Iramb Zusha

OTTAWA: Canada’s postal service has issued a plea for the rest of the world to stop sending in mail as its striking workers rejected the latest contract offer. Canada Post, facing a huge delivery backlog as the labor unrest looked set to enter a fifth week, recently sweetened its offer to staff in a last-ditch effort to bring the rotating strikes to an end. This followed a warning from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that his government was prepared to step in to settle the labor dispute ahead of the upcoming holiday season. His government has faced pressure from online retailers including eBay to legislate an end to the strike before the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events, which start on November 23. But a spokeswoman for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers told AFP the offer, due to expire on Saturday, was “unsatisfactory” and the union “will not be presenting it to members.” Canada Post, meanwhile, said a backlog of deliveries that coincided with the ...

BURUNG ISLAND, Indonesia: A rare Sumatran tiger that was trapped beneath the floor of a shop for three days has been rescued, an Indonesian official said Saturday. The three-year old male was freed from the 75 centimetre (30 inch) crawl space on Burung Island in Riau province, the local conservation agency said. “After the tiger was successfully put to sleep we opened up part of the shop’s foundation to do the evacuation,” Suharyono, head of the Riau conservation agency, told AFP. The 80-kilo (180-pound) animal was treated by veterinarians for minor wounds on its legs and cracked canines, officials said. The big cat became stuck between two buildings in the densely populated market area on Wednesday before freeing himself and then becoming trapped again beneath the building. Video footage showed the tiger lying on its belly between two concrete foundations, unable to move. The tiger has been transported to a rehabilitation centre. Sumatran tigers are co...

SYDNEY: A swimmer died after a rare suspected stingray attack off an Australian beach while another two people were mauled in separate shark encounters this weekend. The 42-year-old’s death came more than a decade after world-renowned “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed when a stingray barb punctured his chest while he was filming on the famed Great Barrier Reef. The man was in waters off Lauderdale Beach some 23 kilometres (14 miles) from Hobart in the southern island state of Tasmania Saturday when he “sustained a puncture wound to his lower abdomen… possibly inflicted by a marine animal”, police said. He was brought onto the beach by friends but suffered a heart attack and was unable to be resuscitated, police added. “It’s consistent with (a stingray injury) but further investigation and examination of the deceased may be able to give a bit more of a concrete fact on that,” Tasmania Police Senior Constable Brett Bowering told the Sunday Tasmanian. “It’...

New Zealand grabbed the key wickets of Azhar Ali and Haris Sohail to push Pakistan back on the second day of the first Test in Abu Dhabi on Saturday. At lunch, Pakistan was 144-4 with Asad Shafiq (25) and Babar Azam (24) at the crease, trailing New Zealand’s first innings total of 153 by just nine runs. The two have added 53 runs for the unbroken fifth wicket stand to bolster Pakistan’s bid for a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. Resuming at 59-2 Pakistan lost overnight batsmen Sohail for 38 and Azhar for 22 in the space of just six balls at the same score of 91. Sohail was the more confident of the two, having hit four boundaries but was caught at short mid-wicket by Tom Latham to a loose shot off leg-spinner Ish Sodhi’s low full toss. Azhar, who added 64 for the third wicket with Sohail, was dropped by Jeet Raval off Trent Boult when on 19 and was again lucky two runs later when given not out as the same bowler reviewed for a leg-before decision. But Bo...

The National selection committee headed by Inzamam ul Haq has announced 13-member Pakistan ‘A’ squad for a 4-Day match against England Lions, scheduled on November 18 to 21 in Abu Dhabi. Mohammad Rizwan led Pakistan ‘A’ squad includes Khuram Manzoor, Shan Masood, Abid Ali, Usman Salahuddin, Mohammad Saad, Saud Shakil, Mohammad Irfan, Ehsan Adil, Taj Wali, Sameen Gul, Ali Shafiq and Mohammad Asghar. Inzamam praised Rizwan to lead the team brilliantly against New Zealand A where they outclassed them 3-0 in ODI series. “Rizwan is leading the side from the front and under his captaincy team achieved several achievements,” he said. It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan ‘A’ will face England Lion in a 4-day match, 5 One Day matches and 2 T20s in the UAE.

ABU DHABI: Left-arm pacer Trent Boult helped New Zealand foil Pakistan’s advantage with four wickets as the first Test was evenly poised after day two in Abu Dhabi on Saturday. Boult’s 4-54 derailed the Pakistani batsmen who were bowled out for 227 in response New Zealand’s first innings total of 153. He was well supported by debutant spinner Ajaz Patel (2-64) and Colin de Grandhomme (2-30) as Pakistan managed a first innings lead of just 74. New Zealand then battled to 56-1 when bad light forced umpires to end the day with 4.2 overs still remaining. The Black Caps still trail by 18 runs with nine wickets remaining. Skipper Kane Williamson will hold the key for his team as he walked off with 27 not out and with him opener Jeet Raval on 26 not out. The pair has added 56 for the second wicket after Tom Latham was bowled by Hasan Ali for nought in the second over, negotiating the spin bowling well under cloudy conditions. New Zealand can take heart from th...

As more people turn to eyewitness video to keep up with breaking news events as they happen, YouTube has launched a site to help people follow this kind of content more closely. In partnership with social news agency Storyful, YouTube has launched YouTube Newswire — a curated feed of newsworthy eyewitness videos of the day, vetted by Storyful’s editorial team and embeddable from the original sources. YouTube Newswire will contain global and regional feeds containing the most relevant videos in different parts of the world. In addition, YouTube has introduced two new resources specifically for journalists: The First Draft Coalition and The WITNESS Media Lab. The First Draft Coalition is a new site with educational resources for verification and ethics training, tools, research, and case studies around the biggest news stories of the moment. The First Draft Coalition is said to launch this fall. The WITNESS Media Lab is a new site focused on tackling pressing human rights is...

A month after announcing the redesign of its Groups platform, LinkedIn unveiled Groups Experiences to build a shared space for professional communities. LinkedIn Groups Relaunch On its blog, LinkedIn said the new platform was built from the ground up after hearing how important Groups was for its users. The improvements will bring connectivity, communications, and collaboration tools the company has been developing front and center in the website and app. The integration of these tools will give the 562 plus million users on LinkedIn more ways to find the resources they need and be part of groups they are interested in. For small business owners, Groups offers a private space where likeminded individuals with similar industry affiliations can share experiences, new skill sets, developments and more. It is also a valuable resource for finding good candidates for businesses looking to make their next hire. The New Group Experiences One of the most requested feedback...

Instagram just introduced one of its most significant changes in recent memory — landscape and portrait modes for photos and videos. In addition to the traditional square photos, Instagram now natively allows the ability to post media in portrait and landscape orientations. This means you can post your photos and videos as they were originally shot. No more cropping videos that you shot in widescreen, or selfies you took in portrait mode. According to the company, nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t in the square format. With the help of third-party apps Instagram users have been able to accomplish posting media without cropping it. With today’s update, it sounds like those third-party apps are destined to become obsolete. The company admits, “we know that it hasn’t been easy to share this type of content on Instagram”, but now that problem has been fixed. Here’s how it works: Choose a photo or video Tap the brand new format icon on the bottom left to ad...

Instagram has announced a set of improvements to its direct messaging feature, which included threaded conversations and enhanced emojis Instagram Direct has garnered 85 million monthly users since launching in 2013, but the service was never on par with direct messaging offered by competitors like Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. Today, Instagram is introducing much needed threaded conversations. That means you don’t have to create a new conversation with someone every time you want to DM them a new photo. Now you can just drop in a photo as though you were sending a text message and keep the conversation going. In addition, Direct now has a quick camera feature for replying with a selfie, and there is a new ability for sending gigantic emojis. An update to the main feed will allow you to send content from your timeline as a direct message. This feature was inspired by the growing trend of users tagging other users in comments as a way to share a photo with them. Accord...

Facebook Creative Labs have launched their first ever product, a curated visual news reader app called Paper. If you live in the US and own an iPhone, you can download it now from the App Store. Paper is already being lauded by the tech and mobile app community, receiving rave reviews and high praise for its design and user experience. Most are saying its unlike anything Facebook has done before. What sets Paper apart from other news reader apps out there is its distraction-free, full screen design that completely immerses its users. Paper is made up of sections that you can customize yourself, pulling in stories from your News Feed and external sources including authoritative publications across the web. Each section in Paper uses a combination of human and machine curation. The Paper algorithm curates stories, pictures and videos that have been posted publicly to Facebook, while human editors will throw in interesting content from lesser known sources. With Paper, Face...

As more people turn to eyewitness video to keep up with breaking news events as they happen, YouTube has launched a site to help people follow this kind of content more closely. In partnership with social news agency Storyful, YouTube has launched YouTube Newswire — a curated feed of newsworthy eyewitness videos of the day, vetted by Storyful’s editorial team and embeddable from the original sources. YouTube Newswire will contain global and regional feeds containing the most relevant videos in different parts of the world. In addition, YouTube has introduced two new resources specifically for journalists: The First Draft Coalition and The WITNESS Media Lab. The First Draft Coalition is a new site with educational resources for verification and ethics training, tools, research, and case studies around the biggest news stories of the moment. The First Draft Coalition is said to launch this fall. The WITNESS Media Lab is a new site focused on tackling pressing human rights is...