Author: Salako Temitope

The intelligence chief of Israel’s Defense Forces has resigned. He cited failures linked to the Hamas terror attack carried out on Oct. 7, during which 1,200 people died in Israel and more than 200 were taken hostage. Haliva is the first senior official to step down over the incident. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far not directly accepted fault for the attack, despite protests calling for his resignation. “On Saturday, October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out a murderous surprise attack against the State of Israel, whose consequences are severe and painful. The intelligence division under my command did…

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged Monday that the country’s first deportation flights to Rwanda could leave in 10-12 weeks as he promised to end the Parliamentary deadlock over a key policy promise before an election expected later this year. Sunak made the comments at a news conference, making his case directly to the public after vowing last week that Parliament would remain in session until the legislation is passed. The House of Commons will take up the bill later in the day, followed by consideration in the House of Lords. Sunak demanded that the unelected House of Lords to…

Tesla is recalling 3,878 Cyber-trucks to fix an accelerator pedal pad that could come loose and get lodged in the interior trim, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Friday. A trapped accelerator pedal could cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally, increasing the risk of a crash, the auto safety regulator said in a notice. Tesla started deliveries of its Cyber-truck electric pickup truck late last year, after a two-year delay due to production problems and battery-supply constraints. The company’s shares fell nearly 3% before the bell on Friday, adding to its five-session losing streak during which the stock…

A Nigerian court ,on Friday, adjourned a tax evasion trial against cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, and two of its executives, to May 17 after the matter was stalled because the exchange has not been formally served with the charges. Binance and its executives, Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and head of financial crime compliance, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan who is a regional manager for Africa, face four counts of tax evasion. The charges include failure to register with Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for tax remittance purposes. Gambaryan appeared in court in Abuja on Friday but did not take a plea.…

Merchant ships and seafarers are increasingly in peril at sea as attacks escalate in the Middle East and the United Nations must do more to protect supply chains, the industry said in a letter released on Friday. Tensions have soared across the Middle East since the start of Israel’s campaign in Gaza in October, with Israel or its ally the United States clashing repeatedly with Iranian-aligned groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. In a letter sent on Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the world’s leading shipping industry associations said Iran’s seizure on April 13 of the MSC Aries container ship…

Adult content companies Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos will have to do risk assessment reports and take measures to address systemic risks linked to their services to comply with new EU online content rules, the European Commission said on Friday. The three companies were designated as very large online platforms last December under the Digital Services Act (DSA) which requires them to do more to remove illegal and harmful content on their platforms. Pornhub and Stripchat will have to comply with these DSA obligations, among the strictest, on April 21 and XVideos on April 23, the EU executive said. “These specific obligations include…

Apple, on Friday, said it had removed Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China after being ordered to do so by the Chinese government, which cited national security concerns. Telegram and Signal – two other foreign messaging apps – were also removed from the store on Friday, according to app tracking firms Qimai and AppMagic. The removal of the four apps suggests growing intolerance on the part of China’s central government towards at least some foreign online messaging services that fall outside of its control. It also signals less leeway for Apple in China. That said, other…

Taiwan, Friday, said China’s decision to open new air routes that run close to two Taiwanese-controlled islands was a flight safety risk taken without consultation, and said it would demand any aircraft using them be asked to turn around. The Taiwanese government expressed anger in January after China “unilaterally” changed a flight path called M503 close to the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait. China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory. The new Chinese routes to China’s Xiamen and Fuzhou cities, called W123 and W122 respectively, connect to the M503 flight route, and run alongside existing routes to…

Explosions echoed over an Iranian city on Friday in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation – a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war. The limited scale of the attack and Iran’s muted response both appeared to signal a successful effort by diplomats who have been working round the clock to avoid a blown out war since an Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel last Saturday. An Iranian official told Reuters there were no plans to respond against Israel for the incident. “The foreign…

Streaming giant, Netflix, saw its strongest growth since the pandemic in the second half of 2023, with about 22 million people signing up for the service after the company curbed the sharing of passwords globally. Netflix’s plan to maintain subscriber growth after two quarters of blockbuster increases will be in focus when it reports earnings on Thursday, with some analysts warning that gains from crackdown on password sharing are set to ease. But the bump from the password-sharing crackdown is expected to slow this year, turning the spotlight on its other efforts, including an ad-supported tier and a growing focus on…