North America
‘Language site under review’: New York Times Co Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson said the publisher is going to keep all its money losing operations under review — including those in China — as he seeks to negotiate the newspaper’s increasing shift towards a digital landscape.
The New York Times Chinese language website has been blocked in China ever since it published an article in October 2012 about the family wealth of Wen Jiabao, the former premier.
Thompson said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that the website, which was launched in a beta version in June 2012, got off to an encouraging start.
“The fact that we can’t be seen officially inside China means the revenue is not as large as we would have wished it to have been,” he said.
“If it’s a loss-making operation, they are all under constant review.”
The Chinese site’s struggles are one of several hurdles Thompson faces a little more than a year after he became CEO. He was Director-General of the BBC from 2004 to 2012.
Like other media organizations, the newspaper faces unprecedented challenges because of declining advertising revenue and print readership.
Many news companies, including The New York Times, are hoping to tap new revenue streams in foreign markets including Asia. The newspaper last month renamed its overseas publication — the International Herald Tribune — to the International New York Times as part of the drive for global growth. (RTRS) ‘Unlikely to indict Assange’: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange runs little risk of being charged in the United States for having published hundreds of thousands of classified documents, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing unnamed US officials.
Assange’s lawyer Barry Pollack noted the report but told AFP that the Justice Department has made no formal state- ment.
Assange “would welcome a formal and unequivocal statement from the Department of Justice that it has not brought charges against him,” Pollack said in Washington.
A spokesperson from the Department of Justice declined to comment.
Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since June 2012 to escape extradition to Sweden to face questioning in two sexual assault cases.
He has insisted, however, that he is driven by fear that he will be extradited to the United States to face trial for
Canada has often failed in recent years to prevent illegal entry into the country, allowing in many people who may pose a threat, the auditor general said Tuesday in Ottawa.
The collection, monitoring, and assessment of information to prevent the illegal entry of people into Canada is “often not working as intended,” Auditor General Michael Ferguson said in a report.
“As a result, some people who pose a risk to Canadians’ safety and security have succeeded in entering the country illegally.”
He said Canadian authorities have not always received key information needed from air carriers to efficiently target highrisk passengers, for example.
“Our examination of a sample of 306 passengers found that no advance passenger information was provided on 17 travellers, while the information provided on the rest was often insufficient to fully assess risk prior to arrival.” (AFP) Military woes mount: In the latest blow to Canada’s crisis-hit military procurement process, the country’s official spending watchdog said on Tuesday the government has underestimated how much a multibillion-dollar naval shipbuilding plan will cost.
As a result, said Auditor-General Michael Ferguson, Canada would either have to make do with fewer ships or settle for vessels with fewer capabilities than initially planned.
In 2010, faced with the need to replace ships that in some cases had been in service for 40 years, the Conservative government announced plans to build 165 vessels over a 30-year period at a cost of more than C$50 billion ($47.2 billion).
The new ships are designed to play an important role as Canada asserts its sovereignty claims in the Arctic, a disputed region rich in energy and mineral resources. Ferguson said the budget for the ships was set early on and had not been changed despite signs that costs would rise. (RTRS)