Latest news with #256
Egypt Independent
24-05-2025
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Sisi ratifies final accounts for FY 2023–2024 budgets of several authorities
CAIRO, May 22 (MENA) – President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has ratified laws approving the final accounts for the budgets of several government entities for the 2023–2024 fiscal year. The approved budgets include those of the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development with LE231,083,980, the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education with LE79,570,302, the Cairo International Stadium Authority with LE162,944,450, and the University Support and Development Authority with LE1,256,680,366. Additionally, the president ratified final accounts for the Grand Egyptian Museum, totaling LE10,735,845,612, the National Academy for Training, amounting to LE407,748,708, the General Authority for Tourism Development, with LE3,696,610,325, and the Prison Manufacturing and Production Fund, recording LE775,144,524. The laws were published in the Official Gazette. (MENA)
TimesLIVE
07-05-2025
- Automotive
- TimesLIVE
Rivian and Lucid flag increasing costs as Trump tariffs bite
US President Donald Trump's administration introduced 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and car parts. Last week, Trump signed two orders to soften the blow, with a mix of credits and relief from other levies on materials. In the face of uncertainty, several carmakers, including Tesla, have also said they were reassessing their full-year targets. Rivian on Monday said it would invest $120m (R2,182,770) to bring its key parts suppliers near its plant in Illinois as it prepares to produce its smaller, more affordable R2 SUVs next year. Lucid is also gearing up to launch a midsize vehicle with a target price of about $50,000 (R909,487) next year. However, Winterhoff said Lucid might start production of the vehicle in Saudi Arabia, a major market for and an investor in the EV maker, instead of the US, given tariff costs, though that plan was not final. A successful rollout of affordable vehicles is seen as critical for the two EV makers. Lucid and Rivian reported smaller-than-expected losses on an earnings-per-share basis in the first quarter as they doubled down on slashing costs. Rivian, which is also benefiting from a $5.8bn (R105,509,256,960) software joint venture with Volkswagen, reported a gross profit of $206m (R3,747,356,155) and stuck to its target of modest gross profit this year. The company, however, increased its forecast for capital expenditures for the year to between $1.8bn (R32,763,777,480) and $1.9bn (R34,583,990,000), as tariffs hurt its plant expansion costs, from between $1.6bn (R29,138,640,000) and $1.7bn (R30,966,604,320) predicted earlier.
TimesLIVE
25-04-2025
- Business
- TimesLIVE
Portable internet helps Asia scam centres bypass blackouts
About 7,000 victims were rescued from scam compounds in Myanmar, UN estimates hundreds of thousands of trafficked workers still trapped By In February, Thai and Myanmar authorities worked together to turn off electricity and the internet in an unprecedented operation to free thousands of trafficking victims forced to work in cyber-scam centres in Myanmar. It succeeded, and about 7,000 people from 29 countries were released. But trafficking experts question how significant the blackouts were, and will be, if satellite internet technology such as Starlink, China's SpaceSail or the French-German Eutelsat becomes abundant in the region. Owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX, Starlink provides high-speed internet via portable packs. Registered Starlink users simply plug in the device, which is slim enough to carry in a backpack, and point it towards the sky to access a stable internet connection. Service plans begin at £50 (R1,256) per month. 'We're starting to see Starlink signals pop up more and more in the areas where these compounds are,' said Andrew Wasuwongse, country director of International Justice Mission Thailand, an anti-trafficking nonprofit organisation. More than 80 Starlink devices were seized by authorities in Myanmar and Thailand last year, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Countries have differing restrictions on the devices that make their legality ambiguous. In Thailand and Myanmar, they are considered illegal and not licensed by authorities. Starlink states on its website that users cannot engage its services for 'fraudulent or illegal' activities. It did not reply to a request for comment. Aware of the devices' use in propping up illegal operations, Thai authorities attempt to seize them, but an ASEAN trade agreement allowing goods to be imported into Thailand and taken into another Southeast Asian country without inspection makes it difficult. 'We know they import a lot of Starlink devices through Thailand,' said Siriwish Kasemsap, director of the Bureau of Human Trafficking Crime in Thailand's ministry of justice. Yet their clandestine presence has also proven useful amid the recent earthquake in Myanmar, providing connectivity to help support relief efforts amid wider blackouts. Many of the scam centres also rely on illegal Thai internet connections, Wasuwongse said, and freed workers reported that as a result, the internet shutdown during the rescue operation did very little. The arrest warrants and threats of raids had more of an impact in the release of what he described as a 'drop in a bucket' of victims, he said. BOGUS SCHEMES The UN estimates hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in scam farms run by criminal networks in places like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Sara, who did not want to use her full name, is one such worker, lured to Bangkok from South Africa with the promise of a tech job, only to be trafficked into Myanmar. There, she said she spent nine months coercing strangers online, 21 hours a day, to invest in bogus schemes or she risked being sent to the 'prison'. 'It's an underground place that is dark, where they will hang you upside down and torture you, electrocute you and beat you up for three days, or they would lock you in a room alone, with no human contact, with no water, with no food for three days,' she said. Sara was released when she convinced her captors her mother was sick, and she managed to claw together close to $100,000 as ransom. She is still paying off debts to friends and family who lent her money. Palit, a 42-year-old Thai national, escaped a similar compound in 2023 after six months of being forced to engage in fake online relationships that would coerce people into giving significant amounts of money. He lived with 11 men in a small room with one bathroom that only had dirty water. Many got sick, he said, but there was no medicine or opportunities to rest. 'If we couldn't work and if we did not listen to commands, we would get abused like hit, shot and punishments,' he said. While Palit was rescued and returned to Thailand, thousands of victims remain stuck, propping up an operation that lines the pockets of criminal syndicates. THAI LEVERAGE Internet access is vital to their operation, and criminal gangs, largely from China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, invest in ensuring connections via unconventional means, experts said. Despite the gangs' canny access to the internet, wider shutdowns are not useless, said Rebecca Miller, Southeast Asia and Pacific regional co-ordinator of human trafficking and migrant smuggling at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. This operation, the largest of its kind, was symbolic, 'showing that Thailand is taking this issue seriously and there's multiple levers that they wanted to pull,' she said. The strong government reaction was long overdue, said Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates. With a porous border, Thailand is a key transit point for people and products, from internet devices to drugs, and has the power to make it difficult to operate the centres, he said. 'Thailand has a great deal of leverage over the Border Guard Forces who have been the key local protectors of the scam centres, so this is more about Bangkok getting serious about going after the scam centres than anything the Myanmar government has done,' Robertson said. The Thai government has said it plans to strengthen border controls, so people like Sara cannot be easily transported. When she was in Myanmar, Sara said she mistakenly thought she was still in Thailand, given there had been no border checks. 'I couldn't have imagined that I was in a different country.' The multiple jurisdictions, where the syndicates conduct money laundering, trafficking, assault and cybercrime, make investigations difficult, but this first joint operation could create positive momentum, Wasuwongse said. Otherwise, the released victims may simply be replaced by others. UNODC is already seeing the targeted compounds move south of Myawaddy, a town across a narrow river from Thailand along the mountainous Three Pagodas Pass, 'almost like a 'whack-a-mole' effect', said Miller. 'You take action in one spot, and then suddenly the problem shifts somewhere else,' she said. 'This definitely is not the end of it all.'
Al Etihad
13-03-2025
- Automotive
- Al Etihad
Emirates Driving Company distributes 34% cash dividend for 2024
13 Mar 2025 17:57 ABU DHABI (WAM) Emirates Driving Company, listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), announced that its General Assembly, convened on March 11, 2025, approved a cash dividend distribution to shareholders for the fiscal year ended December 31, approved dividend is set at 34 percent of the company's share capital, amounting to a total of Dh183,164,256, equivalent to 17 fils per share, yielding a 6.25 percent return based on the closing price as of March 11, distribution is an extension of the company's consistent approach to providing rewarding returns to shareholders and distributing cash dividends over the company has maintained a stable policy of regularly and continuously sharing its successes with Board of Directors emphasised their commitment to further supporting the company's strategic direction and strengthening its financial and operational position by focusing on investment in modern technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and human capital stressed the importance of integrating efforts between the executive management and the various business units to ensure the realisation of growth objectives and expansion into new and diverse sectors and activities. The Board members also commended the efforts made to solidify the company's leadership position in the driving education market for 25 years, and to fulfil its vision of creating a safe and responsible driving environment for the community.
