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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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New York is reassuring tourists that America's biggest city is safe as it prepares to welcome more than five million visitors for the busy holiday season after the Paris attacks.

The winter tourism season officially kicked off with Thursday's Thanksgiving Parade, where hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to watch the three-hour event amid tight security.

After the Paris attacks on November 13, an Islamic State group propaganda video broadcast images of New York from Times Square. US authorities hit back that there was no credible threat against the city or anywhere else in the United States.

"We had some hotel cancellations from small groups," said Chris Heywood, senior vice president of global communications at NYC and Company -- the city's official marketing and tourism organization.

Despite what he calls a "sprinkling of a few cancellations," he is still encouraging people to visit the metropolis for the "magical holiday season" that lasts through December until New Year.

 

 

"The city is open," he told AFP. "It is business as usual."

Eighty-nine people were killed at the Bataclan concert hall in the Paris attacks, but the Broadway League says there has been no drop in attendance since the carnage in France.

The US State Department has issued a worldwide travel alert, warning Americans of a heightened terrorist threat in "multiple regions," which has added to the worry among tourist industry professionals.

 

 

Published: 30 November 2015

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US President Barack Obama Thursday delivered a Thanksgiving message in which he compared modern refugees to the pilgrims whom the holiday celebrates, urging Americans to open their arms to the potential immigrants.

"Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims -- men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families," Obama said in his weekly address, referring to the boat on which the pilgrims arrived in the New World.

Thanksgiving was first celebrated by the group after fleeing religious persecution in England. For many Americans, it has become a family-oriented day marked with an enormous meal of roast turkey, an assortment of side dishes and a slice or two of pie.

"I've been touched by the generosity of the Americans who've written me letters and emails in recent weeks, offering to open their homes to refugees fleeing the brutality of ISIL," Obama said, referring to the Islamic State group.

 

Published: 26 November 2015

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The Dutch ambassador to Sudan swam across the Nile in Khartoum on Saturday in a stunt that began as a bet to win more "likes" for her embassy's Facebook page.

Clad in an bright orange swimsuit bearing the embassy logo, Ambassador Susan Blankhart swam several hundred metres (yards) across the Blue Nile with six other Dutch women and seven Sudanese women, cheered on by dozens of supporters on the riverbank.

"It was lovely, it was beautiful. I would recommend that everyone swims across the Nile," Blankhart said laughing, back on dry land after the crossing.

She had originally said that she would swim across the river if her embassy's Facebook page received more than 10,000 likes.

 

Published: 22 November 2015

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US literary great Ernest Hemingway's tender and joyful memoir of 1920s Paris, "A Moveable Feast", has enjoyed a surge in sales since last week's terror attacks in the French capital.

The author of such acclaimed novels as "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea" spent time in Paris as a young man honing his writing skills and chronicling the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I.

Copies of "A Moveable Feast" have been flying off bookshop shelves, say sales monitors.

Paperback versions are being deposited, along with flowers and candles, in front of bullet-ridden windows at one of the Paris bars targeted by the jihadist gunmen.

The book can also be found in front of the Bataclan concert hall, the epicentre of last Friday's slaughter which left 129 people dead and more than 350 injured.

During a minute of silence observed for the victims on Monday, many people could be seen head bowed with "A Moveable Feast" tucked under their arms.

The French version "Paris est une fête" -- which literally means "Paris is a Party" - was on Thursday right at the top of Amazon France's list of biographies in terms of sales, and second on the overall literature best-sellers list.

Normally bookshops will sell 10 copies of the Hemingway book per week, "now it's 500," a spokesman for the Folio publishers said.

An extra 15,000-copy print run of the book, which was published posthumously in 1964, is planned.

 

 

Published: 19 November 2015

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