Author: News Desk

In the latest iteration of his increasingly frantic pushback against the impeachment inquiry in the House, President Trump on Thursday said investigators should call former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter to testify in the probe. Trump tweeted a quote, attributed to Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asking how Hunter Biden was qualified to sit on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was carrying out U.S. policy against corruption in Ukraine. “A very good question,” Trump tweeted. “He and Sleepy Joe must testify!” The impeachment hearings were triggered by allegations that the White House pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr…

Russian internet giant Yandex has started testing autonomous delivery robots, the latest addition to its technological arsenal, the company said on Thursday. Named after the space exploration device, the Yandex.Rover is a cabin suitcase-sized robot that can navigate pavements at walking pace, carrying small packages, using adapted technology from the firm’s self-driving cars unit. Yandex, often described as ‘Russia’s Google’, operates a number of services that could benefit from autonomous delivery, in particular its restaurant delivery service Yandex.Eda, e-commerce arm Yandex.Market, a joint venture with Russian lender Sberbank, and recently launched service for grocery delivery, Yandex.Lavka. Testing for the Yandex.Rover…

The International Criminal Court sentenced former Congolese military leader Bosco Ntaganda on Thursday to 30 years in prison for atrocities including murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers. Ntaganda, 46, was found guilty in July on 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for acts committed when he was military chief of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002-2003. At Thursday’s sentencing, Judge Robert Fremr said there were no real mitigating circumstances and issued the 30-year sentence, the longest handed down by the Hague court to date. “The crimes for which…

The euro zone will restrain spending under draft budget plans submitted by the bloc’s governments, the European Commission forecast on Thursday, despite calls to counter a worsening economic slowdown. In its quarterly economic forecasts, Brussels said Germany, the largest economy in the 19-country bloc, would keep a budget surplus at least until 2021, although the surplus would narrow. High-debt countries would keep spending, despite recommendations for thriftiness. France’s deficit would be above the EU ceiling this year and Italy’s debt would grow to nearly 140% of output, the Commission predicted. Despite a worsening growth outlook [L8N27N42W], Germany is set to…

North Korea on Thursday called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe an “idiot and villain” who should not even dream of setting foot in Pyongyang, in a media commentary laden with insults in response to his criticism of a North Korean weapons test. North Korea tested what it called “super-large multiple rocket launchers” on Oct. 31, but Japan said they were likely ballistic missiles that violated U.N. sanctions. Abe condemned the test at an Asian summit this week, while saying he was eager to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “without conditions” to resolve the issue of Japanese nationals abducted…

After initially naming only one ship, Brazilian authorities have added four more tankers as suspects in the investigation into the source of oil tarring its coastline over the past two months, according to a document on Wednesday. Brazilian investigators said last week that a Greek-flagged tanker named Bouboulina and owned by Delta Tankers Ltd was a suspect as the possible cause of the oil spill. Delta denied responsibility, saying the vessel arrived to its destination without losing any fuel or part of the cargo. On Wednesday, Delta Tankers said in a statement that it had been notified of the investigation.…

As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts on Thursday warned of the risks to privacy from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in “modernising the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification”, according to India’s national crime bureau. Likely to be among the world’s biggest facial recognition systems, the government contract is due to be awarded on Friday. But there is little information on where it will be deployed, what the data will be used for and how…

Uber said it “will likely” have to strike a licensing deal with Waymo or opt for costly changes to its autonomous driving software after an expert found the ride-hailing giant still used technology from the Alphabet Inc unit. While it was unclear by when the company needed to decide on its next move in the blockbuster trade secrets dispute, Uber, in a quarterly securities filing on Tuesday, said that a detour in its software development “could limit or delay our production of autonomous vehicle technologies.” Uber has been racing to catch up to Waymo in the development of software and hardware to…

Hong Kong students, many wearing banned black masks, chanted slogans at their graduation at the Chinese University on Thursday, with some holding up banners urging “Free Hong Kong, Revolution Now”. The students defied a ban on masks that the government imposed last month in a bid to curb sometimes violent unrest that has rocked the Chinese-ruled city for more than five months. Dressed in formal graduation gowns, many of about 1,000 students chanted as they walked to the hill-top ceremony, near the New Territories town of Sha Tin, calling for the government to respond to protesters’ “five demands, not one…

U.S. congressional committees conducting an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump are due to hear for the first time on Thursday from a top adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, one of the last witnesses to testify behind closed doors before public hearings start next week. The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees have called Jennifer Williams, a career foreign service officer and special adviser to Pence for Europe and Russia, to testify behind closed doors on Thursday morning. Lawmakers will look to Williams for information about how much Pence knew about efforts by Trump and those…