HCM CITY — The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) was closely following an alleged cryptocurrency fraud in HCM City, to which as many as 32,000 people could have fallen victim, involving a sum of up to VNĐ15 trillion (US$666 million), a bank official said.

Nguoi Lao Dong (The Labourer) newspaper on Tuesday cited SBV HCM City Branch deputy director Nguyễn Hoàng Minh saying that the bank would co-operate with police to investigate the case.

On Sunday afternoon, dozens of people gathered at the headquarters of the Modern Tech JSC Co at 68 Nguyễn Huệ Street, District 1, carrying banners saying “biggest digital money fraud in history” to protest against the company.

The location, however, was a ghost address. No activities of the company took place there.

According to the protesting citizens, Modern Tech advertised the cryptocurrency iFan to potential investors, promising them huge monthly interest of at least 48 per cent, in cash, and four months as the maximum time for full payback. Those who could invite others to buy the digital currency would also enjoy a commission of 8 per cent.

The only condition for the investors was that they had to buy at least $1,000 worth of the digital money.

For many, the lucrative offer was too tempting to decline. More than 32,000 investors poured some VNĐ15 trillion into buying virtual money.

However, Modern Tech changed their policy following a global cryptocurrency crash late last year which caused iFan’s value plummeted to about 1 US cent per iFan.

The company no longer paid interest and principle back to the investors in cash, but in iFan currency. Modern Tech set iFan’s value at $5, much higher than the market price, causing losses to the customers.

Victim Lê Thị Hương said that a group of high-level investors in the pyramid-structured company used to organise meetings and deliver speeches to attract more investors, but they started denying their involvement with the company when the cryptocurrency market collapsed in 2017.

All their Facebook accounts disappeared in January this year, Hương said.

“It was only then that we truly understood what we had refused to believe before. Our money is all lost,” she said.

Minh said that cryptocurrency was not legally recognised by the SBV and hence it would be very difficult to protect the rights of digital money owners.

Police are investigating the case.

If you are among the 65,000 Facebook users in Singapore whose data was shared improperly with Cambridge Analytica, you are in the process of being told about it.

Facebook has started reaching out to all its account holders – including the 87 million worldwide whose data was shared improperly – to let them know whether they were affected.

This marks the first time users will know if their account information was shared improperly or not, almost three weeks since news of the scandal first broke.

Those with affected accounts will see a notification at the top of their Facebook News Feed, informing them how they are affected.

The social media website had told tech news site The Verge in a report that ran early yesterday morning that “the notification is rolling out over the course of today”.

Affected users will see one of two notifications, with both saying that the thisisyourdigitallife app was banned by the company for misusing Facebook information.

Users could have had their data compromised either because they logged into the app on their own account, or one of their friends did so.

“We did this because the app may have misused some of your Facebook information by sharing it with a company called Cambridge Analytica,” the notifications read.

Furthermore, all of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users will also see a prompt at the top of their News Feed that gives them quick access to check which apps and websites they are currently sharing data with.

Users can then choose to remove these apps and websites from their account, which stops them from accessing further data from the users’ profiles.

These notifications are part of Facebook’s attempts to deal with the global scandal where information about its users was accessed improperly by third-party companies.

The process seems to be taking its time. A mock-up of the notification being sent to users was first posted on a blog post by Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer last Wednesday, which stated that Facebook users would start seeing it on Monday.

However, according to international reports, most Facebook users had not received the notifications even on Monday night.

The social media company revealed last week that 65,009 Facebook users here had their information shared inappropriately with Cambridge Analytica, which exploited the data for commercial and political use.

The thisisyourdigitallife app was a personality quiz administered by data scientist and academic Aleksandr Kogan from Cambridge University, who paid hundreds of thousands of users to take it for academic research purposes.

However, the app also collected information on the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to a data pool of more than 80 million users.

Facebook banned the app in 2015, but the data collected was not destroyed, in violation of Facebook’s personal data policy.

Election Commission of Malaysia has fixed 9 May as polling day for its 14th General Election.Flight tickets are not cheap to fly home on polling day. Netizens launch `car pool to return home for ballot” instead, right after polling date was announced yesterday.The campaign named ` Jom Balik Undi’ (Car pool to return home for ballot) has more than 4,000 netizens joining as members.

The slogan of this fan page is: You are not alone, let’s car pool to return home for ballot!The administrator of the fan page called for every voter, especially those who are working outstation to cast their votes in deciding the fate of the country.“The car pool plan connects those working outstation, reduce travelling costs and to unite those from the same home town to decide on the future of the country.”

Lee Cooper posted his message of intending to return to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore and the idea of car pool would not be too taxing for him financially.“I have four seats. If I manage to fill up all the seats I should be off (from work) on 9 May. I start driving at 10 pm the night before.

“I would be waiting at the Johor checkpoint. Those keen please PM (private message) to discuss.”

Another netizen said election as is near, tickets for all types of public transport are sold out. Various state constituencies should plan how to ferry voters home and send them back to work. Voters from Kelantan who work outside the state are complaining the sudden surge in air ticket prices. The price of air ticket to Kota Bharu was less than RM100 (USD$25.6) in the morning but soared to between RM200 (USD$51.28) and RM300 (USD$76.92) the moment polling date was announced.

Liu De Ming, a voter from Kota Bharu spent RM600 (USD $153.85) for return tickets for two persons. He hoped everyone can return home to cast their ballot. Mo Shun Yi, another voter from Kota Bharu, said a ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Bharu on 8 May (one day before polling day) also cost more than RM300 (USD$76.92)

The agreement will see 14 IBTE students enrolled under the institute’s HNTec Apprenticeship Scheme for Telecommunications and Information Technology programme undergo on-the-job training at DST Communications Sdn Bhd, Progresif Cellular Sdn Bhd or Telekom Brunei Berhad (TelBru) during the course of their study programme.

The MoU was signed by Munirah Atirah binti Dato Paduka Haji Othman, Acting Chief Executive Officer (Corporate) of IBTE; David J Holliday, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TelBru; Paul Treston Taylor, CEO of Progresif Cellular Sdn Bhd; and Ramlah binti Haji Rabaha, Assistant General Manager of DST Group Human Resources on behalf of DST Communications Sdn Bhd.

Present to witness the signings was Haji Shariful Bahri bin Haji Sawas, Acting Deputy Commissioner of Labour, Ministry of Home Affairs.

Prior to the ceremony, Lim Kian Boon, Deputy CEO (Development) of IBTE in his capacity as the Acting CEO of IBTE, shared in his welcoming remarks that 46 apprentices have enrolled in the HNTec Apprenticeship Scheme since May 2014.

“This apprenticeship scheme, I believe, will help foster a long term partnership with the industry to help train students and produce skilled technicians to fill the gaps that exist in the telecommunications sector,” he said.

Lim added that through the apprenticeship schemes, IBTE is able to produce graduates with relevant occupational skills needed by the industry.

“As with Germany’s Dual System Apprenticeship, IBTE’s Dual System Apprenticeship programme allows the students to concurrently earn while they learn.

“The Dual System Apprenticeship provides an effective means of bridging the gap between school and the real working world by exposing students to a real-world work environment during their training,” he said.

The deputy CEO said workplace-oriented training programmes help in producing a highly skilled and job-ready workforce, allowing the apprentices to develop their skills to meet the needs of the industry and the labour market.

The collaboration between IBTE and the three telecommunications firms, Lim added, will provide an avenue for the students to acquire valuable industry experience and training, thus enhancing their employability upon completion of the programme.

“From the apprenticeship programme, the students will have the opportunity to maximise their learning experience and put theory to practice in a real working environment, as the programme combines institution-based training with on-the-job training which allows the students to understand both the practical and theoretical aspects of their jobs,” Lim said.

AsianScientist (Mar. 8, 2018) – Now into its third consecutive year, the Asian Scientist 100 (2018 edition) is a handpicked selection of 100 prize-winning Asian researchers, academicians, innovators and business leaders from across the Asia Pacific region. To be acknowledged on this list, honorees must have received a national or international prize in 2017 for their scientific research. This prize must involve a competitive selection procedure. Alternatively, in the same period, the honoree could have made a significant contribution in scientific discovery or leadership that has benefited either academia or industry. Spanning a diverse range of industries in science and technology, this year’s selection comprises honorees from China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. While the AS100 is by no means exhaustive, it showcases the exciting science taking place in Asia and raises the profile of researchers that are making invaluable contributions to their fields. “The quantity and quality of research coming out of Asia has increased significantly in recent years. In showcasing the best and brightest that Asia has to offer the world, we hope that the AS100 list will inspire young scientists across Asia,” said Dr. Juliana Chan, the founder and editor-in-chief of Asian Scientist Magazine. “Because science is an increasingly global and networked endeavor, this list also opens up opportunities for international collaboration.” The list, in no order of merit, is available online here.

Scientists featured on the Asian Scientist 100 (2018 edition):

1. S. Suresh Babu 2. Jitendra Nath Goswami 3. Rogel Mari Sese 4. Min Aung 5. Rajan Man Bajracharya 6. Hari Krishna Dhonju 7. Chandra Siddaiah Nayaka 8. Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao 9. Sheetal Sharma 10. Hiroshi Uchino 11. Chen Wen 12. Amit Dutt 13. Tamao Endo 14. Tatsushi Toda 15. Deepak Gaur 16. Edward Holmes 17. Sir David Lane 18. Li Jingmei 19. Mario Antonio Jiz II 20. V. Narry Kim 21. Tadamitsu Kishimoto 22. Michael Ming-Chiao Lai 23. Seiji Ogawa 24. Paik Soonmyung 25. Shimon Sakaguchi 26. Paul Kwong Hang Tam 27. Tu Youyou 28. Tehemton Erach Udwadia 29. Yu Nam-Kyung 30. Lucille V. Abad 31. Pimchai Chaiyen 32. Pussana Hirunsit 33. Kim Myung-hwan 34. Ganpathi Naresh Patwari 35. Long Ran 36. Phan Thanh Sơn Nam 37. Mitsuo Sawamoto 38. Xiaoliang Sunney Xie 39. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay 40. Cha Hyung Joon 41. James C. C. Chan 42. He Jinliang 43. Jang Jin 44. Anchalee Manonukul 45. Neelesh B. Mehta 46. Takashi Mimura 47. Lanndon A. Ocampo 48. Pack Sangheon 49. Chandrakant Pithawa 50. Tang Ching Wan 51. Jackie Y. Ying 52. Kenneth Mei-yee Leung 53. Jeffrey S. Perez 54. Yan Ning 55. Aletta Concepcion T. Yñiguez 56. Shigeiki Goto 57. Tanzima Hashem 58. Narayana Murthy 59. Wu Jianping 60. Chang Meemann 61. Lam Khin Yong 62. Ajoy Kumar Ray 63. Jenny Huey-Jen Su 64. Subra Suresh 65. Phillip A. Alviola 66. Upinder Singh Bhalla 67. Varodom Charoensawan 68. Sanjeev Das 69. Tetsuya Higashiyama 70. Deepak Thankappan Nair 71. Shigetou Namba 72. Marisa Ponpuak 73. Shi Yigong 74. Son Young-Sook 75. Yasuhiko Arakawa 76. Napida Hinchiranan 77. Lee Jong-heun 78. Aloke Paul 79. Justin C.W. Song 80. Toshimitsu Yokobori 81. Zhao Zhongxian 82. Zhu Yanwu 83. Gan Wee Teck 84. Ritabrata Munshi 85. Sum Nguyễn 86. Xu Chenyang 87. Chen Shiyi 88. Choi Sookyung 89. Gao Weibo 90. Vinay Gupta 91. Nathaniel Hermosa II 92. Nissim Kanekar 93. Pan Jianwei 94. David Ruffolo 95. Fumihiko Takasaki 96. Adeeb Hayyan 97. Li Junfeng 98. Ng Wun Jern 99. Felycia Edi Soetaredjo 100. Xie Zhenhua

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said the government is going to impose tax on advertisements on Google and Facebook in Bangladesh.

“We will ask for tax on their earnings in the upcoming national budget… such taxes are paid everywhere, including India,” he told reporters after a pre-budget discussion with owners of newspapers and private television channels at the State Guest House Padma.

The government will also impose “landing fees” on the Indian TV channels being broadcast in Bangladesh, he said.

Besides, it will ask all the cable operators in the capital and elsewhere to digitise their services in phases so that it could impose tax on their earnings.

Muhith also said the Value Added Tax (VAT) on private universities will stay but that would be collected from the university owners, not the students.

“We don’t know how they [the owners] will deal with the issue but charging students for this will be illegal,” he said.

On the newspaper industry, the minister said it would get concessions on newsprint import. The current 5 percent import duty will remain in force but the 12.5 percent VAT and 5 percent advanced income tax will be adjusted, he said.

However, the decision on the amount of the tax waiver was yet to be made.

Later, Muhith said the government would “rationalise” corporate tax in the next budget as the tax rate is very high.

The objective will be to remove so many different rates in the sector, he said.

Earlier at a meeting with senior officials of different ministries, the minister had promised to examine the scope for reducing corporate income tax for the upcoming fiscal. The finance ministry organised the meeting ahead of the budget.

Currently, the revenue authority collects corporate tax in six categories, ranging from 25 percent to 45 percent. Companies listed with the bourse face a 25 percent tax while non-listed ones pay 35 percent. Cigarette and bidi manufacturers have to pay a 45 percent income tax.

Finance Secretary Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury, Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman, The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam, Daily Samakal owner AK Azad, The Financial Express Editor AHM Moazzem Hossain, bdnews24.com editor-in-chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi and National Board of Revenue Chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, among others, attended yesterday’s discussion.

Under the plan, China will train at least 500 teachers and 5,000 students in artificial intelligence at top universities over the next five years.

The program makes use of government, companies, and universities, including the Ministry of Education, Sinovation Ventures, a Chinese technology investment firm, and Peking University.

By inviting esteemed AI experts to train the first 100 teachers and 300 students, the program will not only be able to bolster AI talent in China, but also explore an appropriate framework for AI education.

“There is a wide gap between supply and demand, with over five million AI talents but a severe shortage of AI enterprises and research teams,” said Wang Yonggang, deputy head of the AI Institute of Sinovation Ventures, during the launch ceremony.

Last year, China carried out over half of the total AI projects in the world but accounted for merely five percent of global AI talents.

Xu Tao, director of the International Cooperation and Communication Department at the Ministry of Education, said that the Ministry of Education will polish the AI discipline systems in universities by establishing AI majors and upgrading AI to a first-level subject.

In the future, the Ministry of Education will cooperate with American universities, offer scholarships for students who apply for overseas study and form an alliance to boost China-US educational exchanges in artificial intelligence, according to Xu.

“This year, Peking University took the initiative by providing master’s degrees in AI innovation in order to train a new generation of AI talents,” said Tian Gang, vice principal of Peking University.

“The training program will hopefully integrate education and industry resources from home and abroad to develop a universally recognized education system with Chinese characteristics,” he added.

In prepared remarks released by a congressional panel, Zuckerberg admitted he was too idealistic and failed to grasp how the platform — used by two billion people — could be abused and manipulated.

The 33-year-old is to testify before senators on Tuesday and House lawmakers on Wednesday amid a firestorm over the hijacking of data on millions of Facebook users by the British firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked with Donald Trump’s campaign.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said in his written testimony released by the House commerce committee.

“I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

In his written remarks, Zuckerberg called Facebook “an idealistic and optimistic company” and said: “We focused on all the good that connecting people can bring.”

But he acknowledged that “it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.”

– Investigating every app –

Zuckerberg recounted a list of steps announced by Facebook aimed at averting a repeat of the improper use of data by third parties like Cambridge Analytica, and noted that other applications were also being investigated to determine if they did anything wrong.

“We’re in the process of investigating every app that had access to a large amount of information before we locked down our platform in 2014,” said Zuckerberg, who was seen Monday on Capitol Hill, where he had at least one private meeting with a lawmaker.

“If we detect suspicious activity, we’ll do a full forensic audit. And if we find that someone is improperly using data, we’ll ban them and tell everyone affected.”

Facebook has taken a series of proactive steps to make up for massive lapses in protecting personal data, as lawmakers signaled they intend to get tough on privacy.

Last week, the company announced new privacy tools to be in place in user news feeds on Monday, and said it would notify the 87 million users affected by the data hijacking scandal, amid probes underway on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over the weekend, it said it had suspended another data analysis firm, US-based Cubeyou, after reports that it had used private data harvested from psychological testing apps for commercial purposes.

– Backing ‘Honest Ads’ –

On Friday, Facebook sought to quell some concerns over political manipulation of its platform by announcing support for the “Honest Ads Act” that requires election ad buyers to be identified, and to go further with verification of sponsors of ads on key public policy issues.

Zuckerberg said the change will mean “we will hire thousands of more people” to get the new system in place ahead of US midterm elections in November.

“We’re starting this in the US and expanding to the rest of the world in the coming months,” Zuckerberg said.

On Monday, Facebook also agreed to supply proprietary data for a study on its role in elections and democracy, researchers announced.

“In consultation with the foundations funding the initiative, Facebook will invite respected academic experts to form a commission which will then develop a research agenda about the impact of social media on society — starting with elections,” a company statement said.

“The focus will be entirely forward looking. And our goals are to understand Facebook’s impact on upcoming elections — like Brazil, India, Mexico and the US midterms — and to inform our future product and policy decisions.”

Facebook has said it has seen little impact on its business from the privacy scandal despite a #deleteFacebook movement and concerns from advertisers.

But Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research said the entire digital advertising industry, of which Google and Facebook are the leaders, could be impacted by the scandal.

The changes announced by Facebook and Google restricting third-party access “indicate a higher likelihood that both companies will ‘raise their walls’ … Both of these trends will likely harm ad tech companies focused on buying media or otherwise focused on the Facebook and Google ecosystems.”

One prominent tech leader, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, announced meanwhile that he was leaving the social network.

“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook,” Wozniak told USA Today.

“Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this. The profits are all based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits back.”

The California tech giant said its retail stores, offices, data centers and co-located facilities in 43 countries were operating with nonpolluting or renewable energy.

Nine additional manufacturing partners have committed to power all of their Apple production with clean energy, bringing the total number of supplier commitments to 23.

“We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.

“After years of hard work, we’re proud to have reached this significant milestone.

“We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.”

The news follows a similar announcement from Google, which claimed in December it had attained a goal of 100 percent renewable energy.

Apple said the company and its partners are building renewable energy projects around the world, including solar arrays and wind farms, as well as emerging technologies like biogas fuel cells, micro-hydro generation systems and energy storage technologies.

The company said it has 25 operational renewable energy projects around the world, totaling 626 megawatts of generation capacity.

It also has 15 more projects in construction. Once built, over 1.4 gigawatts of renewable energy generation will be spread across 11 countries.