by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Mohammad Javad Zarif
Tehran : Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that he had a “good and constructive” meeting with the EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini over the survival of 2015 nuclear deal.
“We have started working to reach the guarantees,” Xinhua cited Tasnim news agency quoting Zarif as saying who referred to Iran’s demand that the remaining parties to Iran’s nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) should ensure Tehran’s interests will be protected.
“It was a good and constructive meeting,” he said, adding that “we are on the right track … to make sure that the interests of the remaining signatories of the JCPOA, especially Iran, will be guaranteed.”
Zarif is in Brussels on the final leg of a diplomatic tour to save the 2015 nuclear deal after the recent US withdrawal from the pact. The tour has already taken him to Beijing and Moscow.
Last week, US President Donald Trump said that the US would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, a landmark agreement signed in 2015.
Trump added that he will not sign the waiver of nuke-related sanctions against Iran.
Accordingly, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would remain in the international nuclear deal in case the country’s interests are secured by other parties to the agreement.
“If the remaining five countries in the deal live up to their commitments and guarantee Iran’s interests, the agreement will survive,” he said on Sunday during a meeting with visiting Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, World
San Francisco : US top aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. (Boeing) on Tuesday called as “a landmark decision” a ruling by the World Trade Organization (WTO) determining that the European Union (EU) has provided billions of US dollars in subsidies to European aircraft maker Airbus.
Boeing said the WTO has found that the EU has failed to honour multiple previous rulings and provided more than “$22 billion of illegal subsidies” to its business archrival Airbus.
“After examining this case for more than a decade, the WTO has determined the EU must end its unfair business practices and remedy the ongoing harm caused by the illegal subsidies,” Xinhua quoted Boeing as saying.
The latest WTO ruling on the decade-old case, which was initiated in 2006, ends the dispute and clears the way for the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to seek remedies in the form of tariffs against European exports to the US, Boeing said.
The US has accused European governments of providing favourable loans to Airbus for its A380 superjumbo and the A350 long-range jet that compete with Boeing’s 747 jumbo jet and 787 Dreamliner, respectively.
The US can now take steps to establish the level of sanctions it can impose on European exports under WTO rules.
Boeing said the US is expected to levy billions of retaliatory tariffs on the European exports, possibly the largest ever, which could come as early as 2019.
“Today’s final ruling sends a clear message: disregard for the rules and illegal subsidies is not tolerated. The commercial success of products and services should be driven by their merits and not by market-distorting actions,” said Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing Chairman, President and CEO.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : As the deadline for European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) inches closer, Twitter has updated its “Terms and Privacy Policy” to give its users more transparency over their data.
Twitter is also giving users more control over how it shares certain non-public data.
The updates will take effect on May 25, when the GDPR comes into force, and will apply globally.
“We’ve updated our Privacy Policy to make it visually clear and easy to use. You’ll see a download button at the top of the page that allows you to get a plain text version if you prefer. It’s optimised for both mobile and web,” Damien Kieran, Global Data Protection Officer at Twitter, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
“We believe you should know the types of data you share with us and how we use it. Most importantly, you should have meaningful control over both,” he added.
On May 25, people who live in the EU who log into their Twitter account will see a prompt that will explain that we’ve updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to reflect the EU’s GDPR.
“We’ll also show you a simple chart that categorizes the legal basis for the personal data we process. You’ll then be brought to your individual Settings and Privacy section, where we will ask you to review your key current settings.
“You can leave them all as they are, modify each, and learn more about any of the individual settings before making a change – the choice is entirely in your hands.
“Remember, everyone around the world can use the controls we highlight to limit the information we collect about you or how we use it, and change the settings at any time,” Kieran wrote.
After four years of debate, the GDPR was finally approved by the EU Parliament on April 14, 2016. Organisations that fail to comply with the new regulation may face hefty fines.
The EU data regulators are chiefly concerned over WhatsApp’s sharing of user data with parent company Facebook.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
London : The European Union (EU) has “grave suspicions” about Google’s abuse of the monopoly it enjoys over Internet search in Europe and is open to breaking the tech giant into smaller companies, the bloc’s competition commissioner has warned.
According to ‘The Daily Telegraph’, Margrethe Vestager has said that the threat to split the Internet giant up into smaller companies must be kept open.
In June last year, the Danish commissioner slapped the technology giant with a record fine of 2.42 billion euros or $2.7 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules by abusing the monopoly it enjoys over Internet search.
Google has a 91.5 per cent share of the search-engine market in Europe, the report said.
“I think it is important to keep that question open and on the agenda. We are not there yet but it is important to keep an awakened eye,” Vestager was quoted as saying when asked if the only solution to its dominance was to break up the company.
She warned that the search engine could become so big as to be indispensable for businesses and the economy.
“There is no ban on success in Europe. You get to be dominant and you get a special responsibility that you do not destroy the already weakened competition,” she was quoted as saying.
“We have proven their dominance in search and we have found they have misused this dominance to promote themselves and diminish competitors,” she added.
This development comes at a time when another Silicon Valley giant Facebook is facing flak for data breach.
Facebook is facing the heat after Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting company, was accused of harvesting data of up to 50 million Facebook users without permission and using the data to help politicians, including US President Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign.
EU and British lawmakers have demanded that social media giant Facebook should clarify data breach following revelations that personal data was massively misused for political purposes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Rabat : Morocco and the European Union vowed on Wednesday to preserve their fisheries cooperation.
The announcement was made in a joint statement by Nasser Bourita, the Moroccan Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister, and Federica Mogherini, EU high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, following the verdict handed on Tuesday by the EU Court of Justice on the fisheries agreement between the two sides.
The court said the fisheries deal “is valid in so far as it is not applicable to Western Sahara and to its adjacent waters”.
The deal, formally known as the Fisheries Partnership Agreement, entered into force on February 28, 2007 for a period of four years. It has been tacitly renewed twice.
Morocco and EU agreed to further strengthen their political dialogue and preserve the stability of their trade relations, the joint statement added.
They noted that the close and sincere consultation spirit that guided the process of adapting the agricultural agreement has created a valuable trust for deepening the partnership, adding that they remain “determined to preserve their cooperation in the field of fisheries.”
In this respect, they expressed “their willingness to negotiate the necessary instruments relating to the fisheries partnership.”
Both sides confirmed “their attachment to the strategic partnership between Morocco and the European Union and their determination to preserve and strengthen it.”
—IANS
