiopia


VIDEO: From tyres to shoes in Ethiopia

Posted: 19 May 2013 10:39 PM PDT

George Alagiah has been to a shoe factory with a difference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

VIDEO: Syria army 'storms' rebel town Qusair

Posted: 19 May 2013 04:49 AM PDT

Syrian government forces have surrounded the rebel stronghold of Qusair and are storming it from several directions, says Syrian state TV.

5 Reasons Tumblr + Yahoo is Good For Users

Posted: 19 May 2013 08:18 PM PDT

Whenever a spunky, growing startup gets sold to an established player, the cry goes out. Users won't like it. The culture will be ruined. The startup will be subsumed by its parent. Sometimes it's true,  but in the case of the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr, I think there's an argument to be made that everyone wins. Tumblr users, Yahoo users, and the investors and staffs of both teams. Here's five reasons why critics are worried, and why they are wrong. 1. Yahoo will ruin Tumblr with ads. Tumblr is a 6-year-old company with $112 million in investor funds.  There has been pressure, one presumes from the board, to get the site to profitability and ads went from zero to $13 million in 2012, and were projected to reach $100 million by 2013.  Simply put, without a deep-pocketed parent, Tumblr was going to have to embrace ads, even as founder and CEO David Karp has said as recently as 2010 that ads "turn his stomach." So, will Yahoo junk up the Tumblr experience with a ton of ads? No way. Yahoo needs Tumblr to remain pure, and to keep the core users happy. Yahoo has plenty of related ad supported pages to introduce to the Tumblr community,  and tons of new video offerings that will come with pre-roll avails. What Yahoo needs from Tumblr is its powerfully engaged,  and curation capable use base. So the Yahoo deal protects the Tumblr users from an onslaught of ads that otherwise were on the horizon. This is good for both.

5 Reasons Tumblr + Yahoo is Good For Users

Posted: 19 May 2013 05:55 PM PDT

Whenever a spunky, growing startup gets sold to an established player, the cry goes out. Users won't like it. The culture will be ruined. The startup will be subsumed by its parent. Sometimes it's true,  but in the case of the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr, I think there's an argument to be made that everyone wins. Tumblr users, Yahoo users, and the investors and staffs of both teams. Here's five reasons why critics are worried, and why they are wrong. 1. Yahoo will ruin Tumblr with ads. Tumblr is a 6-year-old company with $112 million in investor funds.  There has been pressure, one presumes from the board, to get the site to profitability and ads went from zero to $13 million in 2012, and were projected to reach $100 million by 2013.  Simply put, without a deep-pocketed parent, Tumblr was going to have to embrace ads, even as founder and CEO David Karp has said as recently as 2010 that ads "turn his stomach." So, will Yahoo junk up the Tumblr experience with a ton of ads? No way. Yahoo needs Tumblr to remain pure, and to keep the core users happy. Yahoo has plenty of related ad supported pages to introduce to the Tumblr community,  and tons of new video offerings that will come with pre-roll avails. What Yahoo needs from Tumblr is its powerfully engaged,  and curation capable use base. So the Yahoo deal protects the Tumblr users from an onslaught of ads that otherwise were on the horizon. This is good for both.

5 Reasons Tumblr + Yahoo is Good For Users

Posted: 19 May 2013 08:18 PM PDT

Whenever a spunky,  growing startup gets sold to an established player, the cry goes out.  Users won't like it.  The culture will be ruined.  The startup will be subsumed by its parent.  Sometimes it's true,  but in the case of the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr,  I think there's an argument to be made that everyone wins.  Tumblr users,  Yahoo users,  and the investors and staffs of both teams.  Here's five reasons why critics are worried, and why they are wrong. 1. Yahoo will ruin Tumblr with Ads. Tumblr is a 6-year-old company with 112 million in investor funds.  There has been pressure,  one presumes from the Board, to get the site to profitability and ads went from zero to $13 million in 2012, and were projected to reach $100 million by 2013.  Simply put,  without a deep-pocketed parent, Tumblr was going to have to embrace ads,  even as founder and CEO David Karp has said as recently as 2010 that ads "turn his stomach." So,  will Yahoo junk up the Tumblr experience with a ton of ads?  No way.  Yahoo needs Tumblr to remain pure,  and to keep the core users happy. Yahoo has plenty of related ad supported pages to introduce to the Tumblr community,  and tons of new video offerings that will come with pre-roll avails.  What Yahoo needs from Tumblr is its powerfully engaged,  and curation capable use base.  So the Yahoo deal protects the Tumblr users from an onslaught of ads that otherwise were on the horizon. This is good for both.

5 Reasons Tumblr + Yahoo is Good For Users

Posted: 19 May 2013 05:55 PM PDT

Whenever a spunky,  growing startup gets sold to an established player, the cry goes out.  Users won't like it.  The culture will be ruined.  The startup will be subsumed by its parent.  Sometimes it's true,  but in the case of the Yahoo purchase of Tumblr,  I think there's an argument to be made that everyone wins.  Tumblr users,  Yahoo users,  and the investors and staffs of both teams.  Here's five reasons why critics are worried, and why they are wrong. 1. Yahoo will ruin Tumblr with Ads. Tumblr is a 6-year-old company with 112 million in investor funds.  There has been pressure,  one presumes from the Board, to get the site to profitability and ads went from zero to $13 million in 2012, and were projected to reach $100 million by 2013.  Simply put,  without a deep-pocketed parent, Tumblr was going to have to embrace ads,  even as founder and CEO David Karp has said as recently as 2010 that ads "turn his stomach." So,  will Yahoo junk up the Tumblr experience with a ton of ads?  No way.  Yahoo needs Tumblr to remain pure,  and to keep the core users happy. Yahoo has plenty of related ad supported pages to introduce to the Tumblr community,  and tons of new video offerings that will come with pre-roll avails.  What Yahoo needs from Tumblr is its powerfully engaged,  and curation capable use base.  So the Yahoo deal protects the Tumblr users from an onslaught of ads that otherwise were on the horizon. This is good for both.

India gripes over border, trade woes on Li's first foreign trip

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:53 PM PDT

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Sunday a recent military standoff in the Himalayas could affect relations between the two countries as they looked to boost bilateral trade.

Imran Khan's party wins revote in Karachi, protests expected

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:31 PM PDT

Khan, Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician and chairman of political party PTI, addresses his supporters during an election campaign in KarachiISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Cricket hero Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf party won a revote in an upmarket constituency of Karachi on Sunday, unofficial results showed, a day after gunmen killed a party leader, setting the stage for protests and counter-protests. Khan blamed the killing of Zara Shahid Hussain on the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party, which has a stranglehold on the city. Furious MQM leaders denied responsibility, condemned the killing and demanded a retraction from Khan. ...


China asks NKorea to release fishing boat, crew

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:28 PM PDT

BEIJING (AP) — China is urging North Korea to release a Chinese fishing boat whose owner says it was seized by gun-toting North Koreans earlier this month and held for ransom, in the latest irritant in relations between the neighboring allies.

SAPVoice: The Overlooked: Social Media Marketing For Senior Citizens

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:38 PM PDT

By Katie Moran, Boston College

The Impossible Feat of Madonna's Billboard Award-Winning MDNA Tour

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:24 PM PDT

Sunday night Madonna received a Billboard Music Award for the Top Touring Artist of 2012. Her MDNA tour, which brought in $305 million, was a musical and visual extravaganza. Madonna performed with 140,000 pounds of gear suspended above her head. She danced on 42-square-inch squares undulating up and down, reaching eight feet above the stage. What's more, at each of the 88 stops of the tour, the stage had been built in a few short hours by a local crew who has never seen it (or the traveling roadies) before. Rock concerts descend upon a host site and then quickly disappear. The only certainty is that of unforeseen obstacles. How do they get the show to go on every night, no matter what?

Study: 78% Of Salespeople Using Social Media Outsell Their Peers

Posted: 19 May 2013 06:51 PM PDT

When Jim Keenan, the social sales specialist, describes his work today, he'll tell you that he's "ushering salespeople from the old world into the social world" - the cold calling world to the Twitter world, the salespeople who call prospects incessantly to the salespeople who educate their prospects with relevant content. Keenan's argument in the The Rise of Social Salespeople is that using social media to sell - increases profits.

Credit Suisse Says Wearable Tech "The Next Big Thing"

Posted: 19 May 2013 06:41 PM PDT

Wearable tech isn't new but Credit Suisse (as cited by Barron's here) is calling it "the next big thing" and forecasting the market to ramp from about $3B – $5B today to $50B over the next 3-5 years. The implications and opportunities for clinical healthcare (not just fitness/wellness) are intriguing. As this unfolds, it could easily be that the Credit Suisse forecast is overly conservative. One of the slides in the Credit Suisse report included many of the devices that are well known in the mobile and digital health circles – including the new Shine by Misfit Wearables.   There's good reason to be bullish. At a health conference last year – the CIO of a teaching hospital shared a provocative statistic that his organization had uncovered in their ROI analysis of a large iPad purchase. At the time, the hospital was debating the merits of such a large financial commitment – so they tasked the CIO to do a crude ROI analysis to justify the sizable expense. Was the ROI 6 months – or maybe a year? The (unscientific) results were jaw dropping. Using some crude calculations around workflow and time-motion analysis the CIO calculated the ROI for an iPad in their hospital would be 9 days. That's right – 9 days.

Imran Khan's party wins revote in Karachi, protests expected

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:32 PM PDT

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Cricket hero Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf party won a revote in an upmarket constituency of Karachi on Sunday, unofficial results showed, a day after gunmen killed a party leader, setting the stage for protests and counter-protests.

Analysis: At margins of shale oil boom, a tempered euphoria

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:09 PM PDT

A naturally occurring oil seep is seen in McKittrickBy Kristen Hays and Jonathan Leff HOUSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - For the past three years, the boom in the U.S. shale oil industry has outstripped all expectations. Production surged far faster than any forecasts; drillers raced to secure space in new pipelines to get their crude to market. Now, at the periphery, that may be changing - at least for a while. News from two of the country's less developed shale plays in Colorado and Ohio last week offer a reality check for the wave of euphoria that has washed across the industry. ...


Insight: The fight for North Dakota's fracking-water market

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:48 PM PDT

The Trenton Water Depot in TrentonBy Ernest Scheyder WATFORD CITY, North Dakota (Reuters) - In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting." It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the right to tap into the multimillion-dollar market to supply water to the energy sector. North Dakota now accounts for over 10 percent of U.S. ...


Asia markets up after US delivers positive data

Posted: 19 May 2013 08:51 PM PDT

BANGKOK (AP) — Evidence of a steady economic recovery in the U.S. helped push Asian stock markets higher Monday.

Spring Time: Time To Get Efficient

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:13 PM PDT

At Betterment, we don't do spring cleaning. We do spring efficiency. It's the equivalent of clearing out the winter cobwebs once and never having to do it again.

The Untold Truth About What Really Happens When Madison Avenue Becomes Publicly Held

Posted: 19 May 2013 08:59 PM PDT

When asked who had the most influence on advertising in the 20th Century, most people point to David Ogilvy. Few remember Marion Harper Jr., whose influence on the business of advertising as it's practiced today is even greater.

Consumer group flags high SPF ratings on sunscreen

Posted: 19 May 2013 08:45 PM PDT

FILE - In this June 14, 2011 file photo, Alivia Parker, 21 months, runs through circles of spraying water on a 100 degree day in Montgomery, Ala. Parker is wearing sunscreen with an SPF of 100. Sunbathers headed to the beach this summer will find new sunscreen labels on store shelves that are designed to make the products more effective and easier to use. But despite those long-awaited changes, many sunscreens continue to carry SPF ratings that some experts consider misleading and potentially dangerous, according to a consumer watchdog group. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)WASHINGTON (AP) — Sunbathers headed to the beach this summer will find new sunscreen labels on store shelves that are designed to make the products more effective and easier to use. But despite those long-awaited changes, many sunscreens continue to carry SPF ratings that some experts consider misleading and potentially dangerous, according to a consumer watchdog group.


Syrian Army Moves Into Rebel-Held Qusayr

Syrian Army Moves Into Rebel-Held Qusayr


Syrian Army Moves Into Rebel-Held Qusayr

Posted: 19 May 2013 01:01 PM PDT

Pro-government fighters pushed into parts of Qusayr, in an advance that would be a serious setback for opponents of President Bashar al-Assad and further inflame regional tensions.
    


Report: Yahoo to buy Tumblr for $1.1bn

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:07 PM PDT

Board of internet giant Yahoo agrees to purchase popular blogging platform for $1.1bn, Wall Street Journal reports.

Morsi rules out talks over Sinai hostages

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:18 PM PDT

Egyptian president vows not to negotiate with kidnappers who abducted group of policemen and soldiers last week.

Boko Haram militants 'in disarray'

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:04 PM PDT

The Nigerian military says that Boko Haram militants in the north-east of the country are "in disarray" as a result of its offensive against them.

India gripes over border, trade woes on Li's first foreign trip

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:59 AM PDT

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told visiting Chinese President Li Keqiang on Sunday a recent military standoff in the Himalayas could affect relations between the two countries as they looked to boost bilateral trade.

Canadian prime minister's top aide quits over expenses scandal

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:57 PM PDT

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The top aide to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper abruptly resigned on Sunday over his role in an mounting expenses scandal which is threatening to undermine the Conservative government.

North Korea launches missile into sea

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:36 AM PDT

North Korea fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan, South Korea's semi-official Yonhap news agency reports, citing a South Korean military official.

US spy-row diplomat 'leaves Russia'

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:22 AM PDT

US diplomat Ryan Fogle, accused by Russia accused of being a spy, has now left the country according to Russian television.

The Caucus: Obama Urges Morehouse Graduates to ‘Keep Setting an Example’

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:40 AM PDT

Obama told Morehouse College graduates that "laws, hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks like you can serve as president."
    


Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1 Billion

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:19 AM PDT

Yahoo's move aims to make up for years of missing out on the growth of social networks and mobile devices.
    


Nigeria offers amnesty to insurgents who surrender

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:16 AM PDT

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria offered an amnesty on Sunday to Islamist militants who surrender and said 17 people had been killed on the fifth day of a military operation to try to crush the Boko Haram insurgency in the country's northeast.

Yahoo 'to buy Tumblr for $1.1bn'

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:08 AM PDT

Yahoo's board approves a deal to buy New York-based blogging service Tumblr for $1.1bn (£725m), US media reports say.

Treasury claims banks 'safer in UK'

Posted: 18 May 2013 04:23 PM PDT

The latest UK government paper on the impact of Scottish independence will claim the UK is better placed to manage the risk of a financial crisis.

Dubai laborers stage rare strike for more pay

Posted: 19 May 2013 11:06 AM PDT

DUBAI (Reuters) - Thousands of workers employed by Dubai's largest construction firm, Arabtec, stayed away from work on Sunday to back wage demands, a rare labor protest in the Gulf emirate, where trade unions are banned, staff said.

The Caucus: White House Aide Calls Criticism of Obama ‘Offensive’

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:16 PM PDT

Dan Pfeiffer, a senior White House adviser, appeared on five network talk shows to mount a defense against Republican lawmakers who accused the president of mismanagement.
    


Hezbollah steps up Syria battle, Israel threatens more strikes

Posted: 19 May 2013 01:11 PM PDT

AMMAN (Reuters) - Lebanese Hezbollah militants attacked a Syrian rebel-held town alongside Syrian troops on Sunday and Israel threatened more attacks on Syria to rein the militia in, highlighting the risks of a wider regional conflict if planned peace talks fail.

In Iran, opponents use age to attack Rafsanjani campaign

Posted: 19 May 2013 10:11 AM PDT

TEHRAN — In a political order where elderly men have long been considered the most fit leaders, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's age — 78 — is the latest reason his detractors say he should not be allowed to run for president of Iran.

Read full article >>
    


Assassination Shakes New Round of Voting in Pakistan

Posted: 19 May 2013 12:28 PM PDT

A day after the killing of a prominent opposition party figure, turnout in a wealthy district of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, was minimal.
    


Philpott mother to fight jail term

Posted: 19 May 2013 07:42 AM PDT

A lawyer representing Mairead Philpott, who killed her six children in a fire, says she will appeal against her 17-year jail term.

Blue plaque for Morecambe and Wise

Posted: 19 May 2013 09:58 AM PDT

A blue plaque in tribute to comedy double act Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise is unveiled at Teddington Studios.