Parisians bid goodbye to a year of unprecedented terror attacks when clocks chimed midnight Friday, as thousands of defiant revellers thronged the Champs-Elysees for New Year's Eve celebrations.

While the traditional fireworks display was cancelled this year over fears of a terrorist attack, crowds still filled the iconic boulevard lined with trees donning sparkling garlands to welcome 2016.

"It's New Year. We wanted to have fun as usual, in spite of everything, so we came on the Champs as this is the perfect place for it," said Joy along with her friend Rebecca, in their 20s, who came for the celebrations.

"I'm not particularly scared," said Joy. "An attack can happen anywhere at any time. But that can't stop us from living."

Behind her, Western tourists uncorked a bottle of wine while some Asian visitors took a photo and several older couples danced.

The festivities are the largest public gathering since jihadists killed 130 people in Paris in November in a wave of gun and suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group.

"After what our city has lived through, we have to send a signal to the world," said Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, promising a "sombre and dignified show".

In the Place de la Republique square in central Paris, visitors flocked to an open air shrine for the victims of the November 13 attacks.

Lila Rehane, a 49-year-old from the southern French city of Marseilles who came to pay homage at the site, said she wanted to see peace return in 2016 after a year of "anguish".

- 'Crappy year' -

Published: 03 January 2016

Read more ...

At least 24 people were killed when a passenger bus plunged into a ravine after a head-on collision with a truck in northern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, in the latest deadly road accident.

Women and children were among those killed in the accident Thursday on a major highway in Samangan province.

"The crash happened when the bus carrying more than 50 passengers was travelling from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif," said Sarajuddin Fitrat, the governor of Hazrat Sultan district where the accident occurred.

"Twenty four people were killed and 17 others were injured."

The defence ministry in Kabul gave a much higher death toll of 43.

The injured were rushed to hospital while police and a rescue team retrieved the bodies.

Published: 26 December 2015

Read more ...

New Yorkers doing some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve left their winter coats at home Thursday as temperatures soared to record highs.

The mercury hit 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 Celsius) in the morning, prompting some people in the Big Apple to head out in T-shirts even though skies were overcast.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures could soar to 74 degrees Fahrenheit in the city's iconic Central Park later in the day -- that would be a first for the date since weather record keeping began in 1871.

The previous record for December 24, 63 degrees, dates back to 1996.

Published: 26 December 2015

Read more ...

JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay $150 million to resolve a securities fraud lawsuit by investors suing the bank over its "London Whale" trading scandal, which caused a $6.2 billion loss.

The settlement was disclosed in papers filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan and would resolve a class action lawsuit filed in the wake of the scandal that emerged in 2012.

The lawsuit stemmed from oversight by JPMorgan's Chief Investment Office of a synthetic credit portfolio that caused the $6.2 billion loss and was linked to traders in the bank's London office including Bruno Iksil, the so-called London Whale.

Shareholders accused JPMorgan of knowingly hiding increased risks at the Chief Investment Office, including on an April 13, 2012, conference call when JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon called reports about the synthetic portfolio a "tempest in a teapot."

Published: 22 December 2015

Read more ...

From London and Paris to New Delhi and Sao Paulo, traditional taxi drivers united worldwide against Uber in 2015, a year that saw riots, legal battles and even a kidnapping in protest against the startup.

Since first winning customers in San Francisco five years ago, Uber has enjoyed spectacular global growth by allowing customers to hail drivers using a smartphone app and bypass traditional taxi services.

But the company, now operating in 58 countries and valued at more than $50 billion, has suffered a bumpy ride on the road to success, infuriating conventional cab firms and battling regulators across numerous nations.

The firm's safety standards have also been called into question after Uber drivers were accused of abduction and sexual attacks of female passengers in India and the United States.

In New Delhi authorities attempted to ban the firm, after it was accused of failing to conduct adequate background checks on a driver who last month was jailed for life for the rape of female passenger in his car. But Uber has flouted the ban much to the outrage of traditional car services.

In many countries, cabbies say Uber represents unfair competition because its drivers are not subject to the often-strict rules and restrictions that govern conventional firms.

Their anger boiled over in 2015, notably in Paris where rioting by heavily unionised taxi drivers and the arrest of Uber executives in June led the startup to suspend its low-cost UberPOP service -- six months after it was banned.

Licensed cabbies, who in some countries must undergo hundreds of hours of training, accuse Uber of endangering their jobs by flooding the market with cheaper drivers who only need a GPS to get around.

- 'Pushed to the brink' -

"Taxi drivers, alright -- they've got big mouths -- but normally they're not aggressive," said Malia, who has driven a taxi in Paris for three years said of the riots in the city, which included torching of cars.

"But these guys have families to feed, debts. They've been pushed to the brink."

Uber does not employ drivers or own vehicles, but instead uses non-professionally licensed contractors with their own cars, allowing them to run their own businesses.

In London, 1,500 of the city's iconic black cabs blocked streets in September, while Mayor Boris Johnson raised drivers' ire after calling those opposed to new technology "Luddites".

Black cabbies spend three years studying for "The Knowledge", a gruelling test that requires them to memorise every street in London before gaining a licence, a tradition dating back to the 1800s.

They say they are being squeezed by the popular, cheaper Uber.

Published: 21 December 2015

Read more ...

Anti-Christmas protesters calling themselves "Losers with Women" marched through Tokyo's streets Saturday, bashing the upcoming holiday as a capitalist ploy that also discriminates against singletons.

The group of about 20 -- part of the Communist-inspired group that routinely protests Western holidays -- marched under angry banners that read "Smash Christmas!" in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where couples and families strolled for holiday shopping.

The scrooges -- mostly single men -- said they were against capitalism and were opposed to the commercialisation of Christmas.

"In this world, money is extracted from people in love, and happy people support capitalism," said the head of the organisation, formally called Kakumeiteki Hi-mote Domei, or the Revolutionary Losers' League.

Published: 19 December 2015

Read more ...

That drone under the Christmas tree? If you are a US resident, you will need to register it by February 19 or face a possible fine.

Rules released Monday by the US Federal Aviation Administration require registration of small unmanned aircraft weighing more than 250 grams (0.55 pounds) and less than 25 kilograms (55 pounds) including payloads such as on-board cameras.

The registration fee is $5, but in an effort to encourage people to register quickly, the FAA will waive the fee through January 20.

"Make no mistake: unmanned aircraft enthusiast are aviators, and with that title comes a great deal of responsibility," said US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement.

"Registration gives us an opportunity to work with these users to operate their unmanned aircraft safely. I'm excited to welcome these new aviators into the culture of safety and responsibility that defines American innovation."

Published: 14 December 2015

Read more ...

The head of Croatia's leading rights group was left red-faced on Tuesday after his trousers fell down during a photoshoot with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

Ivan Zvonimir Cicak, who heads the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, was proudly posing in the front row for a photo with the president when his trousers suddenly dropped to his ankles.

Published: 09 December 2015

Read more ...

There will be plenty of prayers in the wake of the latest mass shooting in the United States, but little concrete action on gun control is expected from lawmakers, despite pressure from Americans weary of the violence.

Fourteen people were killed and 21 others injured in Wednesday's shooting rampage at a social services center in San Bernardino, California that ended with the two suspects, a married couple, dead in a wild firefight with police.

It was the deadliest mass shooting since the 2012 massacre at a school in Newtown, Connecticut that left 26 people dead, including 20 small children.

"God isn't fixing this," the New York Daily News blared on its front page in a dig at lawmakers -- and presidential candidates -- who offer their "thoughts and prayers" to victims and their families but balk at strengthening gun controls.

"As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes."

To hammer home its point, the newspaper included tweets from several Republican presidential hopefuls -- Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Lindsey Graham -- offering prayers for the victims and their families.

President Barack Obama -- who has been visibly angry after recent mass shootings -- has called his inability to enact "common sense" gun controls in the wake of the Newtown shooting the biggest disappointment of his time in office.

While support for stricter gun control is on the rise -- up to 55 percent of Americans in a recent Gallup poll from 47 percent in 2014 -- Obama's rival Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, have blocked all attempts at reform.

- 'No easy answers' -

Published: 04 December 2015

Read more ...

France pulled out its culinary big guns Monday for one of the greatest kitchen challenges ever: cooking lunch for the largest one-day gathering of world leaders in history.

Five chefs, each awarded stars by the demanding judges of the Michelin food guide, joined forces for a gastronomic tour de force to defend France's culinary reputation at a climate summit in Paris.

Undaunted by the challenge of catering to banquets with their familiar perils of rubber chicken and agonisingly long waits, the quintet sought to tempt the palates of 150 leaders, from US President Barack Obama to China's President Xi Jinping or Russia's Vladimir Putin.

"It was a very good lunch, a surprising lunch, very friendly and relaxed," Albanian President Bujar Nishani told AFP after leaving his table.

Judging his meal "very tasty and delicious", Nishani said his lunch was prepared with organic foods, "which go very well with this climate summit".

Albania's leader said he washed lunch down with a glass of champagne to celebrate "cooperation and friendship".

He was among the 170 guests, including the leaders, to be wined and dined at the heavily-guarded Le Bourget conference centre on the northern outskirts of Paris.

Diners sat at 20 tables, the Elysee presidential palace said.

President Francois Hollande hosted the likes of Obama, Putin, Xi, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the table of honour.

Published: 01 December 2015

Read more ...