Month: August 2019

Samsung unveiled a new version of the Galaxy Note smartphone on Wednesday with fast 5G network connection and improved camera features, hoping the premium model helps it revive slumping profit and widen the gap with struggling rival Huawei. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has emerged as the biggest beneficiary  of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s trouble in the second quarter with a nearly 7% jump in smartphone sales, as the Chinese firm sold fewer phones in the global market after it was put on a U.S. trade blacklist in May. With emphasis on improved video and photography features, which helped Huawei become the world’s No. 2 smartphone vendor, Samsung hopes the Galaxy Note 10 will appeal to YouTubers and fans of social media. Along with its first foldable phone, the big-screen Note 10, unveiled at an event in New York on Wednesday, is the South Korean tech firm’s most important new product planned in the second half of this year to expand its mobile sales. With two screen sizes of 6.3 inches and 6.8 inches, the Note 10 boasts enhanced video effects such as augmented reality and stabilization modes, and a front-facing camera centrally located at the top of the display for better selfies. It lacks a headphone jack, a tweak Apple Inc. made to its smartphones three years ago. The Note 10 will be sold starting at $949.99 while the bigger Note 10 plus will start at $1,099. The Note 10 model with 5G capability will start at $1,299.99. The phone …

North Korea is encouraging its beauty-conscious middle class women to choose domestic cosmetics over foreign brands in an effort to boost self-reliance as international sanctions deepen.  Promoting homegrown beauty has been a political strategy since the days of state founder Kim Il Sung, but has become more focused under his foreign-educated grandson, Kim Jong Un.  The international popularity in recent years of South Korea’s K-beauty trend — innovative cosmetic products with natural ingredients such as ginseng and snail slime — has added momentum, say defectors who fled the North and experts who study the isolated state.  But North Korea’s push has yet to translate to a winning formula, marred by quality issues and constraints in obtaining foreign ingredients because of sanctions over its nuclear program.  FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and wife Ri Sol Ju visit a cosmetics factory in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang, Oct. 28, 2017. Leader Kim Jong Un was once dismissive of domestic beauty products.  “Foreign eye liners or mascaras stay on even after get into water, but domestic products make raccoon eyes even with just a yawn,” Kim said during his visit to a Pyongyang cosmetics factory in 2015, according to the Japan-based Choson Sinbo newspaper.  But Kim has since visited cosmetics factories several times with his wife to promote the products.  Earlier this year, North Korea’s state-run television KRT aired a video about Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory showing a woman replacing Chanel products with …

Thousands marched Wednesday in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro, two days after the United States imposed the toughest sanctions yet on Venezuela.  National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s second most powerful leader, called the latest sanctions “a new aggression amongst the madness of genocides that govern the United States.”    Others at Wednesday’s rally accused President Donald Trump of wanting to “get his hands” on Venezuela.    Reporters in Caracas said most of those marching were government workers and militia members.    The Trump administration has banned all U.S. companies and individuals from doing business with the Maduro government as part of U.S. pressure to drive him from power.    The U.S. was the first of more than 50 countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president.     Guaido declared himself Venezuelan leader in January, using his constitutional authority as the National Assembly president to declare Maduro’s   re-election last year illegitimate because of fraud.    Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are Maduro’s top defenders.    Guaido’s popular uprising against Maduro earlier this year appears to have lost much of its steam, but the U.S. is still determined to see Maduro go and says military action is still on the table.    The collapse of world energy prices, corruption and failed socialist policies have wrecked the oil-rich Venezuelan economy. Basic food staples and fuel are in severely short supply, and millions of Venezuelans have fled the country.    Maduro has refused to consider early elections and has used violence against anti-government …

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rattled Taiwan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. The quake struck at 5:28 a.m. (21:28 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in northeastern Yilan county. Taiwan’s central weather bureau put its magnitude at 6.0. High rises swayed in the capital Taipei, waking people up from their sleep. Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by quakes. In April, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit the island, disrupting traffic and injuring 17 people. Taiwan’s worst tremor in recent decades was a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed about 2,400 people.   …

TOPEKA, KANSAS — Kansas plans to impose what some tax experts said Wednesday would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting state and local taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle.    The state Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes, and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on Internet sales.    Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.     The Republican-controlled Legislature included provisions on taxing Internet sales in two tax-cutting bills this year, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed both measures, saying they would destabilize the state’s finances. The Department of Revenue is imposing its new policy under an existing tax law that applied to out-of-state businesses but wasn’t being enforced because past court decisions prevented it.  ‘Insane’   “I think they’re insane,” said Diane Yetter, founder of the Sales Tax Institute in Chicago. Later, she added, “I just think Kansas is setting itself up for a lawsuit — and embarrassment, truthfully.”    Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart, a veteran tax attorney himself, said during an interview that the …

Ayaz Gul in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report. As Kashmir remained locked down for a second straight day, India’s parliament approved scrapping the special status that gave Kashmir significant autonomy, and passed a bill to split the state.  Plunged in a communications blackout and a virtual shutdown, it has been difficult to ascertain the reaction local residents to the radical steps. Curfew-like restrictions continued on Tuesday. Troops patrolled deserted streets with barbed wire barricades in the capital, Srinagar, while the internet, mobile and landlines remained suspended to stem protests in the region wracked by a violent separatist struggle for three decades.    The measures passed by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of parliament are being seen as a message that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take a tough stance on Kashmir and with rival Pakistan, with whom India has a long-running dispute over control of the Himalayan region.  After the vote, Modi called it a “momentous occasion in our parliamentary democracy.” In a tweet he said, “Together we are, together we shall rise, and together we will fulfill the dreams of 130 crore Indians!” The steps fulfill a long-standing pledge of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to end the constitutional provision that allowed Kashmir to have its own constitution and draft its own laws on all matters except foreign affairs, defense and communications.  Supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) light firecrackers and celebrate the government revoking Kashmir’s special status, in Lucknow, India, Tuesday, Aug. …

The Buddhist enclave of Ladakh cheered India’s move to break it away from Jammu and Kashmir state, a change that could spur tourism and help New Delhi counter China’s influence in the contested western Himalayas. Beijing, though, criticized the announcement, made on Monday by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of a wider policy shift that also ended Jammu and Kashmir’s right to set its own laws. In a statement on Tuesday, China said the decision was unacceptable and undermined its territorial sovereignty. Ladakh is an arid, mountainous area of around 59,146 square kilometers (22,836 square miles), much of it uninhabitable, that only has 274,000 residents. The rest of Jammu and Kashmir is roughly 163,090 square kilometres (62,969 square miles) with a population of some 12.2 million. China and India still claim vast swaths of each other’s territory along their 3,500 km (2,173 mile) Himalayan border. FILE – The sun sets in Leh, the largest town in the region of Ladakh, nestled high in the Indian Himalayas, India, Sept. 26, 2016. The Asian rivals had a two-month standoff at the Doklam plateau in another part of the remote Himalayan region in 2017. “The fact that India took this move … can be seen as one way that India is trying to counter growing Chinese influence in the region,” said Sameer Patil, a Mumbai-based fellow in international security studies at the Gateway House think-tank. In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China contests the …

Small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab announced on Tuesday a plan to recover the core booster of its Electron rocket using a helicopter, a bold cost-saving concept that, if successful, would make it the second company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX to reuse an orbital-class rocket booster. “Electron is going reusable,” Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said during a presentation in Utah, showing an animation of the rocket sending a payload into a shallow orbit before speeding back through Earth’s atmosphere. “Launch frequency is the absolute key here.”  The Auckland, New Zealand-based company is one of a growing cadre of launch companies looking to slash the cost of sending shoebox-sized satellites to low Earth orbit, building smaller rockets and reinventing traditional production lines to meet a growing payload demand. Electron, which has flown seven missions so far, can send up to 496 pounds (225 kg) into space for roughly $7 million. Medium-class launchers such as Los Angeles-based Relativity Space can send up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into space for $10 million while Cedar Park, Texas-based firm Firefly can do it for $15 million. FILE – A SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., June 25, 2019. Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which reignites its engines to land steadily back on Earth “propulsively” after much larger missions costing around $62 million, Rocket Lab’s Electron will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its fall through what Beck called “the …

Advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday in an effort to block a rule published last month that expands the number of migrants who can be subject to a sped-up deportation process without oversight by an immigration judge. The rule, published in the Federal Register on July 23, broadened the practice of “expedited removal” to apply to anyone arrested anywhere nationwide who entered the United States illegally and cannot prove they have lived continuously in the country for at least two years. Previously, only migrants caught within 100 miles of a U.S. border and who had been in the country for 14 days or less were subject to the fast-track process. Under expedited removal, migrants are not entitled to a review of their cases in front of an immigration judge or access to an attorney. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Council on behalf of three immigration rights groups, claims the government did not go through the proper procedures in issuing the rule and says it violates due process and U.S. immigration laws. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on the filing. President Donald Trump has struggled to stem an increase of mostly Central American families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, leading to overcrowded detention facilities and a political battle over immigration that is inflaming tensions in the country.  In El Paso, Texas, last weekend a gunman killed 22 people after apparently posting …

Tunisia’s biggest political party Ennahda named a candidate for presidential elections on Tuesday, the first time the moderate Islamist party has put up a nominee for the post since the country transitioned to democracy after the 2011 revolution. Party vice president Abdel Fattah Mourou, 71, a lawyer, will run in elections due to be held two months early on Sept. 15 following the death of president Beji Caid Essebsi last month. Liberal Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will also stand, his Tahaya Tounes party said last week, making him one of the likely frontrunners to succeed Essebsi. Other candidates who have announced their intention to run include liberal former Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Moncef Marzouki, who served as interim president for three years after autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was toppled. Essebsi was chosen in the first democratic presidential election in 2014. FILE – Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi gestures during a press conference in Tunis, Oct. 25, 2018. One of Ennahda’s most moderate leaders, Mourou has long demanded reforms to the party to make it more open and to distance it from the Muslim Brotherhood in other Arab countries. Critics say Mourou is two-faced, however, and holds contradictory positions on the role of the Islam in society. “Mourou is a highly regarded figure in Tunisia, he is able to unite Tunisians and to find consensus between rivals. This is what Tunisia needs now,” Imed Khmiri, a senior Ennahda official, told Reuters. Mourou is currently acting speaker of parliament …

Ugandan musician and opposition leader Bobi Wine is urging police to investigate the death of one of his supporters who died from injuries sustained during torture by unknown abductors. Wine said the victim, an entertainer whose stage name was Zigy Wyne, was missing an eye and two fingers when he was found dumped outside a hospital. He was hospitalized for a week before his death Sunday. Wine’s statement said that supporters of his People Power movement have been targeted by state agents. Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for People Power, said Tuesday that until police find contrary evidence the group presumes the torture was politically motivated.   Police spokesman Fred Enanga told reporters that police are investigating and urged the victim’s relatives to provide information to authorities.   …

The European Union says its door remains open should British Prime Minister Boris Johnson want to discuss his country’s departure from the bloc but it insists that the Brexit divorce agreement cannot be renegotiated. EU Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Tuesday that the Brexit agreement “is the best possible deal” that Britain is going to get. Johnson says he will take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal, raising fears of a damaging no-deal exit. He says the backstop arrangement to keep goods flowing smoothly between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland in the U.K. would bind his country to European trade rules and must be dropped from the Brexit agreement. Breidthardt says Brussels is available should Britain “wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail.” …

The scars from the nine bullets the gunman fired into Temel Atacocugu run down his left side like knotty rope. But it’s the recurring mental images from that day at the mosque that he often finds hardest to cope with: The gunman’s face. The puff of smoke from his gun. The worshippers falling as they clamored to escape. After coming so close to dying nearly five months ago, Atacocugu feels he has been “reborn.” And this week he plans to express his gratitude to God for being given the chance for a new life when he participates in the hajj, the holy Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. The 44-year-old kebab shop co-owner is among 200 survivors and victims’ relatives from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The king is paying for their airfare, accommodation and travel costs, a bill that will run well over $1 million. The group will also travel to holy sites in Medina. Lives Forever Changed by Christchurch Shootings On a small farm on the outskirts of Christchurch in New Zealand, Omar Nabi digs a small hole and sharpens a knife as he prepares to slaughter a sheep as a blessing to his father — a victim of the mass killings at the Al Noor mosque. Hunched between his father’s collection of rusted cars, Nabi softly said a prayer and slit the animal’s neck, facing it towards Mecca. He removed the pelt and prepared the meat for cooking. Blood …