by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
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Washington : The national security advisors of the US, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) met at the White House on Friday to discuss joint efforts to counter the “Iranian regime’s malign influence and provocative behavior.”
The White House said in a statement that security officials of the three nations talked about issues of strategic importance to the three countries.
Senior officials from the US Departments of State, Defense, the Treasury and the intelligence community participated in the meeting, Xinhua reported.
The leaders agreed to meet trilaterally on a regular basis to develop and implement joint frameworks to mitigate threats to regional security and to bring greater peace, stability and prosperity to the Middle East.
“Additionally, the National Security Advisor of Afghanistan joined a session focused on discussing ways the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE can partner with Afghanistan to support the Afghan government and set conditions for an enduring peace settlement,” said the White House.
Also on Friday, the US sanctioned an Iranian entity and 10 individuals over “malicious cyber-enabled activities,” saying the hackers worked at the behest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that the US measures were “illegal and provocative,” proving the US inherent hostility against Tehran.
It also condemned Saudi Arabia’s allegations that Iran “is the source of terror and extremism,” saying that Saudi Arabia itself was the “essential source and cause of terrorism and extremism.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, World
New York : The US Federal Trade commission has confirmed that it was investigating Facebook after the leak of personal and other data on some 50 million users to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
The FTC said on Monday that it “takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook”.
“Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices,” Efe news quoted Acting FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director, Tom Pahl, as saying.
Pahl emphasized that the agency is committed to using “all of its tools” to protect the privacy of consumers and that the main such tool is “enforcement action” against companies that do not fulfill their promises in the data privacy area or that violate the law.
He explained that the FTC is acting against firms that do not abide by the “Privacy Shield” agreement regulating data transfer with the European Union and against companies that undertake “unfair acts” that harm consumers or violate the FTC Act.
“The FTC is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers. Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements,” a statement said.
“Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook.”
Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy privacy chief, said in a statement last week that the social networking firm remains “strongly committed to protecting people’s information,” adding that “we appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have”.
A week ago, after the controversial leak of private information on millions of users came to light, press reports said that the FTC was investigating whether Facebook violated the terms of a 2011 consent agreement requiring user consent for sharing data by providing use data to Cambridge Analytica in 2014.
The London-based political research organization, which collaborated with the election campaign of Donald Trump in the runup to the 2016 vote, used the leaked information to develop a computer programme to predict the decisions of US voters and influence them.
In 2011, Facebook promised to ask for the consent of its users before making certain changes in their privacy preferences, as part of an agreement with the government, which accused the firm of abusing consumers by sharing with third parties more information than users had authorized.
Breaking that agreement could result in the tech firm facing a fine of $40,000 per violation, the CNBC financial network said.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on March 21 admitted that it was a “breach of trust” to allow an app developed by Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan to collect data for Cambridge Analytica, and he added that the firm will “fix” the problem by, among other things, investigating all apps that could access users’ personal data before 2014 and banning any developer that “does not agree to a thorough audit”.
After Monday’s announcement, Facebook shares fell by as much as 6 per cent on Wall Street.
Last week, the firm suffered significantly in the markets as its stock price plunged, reducing the value of outstanding shares by some $50 billion.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Finance, Islamic Finance, Muslim World, News
Dubai : The Dubai Financial Market General Index (DFMGI) closed at 3,115.16 on Sunday, the lowest point since the end of February, 2016.
Shares of Dubai’s bellwether Emaar Properties, the developer of the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, dived by 2.72 per cent, while regional logistics giant Aramex lost 3.70 per cent.
Selling pressure piled up on the Dubai trading floor as Friday and Saturday marked the Islamic weekend and the market remained closed, Xinhua reported.
Experts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) argued that the decline was due to the fear of a global trade war triggered by US President Donald Trump’s recent tariff campaigns on steel and aluminium imports as well as against China.
Despite warnings from business groups and trade experts, US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday that could impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of imports from China and restrict Chinese investments in the US This fuelled fears that the world’s two largest economies could be sliding towards a trade war.
Trump kept his protectionist campaign promises by imposing tariffs on aluminium and steel earlier and now on intellectual property products on the pretext of “unfair practices,” which may trigger a trade war, said Nasser Saidi, former chief economist of the Dubai International Financial Center.
This poses “a clear risk that the Trump trade war will disrupt the global trade engine and derail the ongoing global economic recovery,” he said.
Despite the fall, shares of Emaar Malls, the developer of the world’s biggest shopping centre in relation to Dubai Mall, bucked the downtrend, gaining 0.47 per cent.
Despite a slowdown in the growth of the retail industry, there have been signs in Dubai and the regional retail sector that shopping is picking up, partly because of the increase in online retailing, said Elie Otaki, CEO of Global Retail Alliance in the Middle East and North Africa region.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi
Tehran : Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday condemned the US sanctions on 10 Iranians and an organisation and called the measures “illegal and provocative”.
Washington imposed sanctions on Iranians and an Iranian firm on Friday, all related to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for the massive theft of valuable data from hundreds of universities, private firms and government agencies worldwide.
The US’ “illegal and provocative” measures could not affect the country’s scientific growth, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was cited as saying by Xinhua news agency.
“The US move proves the country’s inherent hostility towards the Iranian nation,” he said.
Through the Treasury Department and the Justice Department, the US government established penalties on the suspected perpetrators of the cyber attack, through which 31.5 terabytes of sensitive data were appropriated from universities, US and UN agencies, as well as from private companies.
According to US authorities, the sanctions consisted of freezing all the suspects’ assets under US jurisdiction and banning them from doing business with Americans.
The organisation to be sanctioned was the Mabna Institute, which was supposedly subcontracted by the IRGC to carry out these cyber intrusions and committed the data theft for private profit.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : NASA’s will get $20.7 billion — $1.1 billion more than 2017 funding and $1.6 billion above the White House request — under a spending bill that cleared Congress this week and was signed by President Trump on Friday.
A big beneficiary will be the planned rocket to take astronauts into deep space and onto Mars, the Space Launch System (SLS), which will get $2.15 billion, and the Orion crew capsule, which will launch on top of the SLS, will get $1.35 billion, AL.com reported.
According to a report spaceflightnow.com, the NASA funding was part of a $1.3 trillion federal spending package that keeps the government running through the end of fiscal year 2018 — September 30 — after multiple stopgap budgets in recent months.
The budget provides $350 million for construction of a second SLS mobile launch platform, a project which, NASA believes, could shorten the gap between the first and second Space Launch System flights.
Funding for a second SLS launch platform was not included in the White House’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal.
Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s outgoing acting administrator set to retire at the end of April, told a House subcommittee on March 7 that there was insufficient money in the agency’s budget to build a second SLS platform without delaying or canceling other projects.
While responding to a question during the hearing, Lightfoot said that a second SLS mobile launch platform would be better for the program in an “ideal world.”
“I could fly humans quicker, probably in the 2022 timeframe,” with a second mobile launch platform, Lightfoot said.
—IANS
