Greek parliament passes new tax increases

 

Austerity measures have triggered mass protests in recent months

The Greek parliament has approved a series of unpopular tax rises aimed at boosting revenue in line with Athens' commitments to international creditors.

The measures, approved overnight, introduce a new top tax rate of 42% for Greeks earning more than 42,000 euros (£34,700; $56,000) a year.
Corporate rates also go up and the tax base now includes low-earning farmers.
Greece has been kept solvent by huge rescue loans from its EU partners and the IMF since May 2010.
The Conservative-led government insists the new measures, designed to raise up to 2.3bn euros this year, are fair.

French soldier killed and hostage feared dead in Somalia

 

Denis Allex was filmed last year by his captors

 

A French soldier has been killed in Somalia during a failed operation to free a hostage who is also believed to have died, the defence minister said.

Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Paris that a second soldier was missing after the operation.
A battle erupted with al-Shabab militants after commandos swooped on the town of Bulo Marer overnight.
The raid came hours after French troops intervened in the west African state of Mali.
France was "engaged in a merciless fight against terrorism wherever it is found", Mr Le Drian said.
It seems likely that the operation was linked to the intervention in Mali, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
The French government knew well the intervention would have dangerous implications for the nine French hostages being held across northern Africa, our correspondent says.
Bodies Mr Le Drian said "all the indications" were that hostage Denis Allex, kidnapped in Somalia in July 2009, had been killed by his captors during the operation.
But al-Shabab said Mr Allex, an agent of France's DGSE intelligence service, was not in the area and was unharmed.

China's one-child policy impact analysed

 

Researchers have analysed the long-term effect of growing up alone

People growing up under China's one-child policy are less trusting, more risk averse and more pessimistic, a study concludes.

An Australian team of researchers compared people who were born just before the policy was introduced with those born after.
They used economic games and surveys to assess the participants' behavioural and personality traits.
The findings are published in the journal Science.
The lead author of the study Professor Lisa Cameron, from Monash University in Victoria, told the BBC's Science in Action programme: "We found that people born under the one-child policy were significantly less trusting and less trustworthy, significantly less likely to take risks and less competitive than those who were born before.
"We also conducted personality surveys and we found that those born under the one-child policy were less conscientious, slightly more neurotic and significantly more pessimistic than those born before."
However, another scientist from the University of Oxford said that the team was making a very strong claim and the differences between the two groups might not be solely down to the policy.
Money games
China's population-control policy was introduced in 1979, and it restricts couples in urban areas to have only one child.

US troops will end 'most' Afghanistan combat this spring

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President Obama said US troops would adopt a "fundamentally different" mission

US troops in Afghanistan will end "most" combat operations this spring, US President Barack Obama and Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai have agreed.

American forces are expected to switch to a support role, slightly earlier than originally scheduled, as Afghan troops take the security lead.
The two leaders also backed the holding of talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar.
Most of the 66,000 US troops in Afghanistan are due to leave in 2014.
"Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission - training, advising, assisting Afghan forces," Mr Obama said in remarks at the White House on Friday, as Mr Karzai stood alongside.

"It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty."

The presidents also agreed that the US would hand over custody of prisoners to the Afghan government, a step Mr Karzai said was critical for his country's sovereignty.
The transition of US troops to a support role by this spring would be several months earlier than the mid-2013 deadline agreed at a Nato summit in Chicago last year.
Mr Obama said American forces could remain in Afghanistan in that support role beyond 2014.
But this would only be at the invitation of the Afghan government and under an agreement guaranteeing US troops immunity from Afghan law.

Beijing air pollution soars to hazard level

 

The air smells of coal dust and car fumes

Air pollution in the Chinese capital Beijing has reached levels judged as hazardous to human health.

Readings from both official and unofficial monitoring stations suggested that Saturday's pollution has soared past danger levels outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The air tastes of coal dust and car fumes, two of the main sources of pollution, says a BBC correspondent.
Economic growth has left air quality in many cities notoriously poor.
A heavy smog has smothered Beijing for many days, says the BBC's Damian Grammaticas, in the capital.
By Saturday afternoon it was so thick you could see just a few hundred metres in the city centre, our correspondent says, with tower blocks vanishing into the greyness.
Hazy view Even indoors the air looked hazy, he says.

US troops will end 'most' Afghanistan combat this spring

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Obama and Karzai news conference at White House

US troops in Afghanistan will end "most" combat operations this spring, US President Barack Obama and Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai have said.

They said US troops were expected to switch to a support role, slightly earlier than originally scheduled, as Afghan forces take the security lead.
The two leaders also backed the holding of talks in Doha, Qatar, between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Most of the 66,000 US troops in Afghanistan are due to leave in 2014.
"Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission - training, advising, assisting Afghan forces," Mr Obama said in remarks at White House, as Mr Karzai stood alongside. "It will be an historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty."
The transition of US troops to a support role by this spring would be a little earlier than the mid-2013 deadline agreed at a Nato summit in Chicago last year.
A joint statement issued by the leaders during Friday's meeting raised the possibility that some troops could stay after the end of the next year, but did not discuss numbers.
Mr Karzai and Mr Obama committed to crafting a bilateral security agreement "as soon as possible" and "discussed the possibility of a post-2014 US presence that is sustainable, that supports a capable and effective Afghan National Security Force, and that continues to pressure the remnants of al-Qaeda and its affiliates".

Apple iPhone 5 unveiled with taller screen and 4G

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Apple has unveiled a taller, 4G-enabled iPhone at an event in San Francisco.

The device's new size allows it to display an extra row of app icons on its home screen.
The firm said it was 18% thinner and 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S. However, it does not feature an NFC (near field communication) chip to allow it to make touchless payments.
Apple said the handset would work on Everything Everywhere's (EE) 4G LTE network in the UK.
The news is likely to give EE - which runs the local Orange and T-Mobile services - an advantage against its rivals which will not launch the higher-speed data service until 2013.
"I think it's obviously what the other networks feared would happen," said Matthew Howett, a telecoms analyst at Ovum.
"The question will be how many non-EE customers make the switch."
Apple said the handset would ship on 21 September.
Faster speeds The new screen offers a 16:9 ratio, matching that of widescreen televisions.
But its 4in (10.2cm) size remains smaller than rival displays used by Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, LG, HTC and Sony's flagship models.
Phil Schiller - Apple's vice president of worldwide marketing, who unveiled the device - said existing apps would be shown with black borders until developers updated their products.

From sketch to smartphone - how HTC drew inspiration from a shoe

It is arguably technology's toughest design challenge.

How do you create a device that packs in all the hi-tech features an unforgiving public demands, but without sacrificing a sense of style and good looks?
As HTC attempts to claw back lost ground in the smartphone market, the BBC was given an exclusive look at what usually remains under lock and key - the early design concept sketches of a new smartphone.
Scott Croyle is the company's vice president of design, responsible for taking the very first scribbles and turning them into products that will compete with the likes of Apple, Nokia, LG, Sony, Samsung and Motorola - all of which have made smartphone announcements over recent weeks.

In the early stages of designing its latest phone, HTC's inspiration sparked from a somewhat unlikely place: a shoe.
"When you're designing a shoe, you have a very different mindset than when you're designing a phone," Mr Croyle said, speaking after the launch of the new handsets - neither of which look like a shoe.
Doodling sportswear is a particular speciality of Mr Croyle and team. Prior to being acquired by HTC, his company, One and Co, boasted Nike as one of its clients - so he said it seemed like a good place it start.
"When you start a sketch session, sitting down with the team, you can kinda get stumped.
"You're sketching for a while and you might sketch a car, or you might doodle a shoe... it's as you're doodling and messing around the page that all of a sudden an idea comes across."
The next challenge, of course, is to make sure that the design is feasible.

Samsung estimates record profits on smartphone sales

 

The success of its smartphones has been a key driver of Samsung's growth in recent years

Samsung Electronics has said it expects to make a record profit for the quarter to the end of December, powered by growing sales of its smartphones.

It has estimated an operating profit of 8.8 trillion won ($8.3bn; £5.1bn) for the quarter, a 90% jump from the same period a year earlier.
That would make it the fifth quarter in a row of record profits for Samsung.
The success of its Galaxy smartphones helped Samsung overtake Nokia as the world's biggest phone maker last year.
Analysts said that given the popularity of its smartphones, the South Korean firm was likely to see its profits grow further in the coming months.
"Not only are their smartphone sales growing, they have also learned how to make a good profit on those sales," James Rooney, chairman of Market Force Company, an advisory firm based in Seoul, told the BBC.
"Given these factors, this streak of record breaking quarters is likely to continue for a while," he added.
'Momentum may slow' One of the key drivers of Samsung's smartphone sales in recent months has been its Galaxy S3 model.

Cheap smartphones global market grows

 

Nokia sold 9.3 million units of its Asha handset

Asha, the Symbian budget smartphone from Nokia, is outselling its premium handset offering, the Windows-run Lumia, by over two to one.

The firm's quarterly results, published on Thursday, revealed the total number of both Asha and Lumia devices sold in the last three months of 2012 was 14 million. Only 4.4 million were Lumias.
There have also been rumours that Apple may offer a lower-priced iPhone model.
Reports that a senior Apple executive denied this have been withdrawn.
"We forecast that by 2016, 31% of the global overall handset market will be low-end smartphone," Ian Fogg, principal analyst at IHS, told the BBC.
"An entry-level smartphone is very different from a high-end smartphone," he said.
"Smaller, cheaper devices have processors from two or three years ago, they have small screens with low resolution, and weaker cameras. They can all do email and the web but gaming and browsing is a much better experience on the higher end phones."