Author: News Desk

The United States on Friday offered a reward of up to $15 million for information on the Russia-based Conti ransomware group, which has been blamed for cyber extortion attacks worldwide, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. The FBI estimates that more than 1,000 victims of the Conti group have paid a total in excess of $150 million in ransomware payments, Price said in a statement. “In offering this reward, the United States demonstrates its commitment to protecting potential ransomware victims around the world from exploitation by cyber criminals,” he said. The reward comprises $10 million for the identification or the…

North Korea fired a ballistic missile from a submarine on Saturday, South Korea said, an escalation just before the inauguration of a South Korean president who has vowed to take a hard line against the North and the visit of the U.S. president. South Korean military said North Korea fired what is believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) into the sea off its east coast around 0507 GMT on Saturday from near Sinpo, where North Korea keeps submarines as well as equipment for test-firing SLBMs. Japan also said the projectile was a short-range ballistic missile. Defence Minister Nobuo…

Six missiles hit the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Saturday, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command told the country’s public broadcaster. Spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk said four rockets hit a furniture factory in a residential area, while the other two struck an already damaged runway strip. She added that information on casualties was being clarified. Odesa regional administration spokesman Serhiy Bratchuk earlier said four missiles had hit Odesa region on Saturday, without causing any casualties.

Sitting in a classroom in the Romanian capital of Bucharest, U.S. first lady Jill Biden met a group of Ukrainian refugee mothers and educators on Saturday, praising the women for their strength and resilience. Svitlana Salamatova and Anna Sushko, both founders of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on women’s issues and education, fled the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv soon after Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24. Another of the women, Anastasiia Konovalova, left her home in Odesa with her toddler son. Svitlana Gollyak and her 8-year-old daughter hid in a basement in the bomb-shelled city of Kharkiv before heading westwards…

Saudi banks are betting big on the digital future. In the first three months of 2022, 13 bank branches and 81 ATMs were closed in a further sign of the growing digitization of the sector. This year’s decline is a continuation of an earlier trend. The statistics from the central bank, show that the number of bank branches declined by 124 — 6 percent of the total — between 2017 and 2021. ATMs saw a ten percent drop over the same period. However, E-commerce sales using Mada cards rose 14 percent in the first quarter of this year.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has issued an instruction for air carriers regarding the lifting of the travel suspension to the use of the national identity cards from the Kingdom for citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries GACA has called on travelers to check the entry requirements of the countries that they want to travel to before traveling. Lifting the suspension of travel with the national identity does not include the family registry card, as it is not considered a document that can be used for travel.

Ukraine said a new attempt was under way on Friday to evacuate scores of civilians trapped in a heavily bombed steel works in the city of Mariupol, after bloody fighting with Russian forces thwarted efforts to bring them to safety the previous day. Mariupol, a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea, has endured the most destructive siege of the 10-week-old war and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal steel plant is the last part of the city still in the hands of holdout Ukrainian fighters. U.N.-brokered evacuations of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in the plant’s…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost control of traditional strongholds in London and suffered setbacks elsewhere in local elections, with voters punishing his government over a series of scandals. As early results suggested Johnson, a former London mayor, was losing support in southeastern England, his supporters moved in quickly on Friday to say it was not time to oust a leader they said could still “get things done” to help the economy. Johnson’s party was ousted in Wandsworth, a low-tax Conservative stronghold since 1978, part of a trend in the British capital where voters used the elections to…

Germany will deliver seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, on top of five such artillery systems the Dutch government already pledged, German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Friday. Germany reversed its long-held policy of not sending heavy weapons to war zones last week following pressure at home and abroad for it to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks. The heavy weapons will come out of the Bundeswehr inventories and be delivered as soon as they emerge from maintenance over the next weeks, Lambrecht and her chief of defence, general Eberhard Zorn, told reporters in the Slovak town of Sliac. The…

The Russian rouble hit a more than two-year high against the euro before easing on Friday and hovered near 67 versus the dollar, supported by capital controls and weak forex demand, as the spectre of more sanctions against Moscow hung over markets. The European Union’s executive on Wednesday proposed the toughest package of sanctions yet against Russia for its actions in Ukraine, but several countries’ worries about the impact of cutting off Russian oil imports stood in the way of agreement. By 1027 GMT, the rouble had lost 0.8% to trade at 70.73 versus the euro , earlier clipping 69.1250,…