by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 27, 2016 | News
We doubt if this sort of law would ever happen in the U.S.:
South Korea‘s parliament is considering a bill to ban bosses from bothering their staff electronically at home after the company’s regular business hours, afterwhat The Guardian calls “growing complaints about the country’s already onerous work-life imbalance.”
“As more firms use social media or mobile messengers to send work orders, regardless of time, the stress inflicted on workers has reached a serious level,” backers of the bill said.
The proposed law would ban employers from sending employees work-related messages by telephone, text, social media or via mobile messaging apps after companies’ official working hours.
To read The Guardian’s story on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 27, 2016 | News
The Washington Post reports that Israel and Turkey have agreed to repair ties “after six years of strained relations over a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish ship delivering aid to Gaza in 2010, officials said Monday. Ten Turkish activists were killed in the assault.”
The Post noted: “The rapprochement has potential wide-reaching security and economic ramifications in the region. Turkey and Israel once shared close military cooperation, and they have common worries over the Islamic State and other war-driven instability in Syria, which borders Turkey and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.”
The Post did not speculate on the effects on Russia but it must be noted that NATO-member Turkey, while in the past few days trying to repair ties with Russia after it shot down a Russian jet last year, remains very suspicious of Russian intentions in the Mideast, even as Israel remains a close of ally of the U.S.
To read The Post article, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 27, 2016 | News
The Chinese government continues to tighten its control of the Internet in the country as part of its effort to suppress dissent. The government of President Xi Jinping will enact a law that will force social-network operators to comply with “public morals” and accept stringent controls by Communist Party dictatorship.
Reuters reported that the government emphasized that Chinese citizens’ personal data, as well as “important business data,” must be stored domestically, “adding that those wishing to provide that information overseas faced a government security evaluation.”
The government’s move are likely to discourage some foreign companies from doing business in China.
Reuters noted that “Cybersecurity has been a particularly irksome area in China’s relations with economic partners such as the United States and the European Union, which see many recently proposed rules as unfair to foreign firms.” But the Xi regime has made it clear that its political control will trump everything else.
F0r the Reuters article on this, please hit this link.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 27, 2016 | News
You would think that with all the cybersecurity threats these days that a company like Intel would want to hang on to its cybersecurity unit. But in fact, Intel is considering selling Intel Security, including perhaps McAfee, the anti-virus company, Bloomberg reports.
The reason for the potential sale:
The slowing of the personal-computer sector is pushing Intel to move more into such higher-growth areas as chips for data-center machines and Internet-connected devices.
by Robert Whitcomb | Jun 24, 2016 | News
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden has warned Chinese President Xi Jinping that Japan could acquire nuclear weapons “virtually overnight.”
Mr. Biden said that he had urged Mr. Xi to push North Korea to abandon its missile and nuclear- weapons developments. But it is highly unlikely that China will push its fellow dictatorship to do s0.
The vice president was referring to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test and missile launches in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Mr. Biden said North Korea is building nuclear weapons that can strike as far as away the U.S. mainland. “And I say, so we’re going to move up our defense system,” suggesting that America will deploy an advanced U.S. missile interception system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, in South Korea.
The vice president quoted Mr. Xi as saying, “Wait a minute, my military thinks you’re going to try to circle us.”
Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko asserted June 24 that Japan “can never possess nuclear weapons.”
To read The Japan Times’s story on this, please hit this link.
