Whatsapp spy 007

FILE PHOTO: The seal of the United States Department of Justice is seen on the building exterior of the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., August 17, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo WASHINGTON — A U.S. citizen and four Chinese intelligence officers have been charged with spying on Chinese dissidents, human rights leaders and pro-democracy activists residing in the United States, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday. The indictment accuses Wang Shujun, of Queens, New York, of using his status within Chinese diaspora and dissident communities to collect information about activists on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). Wang, 73, was arrested on March 16 and will be arraigned at a later date, the Justice Department said. The four MSS officials, who the department named as Feng He, Jie Ji, Ming Li and Keqing Lu, are still at large, it added. The indictment was unsealed on Tuesday in a … [Read more...] about US charges one American, four Chinese officials with spying

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin TOPLINE Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was arrested 18 months ago on spying charges in Russia, was on Monday found guilty in a Moscow court of receiving classified information, prompting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to call for his immediate release amid claims of a “sham” trial. KEY FACTS Whelan, a citizen of the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland, was sentenced in Moscow City Court to 16 years in a maximum security prison, after being convicted of spying for the U.S.. The 50-year-old, also a security executive in the U.S., says he is innocent and that he was set up by being handed a flash drive containing classified information of which he was unaware. He called the trial a “sham” in a written note held up to his cubicle in court on Monday. Pompeo tweeted shortly after the conviction that he was “outraged” at the decision “on the basis of a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate … [Read more...] about Ex-US Marine Paul Whelan Jailed In Russia For 16 Years On Spying Charges

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the four founders of Pakistani start-up Markaz Technologies , noticed something going on around them. Like people all around the world, their friends and families were buying more products online than ever before; but crucially, they were purchasing from micro-enterprises via social media channels such as Facebook and Whatsapp, rather than the large ecommerce platforms. The idea for Markaz, an online reselling platform that has just completed a $2.4m seed funding round, came from that experience, says Shoaib Khan, one of those founders. “My a-ha moment was when my mother told me she had bought some sheets through the Whatsapp account of a woman she had known for more than 10 years,” he recalls. Shoppers such as Khan’s mother were embracing ecommerce, but trust remained a huge issue; they wanted to buy from people they knew – or at least not from large and faceless corporations. … [Read more...] about How Markaz Built A New Marketplace For Pakistan’s Micro-Enterprises

TO curb the spread of Covid-19 over the past two years, the government imposed several policies, such as strict movement control orders, mass vaccination campaigns and comprehensive contact tracing. Despite these positive measures, the pandemic impacted Malaysia’s economy badly, especially affecting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Up to 2021, over 37,000 MSMEs had closed their businesses, and out of this total, 26,007 were micro- enterprises. MSMEs play a major role in the Malaysian economy. They account for nearly 40% of the country’s GDP and employ almost two-thirds of its workforce. And in the MSME category, micro-enterprises account for the largest share. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, micro-enterprises made up 78.6% of total MSME establishments in 2021. … [Read more...] about Micro-enterprises need help

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal (Image: Reuters) With only "two-and-a-half players" left in the highly competitive domestic telecom sector, the future of battle hardened Bharti Airtel looks good now, its Chairman Sunil Mittal said on Thursday. Speaking at a CII event, Mittal noted that the company has been through many ups and downs, including regulatory challenges and market competition, and is now better placed in the market. "The balance sheet is healthy, it's strong. And we are now down to two-and-a-half players for a country the size of India so the future looks good now. Now will there be one more crisis?… who knows but this company has become very very strong and battle hardened," Mittal noted. Noting that some of the salient features have been relentless focus on customer needs and customer satisfaction, he said, "we have been very hard on ourselves. I am the biggest critic of my own company". Recalling the challenging period, he said that it has turned out to be … [Read more...] about Battle hardened Bharti Airtel’s future looks good now, says Sunil Mittal

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The stock market keeps falling and falling because, for the first time in 14 years, there is nobody there to catch it. The “Fed put” has expired. The genesis of the Federal Reserve’s implicit put—the notion that the Fed will fix any decline—was the 2008 Financial Crisis. The financial system was on the ropes and the stock market itself became “too big to fail” as far as the Fed was concerned. Then-Chairman Ben Bernanke printed a bunch of money, boosted the market and was heralded a financial hero. Since then, the Fed has been reluctant to let the stock market drop. Anytime the S&P 500 has a hiccup or correction, the central bank has stepped in to print money, and this liquidity stabilizes stock prices. This implicit “insurance” has been called the Fed put. It’s a word play on options investing. When we buy puts, we are generally buying insurance on our portfolio. Puts rise in value as stock prices drop. … [Read more...] about The Best Dividend For A Bear Market

When Chase Thomas graduated from Cornell with a concentration in data science, he could have gotten a job at a big tech company. But he started working with nonprofits instead, building technology that could help solve larger problems. advertisement advertisement “I had done a few internships at Big Tech in the past, at Microsoft, and that was technically interesting,” he says. “And it was fun. But it’s not really sustainable—you don’t wake up every day thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to increase shareholder value.'” Thomas is one of 11 recent grads in a unique associate product manager (or APM) program run by Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic organization started by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy Schmidt. Google pioneered an APM program in 2002 to train new project leaders; other tech companies followed. Five years ago, Schmidt Futures decided to launch a similar program focused on training new leaders to use tech for public good—and … [Read more...] about This program pays new grads a big tech salary to work at nonprofits

SAN FRANCISCO: A toxic cesspool. A lifeline. A finger on the world’s pulse. Twitter is all these things and more to its over 229 million users around the world – politicians, journalists, activists, celebrities, weirdos and normies, cat and dog lovers and just about anyone else with an Internet connection. For Elon Musk, its ultimate troll and perhaps most prolific user whose buyout of the company is on increasingly shaky ground, Twitter is a “de facto town square” in dire need of a libertarian makeover. Whether and how the takeover will happen, at this stage in the game, is anyone’s guess. On May 13, Musk announced that the deal is “on hold”, then tweeted that he was still “committed” to it. On Tuesday, the billionaire Tesla CEO said he’d reverse the platform’s ban of former US President Donald Trump if his purchase goes through but also voiced support for a new European Union law aimed at protecting social media users from harmful content. Twitter’s current CEO, meanwhile, fired … [Read more...] about As Musk buyout looms, Twitter searches for its soul

Malaysia: * Durian prices expected to increase by 100% this year * Goldman Sachs agrees to settle US$79.5mil 1MDB suit with shareholders * Covid-19 Watch: 3,029 new cases brings total to 4,473,500 * Covid-19: More than 28% of five to 11-year-olds fully vaccinated as at May 13 * PM: Asean stands firm on international issues in meeting with US President Biden * Bullying: Health Ministry looks at enhancing whistleblowing system * Successful four-day working visit to US, says PM * Philippines raises minimum daily wage in Manila capital region * Malaysia touts trade access as US Indo-Pacific plan only a 'good beginning' - trade chief * Kuantan furniture shop also a victim as scammers use similar name to cheat buyers * GE15: More public debates between candidates should be organised, says Bersih * Country's financial performance must be looked into before any plan to take over Sapura, says Tok Pa Singapore's Veronica Shanti Pereira in action before winning the … [Read more...] about Asean News Headlines at 9pm on Saturday (May 14, 2022)

A worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) posts a sign on a perimeter fence surrounding a neighborhood placed under lockdown due to Covid-19 in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Shortly after Shanghai went into lockdown, Mark Liu volunteered to help authorities provide essential goods to millions of residents by becoming what’s known as a Dabai, or “Big White.” The 33-year-old business director at a fund, who relocated to Shanghai recently from Hong Kong, hoped that signing up would allow him to get more transparent information on the Covid cases in his complex. For the most part, the Dabai work with neighborhood committees to ensure residents get food and other essentials to keep daily life running as smoothly as possible, as well as carry out mass Covid-19 testings. But he soon grew disillusioned by the experience. Not only did the details on Covid outbreaks remain opaque after he became a Dabai, but he also saw … [Read more...] about Anger erupts at Xi Jinping’s ‘Big White’ army of lockdown enforcers