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The US economy grew at a much slower pace than expected in the second quarter and GDP was revised down in the first three months of the year. The world's largest economy grew at an annual rate of 1.2% in the three months to June, far below forecasts of 2.6%, Growth for the first quarter was revised down from 1.1% to 0.8%. Conversely, consumer spending surged in the three months to June by an annual pace of 4.2% - the fastest pace since the fourth quarter of 2014. The Federal Reserve indicated on Wednesday it was still on course to raise interest rates this year after "near-term risks", such as slowing employment, diminished. Steven Englander, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Citigroup, said: "This isn't bad enough to signal that the US economy is falling apart, but it's another nail in the coffin of a September Fed hike." Although consumer spending grew, business investment, which includes stock, supplies, equipment and buildings, fell by 9.7% in the second quarter. Investment in business inventories fell by $8.1bn between April and June, the first decline since the third quarter of 2011. Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said: "Inventories are always the unpredictable wildcard in the GDP statistics, and the second quarter weakness was in part due to inventories falling for the first time since the third quarter of 2011. "The good news is that firms should hopefully start rebuilding stock levels in the second half of the year, boosting growth." Government figures released on Thursday had hinted at subdued business spending. The US trade deficit - the different between imports and exports - had widened to $63.3bn in June from $61.1bn the month before. The latest GDP figures are the first estimate of growth for the April-to-June quarter, and a second reading based on more data will be announced on 26 August. The US Fed has three meetings remaining this year, in September, November and December. Mr Williamson said: "While no doubt disappointing, the GDP data are backward looking and whether or not the Fed hikes interest rates again this year depends more on the future data flow than what happened back in the second quarter. "However, the ongoing softness of growth in the second quarter will no doubt add to calls for policymakers to err on the side of caution and as such greatly reduces the chance of any rate hike before December."

More than 10,000 Indian nationals laid off in Saudi Arabia are facing a "food crisis", India's foreign minister says. Sushma Swaraj said "large numbers" of Indians had lost their jobs in the kingdom, leaving them with not enough money to buy food. The Indian community in Jeddah, with the government's help, has distributed food to those in need at the weekend. Growth has slowed in Saudi Arabia as the country suffers the effect of lower oil prices. Ms Swaraj appealed on Twitter for the three-million-strong Indian community in the country to "help your fellow brothers and sisters". "I assure you that no Indian worker rendered unemployed in Saudi Arabia will go without food," she wrote. A government minister is travelling to Saudi Arabia, Ms Swaraj said. He is expected to help with arrange an airlift of laid-off Indians who are unable to afford the air fare home. Indian worker’s tearful plea to leave Saudi Arabia The Indian consulate in Jeddah said it had distributed more than 15,000kg (34,000lb) of food on Saturday alone, with the help of Indian nationals in the city. The embassy in Riyadh was asked to distribute as much food as they could to those in need. Reports in India on Saturday said 800 Indian workers had lost their jobs at Saudi Oger, a large Saudi-Lebanese construction company. The Saudi-based Arab News website reported on Sunday that hundreds of Saudi Oger's employees, who said they had not been paid in seven months, had led protests in Jeddah. The Saudi government has not commented on the situation of the Indian workers. In the past, Human Rights Watch has criticised Saudi Arabia for "rampant employer abuses of migrant workers, including forcing them to work against their will or on exploitative terms". A visa system that ties workers' residency to employment "grants employers excessive power over workers and facilitates abuse", the group said. Workers laid off in Kuwait were also suffering food shortages, Ms Swaraj said, but the situation there was more manageable, she added.

Facebook is the principal digital public square of today. Well, it's the principal digital public square for those of a certain age (i.e. post-college, the young'ns aren't into it!) But Zuck & Co's site is still an extremely integral virtual venue and will continue to be for some time. While Facebook's business model has evolved away from just Facebook.com to include its mobile incarnation and other associated apps, the old familiar website is still the preferred venue for many. And why not? Facebook.com one of the most advanced public-facing websites out there. Facebook is a magnet for some of the top engineering talent in the world, so it stands to reason that the company would boast one of the world's most complex and multi-faceted websites. It rivals many standalone software apps with the sheer amount of personalization, tweaks, and tinkering available to visitors. READ: 17 Cool Tricks and Hidden Gems Inside Facebook Messenger In fact, there are so many things you can do on Facebook.com that you probably don't know about them all. And we're not even talking about the third-party Facebook apps or browser add-ons, we're talking about all the official, baked-in, easily accessible functions that are just a few clicks away. As you'll see in our slideshow, there are even some functions that appear to be leftovers from bygone eras that we're not even sure Facebook still knows are there. Take a look and awaken your inner power user social super star.

Wi-Fi is just radio waves, and many things can cause interference. But a strong Wi-Fi signal can give you faster performance and better coverage distance, so it’s important to properly position and configure your router for optimal signal strength. I’ll show you how; it just takes a few minutes. Point the Antenna Up Routers generally have physical antennas that are adjustable. The antenna often comes pointed horizontally to fit the router inside its box. For maximum signal strength, position your router’s antenna vertically, pointing straight up. If you have two antennas, you won’t get better performance by pointing them in different directions. Position Your Router Properly Consider where you put your router. If you have a large home or office, place the router close to the center to maximize coverage. If you position the router at one end of the building, you may have poor (or no) signal at the other end.But keep in mind that if you already have your router positioned at one end of your home and the signal strength is just fine on the other side, you don’t need to move it. For maximum coverage, the router should also be high up. Placing it on the floor is the worst location possible – place it on a high shelf, if possible. Don’t place the router on or near large metal objects, such as metal shelves or filing cabinets. These can block the signal. Metal or stone walls can also block Wi-Fi, while wood and plaster walls won’t cause any problems. You might be able to root out other sources of interference. For example: microwave ovens, 2.4 GHz cordless phones, and 2.4 GHz baby monitors all have the potential to interfere with a Wi-Fi signal. I’ve personally experienced a Wi-Fi signal to my laptop dying every time a microwave oven was turned on. The microwave oven was in direct line-of-sight between my laptop and the router. The solution? Move any one of them so that the microwave isn’t in between. If you get interference from a cordless phone, you might want to purchase newer 5.8 GHz cordless phones; these workon a frequency band other than Wi-Fi and don’t cause any interfere. A wireless router and cordless phone Choose the Best Wi-Fi Channel If you’re in an area with many different Wi-Fi networks — such as an apartment complex or even just a house close to other homes — your neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks are probably interfering with yours. To minimize this, move your router further away from the other Wi-Fi access points, if you can. For example, if you’re in an apartment and have a router in the corner of your room, your neighbor’s router might be right on the other side of the wall. But the best thing you can do is switch to a different Wi-Fi channel. You access this option on your router’s settings page — check your router’s instruction manual for instructions on how to do that. (If you don’t have the instruction manual, you can almost certainly find the instructions online.) Locate the Wi-Fi channel option in the router’s web interface and change it to a different channel with less interference. It might take a little experimentation to find the best one, but you can get help choosing a Wi-Fi channel using the Wi-Fi Analyzer app for Android phones and tablets, which will monitor the Wi-Fi networks near you and recommend the least-cluttered Wi-Fi channel for your network. Unfortunately, similar apps aren’t available for iPhone or iPad due to the limitations Apple places on app developers. That’s it — all you really have to do is position your router well and choose the ideal Wi-Fi channel to optimize your network. Of course, buying a new router that supports modern, improved Wi-Fi standards may also offer you a signal strength and speed boost.

If you’ve got a Surface Pro 3 with battery life problems, you may be in luck. Some users have reported catastrophically poor battery life of late, with devices lasting just minutes in some scenarios. Microsoft, which initially dismissed reports, has apparently investigated the issue and traced it to a problem with the batteries in some Surface Pro 3 devices. The problem occurs in Surface Pro 3 devices with batteries manufactured by Simplo, according to ZDNet. LG, the other battery vendor for Surface Pro 3, has not experienced the same problem. The issue was addressed in a recent support forum post: We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Pro 3 batteries in which the system is reporting lower battery capacity than expected. We’ve isolated this to a limited number of customers experiencing this issue. Based on our investigations we can confirm that it is not an issue with the battery cells, and we believe this is something that can be addressed via software. We’re working through the details of how we deliver that. The good news is that fixing the problem appears to be something that can be done via software update rather than a hardware fix. It’s not clear if the issue could have caused any damage to the batteries themselves, nor why the hardware would shut down in just minutes if the battery was otherwise working properly. Apparently some users paid Microsoft a $99 support fee to diagnose the problem, which company reps have now stated is the incorrect policy — it’s not clear if those customers will automatically receive refunds, but Microsoft has pledged to fix all devices whether they are in-warranty or not. Battery longevity is a notoriously tricky topic to analyze and different batteries can age differently over time. It’s difficult to build databases of how specific companies compare with each other because most manufacturers won’t release data on their exact processes or the refinements they use from generation to generation. Battery charging is also managed extensively in software, which explains why a software bug could result in the batteries refusing to operate — though it doesn’t clarify if they may have been damaged in the interim. If you’ve got a Surface Pro 3 with this issue, go bang on Microsoft’s doors and demand your $99 back (assuming you paid for support). Let us know if you don’t get it. There’s no word on when the fix will be available, but given the severity of the problem we’d expect it in the near future.

AMD has announced some significant changes and adjustments to its future GPU lineup, including the launch of a new Radeon Pro graphics card. Going forward, the FirePro lineup is being retired altogether in favor of new, Radeon Pro branding. AMD has announced a handful of Radeon Pro WX (Workstation eXperience) cards already — the W4100, W5100, and W7100, likely based on derivatives of the company’s RX 480 Radeon GPU. The interesting card, however, is the Radeon Pro SSG, a new Radeon Pro GPU with integrated M.2 slots for adding PCI Express-based NAND storage. According to Raja Koduri, the GPU can add up to 1TB of SSD storage connected via a PEX8747 bridge chip. According to AMD, adding a 1TB switch to the GPU is a simple way to bypass a common problem: the GPU memory limit. Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Current desktops can scale up to 64GB, while high-end workstations can theoretically address up to 1,536GB of memory. Graphics cards, by contrast, are limited to a fraction of that — 32GB, as of this writing. Worse, the GPU can’t leverage system RAM. If you want to perform a workload on the GPU, you either have to pull it all into GPU memory or rely on the comparatively high latency PCI Express bus. Moving workloads into on-card NAND flash solves the latency problem — AMD claims that it can access local memory over the M.2 interface at much lower latencies than it can pull data from the PCI Express bus. Based on what we know of the GPU’s path to RAM, that’s probably true. Less clear is whether or not there’s any kind of bandwidth advantage to this kind of access — the prototype uses a pair of Samsung 950 512GB drives in a RAID 0, giving them theoretical access to eight lanes of PCI Express connectivity. That’s still just half of a standard x16 PCI Express 3.0 slot, so latency rather than bandwidth may be the distinguishing factor here. Developers will have to code for the SSG in order to enable support for the 1TB memory pool. In theory, it’s a really interesting idea for keeping workloads local and we could see more solutions like this — HBM2 may improve power efficiency a great deal and allow for long-term higher-memory solutions, but in the short term it’s going to be expensive and consequently limited. Performance of the SSG when scrubbing 8K video topped 4GB/s while running the same workload with an attached 950 Pro was only capable of around 900MB/s, according to Anandtech. The SSG shown off today is just a prototype — it’s not clear if AMD will bring this specific card to market — but we think we could easily see solutions like this for professional graphics from both AMD and Nvidia as a way to boost performance in specific cases. The one thing we don’t expect to see is a consumer equivalent. Consumer GPUs are well-provisioned as far as overall memory and don’t see the bunker-busting memory usage that workstation and HPC or professional applications can require. The majority of games still fit comfortably into 4GB buffers at 1080p, and 1080p is still the most common resolution. Given that beta developer kits are going on sale for a cool $10,000, we don’t expect to see many of these units ship, period — but if the technology proves as useful as AMD’s demo implies, we may see Nvidia move towards this concept as well. Faster PCI Express storage and higher-end GPUs may make the pairing more attractive in the future once Vega arrives.

I’ve been using Windows PCs for over 25 years, and DOS for even longer. My first version of Windows was Windows/286, which I purchased and installed on a (you guessed it) 286-12 while I was in high school. My favorite version of Windows had been XP until 7 came out, and then that became my favorite. During their times on the market, I also liked Windows 98 and even Windows 3.11 — I always hated the fact that the latter said “for Workgroups” in the title. I used Windows 3.11 because I needed to write papers for college or FTP Doom in a window. Then I’d drop to DOS so I could play Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. In my dorm room, no “workgroups” were in sight, unless my friends and I were sitting on the floor working out engineering problem sets with paper and pen and eating scallion pancakes at 12:30am. But getting back to more recent times, I had been happily using Windows 7 for years. We regularly, sometimes even almost daily, run stories on Windows 10 and its various privacy issues and upgrade nags and backhanded, insidious ways to force you to install it. Someone even won a judgment against Microsoft because of it. Partially as a means of catharsis, we had a great chat with some of you, our readers, last weekend over whether anyone actually loves Windows as a whole, and it turns out many people do. Still, despite my satisfaction with Windows 7 and access to Windows 10 test machines, I installed Windows 10 on my main PC some time ago and have been using it ever since. I can’t remember why. No, seriously. I can’t figure out what I have now that I didn’t have when I was running Windows 7. Put aside the fact that Windows 8 and its derivatives were a disaster, and I tried and tried with that and eventually gave up and went back to Windows 7 a couple of years ago. You could argue, as my friend and colleague and sometimes-ET-contributor Matthew Murray does, that Windows 10 was mostly about righting the wrongs of Windows 8. “The main reason it’s important is because it walks back Windows 8 and returns the desktop to primacy on desktop/laptop computers,” Matthew said to me today. “It’s not so much what it does, but what it undoes. And, for me at least, that’s no small thing.” No, seriously, why am I using this? No, seriously, why am I using this? I agree 100 percent with that sentiment. But let’s put that Windows 8 PTSD stuff aside and get back to why Windows 10 is better than Windows 7. And I can’t get there, even after using it every day for months. I could give it faster boot times. I could theoretically give it improved security, although I’m still running Avast and have to worry about malware all the time, so I’m not sure what’s such a big deal there on a consumer level. The PC has also blue-screened on me a couple of times, but that’s happened to me in Windows 7. I just can’t figure out why Windows 10 is so important. If someone swapped my drive out and put one in with Windows 7 and all of the same apps, what would happen? I’d see longer boot times with my still-fast SSD. I don’t talk to my PC. I don’t need DX12. I don’t have an Xbox. I still don’t have a touchscreen monitor. I don’t use built-in Windows apps for things like email and calendar appointments. While that’s all personal preference, I also don’t see anything in that list that seems like a must have for a large majority of people. It’s… basically the same way I’ve been using my PC all along. On the eve of Microsoft Windows 10 leaving its “free” status and jumping to $119 for consumers, the biggest reason I can think of for telling someone to upgrade to Windows 10 is that it doesn’t hurt — at least as long as you either adapt to or disable its background data collection, and we’ve got a new how-to on that coming soon. And, oh, that if you upgrade, you’ll finally dismiss those horrific nag windows, and this is your last chance to get it for free. As for why that’s a big deal? I’m coming up empty. I feel like the past seven years should have brought us further along on the Windows PC desktop, and they really haven’t. Seriously, ET readers, what am I missing?

Top Gear's Ollie Kew recently jetted off to the Côte d'Azur to sample the ultimate version of the ultimate Benz. The Mercedes-AMG S63 4Matic Cabriolet makes use of a twin-turbo 6.3-litre V8 producing a stout 577 horsepower and 663 pound-feet of torque – "one solitary foot-pound less than a McLaren P1," writes Kew. On the speed: "Over the £25,555-cheaper S500, this S63 weighs in with an extra 700cc of capacity, 128bhp and 148lb ft of torque. The result is 0-62mph in just 3.9 seconds, and a suitably quicker arrival at the limited 155mph top speed. Not to mention your destination. And they’re going to do a V12. For £192k. Our minds are duly boggled." On the magnitude of the feat: "This is a 2110kg, five-metre long machine. It has massaging seats, heated armrests, heated headrests, and computing intelligence to leave Skynet looking dense. Yet it’ll do 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds. We’re used to monster performance numbers these days, but come on: a soft-top S-Class that’ll out-accelerate a Porsche 997 Turbo has to be worth a slap on the back for AMG’s engineers." On the enormity: "At some point, you are going to have to get the thing stopped, or around a corner, and though the S63 has all the necessary hardware, you notice the weight of the thing, big-time. All of this intimidation results in one uncomfortable truth: you don’t end up driving the 577bhp S63 Cabrio that fast. Or if you do, it’s a brief, naughty thrill, unless you’ve got the sort of space that lets Veyrons reach their upper echelons. Be in no doubt, an S63 Cab is a magnificent means of transport – a truly feel-good motoring experience. But this isn’t a performance car first, cabrio second. It’s more a big luxo-cabrio that happens to do almost 200mph if you’re feeling silly. On the noise: "When you remember the gargantuan thrust under your right foot, the S63’s not quite as audible as you might imagine, roof up or al fresco. It’d be nice if, once Sport mode is selected, the engine bellowed just a little harder. The less powerful S500 is actually more rumbly and cockle-warming when you’re just mooching around." On the price: "There’ll soon be an S65 AMG offering a surfeit of V12 fury, but this £135,675 S63 soft-top is all a sane person could ever really need. It’s £8000 more expensive than the coupe - a bit of a favourite here at TG - but due to packaging the triple-layer electric roof, you can’t have the clever suspension that reads the road ahead for bumps and leans into corners." On comparisons with the S-Class Coupe: "This is a noticeably less sporting piece of kit. Obviously a fair proportion of the people who buy an S-Class Cabrio will default to the AMG because it’s the most expensive, not necessarily because it’s quickest or best at overtaking." On comparisons with the lesser S500 Cabriolet: "[The S63 is] jolly exciting, but the non-AMG S500 is possibly sweeter still. Less power, a less frantic race to get it slowed down, and a truly blissful motoring experience as a result. Question is, will anyone ready to drop over a hundred grand on a V8 Benz drop-top notice it on their way to the AMG end of the brochure." Mercedes-AMG S63 4Matic Cabriolet (Credit: Daimler) Read the full story here, and if you haven't already done so, join the TG community on Facebook. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Autos, Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

BUSES MAKE 32 BILLION JOURNEYS every year in Europe alone. That figure is bound to go up as global po[CENSORED]tions rise and more people move to urban centres. That’s why Mercedes-Benz — a luxury carmaker you’re unlikely to link with public transport — has debuted a flashy, futuristic new bus that drives itself, plans its own routes, saves fuel, and charges your phones. The company's Future Bus is a twelve-metre long, semi-autonomous, glowing chariot that was announced earlier this week. It uses Daimler’s CityPilot technology, smart vehicle AI that’s similar to the tech it used for its Actros self-driving truck concept two years ago. The goal is to create as smooth, predictable, and energy-efficient of a ride as possible: Three qualities notoriously absent from buses' bad stereotypes. Sharp bus design has long lagged behind subways and trains. But Mercedes-Benz wants to inject modernity and elegance to one of Earth’s most common, utilitarian modes of public transportation. Future Bus — while not incredibly spacious-looking — is outfitted with tons of cameras and long-range radar that extends 200 metres to visualise road hazards in 3D, and self-drive the bus down the road. Future Bus’s maiden voyage shuttles flyers from the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to the town of Haarlem, nearly 20km away. It’ll still be a while before we see a bus like this roaming up and down human-packed city avenues the world over — self-driving private cars are barely in the wild as it is. But this week’s announcement signals a promising prospect: A nicer bus could be right around the corner, driving its own way around it. If you would like to comment on this or anything else you have seen on BBC Autos, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And while you're at it, join the BBC Autos community on Instagram. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Autos, Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Tunisia's parliament has passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Habib Essid, effectively dismissing the government of the US-trained economist. A total of 188 MPs voted to sack Mr Essid, with only three supporting him. Mr Essid, who has been in office less than two years, has faced criticism for what his opponents say is his failure to push through economic reforms. President Beji Caid Essebsi last month called for a national unity government to break months of economic turmoil. Unemployment has worsened since the 2011 revolution, when President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted. More than a third of young people in Tunisia are without work. Tunisia's uprising was the first of the Arab Spring, and often hailed as the most successful with the country now functioning as a parliamentary democracy. Analysis: BBC's Rana Jawad in Tunis The confidence vote came after a month of wrangling over the fate of the prime minister, following pressure on him from the country's president to resign. Mr Essid refused to step down, citing respect for the constitutional process and instead called on the Tunisian parliament to decide his fate. In the end, an overwhelming majority of MPs voted to oust him from office. Most lawmakers accused him of failing to deliver on economic reforms needed to ease the country's high unemployment rates. In June, the Tunisian president proposed the formation of a new unity government, arguing that the country needed a leadership that could carry out bold reforms. But some observers believe that the vote is also a consequence of the prime minister's detachment from party politics. Mr Essid recently accused leading parties of trying to pressure him into making changes to the cabinet, which he says he refused to comply with. It is not clear who will succeed him at this time, but parliament will start negotiations over the matter on Monday.

Dozens of families have left besieged eastern areas of the city of Aleppo along a humanitarian corridor, Syrian state media say. They say the civilians boarded buses and were taken to temporary shelters. Some rebels had also surrendered to government forces, the report says. Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, earlier said four exit corridors would be opened. But Syria's opposition says they are a government ploy to recapture all of Aleppo. "These corridors are not for getting aid in, but driving people out," said Basma Kodmani of the opposition High Negotiations Committee. "The brutal message to our people is: leave or starve." The opening of the corridors has been welcomed cautiously by the UN, the US and some aid agencies. However, Washington has suggested the plan may be an attempt to force the evacuation of civilians and the surrender of rebel groups in the city. On Friday, the United Nations envoy to Syria said the corridors should be administered by the UN and that there should be a 48-hour ceasefire for people to leave safely. The story of the Syrian conflict A city facing its last gasp? About 300,000 people are trapped in rebel-held eastern Aleppo and the UN says food supplies are expected to run out in mid-August. "This morning dozens of families left via the corridors identified... to allow the exit of citizens besieged by terrorist groups in the eastern neighbourhoods," Syrian state news agency Sana reported. It showed pictures of people, mostly women and children, walking past soldiers and getting onto buses. It said they were taken to temporary shelters but gave no details. The report also said some fighters had surrendered to the authorities. A Russian army spokesman said 85 civilians and 29 fighters had left via the corridors on Friday and 52 civilians and 24 fighters on Saturday. Lt-Gen Sergei Chvarkov told the state-owned Russian news channel Rossiya 24 that four more corridors would be opened up. He also said that six temporary shelters had been set up to accommodate at least 3,000 people. Map locator Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has offered an amnesty for rebels surrendering within three months. UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that "a number" of civilians had left eastern Aleppo through a passage in the Salaheddin neighbourhood. Some reports have said rebel groups are preventing civilians from leaving. Rebels have been in control of much of eastern Aleppo since July 2012 but the Syrian army, backed by pro-government militia and Syrian and Russian jets, has recently driven them back. The government recently seized the northern suburb of Bani Zeid after fierce fighting. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Friday the UN supported the humanitarian corridors in principle but it wanted Russia to provide more details on how they would work. "Our suggestion to Russia is to actually leave the corridors being established at their initiative to us," Mr de Mistura told reporters in Geneva. "The UN and humanitarian partners know what to do." US Secretary of State John Kerry said that if the operation was "a ruse" it could disrupt US-Russian co-operation in Syria. "On the other hand, if we're able to work it out and have a complete understanding of what is happening and then agreement on (the) way forward, it could actually open up some possibilities," he said.

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Gaza City - Fahmi Kanan's only desire these days is to be with his elderly father, whose health has rapidly deteriorated in recent months. "I want to see my father before any bad news strikes me," Kanan, 47, told Al Jazeera from his home in Tel al-Hawa, Gaza. But an impassable distance separates father and son: While Kanan's father remains in their hometown of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, Kanan was expelled 14 years ago to the besieged Gaza Strip. He was among several dozen West Bank residents exiled by Israel to Gaza or Europe as part of a deal with the Palestinian Authority (PA) to end Israel's 2002 siege on the Church of the Nativity during the second Intifada. The siege was part of Israel's effort to apprehend a number of wanted Palestinians holed up inside the church. "More than 200 people barricaded ourselves inside the church, but Israel had identified 39 as "terrorists" who had to be deported to lift the siege," Kanan recalled, noting that he had sought refuge in the church as violence raged in the area. He acknowledged that he was among the wanted men, having fought to resist the Israeli occupation. Although the deal was supposed to involve only a temporary exile, Kanan said, Israel has not allowed any of the expelled Palestinians back home to the occupied West Bank. They have been kept apart from their families and relatives, as Israel has refused to grant them permits to travel from Gaza into Israel through the Erez crossing. Hope has shrunk, and I fear I can only be back if I am carried in a coffin. Although it is also possible to exit Gaza via the Rafah crossing into Egypt, this crossing is frequently closed, and the expense of the journey is much greater, Kanan said. Although his family has taken this journey twice without him over the past 14 years to visit grandparents and relatives in Bethlehem, Kanan himself is not allowed into the West Bank owing to Israel's ban. Some of the other Palestinians who were expelled to Gaza under the 2002 deal have had parents and other family members in the West Bank die, without being able to bid farewell or even attend their funerals. Majdi Danaa, 37, received news of his father's death a year ago. "The exile has deeply estranged me from my origins," Danaa told Al Jazeera. "Hope has shrunk, and I fear I can only be back if I am carried in a coffin." Danaa said he had been engaged to a woman in Bethlehem before his expulsion, and he planned to return to marry her - but when his exile continued indefinitely, he was ultimately forced to give up. "I kept waiting until I realised that it was totally pointless," Danaa said. Years later, in 2009, he married a woman from Gaza, and they now have two children. Throughout the course of their exile, the group has appealed to international bodies and human rights organisations such as the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, asking for help to end their ordeal - but their pleas have been to no avail. Contacted by Al Jazeera, the UN and the ICRC said the issue was outside their mandate. Kanan and some of the other exiled men also blame the PA for their predicament, citing indifference from the Palestinian leadership. "We feel that we are abandoned and banished from all sides," he said. PA spokesperson Yousef el-Mahmoud told Al Jazeera that the Palestinian government was working to aid Kanan and the other exiled men. "Our goverment follows the issue of those deportees with great concern," Mahmoud said, noting discussions were under way in this regard, but he would not provide specifics. Every spring, upon the anniversary of their exile, those living in Gaza reiterate their demands to return home. They believe their situation could be settled through negotiations between the PA and Israel, or possibly through a future prisoner exchange deal - but so far they have yet to see any progress. Meanwhile, the men continue to languish in exile. Raed Abiat says the years he has spent away from his family and hometown have left him with a heavy heart. He is deeply concerned about the health of his father, who suffers from an aggressive form of cancer. "I am deprived of my right to take care of my father when he is in an acute need for me to be with him," Abiat told Al Jazeera in a broken voice.

Turkish military officials say the army has killed 35 Kurdish fighters after they attempted to storm a military base in the southeastern province of Hakkari. The early morning attack on Saturday came just hours after clashes in Hakkari's Cukurca district between Turkish troops and fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that left eight soldiers dead, the officials said. They said the fighters attempted to take the base in three different groups, but were spotted by aerial reconnaissance. An air operation was subsequently launched, killing 23 fighters, the Turkish officials said. Four more were then killed in a ground operation, they said, adding that the other eight Kurdish fighters were killed in Friday's gun battle in Cukurca. Those clashes also left 25 soldiers wounded, the officials said. Last week, Turkey's military launched air strikes against PKK members in northern Iraq, killing 20 fighters. In the southeast, the military has frequently carried out air strikes after a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire and peace process between the government and the PKK broke down last summer. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK - designated a 'terrorist group' by Turkey, the US and the European Union - began its armed campaign in 1984. Turkey carries out frequent attacks against PKK targets in Iraq's Kurdish-dominated regions near the Turkish border, where the PKK leadership has camps. Turkey's military, NATO's second-largest, has continued to grapple with the low-intensity conflict in the mainly Kurdish southeast as its senior ranks undergo a major shake-up in following a July 15-16 failed coup.

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Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the more powerful jihadist groups in Syria, has rebranded itself. It officially announced its separation from al-Qaeda and "any other external entity" in a video broadcast on 28 July 2016. The group changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of Syria/the Levant) and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, was seen with his face uncovered for the first time. Al-Nusra has, since 2012, been one of the largest and most influential groupings in the Syrian conflict. Its ranks have long been dominated by Syrians, although the higher echelons are more international, and it has tended to focus more on ousting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria than on wider, international goals. This was part of the reason that Nusra refused Isis' (the previous incarnation of the so-called Islamic State) attempts to merge the two groups in 2013. The twin lures of a Syria-focus (as opposed to an internationalist concept threatening Western and other Middle Eastern states) and relative cohesiveness and strength in pursuing its goals have long made it a key player. As such, it attracted significant support from those who wanted to harness the group's strength against Mr Assad. Qatar and Turkey are long rumoured to have supported the group. Neither seek to support its extremism out of choice. Rather, they see Nusra as too important to ignore and thus a "least worst" option. And both have arguably sought to convince the group to de-link itself from al-Qaeda to make it more palatable. Broader appeal Jabhat's leadership has key local and international audiences to win over with this rebranding. Without the al-Qaeda tag and with a new name, Jabhat hopes to ditch its previous reputation for brutality and start afresh. There is, however, no reason to expect that it will change the tactics or the strategic goals that earned it renown as a dangerous group. Nevertheless, this fig-leaf of cover - that the group officially renounced its al-Qaeda affiliation - may be enough for it to obtain more external support. The group also seeks to eschew its al-Qaeda affiliation as a way to remove itself from the target list for US and Russian air strikes. There is no chance whatsoever that this rebranding will affect Russia's calculations, and initial comments from the US administration suggest that the US will continue as before too. In reality, Jabhat probably does not really expect a change in targeting policy. But now that it has explicitly and exclusively committed to the Syrian jihad, it will use future air strikes to "prove" that the US and the international community are against this goal and in fact seek to defend the Assad government in Damascus. Pragmatic logic Indeed, perhaps the core audience for this rebranding exercise are other groups in Syria. Local rebel outfits have long faced a difficult choice in banding with Jabhat. Many avowedly disagree with their radical al-Qaeda ideological approach, but keenly recognise that it is, nevertheless, a powerful player. This pragmatic logic has swelled the group's ranks for years. Now without its al-Qaeda link, it is in a stronger place politically to cement its place amid Syrian opposition groups. But, without any evidence that the group has really renounced any of its more extremist policies, these groups and their supporters have the same difficult choice to make. Supporting Jabhat in the short-term may lead to greater funding, arming, and even success. But in the longer term, it empowers Jabhat and its vision of establishing a Sunni Islamic Caliphate. Al-Qaeda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, officially sanctified al-Nusra's separation. This reinforces the notion that this is not some profound "on the road to Damascus" conversion by Jabhat. Al-Qaeda is simply evolving to a more locally-focused and decentralised modus operandi. And, ultimately, if Jabhat can use this rebranding to subsume more smaller groups along with their fighters, the basic al-Qaeda tenets will stand a better chance of being propagated still further.

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Xiaomi has announced Qicycle, wrapped an electric bicycle that is able to assist a user for about 45 Km. Bicycle has Bluetooth, a 1.8 inch color screen and Shimano shifting gear. Bluetooth is used to connect your bike with your phone, so you can monitor distances traveled, speed, GPS position and others. The screen looks and he kind of just such information. What is most interesting about this bike is the price: somewhere around $ 450 or 400 euros, or about 1800 lei. What it's not much for an electric bicycle with 45 km range and only 14.5 Kg (yes, it's easy for an electric bicycle). For now it's available only in China, but they could see it in Europe, it has certifications from here.