BlackBerry names former SAP executive to head key business segment |
- BlackBerry names former SAP executive to head key business segment
- The mystery of America’s ‘virgin births’
- Brazil will not grant Snowden asylum, says report
- Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno,’ Roth’s ‘Allegiant’ end year as Amazon’s best-sellers
- Six die in Brazil landslides
| BlackBerry names former SAP executive to head key business segment Posted: 17 Dec 2013 04:58 PM PST
Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry said Sims will join the company in January from software giant SAP AG, where he served as president of SAP's mobile services business. BlackBerry's Chief Executive John Chen said Sims' extensive experience in transforming businesses will be a tremendous asset to BlackBerry as the company seeks to revive its faded fortunes. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry pioneered the concept of on-the-go email, and for years its pagers and phones were must-have devices for political and business leaders. But it has bled market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and a slew of phones powered by Google's Android software in recent years. The company's new line of smartphones that run on its all-new BlackBerry 10 operating system have failed to regain market share, prompting the company to consider a possible sale earlier this year. Last month, it shelved the sales process and opted to refinance by issuing US$1 billion (RM3.25 billion) in debt to a group of long-term investors including its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings. At the time, the company announced that John Chen, credited with turning around Sybase in the late 1990s, was taking over as its chief executive, replacing Thorsten Heins. New vision Chen, who took the reins in November, is keen to rebuild the company as a niche player focused on the so-called enterprise market that consists of large government and corporate clients. These security-focused customers were the ones that helped make BlackBerry devices ubiquitous back in the day. The company hopes that its new BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 platform — that allows such clients to now manage BlackBerry, Android and iOS-based devices on their internal networks — will help make its services indispensable to clients once again. It hopes that the offering will allow it to sell high-margin services to its large clients even if many, or all, of their employees are using devices made by BlackBerry's competitors. Chen, who was instrumental in the sale of Sybase to SAP in 2010, worked together with Sims at the German software company. Chen, who returned Sybase to profitability in the early 2000s, had stayed on until 2012 following Sybase's acquisition by SAP. Chen is expected to provide greater detail on his turnaround plans for BlackBerry on Friday, when the company announces its quarterly results. — Reuters   |
| The mystery of America’s ‘virgin births’ Posted: 17 Dec 2013 04:53 PM PST
That is the eye-popping figure reported yesterday by US researchers who trawled through a long-term study into reproductive health among young Americans. Out of 7,870 women who took part in the confidential research, 45 — 0.5 per cent — said they had conceived yet had not had vaginal intercourse. None said they had used in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to become pregnant, according to the paper, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Out of the 45, "there were some miscarriages and other pregnancy losses," said the authors. The study was based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which ran from 1995 to 2009, spanning life between adolescence and adulthood. It is deemed reliable and representative of US social and ethnic backgrounds. The young women reported their history of vaginal intercourse and pregnancy and their knowledge of birth control methods. Over 14 years, they responded to regular questionnaires, logging their answers on a laptop rather than in eye-contact interviews, although a helper was also present in the room in case the volunteer needed aid. Their age and commitment to a religion were also recorded, their parents were asked to say how much they had talked about sex or birth control and their school's director was asked to say what part sex education had in the curriculum. Nearly a third — 31 per cent — of the "virgin pregnancy" group said they had made a chastity pledge, a vow often promoted by conservative Christian church groups which argue sex should only take place in the context of marriage. In "non-virgins" who had become pregnant, 15 per cent had made the chastity pledge. Among those who said they were still a virgin, the proportion of chastity pledgers was 21 per cent. "Virgin mothers" were also more than two years younger, being 19.3 years on average when they gave birth, compared to "non-virgin" mothers whose average age at parenthood was 21.7 years. Lead author Amy Herring, a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the volunteers "weren't asked a question 'have you had a virgin pregnancy?', it was put together from a series of questions about pregnancy history and vaginal intercourse history." The findings raise intriguing questions about sexual education and awareness but also about the difficulties of getting accurate data about sex lives, she said in a phone interview with AFP. "Even though we thought that the questions were quite clear, there's still the possibility that some women misunderstood or misinterpreted them, such as simply giving the wrong year, or for whatever reason that they did not want to admit that they had had intercourse," Herring said. "Even though we used technology to try to enhance the candour of respondents, we still see responses that are unrealistic," she said. "In fact we went back a few weeks ago to see if this was a phenomenon that was confined only to the women, and we actually found a few virgin fathers as well — which is a little harder to get your head around." — AFP  |
| Brazil will not grant Snowden asylum, says report Posted: 17 Dec 2013 04:48 PM PST
The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, citing unnamed government officials, said the Brazilian government has no interest in investigating the mass Internet surveillance programmes Snowden revealed in June and does not intend to give him asylum. In an "Open Letter to the Brazilian People" published by Folha and social media, Snowden offered to help a congressional probe into NSA spying on the country, including the personal communications of President Dilma Rousseff. "I have expressed my willingness to assist wherever appropriate and lawful, but unfortunately the United States government has worked very hard to limit my ability to do so," the letter said. Snowden is living in Russia under temporary asylum that is due to expire in August. He had previously asked for asylum in Brazil, among other countries, but Brasilia did not answer his request. While Snowden stopped short of asking for asylum again in the letter, he suggested that any collaboration with Brazilian authorities would depend them granting him asylum. "Until a country grants permanent political asylum, the US government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak," Snowden wrote. The revelations of NSA spying damaged relations between the United States and Latin America's largest country and prompted Rousseff to cancel a state visit to Washington in October. The spying also led Rousseff to become a global advocate for curbs on Internet surveillance. Evidence that the NSA monitored Rousseff's email and cellphone, along with hacking the network of state-run oil company Petrobras, angered Brazilians and led the Senate to investigate the extent of US spying. Some members of Brazil's Congress have asked Russia for permission to interview Snowden but have received no reply, a congressional aide said. In a Twitter message, Senator Ricardo Ferraço, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said "Brazil should not miss the opportunity to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, who was key to unravelling the US espionage system." Other politicians, mainly opponents of Rousseff's leftist government, said granting Snowden asylum would be counter-productive and would lead to further deterioration of ties with the United States, Brazil's largest trading partner after China. Rights watchdog Amnesty International said Brazil should give "full consideration" to Snowden's claim for asylum. "It is his right to seek international protection, and it's also Brazil's international obligation to review and decide on his request under the refugee convention," Amnesty said in a statement. A Brazilian foreign ministry spokesman said Brazil has never received a formal application for asylum from Snowden and thus had nothing to consider. The original English version of Snowden's letter was published on the Facebook page of David Miranda, partner of journalist and blogger Glenn Greenwald, who first brought the Snowden leaks to the world's attention. Miranda started a petition on the website Avaaz, pressing Rousseff to grant asylum to the "courageous" Snowden. In his letter, Snowden praised Brazil's efforts at the United Nations to limit excessive electronic surveillance. Last month a UN General Assembly committee expressed concern at the harm such scrutiny, including spying in foreign states and the mass collection of personal data, might have on human rights, following a joint resolution introduced by Brazil and Germany. On Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed the suggestion that the United States could grant amnesty to Snowden if he turned over the documents in his possession. — Reuters  |
| Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno,’ Roth’s ‘Allegiant’ end year as Amazon’s best-sellers Posted: 17 Dec 2013 04:35 PM PST
Also featuring in the top five were romantic novel "The Husband's Secret" by Liane Moriarty and the professional guidance of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead." Of the top 20, only "Lean In" sold more in print than it did in digital, while top 10 authors Sylvia Day, John Grisham and David Baldacci made repeat appearances from 2012. In Young Adult, too, there was another duplicate performance, with Veronica Roth ("Allegiant"), Rick Riordan ("The House of Hades") and Jeff Kinney ("Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck") firmly established in the top three. Radio host Rush Limbaugh broke the top five with "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans" and Abbi Glines came in at fifth with "Never Too Far." Glines, along with Morgan Rice, actually occupied five of the top 20 places in YA, a feat Amazon attributes to its KDP self-published digital download programme. — AFP Relaxnews  |
| Posted: 17 Dec 2013 04:29 PM PST
"There are six fatalities. The bodies of a child and three adults have been recovered," a fire brigade official said. "When we tried to rescue the other two a new landslide prevented us from doing so." Both of the final two victims were children. Severe flooding last week in northeastern Brazil left 16 dead while days of heavy rain in Rio de Janeiro state left two people dead and some 2,000 families homeless. — AFP  |
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