1 US president in Cuba after 88 years (Dan Roberts
in The Guardian) Barack Obama descended on Cuba with a pomp unmatched by the
Pope on Sunday, becoming the first American president to visit Cuba in nearly a
century, and the first since a revolution led by Fidel Castro toppled a
US-backed strongman in 1959.
As he arrived, Obama used a Cuban phrase meaning
“what’s up?” when he tweeted: “¿Que bolá Cuba? Just touched down here, looking
forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.” A giant
American delegation, estimated at somewhere between 800 and 1,200, swept into
Havana this weekend, intent on closing a final chapter in cold war history and
sealing the diplomatic legacy of Obama’s presidency.
Joined by first lady Michelle Obama and his two
daughters, Obama toured Old Havana by foot, walking gingerly on the slippery
wet stones in front of the Havana Cathedral. The downpour notwithstanding, a
few hundred people gathered in the square erupted in applause and shouted
Obama’s name as the first family stepped forward.
Hundreds of tourists have been bumped outside the
city, and even the Rolling Stones, who initially wanted Revolution Square for
their concert venue on Friday, had to work their date around the president’s
arrival, which coincides with his daughters’ spring break.
For many American journalists, also on their first
ever trip to an island just 90 miles from Florida, this is a Berlin wall
moment: a step toward liberation worthy of Nelson Mandela, at whose funeral
Obama and president Raúl Castro famously first shook hands.
But while the US trade embargo has done much
economic damage to the island, where even international ships were once
forbidden from docking if they wanted future entry to American ports, Cuba was
not hermitically sealed from the world like some Caribbean North Korea; it has
been walled off primarily from the giant neighbour to the north.
3 Singapore office rents may fall 25% (Straits
Times) Singapore office rents may decline as much as 25 per cent in a prolonged
slump that may last until the end of 2018, as demand slows, according to Daiwa
Securities Co.
Daiwa expects 2018 to be a highly risky year for
lease renewals and forecasts that rents will continue to fall until then, David
Lum, an analyst at the brokerage said in a note to clients. Mr Lum forecasts a
25 per cent drop in rents from the peak in the first quarter of 2015 through
the fourth quarter of 2018, while predicting office values will slide 14 per
cent during the same period.
Daiwa joins other analysts in forecasting declines
for the Singapore office sector as the outlook for global economic growth
remains cloudy and a large supply outstrips demand for prime space. Singapore
prime office rents may fall up to 20 per cent this year after declining 15 per
cent last year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc, while office values may
see similar declines as rents this year after falling 6 per cent in 2015.
Mr Lum downgraded real estate investment trusts tied
to offices to negative from neutral, and lowered all individual stock ratings
to underperform from hold.
3 Ten years of Twitter (Hannah Henderson &
Michael Ertl on BBC) Ten years after Jack Dorsey launched Twitter with the
words "just setting up my twttr", the micro-blogging site has become
a feature of millions of people's lives - but for some it has been life
changing.
From a 140-character marriage proposal to inspiring
a revolution from the comfort of a sofa, people have been sharing their stories
to mark 10 years of Twitter.
The first Twitter marriage proposal: When American
Greg Rewis was thinking of an unusual way to propose to his then girlfriend
Stephanie, he decided to tweet her after she had turned him down on a private
messaging service.
"The proposal started as a joke. I was talking
to Steph on an instant messenger and asked her if she wanted to marry me. She
said that I had never asked her in a proper way. So I posted on Twitter and
told her to refresh her feed. It simply looked like it was the right moment. It
was quite a shock when I found out that this was the first proposal on Twitter.
Had we known it was the first time, we would have made it more impressive. I
would have planned everything way better.
"We now live together and split our time
between Phoenix and California, but I have to travel a lot for work. We still
use Twitter to stay in touch and actually we live-tweeted our wedding a year
after the proposal in 2009."
Marwa Mammoon, from Egypt, is a BBC journalist, but
in 2011 she was a stay-at-home mum. Pregnant with her second child and unable
to take part in public demonstrations during the Egyptian revolution, she
activated her Twitter account and changed her life.
"I was sitting at home but I was being
politically active" she said. "I would pick a new topic every couple
of weeks, such as female genital mutilation, sexual harassment and other
women's issues which mattered in the Arab world and would write about them. I
didn't realise what influence I had. Then before I knew it, I was named on
Twitter as one of the most influential women in the Arab world.
"The next day all the political parties in
Egypt were trying to get me to join them. I was broke and needed a job though
so I sent out a funny tweet appealing for a job. I wasn't a journalist, I had
worked in marketing but ended up working as a chief editor of a website which
was set up by an American investor." The website was a success and after a
few years Marwa left to work for the United Nations. She then worked Radio
Netherlands before joining the BBC.
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