Stories from Abroad

The Senate Banking Committee rebuked President Donald Trump's efforts to ease sanctions on the Chinese telecom firm ZTE, which the intelligence community and trade regulators have warned poses a national security risk for the U.S.  The committee approved an amendment in an overwhelming and bipartisan 23-2 vote that would block President Trump from easing sanctions on ZTE without first certifying to Congress that the company is complying with US law.

Britain’s culture secretary, Matt Hancock, said that he was unlikely to block the American cable giant Comcast’s proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster Sky, the latest twist in a merger battle between Comcast and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Hancock, said he was not inclined to intervene in Comcast’s $30.7 billion bid for Sky because the “the proposed merger does not raise concerns in relation to public interest considerations which would meet the threshold for intervention.”

One of the federal agencies that must sign off on the proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), and that agency has become a more important factor in recent international merger-and-acquisition action.  Indeed, under the Trump administration and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the CFIUS played a critical role in ultimately blocking Broadcom’s attempted hostile takeover of Qualcomm over national security concerns.

Europe’s new data and privacy rules take effect May 25, clarifying individual rights to the personal data collected by companies around the world for targeted advertising and other purposes. Not much will change for you, at least right away; companies will keep on collecting and analyzing personal data from your phone, the apps you use and the sites you visit.

A year ago, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity of federal networks and critical infrastructure.  The order mandated that all federal agencies use the Cybersecurity Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In April, NIST released version 1.1 of the Framework, which shows how this voluntary approach can provide a first line of cyber defense for companies.

In 2013 Mark Zuckerberg debuted a bold, humanitarian vision of global internet. It didn’t go as planned—forcing Facebook to reckon with the limits of its own ambition.

Wireless speaker company Sonos, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter  have updated their global privacy rules in anticipation of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR is the latest sign of the EU’s growing power in global regulation. With increasing frequency, EU rules targeting industries within the bloc—from consumer products to financial services—have set international benchmarks. Some are taken piecemeal, as with GDPR, from which non-EU companies are cherry-picking elements. Other rules have become de facto world-wide references.

For the last decade or so, China has defied the truism that only free and open societies can innovate. Even as the Communist Party has kept an iron grip on politics and discourse, the country’s technology industry has grown to rival Silicon Valley’s in sophistication and ambition. President Xi Jinping’s tilt toward strongman rule could put all that to the test. As Mr.

In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.

This toolkit provides stakeholders with guidance on developing a digital skills strategy. It is intended for policymakers, along with partners in the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and academia. Its overarching aim is to facilitate the development of a comprehensive digital skills strategy at country level. It is also possible to use this guide to focus on selected priorities that require a fresh approach.