Saudi, Chilean ministers discuss agriculture ties
Saudi Deputy Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Mansour Al-Mushaiti received the deputy minister of foreign affairs for international economic relations in Chile, Rodrigo Yanez, in Riyadh.
They discussed strengthening economic partnerships and Saudi agricultural investment abroad, in addition to inviting Saudi investors to explore investment opportunities in Chile. Al-Mushaiti affirmed the strength of economic relations between Saudi Arabia and Chile. They also reviewed aspects of bilateral cooperation, advantages and investment opportunities in Chile.
As WhatsApp launches a new in-app banner in response to the backlash over its privacy issue, Saudi experts and users weigh in on the company’s strategy. “Harvesting user data is part of Facebook’s strategy,” Abdullah Al-Gumaijan, cybersecurity expert, told Arab News.
“It seems this will never change, even if it costs them millions of users, like what happened to WhatsApp last month when they updated their policy,” he said. “Today, WhatsApp will force their users to accept a similar policy. However, this time around they made it very clear they will not share users’ actual conversations.”
As long as WhatsApp remains a free app, he added, Facebook will make sure to get what it can from its users’ data.
Fahd Naseem, a WhatsApp user,
said: “People have made this into a bigger issue than it really is. Facebook and other social media platforms are already using the data; there’s nothing wrong in WhatsApp using it too.”
He told Arab News that this data helps the apps deliver better and more personalized ads to their users.
Fatimah Al-Maddah, owner of Labothecaire, said that the privacy
issue does not concern her and her team. “We use services like Dropbox for sensitive matters, and if we need to discuss something, we normally call. So, we don’t risk our information to begin with.” WhatsApp will allow users to review its privacy policy, and users will have to agree to the new terms or risk losing access to the app. The firm said that it was facing issues because of “misinformation” regarding the changes, which led users to believe that their information was accessible by WhatsApp’s parent firm, Facebook.
However, WhatsApp said that it would never allow that to happen and that its end-to-end encryption ensures that people on both ends of the conversation are the only ones who can read those texts; not even the company has the access to them.
In a blog post, the company clarified that it would be working hard to clear up confusion and that it would be sharing the updated plan for how it will ask users to review the terms of service and privacy policy.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll display a banner in WhatsApp providing more information that people can read at their own pace,” the blog post read.
The company also faced backlash because of the poorly worded terms in the previous update, which caused confusion and concern and resulted in users abandoning the app entirely and moving onto other platforms.
Egypt has approved the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine and the AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine.
The Egyptian Drug Authority said it had granted an emergency license to use the two vaccines imported from South Korea.
The authority indicated that it had previously granted a permit to use the Chinese vaccine Sinopharma and AstraZeneca, produced in India.
Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment, stressed that the decision of the Egyptian Drug Authority reflects the effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine
Mahmoud Yassin, head of the authority’s Central Administration for Biological and Innovative Products, confirmed that it issued an emergency license to use the Sputnik V and
AstraZeneca inoculations after they went through the necessary evaluation processes in accordance with international and local laws to ensure the safety, quality and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Yassin said the Egyptian authorities had approved four vaccines and are currently evaluating the remaining inoculations.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund indicated the importance of registering Sputnik V in Egypt, especially as it has the largest population in the Middle East.