Turkish president says tape has been shared with US, Germany, France and Canada


Jamal Khashoggi. Photograph: Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images


Fri 14 Dec 2018 16.14 GMT

One of the killers of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was heard saying “I know how to cut” on the audio of the murder, which Turkey has shared with US and European officials, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Friday.

Erdoğan criticised Riyadh for its changing account of how Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and prominent critic of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 Oct. The journalist had gone there to collect documents for his forthcoming marriage.

The case has caused global outrage and damaged the international standing of Prince Mohammed, 33, the kingdom’s de facto ruler. The US Senate delivered a rare rebuke to Donald Trump for his support of the crown prince, whom it blamed for the killing.

“The United States, Germany, France, Canada, we made them all listen ... The man clearly says ‘I know how to cut’. This man is a soldier. These are all in the audio recordings,” Erdoğan said in a speech in Istanbul. He did not give further details about the recording.

Istanbul’s chief prosecutor has said Khashoggi was suffocated by his killers in the consulate, before his body was dismembered and disposed of. His remains have not been found.

Khashoggi repeatedly told his killers “I can’t breathe” during his final moments, CNN reported on Monday, quoting a source who had reportedly read the full translated transcript of the audio recording.

Saudi Arabia has said the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder. After offering numerous contradictory explanations, Riyadh later said Khashoggi had been killedwhen negotiations to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia failed.

Erdoğan renewed his criticism of Riyadh’s explanation of the killing. Originally it had said Khashoggi had left the consulate. That was disputed by his Turkish fiancee, who had waited outside the building and said he never emerged.

“The prince says Jamal Khashoggi left the consulate. Is Jamal Khashoggi a kid? His fiancee is waiting outside,” Erdoğan said. “They think the world is dumb. This nation isn’t dumb and it knows how to hold people accountable.”

Turkish officials said last week the Istanbul prosecutor’s office had concluded there was “strong suspicion” that Saud al-Qahtani, a top aide to Prince Mohammed, and Gen Ahmed al-Asiri, who served as the deputy head of foreign intelligence, were among the planners of Khashoggi’s killing.

After Riyadh ruled out extraditing the two men, Turkey said this week that the international community should seek out justice for Khashoggi under international law.


Erdoğan has repeatedly said he would not give up the case. Trump has said he wants Washington to stand by the Saudi government and the prince, despite the CIA’s assessment that it was probably the prince who ordered Khashoggi’s killing.

Portland Trail Blazers team up with firm supplying Israel’s snipers




Rod Such - 13 December 2018

When the Portland Trail Blazers play at home, the basketball team regularly holds a halftime ceremony to honor local military veterans. The ceremony has proven controversial in recent months as its sponsor – the weapons firm Leupold & Stevens – is accused of supplying equipment used to kill civilians in Gaza.

During 2017, the Israeli military bought a consignment of telescopes from Leupold for sniper rifles. The deal was worth more than $2 million, Israel Defense, a publication specializing in the weapons industry, reported.

Under it, a Leupold product line known as Mark 6 would become “the telescopic sight of choice” for Israel’s ground force snipers, according to the publication.

It is almost certain, then, that the firm’s equipment has helped Israel’s snipers to kill and maim unarmed protesters taking part in Gaza’s Great March of Return this year.

The Times of Israel has, for example, published a photograph of an Israeli sniper preparing for the first of those weekly demonstrations, which began in late March. Leupold’s logo is visible on the sniper’s gun.

About 180 Palestinians have been shot dead by the Israeli military during the Great March of Return.

During the summer, the Portland chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace contacted Leupold about its sales to Israel.

The letter to Leupold – based in Beaverton, Oregon – elicited no response.

Further appeals were made to the Blazers and Leupold. Among the arguments cited was that Leupold has an obligation under UN guidelines to ensure that its products are not used for abusing human rights.

Stonewalling

The Blazers were similarly reluctant to engage with Palestine solidarity activists.

It was only after hundreds of letters and emails were sent to the basketball team that its managementresponded. The Blazers, however, did not say anything of substance.

Rather, the team’s management asked activists not to address complaints to a representative nominally in charge of “social responsibility,” but to her colleague, who handled “corporate communications.”

Protests organized by the Democratic Socialists of America in Portland have raised awareness about the sponsorship deal. During one demonstration, the Democratic Socialists used a light cannon to projectmessages critical of Leupold on the Moda Center, where the Blazers’ home games are played.

After its initial stonewalling, Leupold commented on the campaign against it in August. The firm claimed that it was not a weapons manufacturer but that it designed and assembled the “world’s best sporting optics.”

Yet the firm’s own website contradicts its claim not to be a weapons manufacturer. It states clearly that Leopold’s “rifle scopes” were manufactured for “combat situations” faced by the US Army. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan took place with the aid of Leupold components, the website suggests.

The firm’s claim that it only makes “sporting optics” is disingenuous. Sniper rifles are incomplete without telescopes such as those in Leupold’s catalogue.

“Profits from killing”

The firm’s products were also used by the Ferguson Police Department in Missouri, when it responded brutally to protests held after a white officer killed Michael Brown, a young African American, in 2014.

Chris McGowan, the Blazers’ CEO, has replied to the campaign against the team’s relationship with Leupold by describing that firm as “great partners.” He undertook to maintain the sponsorship deal unless something “drastic” happened.

The massacres of Palestinians in Gaza were evidently not “drastic” enough for him.

.@trailblazers president and CEO @ChrisDMcGowan thinks the murder of over 200 Palestinians and the injury of 20,000 others is "not drastic enough" to end the team's partnership with sniper scope manufacturer @LeupoldOptics. We disagree. #NoLeupold https://t.co/jJQoxtgJet pic.twitter.com/YLaC2dd9xi

— DSA Portland Oregon (@PortlandDSA) 17 October 2018

DSA Portland Oregon@PortlandDSA

.@trailblazers president and CEO @ChrisDMcGowan thinks the murder of over 200 Palestinians and the injury of 20,000 others is "not drastic enough" to end the team's partnership with sniper scope manufacturer @LeupoldOptics. We disagree. #NoLeupold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhR-cFaDK_E …

64

6:25 PM - Oct 17, 2018

Last month, Josuee Hernandez, a US Marine Corps veteran, was honored at a halftime ceremony sponsored by Leupold during a home game for the Blazers.

When Hernandez appeared on a big screen at the game – flanked by the team’s mascot – he unzipped his jacket to reveal a t-shirt reading: “End this sponsorship, #NoLeupold.” Refusing to accept a gift bag from the mascot, Hernandez went down on one knee – a tactic employed by American football players protesting against police violence.

Hernandez is a Democratic Socialists of America member. In a statement issued following the protest, he wrote: “We should not allow our experience as veterans to be reduced to moralistic spectacle, to cover the fact that the Trail Blazers are in business with a corporation that profits from killing people.”

The protests have featured in publications which would not normally devote space to Palestine or related issues. [Blazer’s Edge], a website popular among the team’s fans, has covered them extensively, for example.

There is a precedent for basketball teams taking a stand on social justice issues. In July, the Utah Jazz endedits marketing relationship with Papa John’s Pizza after that firm’s founder made a racial slur during a conference call. A double standard appears to apply to Palestine, even though the injustice involves the targeted executions of unarmed protesters.

Support for human rights violations becomes woven into the very fabric of our society and culture if we fail to challenge institutions that aid and abet them. As long as the Blazers partner with a firm profiting from Israel’s crimes, the campaign against this relationship will continue.

Rod Such is a former editor for World Book and Encarta encyclopedias. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and is active with the Occupation-Free Portland campaign.

In India, the Congress Party Isn’t Dead Yet

State elections gave new hope to a moribund party.

Indian Congress party supporters hold a party flag as they celebrate in Ahmedabad on December 11, 2018. (Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images)

BY MILAN VAISHNAV

| DECEMBER 14, 2018, 4:24 PM

It’s been a dark four and a half years for India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress. After getting trounced in the 2014 general elections by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress headed into a protracted downward spiral. Its parliamentary tally shrank from 206 seats (out of 543 in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament) to a paltry 44—not even large enough to qualify to officially lead the opposition. In state after state, the Congress seemed unable—and, often, unwilling—to halt the BJP’s electoral juggernaut.

By mid-2018, the Congress and its allies controlled just three state governments while the BJP alliance saw its tally swell to as many as 20. The Congress watched its ranks thin as high-profile defectors made common cause with rivals better situated to confront the BJP. The heir to the once-storied Congress dynasty, Rahul Gandhi, became the butt of every Twitter meme and WhatsApp joke—an erratic dilettante whose gaffes were as frequent as his long, unexplained trips abroad.

But the much-battered party sprung back this week, with unexpected victories in three state elections across the north Indian heartland—the last set of polls before next spring’s general election. With wins in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan—which collectively account for 14 percent of the Indian population and 12 percent of parliamentary seats—the Congress has struck a blow in the BJP’s own backyard.

Out of a combined 519 seats across the three states, the BJP won over 70 percent of all contests in 2013. This time, the tables were turned. In Chhattigsarh, the Congress won a three-fourths majority—winning the state for the first time and displacing a 15-year incumbent BJP chief minister. In Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, a sharp swing gave the Congress narrow majorities —though in Madhya Pradesh, it required the help of a few smaller parties. In the run up to these elections, much has been made of rising rural “distress,” fueled by a combination of low commodity prices, stagnant rural incomes, and farmer indebtedness. The data from the elections clearly show, as Neelanjan Sircar has pointed out, that it is precisely where farmers and agrarian workers make up a greater share of the population that the BJP’s fortunes fell the greatest. To add insult to injury, the Congress did not simply dominate in rural pockets, it also decisively won urban voters usually dedicated to BJP. For instance, in Chhattisgarh, the Congress won 45 percent of rural seats and just 25 percent of urban ones in the previous 2013 election. Five years later, the Congress won 75 percent of seats in both categories.

Continued rural disquiet spells certain BJP losses in the heartland when the country goes for nationwide polls in spring 2019. These states are predominantly rural, and there are limited policy instruments the government can wield in the next six months to boost farmer incomes or generate good-paying jobs. As a perceptive analysis in the Indian Express noted, the Modi government deserves high marks for building rural public works, ranging from roads to toilets. But the government has not been able to generate wage growth and may in fact have harmed it through the slipshod rollout of the nationwide goods and services tax (GST) and its draconian 2016 demonetization experiment (in which it abruptly invalidated 86 percent of India’s currency in an attempt to snuff out black money)—both of which have disproportionately impacted small and medium enterprises.

The Modi government’s inability to go to the hustings on the back of its economic performance—which was the prime minister’s calling card on the 2014 campaign trail, where he promised the advent of “achhe din” (good times) for the economy—has further muddled the BJP’s election narrative. Instead, the party has touted its efforts to curb corruption, enhance India’s social safety net, and deliver pro-Hindu social policy. It is not that voters do not appreciate these changes; the trouble is they don’t put food on the table.

The BJP also suffered large losses among Dalits and tribal people, two minority groups that collectively make up nearly one-quarter of the Indian population , a crucial demographic the BJP can scarcely afford to alienate, and that had shifted toward the BJP in previous elections. Across the three northern states, the BJP lost 120 of 180 seats constitutionally reserved for these communities.

Even before this week’s poll results, there have been growing signs that the cakewalk the BJP once expected in 2019 is turning into a dogfight. Despite undertaking significant legislative and regulatory economic changes during its tenure, such as implementing the GST and ushering in a new bankruptcy code, the Modi government has failed to deliver steady growth or to stimulate job creation.

India’s fractured opposition, whose internecine squabbles prevented the consummation of a common front in 2014, began showing signs of working together in order to save their own skins.

 In a series of key by-elections, opposition parties put aside their differences and joined hands to defeat the BJP. This May, the Congress struck an opportunistic postelection alliance with a smaller regional party in the southern state of Karnataka in a successful, last-ditch effort to keep the BJP at bay.

And a year ago, Rahul Gandhi formally assumed the presidency of the Congress Party, replacing his mother Sonia Gandhi in the job after years of “will he or won’t he” speculation. While Gandhi’s charisma pales in comparison to Modi’s, he has proven far more consistent, diligent, and effective since assuming the top job. Furthermore, incumbency in India is a double-edged sword: unlike in many advanced democracies, incumbent members of parliament (MPs) are more likely to get tossed out of office than retained. The BJP’s asset of electoral dominance, therefore, counterintuitively poses an electoral liability.

The state elections reveal that the ruling party is surprisingly vulnerable. The BJP’s 2014 electoral triumph was largely concentrated in the northern Indian heartland. Three-fourths of the BJP’s parliamentary seats come from just eight states in the region—including the three where it just lost power—and if the results are replicated in six months’ time, the BJP stands to lose 27 seats in these three Hindi belt states alone.

Before this week, many regional opposition parties had expressed concerns about the Congress’s ability to serve as the core pillar of any anti-BJP coalition in 2019. For now, many of these doubts have been quelled, if not totally quashed. As alliance negotiations get underway for 2019, these results will increase leverage with regional players. They also demonstrate that Rahul Gandhi can captain a winning side—about which there had been grave doubt, even among party insiders. In the Hindi belt, Gandhi campaigned ferociously but also gave space to the party’s regional chieftains to establish their own profiles—a notable shift in a party that’s previously been reluctant to look outside its ruling clan.

The BJP’s political allies are also growing restless. Earlier this year, a key regional ally governing the state of Andhra Pradesh exited the ruling coalition after its demands for greater fiscal transfers were spurned. Just this week, a regional chieftain in the northern state of Bihar resigned from the Cabinet and pulled out of the BJP alliance, stating that “it is unfortunate that the government’s priority is not to work for the poor and oppressed, but to fix political opponents by hook or crook.”

Yet make no mistake, this election still remains the BJP’s to lose. Modi enjoys unrivaled popularity on the national stage; opinion polls show his favorability continues to dwarf that of Gandhi and a bevy of regional satraps. The BJP wields impressive organizational and financial advantages that give its electioneering operations a leg up over its rivals; even Congress politicians readily admit that their party is short of funds, with plans afoot to launch Kickstarter-like campaigns to crowdsource donations in the absence of major financial support from “India Inc.” The BJP has also shown an ability to ruthlessly deploy state power to put the squeeze on its political rivals. Just this past week, the respected governor of India’s central bank resigned under pressure from the government to relax limits on lending by troubled public-sector banks and greenlight a government plan to apportion some of the bank’s reserves for its fiscal priorities. Now, with its hand-picked successor in place, the bank could take steps to do the government’s bidding.

After the state elections results were announced, the Indian historian Ramachandra Guhatweeted, “The only law of Indian politics is that there is no law of Indian politics.” Undoubtedly, the rough-and-tumble of Indian democracy is not for the faint of heart. Bitter rivals become friends overnight; opposition parties which taunt the government for its populist ploys then campaign against them, promising even greater populism; and opponents of Hindu nationalism discover religion while mocking those who wear it on their sleeves. But no democracy can indefinitely defy the laws of political gravity. “It’s the economy, stupid” has become a mantra for democratic societies across the world. Why not in India?

 

Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is co-editor of the recent book, Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India.  @MilanV

Narcissism and Incivility: Is There a Connection

by Bill Eddy-Dec 14, 2018

Dec 14, 2018

Did you ever wonder where incivility comes from? Is it always what someone else is doing? It seems to have spread far and wide over the last few years. In all professions, in all organizations and in the larger society, we seem to be becoming more rude, more insulting and less sensitive to each other. This appears to be directly connected to the rise of narcissism in our society. This article suggests why these two trends are increasing hand-in-hand—and what we each can do about it.

The Rise of Narcissism

In 1994, the diagnostic manual of mental disorders, fourth edition—the DSM-IV—was published by the American Psychiatric Association. It indicated that narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) was present in less than one (1%) percent of the general adult population. (Personality disorders are generally not diagnosed until adulthood, since children and adolescents are still developing and changing.) This personality disorder is characterized especially by a “grandiose sense of self-importance,” a “sense of entitlement,” and a “lack of empathy.” These are just three of the nine criteria used by the DSM-IV, but it’s easy to see that this personality has increased over the last twenty-five years.

In 2013, the DSM-5 was published and, using the same criteria as before, recognized that the prevalence of NPD may be as high as 6.2%, based on a study done by the National Institutes of Health. While it may be that this study was the largest ever done and therefore more accurate, it does seem that narcissistic behavior has increased. It’s important to note that personality-based behavior exists on a continuum, so that there are many people with some traits of this disorder but not the full personality disorder.

Why Now?

Narcissism has been increasing in our society for many years. Interestingly, two researchers have traced this to a specific time period: the early 1970s. The authors of the book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (2009), studied surveys of high school and college students over several decades, as well as articles written in major publications. It seems that this was significantly the time of a societal transition from group goals to individual goals, from emphasis on citizenship to self-esteem, and from self-discipline to self-expression. 

I believe a significant aspect of this societal change was the birth control pill in the 1960s and the ability to have smaller families. With families having just one or two children, it became easier for each child to become the center of attention. In 1970, California introduced “no-fault” divorce laws which then spread around the country and significantly boosted the divorce rate. Soon, parents were fighting over their one or two children, to give them attention and to get their attention during the marriage; and to have primary custody of them or equal custody of them after the divorce. Children went from being “seen but not heard” up to the 1960s, to becoming the center of the family and at times making key decisions for the family.

The Rise of Incivility 

At the same time, professions have seen a dramatic rise in incivility over the past twenty years. For example, in 2007, the California State Bar Association published the “California Attorney Guidelines of Civility and Professionalism.” Yet incivility increased in the legal profession after that. In 2013, I wrote an article “Misunderstanding Incivility and How to Stop It” for the statewide California Family Law News, pointing out that 80-90% of lawyers didn’t need such Guidelines because they were already civil on their own. I said that the 10-20% of lawyers who were engaging in uncivil conduct had such behavior as part of their personalities and that they would not change without enforcement measures, but there were none built into the Guidelines. Incivility has continued to increase.

Today, we have many cultural and political leaders who regularly engage in uncivil conduct, so that we are seeing increased incivility from children on the playground to the daily news. 

The Incivility Connection with Narcissism

Simply put: uncivil behavior is narcissistic behavior. It involves one person putting another down, embarrassing the other, humiliating the other, and so forth, often in public. This is a trait of narcissism, as the theme for narcissistic personalities is “I am very superior to you,” and they repeatedly engage in arrogant behavior that says they are “winners” and others are “losers.” They often even use these terms. 

With this connection, hopefully it is obvious that incivility is baked into the personalities of those with narcissistic traits or personality disorders. This means that this behavior will not easily change or go away. However, the larger culture makes a difference. If narcissistic behavior is glorified and rewarded in the media, we will get more incivility. Those with narcissistic traits will act like those with disorders. And ordinary people will start acting like they have these traits. That is what is happening right now in our culture. Leadership and leader emotions are contagious. Repetition of images of uncivil behavior leads to more uncivil behavior.

What Can We Do?

Yes, we have a more individualistic culture now compared to pre-1970. But this doesn’t mean that we have to be more narcissistic (arrogant, superior, etc.). We can be respectfully individualistic and value each other as equals at the same time. This means we need to learn skills to manage our own narcissistic tendencies, and teach skills to our children and the larger culture of balance: respect for all individuals and respect for our culture—our community, nation and planet. Here’s some suggestions:

1.     Our Words:We can individually become more aware of how we give feedback, how we use sarcasm, how we promote ourselves by putting others down. Much of this is very subtle and we don’t even realize the way it may affect others. 

2.     Our Emotions:People often justify their uncivil behavior by claiming that it is justified because of how someone else made us feel. When we are emotionally triggered, we are more likely to emotionally and impulsively react, saying and doing things we don’t ordinarily do. We can think ahead about situations in which this is more likely to happen, so that we give ourselves some reassuring statements that we don’t have to react at all. 

3.     Our Behavior:We tend to mirror each other’s behavior, and children certainly mirror that of other children and adults. But we can over-ride mirroring. Rather than: “She just insulted me, so I have to insult her back.” We can tell ourselves: “She has a problem and it’s not about me.” (Notice how I said we can “tell ourselves”: we don’t have to say this out loud.)

4.    As Professionals: In our roles as lawyers, counselors, mediators and others, we can make sure that we don’t speak of others in a case as inferior beings. Even opponents who are arrogant, abusive, lying and/or hostile can be treated with empathy, attention and respect (EAR statements). There’s no point at which it’s appropriate to switch into disrespectful language with our colleagues or other individuals, even in a difficult case.

5.    As Parents: When a parent is trying to co-parent with someone with a narcissistic personality or other personality problem, it’s easy to take on some of those characteristics. Rather than trying to publically shame a narcissist or other high-conflict person, it’s always better to focus on the future and what you want the person to do—rather than criticizing their past behavior. And of course, it’s better to avoid sharing angry or disparaging remarks about a co-parent with the children. Get support from other adults, who you can privately say anything to.

Conclusion

We’re living in narcissistic and uncivil times. Yet the vast majority of people still act civilly and don’t have narcissistic personality disorder. We need to give less attention to bad behavior and more attention to good behavior in our families, in our professions and in our larger culture. Times are changing and it’s up to all of us to create a better balance of individual and community behavior. We can’t do it alone.  

     © 2018 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.    

How Asia’s leading low-cost carrier went from zero to digital hero

AirAsia is today the world's leading low-cost carrier. Source: Shutterstock

By James Sivalingam | 14th December 2018

IN the age of digital transformation, companies either hop onto the latest technology bandwagon willingly or are forced to adopt modern approaches because of customer demands and competitive market forces.

But Malaysia’s low-cost airline AirAsia was born with a desire to be digital-first — even though it wasn’t a digital native to begin with.

AirAsia’s coming-of-age story is a well-documented one and a real-life case of having champagne tastes on a beer-bottle budget.

In 2001, former Warner Music executive Tony Fernandes – now AirAsia Group CEO – made the ultimate business leap. He mortgaged his house, convinced a group of investors to buy an ailing airline for a quarter of a US dollar and set out to relaunch it as Asia’s first budget carrier.

Backed by a childhood dream to own an airline and zero experience in the aviation world, Fernandes proved his naysayers wrong. Today, AirAsia has smashed numerous firsts to hold the crown as the world’s best low-cost airline, winning the prestigious Skytrax title every single year in the past decade. 

SEE ALSO: No surprises, Asia’s favourite low-cost carrier has done it again

The carrier’s success can largely be attributed to the internet revolution. But more than that, it was a mix of foresight, stubborn determination and a culture of innovation that Fernandes made sure to embed within the company from the get-go.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes (left) is pictured here holding up the historic RM1 receipt from his purchase of the airline in 2001. Source: AirAsia<.

The company’s digital vision first took flight in 2002 when Fernandes realized the firm’s distributions channels had to be optimised if the airline was to make flying easier for the masses.

As a result, AirAsia went completely ticketless and rolled out online booking through its website. Subsequently, it became the world’s first airline to offer SMS and mobile web booking services — allowing customers to move away from traditional ticketing and travel agents.

“We were one of the first companies – not just as an airline – but one of the first to embrace e-commerce in a big way, and we fostered a culture of booking tickets via the website,” AirAsia Deputy Group CEO Aireen Omar said in an exclusive interview with Tech Wire Asia.

“That was key,” she added. “It has set the tone for everything else we have done since, and what we are doing today.”

Aireen oversees the group’s digital transformation and corporate services.

SEE ALSO: These are the best airlines in the Asia Pacific

Since then, AirAsia has continued to innovate and transform its operations, raising the bar every step of the way. And it has done so with a clear focus on optimising cost, without negatively affecting customer experience.

In 2014, it became first Malaysian airline to introduce Wi-FI services onboard its flights. The roKKi powered Wi-Fi system was developed by AirAsia’s subsidiary Tune Box.

“At AirAsia, innovation is key, not just in the products and services that we provide, but also in the experiences that we create for our guests. It is important to keep up with the needs of our guests and maintain relevance with all of them,” Aireen said then.

Earlier this year, the airline integrated facial recognition technology via F.A.C.E.S. – Fast Airport Clearance Experience System – in an effort to make the traveling process more frictionless.

“It (F.A.C.E.S.) would not only make it easy for passengers in their travels but also helps us manage the volume (of passengers) that we see at our airports. We see about 10 percent growth in volume every year, and the airports get congested easily,” Aireen explained.

SEE ALSO: Air Asia X named cheapest international airline in the world

Through all its digital initiatives, the company has generated what it considers its biggest asset – a significant amount of data – from all aspects of its operations, from customer behaviour patterns to aircraft engine data.

To help manage and gain valuable business insight from its data, the company recently partnered with Google Cloud to integrate machine learning and AI.

Aireen is confident that partnering with Google will allow AirAsia to deliver on its ultimate objective: becoming a “travel technology company”.

The airline hopes to evolve into a one-stop, complete, e-commerce platform that provides a seamless travel experience to its customers.

Below are some of the major milestones digital AirAsia has achieved in the last two decades or so.

Special Report: J&J knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder

Darlene Coker is shown on a kitchen table full of many personal pictures of her family life in California, U.S. August 15, 2018. Picture taken August 15, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Lisa Girion-DECEMBER 14, 2018

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Darlene Coker knew she was dying. She just wanted to know why.
She knew that her cancer, mesothelioma, arose in the delicate membrane surrounding her lungs and other organs. She knew it was as rare as it was deadly, a signature of exposure to asbestos. And she knew it afflicted mostly men who inhaled asbestos dust in mines and industries such as shipbuilding that used the carcinogen before its risks were understood.

Special Report J&J kne... by on Scribd

Facebook admits bug allowed apps to see hidden photos

Facebook says up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps have been affected. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Alex Hern @alexhern-Fri 14 Dec 2018 16.01 GMT

A Facebook bug let app developers see photos users had uploaded but never posted, the social network has disclosed.

For two weeks in September, an error in the way Facebook shares photos with third parties meant that apps could see not only photos users had posted on their newsfeed, but also pictures in other parts of the site – on Facebook Stories or Facebook’s Marketplace, for instance.

The bug also “impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post”, a Facebook developer, Tomer Bar, said in a statement on Friday.

Importantly, the only applications that had access to the hidden photos were those to which users had already granted access to all their public photos, through the company’s API (application programming interface), Bar said.

“Currently, we believe this may have affected up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers.”

Users affected are those who had given permission to third-party apps to access their photos through the Facebook login function. There is no evidence that the bug led to any large-scale extraction of photos from the site.

“We’re sorry this happened,” Bar added. “Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug. We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users.”

The error is comparatively minor given Facebook’s scale. In September, almost five times as many accounts were affected by a data breach in which hackers accessed personal information including name, relationship status, search activity and recent location check-ins.

Guy Rosen, a Facebook vice-president, said at the time: “The vulnerability was the result of a complex interaction of three distinct software bugs and it impacted ‘view as’, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else.

“It allowed attackers to steal Facebook access tokens, which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

The Next Merkel? Not Quite

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is like her mentor in style, but not in substance—and, for Germany, that will make all the difference.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer waves to delegates at a national conference of the CDU on Dec. 7, 2018 in Hamburg. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

BY PAUL HOCKENOS

| DECEMBER 14, 2018, 4:27 PM

The election on Dec. 7 of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to lead Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been hailed as a victory for the outgoing party chair, Chancellor Angela Merkel. She was Merkel’s preferred successor as leader of Germany’s center-right party and is now the presumptive favorite to become the first head of government in the post-Merkel era, which will begin, at the latest, at Germany’s next scheduled national election in 2021.

German commentators seem certain that Kramp-Karrenbauer’s leadership will represent both a continuation of Merkel’s moderate style of conservatism—which kept the CDU in power in national politics for over a dozen years by steadily draining the center-left of support—and an improvement over her mentor’s deficits.

It’s not hard to understand why Germans would assume Kramp-Karrenbauer, widely referred to in Germany simply as AKK, is a sort of mini-Merkel. Like the current chancellor, she’s a personable and unassuming middle-aged woman, someone who prefers to publicly seek consensus rather than use polarizing ideological rhetoric—unlike her male rivals for the leadership position, who were more pronounced conservatives. So why not expect marginal changes to Merkel’s political strategy, with accordingly marginal improvements to the (largely successful) political outcomes?

This analysis misunderstands, however, the political situation that Kramp-Karrenbauer is being asked to confront at home—and, more important, it misunderstands the political identity she will be bringing to the task. She may seem like Merkel in style, but she differs in substance. And that will make all the difference.

The thought is that Kramp-Karrenbauer will asymmetrically demobilize the center-left—that is, she will persuade its voters to either defect for the CDU or stay at home on election day—by cribbing from its policy, just as Merkel did while driving the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to its current lowly 15 percent standing in national polls. Meanwhile, the new leader’s identity as a Roman Catholic mother of three from deep in former West Germany—which is more in keeping with the party’s traditional profile than Merkel’s East German biography—is thought to be capable of healing divisions in the CDU that had opened up under Merkel and perhaps even reversing defections to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has expanded from 12.6 percent of the vote in 2017 to as high as 18 percent support in some recent polls.

It’s true that surveys show Kramp-Karrenbauer’s vague policy agenda is highly popular with Social Democrats and Greens (the latter who have benefited in recent years from the SPD’s Merkel-fueled collapse). Greens polled by the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel viewed her even more positively (65 percent) than do CDU members (62 percent). “If the CDU elects a woman, and twice in a row,” a Berlin Green Party member told FP, “it shows that all of the other parties can too, but they’re not doing it. It shows them up.” With such star quality, Kramp-Karrenbauer might even prove able to demobilize the Greens in the same way Merkel did the SPD.

At the same time, many conservatives are hoping she can leverage her Catholic faith to win back far-right voters. Throughout her career, Kramp-Karrenbauer has been an avowed, if mild-mannered, social conservative: She’s on the record against same-sex marriage, and she firmly opposes any loosening of Germany’s relatively restrictive abortion laws; her rhetoric on migration policy—which has included the suggestion of sending refugees back to Syria—has occasionally fallen on the CDU’s far-right wing. Indeed, there’s little reason to believe that she would have initiated any of the openly liberal social policies that Merkel undertook in recent years, such as ending mandatory military conscription and initiating conciliatory dialogue between the government and Germany’s Muslim community.

This, however, is the hitch in the logic of Kramp-Karrenbauer as savior of the party and leader of a more harmonious, united nation. The same surveys that show her fawned over by the left also show her rejected categorically by AfD voters and even seen as somewhat suspect by many traditional conservatives. In fact, only 4 percent of AfD backers in the Spiegel poll see her favorably. (SPD support for her is 10 times greater.) Just 2 percent of the AfD supporters surveyed said they believed that Kramp-Karrenbauer could lure back stray former CDU conservatives now voting AfD. Another poll yielded a similar result: AfD supporters were the least convinced of all the parties that she would unite the CDU.

Given Kramp-Karrenbauer’s genuine conservative credentials, why do her charms fall so flat on AfD fans? The most likely answer is among the most ignored: misogyny. The AfD is the most male of all Germany’s parliamentary parties. In 2017, nearly twice as many AfD voters were men than women, and in eastern Germany the party is even more strongly male than in the west.

A political commentator for the conservative daily Die Welt, Susanne Gaschke, summed up the problem concisely: “From the beginning, there was hatred in certain circles for Angela Merkel, which had nothing at all to do with her policies. … The Merkel hatred of the past three years, in my opinion, has at least as much to do with frustrated masculinity as with concrete and legitimate questions about migration.” Just maybe, hopes Gaschke, Kramp-Karrenbauer will catch less of it than Merkel: “Perhaps it is enough that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has three children and neither Merkel nor East German.” Alas, nothing points in that direction now—on the contrary.

Kramp-Karrenbauer obviously understands the softness of her support on the right and thus is already making moves to make herself more appealing to the AfD. She has signaled that she’ll begin by talking with opponents of the government’s migration policies. Her new deputy, Paul Ziemiak, comes from the party’s right wing. She will initially be focused on uniting the CDU after earning a narrow victory over more stridently conservative rivals for the job. “The fact that the election was so close also means that there is a need for a clear conservative policy in the CDU,” opines the daily Berliner Zeitung. Kramp-Karrenbauer won’t be able to get away with making occasional rhetorical feints to the right; she will have no choice but to endorse clearly conservative priorities and perhaps even reversals of some of Merkel’s policies.

And this leads to the second hidden error in thinking about Kramp-Karrenbauer. The left may say it likes her now, but what it knows is only the vaguely open-minded and consensus-oriented image that she has projected until now. To the extent she has firm political commitments, they are adamantly socially conservative—and once she gets into gear as leader of a fragile CDU, this will become impossible to ignore. Green voters aren’t likely to jump to a CDU that comes down on migration, refugees, and asylum policy harder than Merkel did. (Indeed, since the so-called migration crisis of 2015, Merkel has hardly uttered a positive word about migration, doing everything in her power to restrict the different types of migration flows.)

In fact, Kramp-Karrenbauer’s harder line on the issue could backfire. That’s what happened when Merkel’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, made limiting migration his top objective this year and nearly destroyed the current grand coalition with SPD by doing so. The impact on the AfD? It only fueled its fires. The more Seehofer bad-mouthed migration and migrants this year, the higher the AfD soared in the polls.

Merkel’s prolonged success was made possible by the combination of her genuinely liberal (although only intermittently expressed) convictions on certain issues and her committed backing by the country’s center-right party, which was fueled by her proven ability to win national elections. Kramp-Karrenbauer has neither of these advantages—it’s doubtful she will have the resulting success either. Likelier is an ever more fractured and uneasy Germany in which the CDU remains split and a more oppositional left begins to pull itself out of the dumps, while the AfD grows only louder and larger. Enjoy the end of the Merkel era while it lasts.

Paul Hockenos is a Berlin-based journalist. His recent book is Berlin Calling: A Story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall and the Birth of the New Berlin (The New Press).