BANGKOK – Thailand backed off a threat to block Facebook on Tuesday, instead providing the social media site with court orders to remove content that the government deems illegal. Thailand made the threat last week as it wanted Facebook to block more than 130 posts it considers a threat to national security or in violation of the country’s lese majeste law, which makes insults to the monarchy […]
President Donald Trump‘s controversial travel ban has reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with a three-judge panel discussing its constitutionality on Monday, May 15. Trump first issued a travel ban preventing people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Affected countries included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. The ban stirred great controversy and opposition, and a U.S. judge granted emergency stay. Faced with […]
The timing, intensity and public announcement of the accusations suggested that the Trump administration was signaling a tougher political line on Syria, as well as seeking to embarrass Russia and Iran, all in an effort to put pressure on Damascus at the Geneva talks. Continue reading the main story Five previous rounds of negotiations in Geneva have yielded little progress. The war is now in its seventh […]
By Ange Aboa | BOUAKE, Ivory Coast BOUAKE, Ivory Coast The leaders of a nationwide military mutiny in Ivory Coast have accepted a government proposal on bonus payments and agreed to return to barracks, ending their revolt, two spokesmen for the soldiers told Reuters on Tuesday. Neither Ivory Coast’s defence minister nor government spokesman was immediately available to confirm details of the agreement, but a Reuters witness […]
Martin Draper, technology director at luxury retailer Liberty, says his big priority for 2017 is business intelligence. The firm gathers information from various sources and Draper wants to create a data-driven strategy that helps executives at the firm make smarter decisions quickly and effectively. He joined the world-famous retailer in March last year, having completed a 13-year IT leadership stint at Harrods. Throughout his career, Draper has […]
Is palladium, for the first time in nearly 16 years, about to become more expensive than platinum? The price difference between the two raw materials fell to less than $100 an ounce this month as palladium flirted with its highest price since September 2014 but its cousin eyed its cheapest level in 15 months. Both sometimes can be sensitive to the kind of precious metal cachet afforded […]
British IT expert Marcus Hutchins who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack, during an interview in Ilfracombe, England, Monday, May 15, 2017. Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world, including the British National Health computer network, telling The Associated Press he doesn’t consider himself a hero but fights malware because “it’s the right thing to […]
The majority of National Assembly members on Tuesday (today) have opposed a bill by the PPP party demanding an inquiry into every Pakistani mentioned in the Panama Papers. Minister for Law Zahid Hamid strongly opposed the bill, tabled by Naveed Qamar, terming such proceedings as unnecessary since the matter is already being dealt with by the Supreme Court. “The SC has already ruled on the case; there […]
Indian agents have raided the home of the country’s former finance minister as part of an investigation into alleged violations of strict foreign investment rules. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation said it had visited locations in the southern city of Chennai on Tuesday morning, including the home of Karti Chidambaram, which he shares with his father P Chidambaram, a Congress party politician whose most recent cabinet post […]
SEOUL North Korea’s missile programme is progressing faster than expected, South Korea’s defence minister said on Tuesday, hours after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday’s test-launch. The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programmes, even from its lone major ally, China, has been working on a missile, mounted with a […]
By Dustin Volz and Jim Finkle | WASHINGTON/TORONTO WASHINGTON/TORONTO Cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday. Symantec (SYMC.O) and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by […]
UNITED NATIONS The United Nations Security Council on Monday condemned North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests, warning that the launches contributed to the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and were greatly increasing tensions. North Korea fired a ballistic missile that landed in the sea near Russia on Sunday in a launch the United States called a message to South Korea days after its new president took […]
There is much going against South Korea right now, including an anaemic economy, a series of failures in the country’s shipbuilding sector, Chinese boycotts and North Korean belligerence. And yet the country’s stock market keeps hitting records. The Kospi, the Korea’s main equities benchmark, set a record high last week and is up 13 per cent in the year to date, making it one of Asia’s best-performing major markets of 2017. […]
Rolls-Royce lagged behind a London market rally on Monday that lifted the FTSE 100 to a fresh record high. Rolls was under pressure after Investec questioned whether management can hit a target of delivering more than £1bn in free cash flow by 2020. The cost of developing a new engine for Boeing could be “a material headwind” to that goal, the broker warned. Boeing is reportedly finalising […]
By Guy Faulconbridge and Dustin Volz | LONDON/WASHINGTON LONDON/WASHINGTON The global WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack spread more slowly on Monday with no major infections reported, as attention shifted to investment and government policy implications of lax cyber security. There were 213,000 infected machines in 112 countries as of 1000 GMT on Monday, according to Czech security firm Avast, making it one of the largest coordinated attacks to […]
Authored by Gwynne Dyer via BangorDailyNews.com, “I am no Mussolini,” Venezuela’s beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro insisted on television early this month. But if things go on this way, he could end up like Mussolini. That would be very unfortunate for him and also for Venezuela. The daily street protests against Maduro’s rule are in their second month, and around 40 people have already been killed, most of […]
DUBAI // Couples should look beyond a fertility clinic’s success rate before signing up for an in-vitro fertilisation scheme, and avoid cut-price deals, doctors warned. Couples would “get what they pay for” and should prepare for a significant financial commitment if they want the IVF treatment to be successful, said doctors at a Dubai Health Authority event marking International Family Day. Couples who conceived children through treatments […]
Criminal hacking groups have repurposed a second classified cyber weapon stolen from US spies and have made it available on the so-called dark web after the success of the WannaCry attack that swept across the globe on Friday. The hacking tool, developed by the US National Security Agency and codenamed EsteemAudit, has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, according to security analysts. As with […]
A newly developed printable elastic conductor retains high conductivity even when stretched to as much as five times its original length, says a Japanese team of scientists. The new material, produced in paste-like ink form, can be printed in various patterns on textiles and rubber surfaces as stretchable wiring for wearable devices incorporating sensors, as well as give human skin-like functions to robot exteriors. The development of […]
A committee of the Philippine parliament on Monday found an impeachment complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte was “insufficient in substance,” rejecting it and effectively putting an end to the case. The complaint, filed in March, alleged that Duterte had adopted a state policy of extrajudicial killings during his war on drugs, leading to the death of more than 8,000 people in the first eight months of his […]
DUBAI // Schools need to strike a better balance between preparing pupils to pass exams and providing a holistic education, a new report by Dubai’s education regulator says. The Future of Education report published by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority said the best schools prepared pupils for the future, not just tests. The research was conducted in partnership with the Education Development Trust, a non-profit education […]
Hours before Germany formally declared war on France in WWI, Marcel Proust penned a letter to his financial advisor that anticipated the horrors to come. “In the terrible days we are going through, you have other things to do besides writing letters and bothering with my petty interests, which I assure you seem wholly unimportant when I think that millions of men are going to be massacred […]
JOHANNESBURG South Africa’s top court heard arguments from opposition parties on Monday to allow a motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma to taken by secret ballot, which they hope could help to depose him. Ouside the court, around 1,000 protesters from different opposition parties marched peacefully to the Constitutional Court, some waving signs demanding that Zuma be removed. Zuma and the ruling African National Congress […]
The cyberattack crippled IT systems and forced doctors and nurses to work with pen and paper notes. Image: iStock NHS hospitals are still struggling in the fight against a global ransomware attack, with computer systems in several hospitals locked three days after the initial outbreak and previously unaffected hospitals revealed to have fallen to WannaCrypt ransomware. During the weekend more than 200,000 victims in over 150 countries […]
