The PM wants to extend airstrikes from Iraq into Syria
Mr Corbyn also argued the party at Westminster needed to listen to the views of Labour members whom he has been canvassing in support of his opposition to extending UK military action. And he "seriously questioned" the Prime Minister's claim in making the case for airstrikes that there are 70,000 moderate Syrian fighters to take on Islamic State militants on the ground.
Mr Corbyn's robust stance puts him on collision course with his own frontbench team, many of who are thought to back airstrikes.
Former business secretary Chuka Umunna has told Sky News he would defy the whip if instructed to oppose military action.
He said: "This isn't about the internal politics of the Labour Party. I think on this issue you have to do what is right.
"On this issue I am clear our national security is threatened by ISIL."
Mr Corbyn said no decision had yet been taken on whether Labour MPs would be given a free vote.
He said: "I'm going to find out what MPs think. Obviously there are strong views on both directions."
Mr Corbyn said he had received 70,000 responses to a survey sent out to Labour supporters on Friday seeking their opinions - a move criticised as an attempt to use the party's grassroots membership to "bounce" the shadow cabinet.
"My view about the membership of the Labour Party is that they must have a voice," he said.
"Labour MPs need to listen to that voice, need to try and understand where people are coming from on this. We will come to a decision as a party."
The veteran MP, who was a regular rebel on the backbenches, said: "I understand dissent, I understand disagreement from leadership. I am respectful of differences of opinion within our party."
But he added: "It's the leader who decides. I will make up my mind in due course."
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell argued all party leaders should give their MPs a free vote.
He told Sky News members should be allowed to be guided by their consciences.
Mr Corbyn warned of large numbers of civilian casualties if RAF bombing raids went ahead in Syria and argued it may "actually make the situation worse not better".
But Defence Secretary Michael Fallon dismissed claims airstrikes on IS strongholds would lead to heavy civilian casualties.
He argued precision strikes by the RAF had not claimed a single civilian life during action taken against IS in Iraq.
France had called on the UK to act and failure to do so would leave the country less safe, Mr Fallon insisted.
He has warned the terror attacks in Paris could "easily" happen in London and said the only way to deal with Islamic State extremists was by force.
On the 70,000-strong Syrian force referred to by the PM, Mr Fallon admitted they were not "a new model army", but said: "We do know who they are and this is an independent joint intelligence committee assessment, it's not ministers making this figure, it's their assessment and it's supported by academics."
Yana Paskova—Getty ImagesShoppers walk by holiday decor in New York City on Black Friday, on Nov. 27, 2015.
Shoppers this year still wanted to get a head start on their holiday gift list on Black Friday — but overall were less willing to brave the crowds.
Sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday both fell in stores this year, with a growing amount of people pursuing their discounts online instead.
Brick and mortar sales on Black Friday fell from $11.6 billion in 2014 to $10.4 billion in 2015, according to the retail researcher ShopperTrak. Sales on Thanksgiving fell from just over $2 billion to $1.8 billion. Both decreases are attributed to the increase in online sales, the Associated Press reports.
Meanwhile, online sales jumped 14 percent on Black Friday from 2014, bringing in $2.72 billion altogether. The increase came during a week of online sales and promotions leading up to Cyber Monday on Nov. 30, forecasted to be the biggest e-commerce sales day of the year.
Police have fired teargas and used pepper spray to disperse a group of anti-global warming activists who marched in Paris in defiance of a recent ban on public demonstrations, a day before the start of a key UN summit on climate change in France's capital.
Thousands of shoes were placed in the city's sprawling central plaza to represent citizens urging a climate agreement [Reuters]
The tough response by riot police came on Sunday after a group of mostly masked protesters took to the streets to call on world leaders to take action towards curbing man-made emissions.
On Monday, more than 140 heads of state will converge in Paris to broker a deal to limit emissions.
Earlier in the day, in a bid to circumvent security measures implemented after the November 13 attacks claimed by the ISIL that took 130 lives, thousands of shoes were placed in the city's sprawling central plaza to represent citizens urging a climate agreement.
Organisers of the display said that the Vatican donated a pair of shoes bearing the name of Pope Francis.
Hundreds of people also formed human chains in the late morning, interlinking arms and hands along the sidewalks between the central Place de la Republique and the Bataclan concert hall, where nearly 100 people were killed in one of the attacks.
"Together with the hundreds of thousands who will take to the streets around the world this weekend, the pope is sending a powerful signal that leaders arriving for the Paris summit simply must not ignore," organiser Emma Ruby-Sachs said in a statement.
The tough security response came after protesters marched in defiance of ban on demonstrations [Reuters]Four faith organisations turned over a petition on Saturday bearing 1.8 million signatures calling for leaders to adopt a fair deal that would also help poorer countries adapt to a changing climate.
Environmental organisation Greenpeace also floated a hot air balloon that said, "rise up for renewables".
The Eiffel Tower planned a projection of artist statements for climate solutions.
The coalition of climate organisations said that hundreds of thousands of people would take part in 2,000 events in 150 countries.
"There couldn't be a more important time to work for climate justice, and the peace it can help bring," Haeringer said.
Worldwide protests
In Australia, more than 45,000 people marched through the streets of Sydney on the eve of the climate summit.
Earlier in the weekend, more than 50,000 had marched and rallied at events in Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and elsewhere.
On a smoggy Sunday morning in India, more than 5,000 residents of New Delhi participated in a meditation session and listened to musicians sing songs dedicated to the earth as part of events to highlight the need for an agreement at the climate summit.
Police in Berlin said they were expecting 15,000 people to take part in the Global Climate March in the German capital, which began at 11:00 GMT.
Back in Paris, French President Francois Hollande was expected to hold a series of meetings on Sunday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Beginning Monday, representatives of nearly 200 countries will gather in Paris to make the final push for a new climate agreement that will include carbon emission reductions by developing countries for the first time.
The goal of the agreement is to stop the global temperature from rising more than two degrees Centigrade over pre-industrial times, and thereby avoid catastrophic loss of human life from rising sea levels and severe weather.
Earth's temperature is currently on course to rise at least four degrees this century as a result of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
When it comes to business and financial advice from women, the likes of Suze Orman or Sheryl Sandberg might come to mind first. But in her new book How to Be a Bad Bitch, model and actress Amber Rose offers money tips that may appeal to a new set of future entrepreneurs.
“I feel like I’m in a position to give advice to women because I’ve made all of these mistakes,” Rose tells TIME. For instance, she says, “one of the biggest financial mistakes that I ever made was making a lot of money—I wanna say I made $1 million in 2011—and I spent all of it. And then after that, I had to pay taxes, and I did not have money for the taxes, and I was like, ‘I cannot believe I did this.’ And I really had to start over … I know a whole lot of people that don’t pay taxes. And it comes back to bite you in the ass. Trust me. So I did pay all my taxes off, and I feel amazing now, but it took a lot of hard work.”
Okay, making $1 million in a year may be something more women aspire to than relate to. But Rose’s humble origins in South Philadelphia and early career as an exotic dancer prove just how big an achievement that 2011 paycheck was. In her eyes, those early years laid the groundwork for her future success. “Being a dancer definitely was like being in business school,” she says, “because I constantly spoke to people. I mean, I literally had to persuade a man to give me money out of his pocket. And I apply that to my daily life. Even getting a book, you have to have an initial meeting—Hi, Simon and Schuster!—with the publisher, and you have to sell yourself.”
So how can young women getting started in their careers start climbing the ladder? Rose says it’s important to think about your specific goals, consider when you want to have a family, and find mentors who you can look up to while still following your own path. “Really, fully research every aspect of the business that you’re trying to get into,” she says. Explain to your friends that you won’t always be able to hit the club with them when you’re trying to save money. “If they’re your friends, they’ll respect it,” she says. “Tell them that you’re trying to save up for whatever it may be, and if they want you to come out with them then it has to be their treat. As women, we’re fortunate enough to use our seductive skills in order to be able to get money from our significant others. I also talk about seduction in the book. A lot of women don’t know how to seduce a man. It is extremely easy once you get to that point, and you can get anything you want out of them. And I know it might sound messed up, but once you get to that point, it’s not using. It’s not using a man, it’s literally getting what you want by any means necessary.”
Rose applies a similar outlook to getting what she wants from her own staffers. “I have employees that work for me personally, and I pride myself on being an amazing boss, because I never want them to feel like they don’t wanna wake up and work for me every single day,” she says. “I want them to go harder for me, and without me even knowing it, you know? Like, really saying, ‘I did all these extra things just for you, just because you’re really cool to work with.'”
As for those who raise an eyebrow at Rose’s claims to expertise on running a successful business, she’s unfazed. “I am a mogul. I have a bunch of businesses, I’m now an actress, I’m an author, I went on an entire world tour and I don’t even sing. So if that doesn’t tell you that I am an entrepreneur, then I don’t know what does.” And as for those who diminish her achievements because of her past, she thinks they’re working on a double standard. “The fact that I was a stripper does not take away the fact that I’m smart, that I am witty, that I am capable of running my own business,” she says. “There’s famous guys that were drug dealers back in the day, and no one ever brings up that fact. But as a woman, they bring up the fact that I was a hustler. And it’s extremely unfair, and I just don’t tolerate it.”
“They belittle me like I’m just some baby mama,” Rose says, still mad about a recent GQ profile that introduced her as “Kanye’s infamous ex [and] Wiz Khalifa’s baby mama” before acknowledging her own accomplishments. “I was married—I still am married, actually. And I do have a beautiful son. I’m not a baby mama. I’m so much more than a baby mama. So, how f—ing dare you? You know what I’m saying? And to see the comments from women, saying like, ‘Well, you are a baby mama,’ it’s just like, ‘Girl, you are so lost. You are not just a baby mama. Let’s help each other.'”
Justin Sullivan—Getty ImagesAn attendee tries Google Glass during the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, CA on May 17, 2013.
Google Glass may not have been a success, but the search giant is still trying to make a wearable gadget that people actually want to buy. And, according to a patent the company was granted this week, that future gadget might be a monocle of sorts.
The device seems to offer much of the same functionality as Google Glass, Google’s smart glasses that were shelved indefinitely as a consumer product earlier this year, CNET reports. Unlike Glass, though, the new device only attaches to one side of the user’s head and displays images and videos above a single eye. If created, the device could face some of the same challenges as Glass, which riled privacy concerns among many people who found the product distracting or creepy.
Though Google’s patent was granted, there’s no guarantee the company will actually develop the monocle. Pleny of patented ideas never actually see the light of day. However, there’s no doubt the company is very interested in creating wearables that will convince people to use the company’s myriad services more regularly. Google has been experimenting with a mic-enabled lapel pin, for instance, that works like the communicator badge in Star Trek.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Sitting in a modern living room surrounded by family photographs and knickknacks, Haifa al-Hababi does not look or act like a trailblazer.
As the first female to register as a candidate in the history of Saudi Arabian elections, the 37-year-old architect, professor and newspaper columnist is breaking the rules. She campaigned with her face uncovered and regularly dons bright colors — rare in a country where most women favor black, neck-to-feet abayas in public.
"Things are changing here," al-Hababi said when asked if she has faced any criticism for campaigning unveiled. "Women's roles have changed whereby they don't just necessarily sit at home but work and are much more involved in public life."
She added: "I'm not looking at it as a woman or a man — I'm looking at it as an equal. For me, it's an opportunity for the whole country to participate."
It may not sound a big deal to many in the West, but simply appearing in public unveiled is a big step in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia. Not only that, women are also dependent on a male guardian who are allowed to make some of the most basic life decisions for them, can't drive themselves and have a very limited role in shaping the destiny of their country.
So the 2011 royal decree by former King Abdullah to allow women to vote in municipal elections was a major move that ruffled feathers among the country's extremely conservative clerical ranks.
Official information on the number of voters and candidates for the December 12 vote is very hard to come by but Arabic daily al-Hayat reported that more 1,000 women are standing for office. They are spread across around 75 percent of the country's districts.
Still, al-Hababi and others like her face an uphill battle.
"We do have to take note of the fact that this is a positive step, but we just have a such a long way to go for women," according to Rothna Begum, woman's rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.
Begum points to longstanding issues like women being barred from driving and being subject to the mercy of male guardians. But even after women were allowed to vote, some of the basic requirements made it hard for them to participate.
Haifa Al Hababi after she registered as a candidate in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Lubna Hussein / NBC News
Among other things, rules prohibit male-female mixed campaign offices, and stop women candidates from communicating directly with men, although they are allowed to use Twitter and YouTube to spread their campaign messages.
"It's not simply a case of women putting their thumb prints in — it is not a fair campaigning field for men and women," Begum added.
Nearly 130,000 women registered to vote for the first time, according to the pro-women's rights Baladi campaign — a tiny proportion of the 10 million who live in Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy and so unused to democracy — a mere 500,000 men are registered, and they have been allowed to vote in municipal elections for a decade already.
Still, change is coming. Women make up a quarter of the country's Shura Council, an unelected body appointed by the king that can propose laws but cannot pass them. And now they can vote, legally at least.
Al-Hababi first decided to run when she saw a tweet from Hatoon al-Fassi, a prominent women's rights activist who is part of Baladi, which means "my country" in Arabic.
"We are empowering and championing women across the country in a systematic organized fashion to guarantee the participation of women in a professional way and to make sure that this historic moment is successful," al-Fassi told NBC News.
The campaign's slogan, "Your voice counts," is printed on pamphlets, posters, bracelets, badges and even chocolates at Al Nahda Philanthropic Society for Women in Riyadh, the country's capital.
"This is recognition that a woman is a citizen," said Sheikha al-Sudairy, the group's chief projects officer at the center speaking of the elections.
Al-Nahda trained 125 volunteers who then went out and trained over 5,000 women as to how to have their voices heard through voting.
Not everyone has gotten the message.
"I didn't vote because I didn't know what it is about," said Walaa al-Majarishi, a 20-year-old supermarket employee. "I think that women are really very important in this society, in any society, but even so men are always the ones with the power."
Al-Majarishi says her father is sick and unemployed so she has to help support the family.
"Now my mother and I have to work because we have to pay the bills," she said. "But even so, we still have to follow the rules of my father."
Many professional women were also undecided about participating.
Hiba Dialdin, a petroleum engineering consultant at oil giant ARAMCO based in Dahran, said she was on the fence for a long time.
"We had a debate among my friends about whether this was really important for us and why we should go out when it wasn't such a big deal," the 46-year-old admitted.
Dialdin said the turning point came when she read a headline saying that women weren't interested in voting.
"I thought: 'We have to go out in force saying, yes, we are engaged wherever we can make a change, and we are going to be involved in decision making,'" she said.
So a handful of women like al-Hababi are trailblazers, but what will she do if they don't get win?
"I won't be surprised if I'm not elected," al-Hababi admitted. "But I will definitely use all this experience to campaign harder and try again in the next election in four years. I believe that everything can change through education. The look on a girl's face when you give her any information is priceless. I would like to be minister of education one day."
Imagine a world in which no one ever said sorry. If you pictured a society composed entirely of stodgy businessmen, frowning and adjusting their ties, it wouldn’t be strange. The debate over whether or not to apologize will probably rage on for as long as there are corporations and leaders to run them. On the pro-apology side, you have experts who say being accountable is not only correct, but ultimately more productive; on the con side, you have the folks who feel that saying “I’m sorry” is tantamount to announcing weakness, possibly in front of the board. So who’s right?
As it usually goes with these kinds of questions, the answer is: it depends.
“We think we want apologies from those who have harmed us,” writes Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, at Fortune. “Yet we instinctively respect strength, confidence, and assurance. And throughout, our ability to forecast our true reactions to situations is imperfect.”
Pfeffer uses two of the more famous corporate apologies in recent years to illustrate his point: Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward of BP. Blankfein steadfastly denied that his company did anything wrong, looking puzzled when a Senate committee demanded an explanation for his employer’s actions during the financial crisis; Hayward apologized during BP’s hearing before a House of Representatives committee, but didn’t take responsibility.
“Most viewers like Hayward’s contrition and are repelled by Blankfein’s arrogance,” Pfeffer writes. “But Blankfein still has his job (and some large bonuses) and Hayward is long gone.”
Why? Because we tend to perceive people who express anger as having more status than those who express sadness. In other words: an abject apology might come off as an admission of weakness.
Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Apologize?
Absolutely not. But, it does mean that we should apologize with care.
Of course, it helps that most of us reading this post probably aren’t charged with heading up a multinational conglomerate accused of wrongdoing. But, status is important, whether we’re leading a team of three people or a department or a company.
It’s easier to apologize well if you keep a few things in mind:
1. The goal of exercise. Why do we apologize in our personal lives? To show the people we love (or at least like) that we care about having hurt them. At work, however, the reasons for apologizing are slightly different and possibly more complex: to restore the social equilibrium, but also to identify the cause of a problem and to begin to fix it.
2. The potential pitfalls – for you and for your team. If you’re a leader, apologizing is fraught with peril, because it’s not just your status on the line, but that of your team or organization.
“In saying sorry, a leader is potentially undercutting employees’ feelings of pride in the institution and their attachment to the company and its work,” Pfeffer explains.
That means choosing your words and tone carefully. Think accountability and responsibility, not shame or embarrassment. You’re not begging for forgiveness, but owning up to your mistakes and making a plan to avoid them in the future.
3. Understanding that strong people are secure, and weak people easily threatened. By definition, someone who is being defensive is not coming from a position of strength.
“We lose respect for a leader when he or she fails to acknowledge a mistake,” writes Scott Belsky at 99u. “What we want to see in our leaders is a sense of self-awareness and honesty. Personally, I gain confidence when one of my colleagues says, ‘Gosh, I don’t know what I was thinking, sorry about [fill in the blank].’ It makes me feel like the mistake or false assumption is now fully understood and owned. It makes me feel safe.”
As Pfeffer points out, even Steve Jobs apologized from time to time – for example, when an iteration of the iPhone had issues with its antenna. The difference is, he used the apology as an opportunity, reminding his listeners about the iPhone’s dominance on the market (3 million phones sold, at that point, and only 0.55 percent of buyers complaining), even as he took responsibility for the problem and offered a solution in the form of a free case. Now that’s an apology that’s anything but weak.
![The tough security response came after protesters marched in defiance of ban on demonstrations [Reuters]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vxY93bdOgjC5WOH417YcFJO2dAaMTS3uwNxJJJM9vEAh3P1JwLi3w5MjN9X7bcKYWwMJK5dFFU65zMrMG5w8y0w1NrS90XcC68UL5XxTvN4Yn2QO_opa8j7jU7vR5sAEZGYE8qUXm34P7hUR_CvTGNtIK7W3FPOGdqy4ccuNDH1_kKX1_N2GFxWTk_Of-NtefsMritPhk_WpkX=s0-d "French police fire teargas to disperse climate protest")
