Mega retailers battle to survive as e-commerce booms in China

By Adam Jourdan SHANGHAI (Reuters) – It took China's biggest retail chain Suning all last year to generate sales of about $17 billion. Last month, e-commerce giant Alibaba saw sales worth more than half that amount pass through its Tmall website in just one day. Big retailers like Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd and foreign rivals Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Best Buy Co Inc are struggling to attract customers to their traditional stores in China, where online shopping is booming

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Islamic State suicide bomber detonates tank in eastern Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a tank at a Syrian air base in the province of Deir al-Zor, one of the last remaining government strongholds in eastern Syria, jihadist social media and a monitoring group said on Friday. One Islamic State Twitter account published two photos of a smiling man it named Abu al-Farouq al-Libi, who it said carried out the “suicide operation”.

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Max Sound files patent suit against Google, YouTube in Germany

(Reuters) – Technology company Max Sound Corp said it filed a lawsuit against Google Inc and YouTube in Germany earlier this month, alleging infringement of a video-streaming patent. Max Sound claimed that all the products that use the H.264 video-encoding format for video compression infringed its asserted patent

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State Department’s unclassified email systems hacked

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department on Monday said its unclassified email systems were the victim of a cyber attack in recent weeks, around the same time as White House systems were breached, but no classified data was compromised. The department shut down portions of its unclassified system over the weekend to improve its security but said they should be back online shortly, though it declined to predict when.

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Indian retailers hobble online as e-commerce firms race ahead

By Nivedita Bhattacharjee MUMBAI (Reuters) – The head of Future Group, one of India's largest and most established retailers, admits he can't keep up with web sites like Snapdeal and Flipkart when it comes to spending money to entice shoppers to buy online. Private investors have poured $2.

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China’s internet TV sites in $1 billion battle for foreign shows

By Paul Carsten BEIJING (Reuters) – China's big internet-TV companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on foreign TV shows and films in a battle to attract users and advertisers, but risk bumping up against regulators protecting the domestic TV and film industry.

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Mali tries to trace over 200 contacts in second Ebola wave

BAMAKO/GENEVA (Reuters) – Mali is trying to trace at least 200 contacts linked to confirmed and probable Ebola victims in an effort to control its second Ebola outbreak, health officials said on Friday. An initial batch of contacts linked to a 2-year-old from Guinea who died of Ebola last month were close to the end of their 21-day quarantine period when Mali confirmed its second case this week.

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With funky name but big demand, BlaBlaCar eyes global ride-share push

By Eric Auchard LONDON (Reuters) – A fast-growing French firm is making a name across Europe for its inter-city ride-sharing service, drawing big funding from venture backers while showing a drive to go global that is all too rare among European start-ups. Called BlaBlaCar, a play on how much chatter drivers and passengers can put up with on long-haul journeys, the service has wooed nearly 12 million members across 13 countries in three years of expansion, or more than 2 million travelers a month. …

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