DaLveN @CSBD

9 ottobre 2019 - Mercedes ci ha permesso di scoprire in anteprima mondiale la nuova GLE Coupé. Il SUV sportivo tedesco è stato rinnovato proprio quest'anno per il 2020: ecco com'è fatto e come si comporta su strada da passeggeri La gamma SUV Mercedes si continua a rinnovare e questa volta è il turno della versione sportiva GLE Coupé, che per il 2020 guadagna un nuovo look e un ricco pacchetto di contenuti tecnici e tecnologici. L'abbiamo vista al Salone di Francoforte 2019, ma la Casa di Stoccarda ci ha dato l'opportunità di toccarla con mano e assaporarne le doti dinamiche da passeggero in anteprima mondiale, in Romania, sulla magnifica strada Transfăgărășan (la stessa dove abbiamo provato la nuova Mazda MX-5). Ecco come è andata a bordo della Mercedes GLE Coupé 2020. Dal vivo: com'è fuoriL'estetica della nuova GLE Coupé segue le novità che si sono viste sulla versione standard (qui la nostra prova): il muso ha un nuovo profilo, più slanciato a partire dai gruppi ottici e con l'aerodinamica ottimizzata per ridurre la resistenza aerodinamica (che cala del 9% rispetto al modello precedente). Le grandi differenze sono al posteriore: il taglio del lunotto da vera coupé è rafforzato dal design dei fari, più tagliente su questa generazione e molto simile a quello della nuova Classe A.Per quanto riguarda le dimensioni, la GLE Coupé 2020 è lunga 4.939 mm e larga 2.010 mm (rispetto al passato, +39 mm in lunghezza e +7 mm in larghezza). Anche il passo è cresciuto, + 20 mm, ma resta comunque 60 mm più corto della GLE: questa scelta è servita a migliorare la maneggevolezza nel misto e a conferirle un aspetto più compatto e performante. Inoltre, la gamma cerchi parte da 19" e si arriva fino a 22".Fin sal lancio sarà disponibile anche la versione AMG: paraurti ancora più estremi con le prese d'aria maggiorate per far prendere aria al radiatore e l'estrattore dell'aria che mette in evidenza i 4 scarichi. Dal vivo: com'è dentro e sotto al cofanoLa nuova generazione del SUV Coupé è stata rivista anche dentro le portiere: non poteva mancare il sistema di infotainment MBUX con doppio schermo da 12,3". Il passo maggiorato di 20 mm migliora lo spazio per i passeggeri e anche chi sta dietro non si trova in difficoltà con il tetto sportivo ribassato. La capacità di carico è di 655 litri che, abbattendo i sedili con frazionamento 40:20:40, arrivano a 1.790 litri, ossia 70 in più del modello precedente.Per quanto riguarda la gamma motori, la GLE Coupé 2020 sarà disponibile in versione 350 d 4MATIC da 272 CV e 600 Nm (consumo di carburante combinato: 8,0-7,5 l/100 km; emissioni di CO2 combinate: 211-197 g/km) e 400 d 4MATIC da 330 CV e 700 Nm di coppia. Entrambi le motorizzazioni sono affiancate dalla trazione 4MATIC con ripartitore di coppia con regolazione elettronica della frizione a dischi multipli e il cambio automatico 9G‑TRONIC. Come vi abbiamo anticipato, gli appassionati delle prestazioni potranno lanciarsi sulla 53 AMG spinta dal 6 cilindri 3.0 biturbo che, grazie all'EQ Boost, tocca i 435 CV ed è in grado scattare da 0 a 100 km/h in 5,3 secondi.

Jody Wilson-Raybould testified at the House of Commons Justice Committee in Ottawa on Wednesday that she was told the prime minister’s office could arrange for op-eds to be published to support her position.Public EditorNewspaper editors, not politicians, determine which op-eds are publishedKathy EnglishBy Kathy EnglishPublic EditorThu., Feb. 28, 2019timer4 min. readThe notion that the office of the prime minister of Canada — or any other politician or public official — could simply “lineup all kinds of people to write op-eds” and expect them to be automatically published in newspapers like the Toronto Star, is both disturbing and laughable.It cynically suggests that our journalism is a passive process of publishing to appease powerful special interests.It is not. Jody Wilson-Raybould testified at the House of Commons Justice Committee in Ottawa on Wednesday that she was told the prime minister’s office could arrange for op-eds to be published to support her position.Public EditorNewspaper editors, not politicians, determine which op-eds are publishedKathy EnglishBy Kathy EnglishPublic EditorThu., Feb. 28, 2019timer4 min. readThe notion that the office of the prime minister of Canada — or any other politician or public official — could simply “lineup all kinds of people to write op-eds” and expect them to be automatically published in newspapers like the Toronto Star, is both disturbing and laughable.It cynically suggests that our journalism is a passive process of publishing to appease powerful special interests.It is not.ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOWJournalistic standards demand that journalists weigh any information offered for publication in any section of the Star with a strong measure of skepticism, the imperative for verification of facts and consideration of the public interest.In reality, it is harder for politicians to get their perspectives published on the Star’s op-ed pages than just about anyone else. Political staff are routinely made aware of this fact when they come to the Star looking to make their partisan case to Canadians through the Star’s many publishing platforms.Undoubtedly many Canadian journalists and quite likely, members of the public, were rattled by the allegations this week of former justice minister and attorney-general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, in which she stated that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford had told Wilson-Raybould’s chief of staff that the PMO would lineup op-eds in support of the then attorney-general coming to a decision to provide a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin. Wilson-Raybould made these statements Wednesday before the House of Commons justice committee examining allegations that she was pressured to politically interfere in criminal charges against the Quebec company.“It would appear they tried to mani[CENSORED]te Jody Wilson-Raybould by promising to mani[CENSORED]te the media,” said Andrew Phillips, the Star’s editorial page editor, who oversees our opinion pages. “She did not allow it, and neither would we. “All journalists are in the business of many people — politicians and others — trying to mani[CENSORED]te us through various means to publish what they want known, and we are also in the business of resisting and coming to our own judgments,” he said. “The fact that they are seemingly so cynical they would tell people they can do that, does not mean they can.”

Over the past 30 years Hungarian fiction has firmly established itself on the map of modern European literature, with writers such as Péter Nádas, Péter Esterházy and László Krasznahorkai widely known across the world. However, the renaissance of fictional writing in Hungary had already begun in 1969 with György Konrád’s short debut novel, A Látogató, which was translated into English in 1975 under the title The Case Worker.Konrád, who has died aged 86, used the book to subtly critique Hungary’s communist regime. But it was also an exceptional stylistic achievement, with sparse dialogue and long streams of consciousness. While the authorities disapproved of its themes – based around the life of a soul-searching social worker dealing with people with mental health problems – the Hungarian public responded much more positively, and the first pressing of A Látogató sold out in a few days.Later, in the mid-1970s, after being arrested and harassed because of his writing, Konrád agreed a compromise with the government under which he went unpublished in Hungary, but was allowed to travel and publish abroad. After communism fell in the late 80s he received his full due as a writer, and was acknowledged as one of the groundbreakers for the likes of Nádas, Esterházy and Krasznahorkai.Konrád was born into a Jewish merchant family in Debrecen and grew up in Berettyóújfalu, close to the Romanian border; his father, József, and his mother, Róza (nee Klein), owned a hardware shop in the small town. In 1944, when the German army occupied Hungary, days before the ghettoisation and deportation of the Jewish po[CENSORED]tion from the countryside began, György and his sister, Éva, were sent to relatives in Budapest – a decision that almost certainly saved their lives.Sign up for Bookmarks: discover new books in our weekly emailRead moreAfter the second world war he went to school first in Debrecen and then in Budapest, and in 1951 was accepted at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest to study Russian and literature. He was briefly expelled from the university by the authorities, who deemed him a “class alien” due to his bourgeois background, but was readmitted in 1953 during the reformist prime ministership of Imre Nagy, switching to study Hungarian literature and graduating in 1956 shortly before the Hungarian revolution erupted.Konrád fully supported the revolutionary call for independence and a multiparty system, and joined the pro-revolutionary National Guard. But when the Soviets crushed the revolution, he abandoned his tommy-gun in a dark alleyway.Just before the revolution Konrád had had his first piece published in the periodical Új Hang (New Voice).He joined a group of young aspiring writers and artists who met regularly in a Budapest coffee house, and, after an unsettled period working in various temporary jobs, found a permanent position as a social worker in the city.His six years of experience in that job were used in his first novel and his next job, as a sociologist at the Institute of Urban Planning, gave him material for his following novel, A Városalapító, which was published in censored form in Hungary in 1977 and translated in the same year into English under the title The City Builder.By this time Konrád had become a political player due to the clandestine publication of a study translated into English as The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power that he had written with the sociologist Iván Szelényi. Copies of the publication, which argued against the Marxist view that the communist system is a dictatorship of the proletariat, were confiscated by the Hungarian security police and he and Szelényi were arrested – although as a result of international protests they were soon released.Szelényi subsequently emigrated, but Konrád chose to stay in Hungary on condition that he received a permanent exit visa enabling him to publish and teach in Germany and the US. It was in New York that he wrote his third, most Hungarian, novel, A Cinkos (The Loser, published in English in 1983) with a brilliant chapter, The Feast Day, about the beginnings of the 1956 revolution, which Konrád said was “the only event of world historical significance that we Hungarians accomplished in this [the 20th] century”.Since he was on the list of Hungary’s forbidden authors from 1977 until 1988, Konrád’s two political studies: Az Autonómia Kisértése (The Temptation of Autonomy, 1980) and the excellent Anti-politica (1986) were only published abroad. In these he positioned himself as a left-liberal thinker and staunch opponent of all authoritarian regimes, a role he continued to fulfil until his death.In 1990, after the fall of communism, he was awarded the state-sponsored Kossuth prize for literature, was elected president of the International PEN Club, and became a member of the council of a new Hungarian political party, the Free Democrats, which was in opposition to the government. In 1991 he was a founder of the Demokratikus Charta movement, which campaigned against the autocratic inclinations of Hungary’s first post-communist administration under József Antall.As incidents of antisemitism in Hungary rose, Konrád produced several writings on Jewish themes, while Kerti Mulatság (A Feast in the Garden, 1987) and Kőóra (Stonedial, 1994) were mostly autobiographical, similarly to the texts that went into the volume A Guest in My Own Country (2013).His opposition to the populism that has been stifling Hungary over the past nine years was made clear in his last two nostalgic essay-novels, Ásatás (Excavation I-II) with the subtitles Falevelek a Szélben (Leaves in the Wind, 2017) and Öreg Erdő (An Old Forest, 2018).Konrád received many awards and honours, of which the most important were the Herder prize (1983), the Central European prize (1998) and the International Charles prize of Aachen (2003). In his last years he spent most of his time in the family house at Hegymagas, a village close to Lake Balaton.He is survived by his third wife, the author Judit Lakner, by their three children, Áron, József and Zsuzsanna, and by a son and daughter, Anna and Miklós, from his second marriage, to Júlia Lángh, which ended in divorce.• György Konrád, writer, born 2 April 1933; died 13 September 2019Since you’re here...... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever before. And unlike many new organisations, we have chosen an approach that allows us to keep our journalism accessible to all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford. But we need your ongoing support to keep working as we do.The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.We need your support to keep delivering quality journalism, to maintain our openness and to protect our precious independence. Every reader contribution, big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as £1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Yamaha have unveiled an updated version of their A2 middleweight MT-03, featuring updates to the suspension and styling and a new LCD dash. The most obvious change is the new dual headlight that gives the front end an aggressive stance. This is further exaggerated by small styling tweaks to give the bike a more muscular profile including a wider tank cover and lightweight air scoops. And the changes aren’t just skin-deep, with new 37mm USD forks replacing the telescopic unit on the old bike and an extended asymmetric swingarm that pivots closer to the middle of the bike. This is suspended by a shock with revised preload and damping, plus a stiffer spring. Yamaha have opted for a white-on-black LCD dash that they say is easier to operate than the old unit. The new bike will be a

Cairo - (Masrawy): The Sudanese military did not break up the sit-in in front of the army headquarters by force, but targeted an adjacent area that poses a threat to the security of the citizens, Sudan's transitional military council spokesman Lt. Gen. Shamsuddin Kabashi said in an interview with Sky News Arabia. Kabashi added: "This morning, as part of the plan of the security forces concerned in Khartoum state to break up the gathering in the surrounding area in the geographically defined sit-in area, the security forces moved." He continued: "There is a region called Colombia has long been the focus of corruption and negative practices that are contrary to the behavior of Sudanese society, and has become a major security threat to our citizens." Lieutenant General Shamseddine Kabbashi noted that "the army, citizens and forces of freedom and change have agreed that this area represents a danger, and also affects the security of the rebels in the sit-in area, and accordingly, the relevant authorities decided to move towards this region, leading to the security and safety of society." "We were in touch with the leaders of the Freedom and Change Caucus, where we told them about what is being arranged and what is going on in the disintegration of Colombia," the spokesman said. Asked about the army's position on the calls of the forces of freedom and change for escalation, Kabashi stressed "did not break up the sit-in force, tents exist and young people move freely .. which was a military move outside the sit-in." He continued: "As a stampede in the area of Columbia entered the sit-in, and many young people opted out of the sit-in, and still there in the region." Regarding the possibility of the Sudanese army allowing the protesters to return next to the army headquarters, Kabashi said that the army does not mind that, adding: "We are not targeting the sit-in area and those who came out if they wanted to return, they have it. We targeted only the Columbia area."

Washington: Middle East Online The United States has blacklisted 28 Chinese government and trade organizations, accusing them of involvement in a crackdown by the authorities, especially against the Muslim Uighur minority, the Commerce Department said Monday. "The US government and the Department of Commerce cannot tolerate and will not tolerate the brutal repression of ethnic minorities across China," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. They will be denied imports of products from the United States. “This will ensure that our technologies will not be used to suppress unarmed minorities,” Ross said. The US government explained that these organizations include eight commercial entities, while the other government groups, including the Public Security Bureau in Xingyang (northwest), where experts and human rights organizations report that the authorities are holding more than one million people, mostly Uighurs in detention camps. "These entities are all involved in the implementation of the Chinese campaign of repression, arbitrary mass detention and surveillance with high technology," the statement said. Beijing, for its part, condemned Washington's decision, saying it was "baseless" for these accusations. "This act seriously violates basic norms in international relations, interferes in China's internal affairs and harms the interests of the Chinese side," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters. "China expresses its dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this." Targeted business entities include video surveillance firm Hikvision and Megvi Technology and SensTime, according to an official document to be released tomorrow (Wednesday). In a statement, Megvi reiterated her "strong" opposition to a US decision "not based on any facts." The company defended its "positive impact on society." The US Senate last month adopted a bill to increase pressure on China, with the threat of sanctions, to urge it to stop "human rights abuses." The decision taken by the United States on Monday, days before the resumption of negotiations between Beijing and Washington aimed at reaching a comprehensive agreement to end the trade war between them.

Welcome to CSBD

've never been one to shy away from calling out mobile tech injustices — especially when it comes to the realm of operating system upgrades. Well, gang, here we go again. Now, hang on: This isn't another impassioned rant about Android upgrades. Nope; this time, we need to talk about Google's other mobile-tech platform — the one that's usually the subject of thickly ladled upgrade praise. Yes, oh yes, it's time to talk about the typically commendable Chrome OS. First, some context: Chrome OS and Android may be increasingly alike on the outside, but when it comes to operating system upgrades, they couldn't be more different. With Android, y'see, device-makers are free to modify the OS in any way they see fit — and it's that very freedom that then results in those same companies being responsible for processing and sending out upgrades for their own devices instead of Google handling it for everyone. physical access to your computer. [ Take this mobile device management course from PluralSight and learn how to secure devices in your company without degrading the user experience. ] With Chrome OS, on the other hand, Google maintains tight control of the software. The operating system is more or less always the same, no matter what type of device you're using or which company made it. Because of that, Google's able to manage OS upgrades directly for all devices and send them out itself. And suffice it to say, the difference that makes from our perspective — that of the multi-limbed mammals who purchase and rely on said devices — is dramatic. You know the deal, right? On Android, if you aren't using one of Google's own Pixel phones, you've got virtually no guarantee of if or when any given upgrade will reach you. The wait often ends up being six months to a year, sometimes more, with virtually no communication along the way — and things are even less dependable if you're using (GASP!) last year's phone model. Sometimes, a phone-maker will leave you hanging for ages and then just decide not to bother giving you an upgrade at all, despite your phone still being in the standard two-year window for support. It's all quite lovely, to say the least. [Get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday with JR's Android Intelligence newsletter. Exclusive extras await!] On Chrome OS, no matter what kind of Chromebook you're carrying, you consistently get every single upgrade — be it a major version bump or a minor patch — within a matter of days of its release. You don't even think about it, in fact; the software just shows up without issue or interruption, often without even alerting you to its presence. That setup has served Chrome OS well and helped it avoid one of the biggest pitfalls of its phone-based software sibling. Particularly for business folk, there's something to be said for knowing you can pick any Chromebook you like and then use it without having to worry about whether it'll always have the most up-to-date, secure, and effective software available. But now, eight years into Chromebooks' existence, the way we're using these devices has evolved. And it's high time for Google to evolve its stance on software upgrades accordingly. Allow me to explain. The Chrome OS upgrade equation Despite the reliability and consistency with which they're delivered, operating system upgrades on Chrome OS have one significant and largely invisible limitation — and that's their expiration date. It's a little-known and curiously (or maybe not-so-curiously) underpublicized fact: Every Chromebook, whether it costs $150 or $1,500, comes with an expiration date attached — a point at which it'll no longer receive software updates and thus won't be advisable to use. The lack of software updates on Chrome OS is arguably even more concerning than a lack of ongoing support on a more traditional computing platform, too — as it's not only the OS itself that isn't being kept up to date with important security and performance fixes; it's also the browser. I mean, think about it: On a Chromebook, the browser — y'know, Chrome — is a core part of the actual operating system. And that means all the critical updates rolled out to it come packaged as part of an operating system update. That's a very different scenario than what you see on Windows, Mac, or Linux, where the browser is a standalone app that's updated independent of the operating system and regardless of how up to date or outdated the computer's software may be. What that means, then, is that operating system updates on Chrome OS are especially significant — more so than on any other type of computer. And yet, Chromebooks tend to have the shortest shelf life of any computer out there when it comes to ongoing software support. And here's what's especially crazy: It's damn-near impossible for any normal person to know how long a Chromebook will continue to receive software updates — because (a) that information isn't listed in any even remotely prominent place, (b) it's

SI today announced two new X299 motherboards, the Creator X299 and X299 Pro10G, for Intel’s upcoming 18-core LGA 2066 CPUs. As the names imply, Creator X299 focuses on creative types with Thunderbolt 3, while the X299 Pro10G focuses on its 10GbE interface. Specs MSI Creator X299 MSI X299 Pro10G Supports Intel Core X-series processors 10000/9000/78xx (above) series for LGA2066 socket Supports Intel Core X-series processors 10000/9000/78xx (above) series for LGA2066 socket Supports DDR4 memory, 8 DIMMs, quad-channel max frequency DDR4-4266+(OC) Supports DDR4 memory, up to 4,200+ MHz (OC) Dedicated 12 phases 90A digital power to CPU, with all aluminum design Lightning USB 20G: Powered by ASMedia ASM3242 USB 3.2 Gen2x2 controller 10G LAN + Intel Gigabit LAN with Intel WIFI 6 and bandwidth management Twin Turbo M.2 7x Turbo M.2 with M.2 XPANDER-AERO, 1x Turbo U.2 M.2 XPANDER-Z: Offers two extra M.2 slots to increase storage capacity at max speed Full fan control with 8 PWM fan headers and 1 dedicated thermal sensor Set Core Power Free: Core Boost, 2x 8-pin CPU power connector, Core Boost, DDR4 Boos Lightning USB 20G: Powered by ASMedia ASM3242 USB 3.2 Gen2x2 controller Extended Heatsink design: MSI extended PWM and enhanced circuit design M.2 Shield Frozr: Strengthened built-in M.2 thermal solution Dual LAN onboard: Premium network solution included 1x 2.5G LAN for professional and multimedia use Core Boost: With premium layout and full digital power design 10G Super LAN card Triple 8-pin power supply Audio Boost 4: Studio-grade sound quality. Mystic Light: 16.8 million colors / 29 effects controlled in one click. Mystic Light Extension supports RGB, Rainbow and Corsair LED strip Multi-GPU: With Steel armor PCIe slots. Supports 3-Way SLI / Crossfire Audio Boost 4 with Nahimic DDR4 Boost with Steel Armor Steel Armor PCIe slots. Supports up to 4-Way Nvidia SLI & 4-way AMD Crossfire Thunderbolt 3: Exclusive expansion card offering dual DisplayPort and dual Thunderbolt 3 4K video The Creator X299 gets the longer list, and perhaps the most interesting of these features is its triple EPS12V (8-pin CPU 12V power) connectors that are tied to a 90A voltage regulator. Notice that the Creator gets onboard 10GbE in addition to its four x16-length PCIe slots and Thunderbolt 3 expansion card. Space for this integration comes via an expansion from the standard ATX depth. MSI calls this EATX, but there are a bunch of ATX PC cases with an extra 1.1 inch of clearance at the motherboard’s front edge. The X299 Pro10G gets its namesake feature via a PCIe x4 expansion card while retaining the classic ATX dimensions. Unfortunately, installing that card could dictate the number of graphics cards that a PC builder can install and/or their placement. Both boards also feature a PCIe x8 to dual M.2 expansion card, the use of which places further restrictions on the number of graphics cards installed and their placement. Here’s how MSI addresses the extra eight lanes available from the new 18-core processors: MSI Creator X299 MSI X299 Pro10G 4 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots 4x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots Support x8/ x8/ x16/ x8 and x16/ x0/ x16/ x8 modes with the 48-lane CPU. Support x16/x8/x16/x8 mode with the 48-lane CPU* Support x8/ x8/ x16/ x8 and x16/ x0/ x16/ x8 modes with the 44-lane CPU.* Support x16/x4/x16/x8 mode with the 44-lane CPU* Support x8/ x8/ x8/ x0 and x16/ x0/ x8/ x0 modes with the 28-lane CPU.** Support x16/x4/x8/x0 mode with the 28-lane CPU* *The PCI_E4 slot will run 3.0 x4 speed with 44-lane CPU when installing M.2 PCIe device into M2_3 slot. *Please refer to user manual for PCIe 3.0 bandwidth table **The PCIe 4 slot is unavailable with 28-lane CPU. The Creator X299 sacrifices four lanes for an installed M.2 device when using a 44-lane (rather than the new 48-lane) CPU, but users of the X299 Pro10G are told to look up a table for presumably more complicated sharing schemes under similar circumstances.

Kawasaki has given its po[CENSORED]r Ninja 650 a revamp for 2020. The capable middleweight has offered decent performance at a sensible price and now looks to add a bit of modernity to the mix with a high tech dash, Bluetooth connectivity and a styling revamp. The Ninja 650 replaced the old ER-6F in 2017 and immediately appealed to the cost-conscious with a competitive £6599 price tag. The new bike gets a 10.9cm full-colour TFT dash and new connectivity via a smart phone app, which can include GPS functionality. There are also new LED lights front and back and Dunlop Sportmax Roadsport 2 tyres as standard. The bike also gets sharper styling to make it much more in-keeping with the firm’s sporty ZX-6R and Ninja 400 models. The pillion seat has also been redesigned to make it more comfortable. The parallel twin motor, producing 67bhp and 49ftlb, remains the same as does the trellis steel chassis. It will also come in three new colourschemes; green and black, black, white and black. Although no prices have yet to be announced, Kawasaki will be keen to keep this machine competitively priced and it should weigh in at around the £6500 mark. A Performance and Tourer version are also expected to follow to mirror the current offering. The Performance version should get an Akrapovic exhaust, pillion seat cowl and a smoked screen, while the Tourer gets soft panniers and a taller screen. The Performance version is expected to cost an extra £1000 while the Tourer model could be an extra £600-£700. Kawasaki Ninja 650 highlights Light show Better LED lights front and back should make things brighter Sporty styling The 2020 Ninja 650 has remodelled fairing, side panels and seat unit to fit better with other models in Kawasaki’s range Top clock An updated TFT dash has loads more info that then old bike’s readout including gear position indicator, shift lamp and economical riding indicator Get a grip Dunlop Sportmax Roadsport 2 tyres are a significant upgrade on the current bike’s Sportmax D214s, which add to the bike’s sporty intentions Sitting pretty There’s a better pillion seat on the new bike, with more padding to make hanging on a little more bearable

Salman Rushdie’s new novel Quichotte (Knopf, $34.95, 416 pages), his exhilarating, very contemporary take on Don Quixote, has landed on the Booker Prize short list. That’s not surprising, as Booker juries tend to love takedowns of American culture – and Rushdie is devastating on that front – while appreciating formal experiments. Though Quichotte remains a wholly accessible, funny page-turner, it is a novel within a novel, as a spy writer attempts to change his literary ways, himself rewriting Don Quixote. Quichotte conjures his son Sancho out of his own imagination, while pursuing the heart of a famous talk-show host. Along the way Rushdie takes on, to name just a few themes, junk TV, the opioid crisis, racism, the end of the world as we know it and the very human fear of impending death. While he was in Toronto, we caught up with Rushdie to get his perspective on some of those things and why he’s through with caring what critics think. Your last book took place in Manhattan, but here you’ve hit the road. When I finished The Golden House, I started this one almost immediately, and I said to myself, “We have to leave town now.” I had to write something with a broader screen, something that offered a wider panorama of what was going on, not only in America but in London and Bombay. You still call it Bombay. A lot of people still do and not only those who are my age. Calling Bombay Mumbai is like calling Saigon Ho Chi Minh City. Quichotte is a satire of America that is being released in the age of Trump. Yet you don’t mention the president’s name once. Has going after Trump become too easy? It’s partly that but mostly because Trump’s name sucks all the air out of the room. Suddenly all you can talk about is him and enough of our view is deformed in these ways already. I wanted this book to be about America, not about Trump, to be about all those things coming out of the closet, racism, drug addiction and corruption, but also the essential hopefulness of America. I wanted Quichotte to embody that hopefulness and then project him against a country that’s in various kinds of trouble. That was more interesting to me than anything anybody in the White House might be doing. Some of us believe that Americans are delusional about their exceptionalism and that they can barely see the country for what it really is. Americans always got told that they were the city on the hill, as if it were the new Jerusalem and clearly that’s a kind of delusion. It’s a country that believes in the idea of “the good” in spite of the fact that its original sins are not examined, the first being the extinction of the country’s original po[CENSORED]tion and the second is slavery. It’s imperfect but where is not? One of the things I like is the sense of possibility. There’s a problem in some parts of Britain where you often get the feeling that things are impossible or you can’t do that. Quichotte is a crackpot, he’s not all there, but he does believe that he can win the heart of this lady. Quichotte wanders the country, staying in cut-rate hotels where the only television fare is reality TV. Inevitably, he becomes wholly addicted to junk TV. I use reality television as a signifier of the problem of truth and lies in American culture. Television is not reality. Its timelines are switched and reality is, to say the least, massaged, even mani[CENSORED]ted. It’s a lie that tells you it’s the truth. And we’re completely surrounded by that dynamic now. I tried to have fun with it – dating games, etc. – but if this is the TV you’re consuming all the time, it damages you. The book begins with Quichotte working for a pharmaceutical company that’s making a killing – literally – off a highly addictive opioid, a sublingual (under the tongue) fentanyl. Given the timelines for writing this book, it seems to me that you were aware of the opioid crisis long before it landed on the public agenda. I’ve been digging into this for a long time. Twelve years ago my youngest sister died of an opioid overdose. None of us had any idea how dependent she had become. Her medicine cabinet was like a pharmacy. I was shocked I hadn’t known, even ashamed, and I had to find out about this stuff and I found out, to my horror, the extent of it. It’s biggest in small communities. The problem in cities are Class A drugs: cocaine, heroin, ecstasy. But when you get to West Virginia and middle America, it’s everywhere. So there’s this colossal thing happening and nobody’s talking about it. One person dies of Ebola, and the whole country goes mad. Fifty thousand are dying of opioid overdose and, until recently, it was quite invisible. My character Dr. Smile is based on somebody real, a man who set up a pharmaceutical business in Chicago where his company developed a sublingual fentanyl spray for cancer patients. Because he wanted to make more money, he found ways of getting it into the hands of people who didn’t need it. In this book, you detail the process of how that’s done. Step one: there’s the bent entrepreneur. Step two: it’s easy to bend the medical profession so they participate. Step three has to do with why people are so drawn to this thing. A lot of characters in this books are quite lonely, quite isolated. They reach out to see if they can heal breaches in their family. Even as we’ve invented technologies that in theory connect us in a zillion different ways and we have “friends,” we’re more isolated that we’ve ever been before. Where did the novel-within-the-novel idea come from? I’ve always slightly disapproved of meta-fiction, a novelist writing about a novelist writing about a novelist writing a novel. Then I found the storylines growing into each other. The storylines are informative about each other. I had to make them merge all along and that’s what made it work for me. Why is your novelist character a thriller writer? I think I always wanted to be a spy novelist. It might be as simple as that. But your characters and their desires aren’t modelled after you and yours. I’m not necessarily like my characters. But Quichotte is an exaggeration of me. I have that absurd optimism I don’t have that despairing world view. The writer character’s concern with mortality is probably mine. Both he and Quichotte come from the same place in India as I did so I feel a kinship with them. Though [smiling] I think I’m a better writer. And the end-of-the-world theme? It can be three things. It can be a science-fiction dramatization of the characters’ concern for their mortality. Secondly, it can be a metaphor about the end of a certain kind of world, the kind we’ve lived in all our lives, which seems to be crumbling. I’m referring to the structure of society. Or in this world of climate change, and Greta Thunberg, we are talking about the actual end of the world. Reviews of Quichotte have been mixed. Do literary critics matter? You get to the point of your life as a writer where you have a clear sense of the road you want to go down and you hope people will come along with you. But if they don’t, it doesn’t actually change your desire to go down that road. The worst-reviewed book I’ve ever written was my [2001]novel Fury. It had a very bumpy ride critically and I said to myself, “I really believe in this book, I believe it’s a really good book and if people don’t get it, [CENSORED] them.” After that I didn’t care about critical response. It set me free.

NEW YORK - President Donald Trump’s lawyers are appealing a judge’s conclusion that the president cannot stop Manhattan’s district attorney from getting his tax returns. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero had said in his ruling Monday that he could not grant such a “categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity.” Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That means the returns are unlikely to be turned over immediately. That court is also based in Manhattan. The Justice Department declined to comment. District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has asked Trump’s accounting firm to turn over his business and personal tax returns. It is part of an investigation of the Trump Organization’s involvement in buying the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with the president. A federal judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s challenge to the release of his tax returns for a New York state criminal probe. Judge Victor Marrero ruled Monday. He said he cannot endorse such a “categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity from judicial process.” The returns had been sought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. His office is investigating the Trump Organization’s involvement in buying the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with the president. Trump’s lawyers have said the investigation is politically motivated and that the quest for his tax records should be stopped because he is immune from any criminal probe as long as he is president.

Welcome have fun

Tesla's software updates normally bring a host of improvements, but some owners are less than thrilled with the implications for their cars' performance and safety. The NHTSA is reviewing a petition asserting that Tesla should have recalled 2,000 Model S and Model X units after a battery safety update arrived in May. The automaker allegedly knew the cars' batteries were defective and decided that it would rather push an update that reduced range, performance and charging speed than replace batteries under warranty. We've asked Tesla for comment. It previously said that it delivered the May update out of an "abundance of caution" and that its EVs were "10 times less likely" to catch fire than gas-powered cars. Its statement at the time made clear that the software would affect charge and thermal management settings. The update had been prompted by a Model S bursting into flames in Hong Kong, although there have been multiple seemingly spontaneous fires over the past several years. Much as with the lithium-ion batteries in your mobile devices, there's a chance that overheating or charging issues could trigger chemical reactions that set the EVs' batteries ablaze. There's no certainty that the NHTSA's review will lead to a formal investigation or recall request. Nonetheless, the case illustrates the virtues and vices of over-the-air software updates for cars. They can mitigate or eliminate problems that previously would have required a dealership visit, if one was even possible -- how many cars can receive brake performance tweaks through a patch? At the same time, there is a concern that car companies might use software to avoid dealing with deep-seated hardware issues. Source: Reuters

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang holds a welcome ceremony for visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel before their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday in Beijing, calling on both countries to enhance strategic cooperation and jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade. During their talks at the Great Hall of the People, Li said enhancing China-Germany strategic cooperation and maintaining stable development of bilateral ties, at a time when the global economy is facing downward pressure, not only benefits the China-Europe relationship but also contributes to world peace, stability and prosperity. He called on both countries to safeguard multilateralism and the free trade system with the World Trade Organization as its core. Both countries need to uphold the ideas of inclusiveness to expand two-way opening of the market, Li said. "China will not change its initiative to expand market opening up, nor will it change the policy of welcoming foreign investment," said Li, adding that China will further enhance the protection of intellectual property rights. He said China hopes Germany can maintain the opening up of market as well, relax export restrictions of civil technologies and treat Chinese enterprises in a fair and just way in terms of investment review and market access. China stands ready to enhance cooperation with Germany in the areas of self-driving, technology innovation, artificial intelligence, youth exchange and vocational education, said the premier. On China-EU relations, Li said China has always attached great importance to Europe and is ready to establish a sound cooperative relationship with new leaders of the EU institutions and push forward the negotiations on China-Europe Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and an agreement of geographical indications, Li said. Merkel, who is on her 12th visit to China as German chancellor since 2005, commended China on its remarkable progress in the past decades, especially in the recent two decades. Speaking highly of China's outstanding contribution to the world economy amid the 2008 international financial crisis, Merkel said China has the same right to develop itself as other countries and China's development process should not be impeded. She said both Germany and China support multilateralism and free trade. Germany looks forward to ending the China-Europe BIT negotiation during Germany's term as the EU rotating presidency in the second half of 2020, she said. Germany welcomes China's recent opening-up measures in the sectors of finance, insurance and service and is willing to work with China in the areas of self-driving, digitalization, vocational education and youth exchanges, she said, adding that Germany as always welcomes Chinese investment. After the talks, Li and Merkel witnessed the signing of a string of bilateral deals and jointly met the press. Prior to the talks, Li held a welcoming ceremony for Merkel. Earlier on Friday, Li had a breakfast meeting with Merkel at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Also on Friday, Li and Merkel jointly met with the representatives of the China-Germany economic advisory committee as well as the representatives of the China-Germany Dialogue Forum 2019 meeting and exchanged views with them. Merkel is paying an official visit at the invitation of Li from Friday to Saturday. She will visit Wuhan, the capital city of central China's Hubei Province, on Saturday.

Member of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) Said Kakayi speaks to NRT TV on Friday night, October 5, 2019. (Photo Credit: NRT Digital Media) 2019-10-05 840 View + - SULAIMANI – Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) is ready to hold an early election, one of its members has said. In an interview with NRT Digital Media on Saturday (October 5), Said Kakayi said that the IHEC was awaiting replies from the Iraqi presidency, prime minister, and the speaker of the Council of Representatives. Shia cleric and political leader Moqtada al-Sadr told his affiliated Sairoon Alliance on Friday (October 4) to boycott the Council of Representatives indefinitely until the federal government comes up with a robust plan that serves all Iraqis and has called for the resignation of the government. Sadr also asked the other parties and factions in the Parliament to do the same in order to “end the tyranny on the people for the sake of God and the nation.” The Shia cleric has led protest movements in the past, but the current round has appeared to come about without the backing of any of the political parties. At least 72 people have been killed during the protests and hundreds wounded. The security forces have used live bullets, tear gas, water cannon, and baton charges to break up the demonstrations. Access has been cut off across the country, except in the Kurdistan Region. (NRT Digital Media),

(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroon, via the minister of health Malachie Manaouda (photo), recently signed a XAF650 million agreement for the reconstruction of Kumba hospital. This was announced on the official’s Twitter account. Kumba is a town located about 70 km north of Buea, the capital of the Southwestern region. It is one of the towns that have been most affected by combat between the regular army and pro-independents, who have been demanding the partitioning of the two anglophone regions since 2016. The reconstruction deal occurs about 8 months after the health institution was razed by an arson attack. During the attack, two sick people were burnt to death while the pro-independents killed two other people. According to official figures, many people were injured and nurses kidnapped. During the national dialogue convened by President Paul Biya, to find a solution to the socio-political crisis in the Anglophone region, the human rights and fundamental freedoms commission strongly condemned this act while regretting that “proper security measures had not been taken to protect this strategic location.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proudly announced this year that his presidential campaign would be the first in history to have a unionized workforce. Well, he just became the first presidential candidate in history to face a labor revolt from his unionized workforce. According to The Post, the Sanders campaign workers union, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, complained that field organizers are “making poverty wages” and that “many field staffers are barely managing to survive financially.” Because field organizers are working 60 hours a week, according to the union, their annual salary of $36,000 works out to $13 an hour — well below the $15-an-hour federal minimum wage Sanders has called for. It gets worse. When the Sanders campaign offered to raise salaries to that level, the union rejected the offer. Why? Because, The Post reports, “the raise would have elevated field staff to a pay level responsible for paying more of their own health-care costs.” It turns out that Sanders pays only 85 percent of health-care premiums for campaign staff making more than $36,000 — despite campaigning on a promise of free health care for all with “no premiums, no deductibles, no co-payments, no out-of-pocket expenses.” So, what was Sanders’s solution? First, he cut the hours of his field staffers from 60 to about 43 a week — which meant the campaign could say it was paying $15 an hour without actually increasing field organizers’ pay. Then on Monday, his campaign finally gave in and agreed to raise salaries to $42,000, preserve full health premium coverage and limit workers’ hours to 50 per week. During the dispute, Sanders’s campaign defended its policies, declaring, "We know our campaign offers wages and benefits competitive with other campaigns.” Well, McDonald’s offers wages competitive with other fast-food chains, but that has not been good enough for Sanders. He has marched with McDonald’s workers, and attended Walmart shareholder meetings, to demand they be more generous with their workforces. How could he demand those companies provide pay and benefits that he was resisting giving his own employees? Now the union has forced Sanders to capitulate on wages and health care. But why stop there? The Sanders union seems to be suffering from a lack of imagination. If union organizers really want to hold Sanders to his own standards, then a $15 minimum wage and premium-free health care should be only the beginning. Sanders has promised to cover the cost of prescription drugs and make sure “no one in America pays over $200 a year for the medicine they need.” He has promised to pay for “universal childcare and pre-kindergarten.” He has promised free college, because “you are not truly free when the vast majority of good-paying jobs require a degree that requires taking out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain.” He has promised to “free generations of Americans from the outrageous burden of student loans by canceling all existing student debt.” Is he setting an example by providing all these benefits to workers on his campaign? Of course not. Because if he did, his campaign would quickly run out of cash. Ah, but there’s the rub. As former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher famously put it, “the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” A political campaign literally runs on other people’s money. It is bare-bones operation, in which staffers choose to work ridiculous hours for low pay, and rely on donations from supporters to get the candidate’s message out. In Sanders’s case, the majority of his donations come from small donors — ordinary Americans who are sacrificing their hard-earned money to help get him elected, not to fund social welfare for political operatives. Every dollar his campaign spends on higher pay and free stuff for campaign workers is a dollar not spent on campaign ads in Iowa and New Hampshire. And if his campaign can’t get those ads on the air, then Sanders will lose — and his entire team will lose their jobs, their benefits and their chances of a cushy White House job. Then they won’t ever get access to the United States treasury and the chance to really spend other people’s money. So, we should all be grateful to the UFCW Local 400 for pulling more Sanders campaign money off the airwaves and into the pockets of Sanders’s field workers, while limiting the hours they can work to spread his socialist message. They’ve done the country a great service. Read more: The Post’s View: Bernie Sanders is running on a plan to bail out rich kids Elizabeth Bruenig: Bernie Sanders is not out of the running The Post’s View: We should increase the minimum wage. Just not to $15 everywhere. Catherine Rampell: ‘Free lunches’ like the $15 minimum wage may hurt the people they’re meant to help Bernie Sanders: The straightest path to racial equality is through the one percent

Once again, the famous supercar Koenigsegg Regera has set a world record for acceleration from sleep to 400 kilometers per hour and then stops again. The supercar was driven by the famous factory driver, Sony Pearson, who ruthlessly drove onto the runway of Sweden's Rada Airport, at temperatures of up to 16 degrees Celsius and 70 meters above sea level to carry the weather with him. Some lateral winds, which contributed to Koenigsegg Rigera reaching the full power of the engine. It sets all the records and tops the list after reaching a top speed of just 31.49 seconds, thanks to the advanced and intelligent engine that generates a unique power of 1500 hp. The record-breaking Koenigsegg Agera RS was also set in the acceleration from sleep to 400 kilometers per hour in just 33.29 seconds in November 2017 in Nevada.