JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Media has suspended a Twitter account after it posted an infographic perceived to be offensive to Canada.
@Infographic_KSA posted the image on its feed on Monday after Saudi Arabia ordered the Canadian ambassador to leave the country.
“Based on a complaint filed to the Ministry of Media about a post by @Infographic_ksa, the ministry has ordered the owner of the account to shut it down until investigations are completed,” the ministry said.
LONDON: Stabbed Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati said Tuesday he was “feeling much better” but he is still far from fully recovering.
The Iran International presenter spoke to BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program about the attack and the toll it has taken on his life.
“I’m feeling much better physically, but as you know, mental recovery takes time,” Zeraati said, adding that “the show must go on”.
The journalist was attacked late last month outside his home in south London. He was stabbed by three men and hospitalized with injuries to his leg.
Recalling the moment of the assault, Zeraati told BBC Radio 4 that he was going to his car to head to the studio when a “suspicious” looking man approached him and asked for some change.
“He pretended to be asking for change, as I was saying, ‘excuse me I don’t have any change,’ and I was going to unlock the door, the second man approached,” he said.
“They grabbed me from the front, very strong, I couldn’t move my hands” before one of the attackers stabbed him in the leg.
The pair immediately fled in a car that was waiting to drive them to Heathrow Airport.
“I just noticed all my belongings are with me, including my mobile phones, my watch, my AirPods, my wallet with cash in it, so the moment I just saw everything is with me, I noticed this is regarding my job, because it wasn’t a robbery,” he told “Today.”
He was taken to the hospital shortly after and later discharged. He is currently staying in a safe place under police supervision.
The Metropolitan Police said the suspects had left the UK but are still investigating the reason behind the attack.
Staff of Iran International have previously been targeted by threats linked to the Iranian regime, and the dissident broadcast had been listed as a terrorist organization in Iran for its coverage of Iran’s 2022 uprising.
Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK, which serves as the head of its diplomatic mission, has denied any link between the Iranian regime and the attack on Zeraati.
The journalist returned to work earlier this month as a way to “send the message back”.
“I’m here, the show is going on, and my audience is still watching this show,” Zeraati said.
ISTANBUL: Facebook owner Meta said Monday it would “temporarily” shut down its Threads short-messaging service in Turkiye after an order from Ankara’s competition watchdog over data-sharing.
The interim ruling from the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) has “no impact” for Meta’s other services like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in Turkiye, the company said in a statement posted to its website.
“We disagree with the interim order, we believe we are in compliance with all Turkish legal requirements, and we will appeal,” Meta said — although it had “no choice but to temporarily shut down Threads” in Turkiye.
Meta launched Threads last year as a competitor to X (formerly Twitter), with boss Mark Zuckerberg saying in February the service had 130 million monthly users worldwide.
It was available in Turkiye from the start, while European Union users had to wait months for Meta to come up with a version adapted to strict data protection and competition laws.
In its March finding, the TCA had said Meta’s combination of user data from Instagram with people’s Threads profiles “will lead to irreparable harms.”
Given its vast user base, data collection and financial resources, “Meta’s practices in the market constitute a barrier to entry” for prospective competitors, the authority added.
Meta said it would allow existing Threads users to delete or deactivate their profiles ahead of the April 29 cut-off, with a chance of reactivating them should the ruling be overturned.
LONDON: British TV presenter Rachel Riley has responded to criticisms she received after posting a message on social media platform X in which she appeared to link a stabbing rampage at a Sydney shopping mall on Saturday, which left six people dead, with ongoing protests calling for a Palestinian “intifada,” or uprising.
The celebrity, best known for appearing on the Channel 4 game shows “Countdown” and “8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown” said she apologized if her words had been “misunderstood.”
In a message posted soon after the attacks, Riley, whose mother is Jewish, wrote: “For six months now, people have been out on our streets proudly calling for the ‘Intifada Revolution’. If you want to know what ‘Globalised Intifada’ looks like, see the Sydney Mall.”
She immediately faced a backlash, including accusations of racism and Islamophobia and calls for her to be sacked by Channel 4.
Do not let Rachel Riley get away with it.
— Bushra Shaikh (@Bushra1Shaikh) April 14, 2024
Her words: "If you want to know what ‘Globalise the Intifada’ looks like, see the Sydney Mall."
"Sydney mall, multiple times over is what they’ve been proudly calling for."
She is full of it and knows exactly what she meant. I hope… https://t.co/iLBwHxnGby
In response, she posted a message on Sunday in which she said her tweet was not intended to link the attack in Sydney to Islamic extremism, but rather to question the continuing tolerance for protests in London and around the world calling for “intifada,” which she equates with “violence on our streets.”
She wrote: “Sadly, the type of attack seen in Sydney yesterday is exactly the kind of violence the previous intifada involved and I hope to avoid in future, but in my opinion ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
“Attacks on Jews have recently become repackaged as ‘resistance’ in some circles, and we should in one voice condemn all acts of violence, whoever the perpetrators and whoever the victims.
“I am sorry if this message was misunderstood, that was not my intention.”
Despite her clarification, she continued to face criticism online, including accusations that her response was “insufficient” and she was engaging in “self-centered self-victimization” in an attempt to evade responsibility.
Honestly, everyone has had enough @Channel4. This is not an apology. It is self-centred, self victimisation to get away from addressing her islamophobia. She's posts diagusting, racist content and uses her identity to escape responsibility, this isn't good enough. https://t.co/u1dCJ2vkzC
— lachimalola⁷ (@Drrrivvveee) April 15, 2024
On Saturday, Joel Cauchi attacked a number of people, mostly women, at the Westfield Bondi Junction mall killing five women and a man. Several others, including a baby girl, were injured before Cauchi was shot dead by police. Australian authorities have said the attack was not related to terrorism and most likely linked to the attacker’s mental health issues.
LONDON: A Lebanese newspaper has launched what it claims is the world’s first artificial intelligence tool designed to assume presidential duties for a nation, in an attempt to break the long-standing deadlock over who should assume the country’s presidency.
Arabic-language daily AnNahar said the program, which it has called “AI President,” has been trained on an archive of 90 years of “impartial journalism” from its pages. The program analyzes historical data and current events to provide answers to political, legal, and governmental questions.
With its “deep understanding” of Lebanon’s history, “AI President” aims to provide an “unbiased perspective” on the country’s current challenges.
The launch was announced in a live broadcast by Nayla Tueni, AnNahar’s editor-in-chief, who conducted an interview with the software regarding Lebanon’s current issues and potential solutions to them.
Lebanon is facing a number of long-running socio-economic crises, with over 80 percent of the population now reported to be living in poverty.
The country has been without a president for more than two years, despite 13 unsuccessful attempts by the Lebanese parliament to elect one.
Tueni hopes “AI President” will help break the political stalemate and restore confidence in the system.
“We refuse to sit back and allow things to go on as they have. To not have a president for this long is unacceptable and has impacted the country negatively,” Tueni said. “If the parliament will not do its job to elect a president, then the people will bring Lebanon a president.”
“AI President” will be accessible through the website OurPresident.ai to answer questions on Lebanese politics.
WASHINGTON: Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized the Biden administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel AI chip.
The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for violating Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it.
One such license, issued by the Trump administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hard-liners had urged the Biden administration to revoke that license, but many grudgingly accepted that it would expire later this year and not be renewed.
Huawei’s unveiling Thursday of its first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook X Pro powered by Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processor, shocked and angered them, because it suggested to them that the Commerce Department had approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.
“One of the greatest mysteries in Washington, DC is why the Department of Commerce continues to allow US technology to be shipped to Huawei” Republican Congressman Michael Gallagher, who chairs the House of Representatives select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters.
A source familiar with the matter said the chips were shipped under a preexisting license. They are not covered by recent broad-cased restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.
The Commerce Department and Intel declined to comment. Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The reaction is a sign of growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to thwart Huawei’s rise, nearly five years after it was added to a trade restriction list.
In August, it shocked the world with a new phone powered by a sophisticated chip manufactured by sanctioned Chinese chipmaker SMIC, becoming a symbol of China’s technological resurgence despite Washington’s ongoing efforts to cripple its capacity to produce advanced semiconductors.
At a Senate subcommittee hearing this week, Kevin Kurland, an export enforcement official, said Washington’s restrictions on Huawei have had a “significant impact” on it access to US technology. He also stressed that the goal was not necessarily to stop Huawei from growing but to keep it from misusing US technology for “malign activities.”
But the remarks did little to stem frustration among Republican China hawks following the news about Huawei’s new laptop.
“These approvals must stop,” Republican congressman Michael McCaul said in a statement to Reuters. “Two years ago, I was told licenses to Huawei would stop. Today, it doesn’t seem as though the policy has changed.”
