Company thought money was in two Asian banks but search hits dead end in Philippines
Wirecard has said that €1.9bn (£1.7bn) in funds missing from its bank accounts may not exist, as the accounting scandal at the German payments company deepens.
The firm processes tens of billions of euros in credit and debit transactions each year and is a former darling of Germany’s tech sector. It had previously said it believed the money was held in escrow accounts at two Asian banks.
Continue reading...Problems with internet and phone service were once just an inconvenience. Now they can prove to be catastrophic
Cut off by telecoms company, pensioner missed call as partner died of Covid-19
Barbara Parry* arranged to switch her phone and broadband account from Sky to Now TV in March, a week before lockdown. Instead, she was left incommunicado as her line was cancelled and her phone number reallocated.
During the following four weeks, as she pleaded in vain to be reconnected, her partner contracted Covid-19. He died four days later in hospital. Due to the blunders by Now TV, he was unable to call Parry from his deathbed and she was unable to say goodbye. The news was broken by a relative as the hospital could not get through on her cancelled number.
Continue reading...Ahead of critical trade talks, Steven Mnuchin says ‘discriminatory’ levy no place in budget
One of the most senior figures in the US government has warned Sajid Javid to delay a “discriminatory” tax on big tech companies, in the latest sign of tensions with Donald Trump’s administration ahead of critical trade talks.
Steven Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, used a breakfast meeting with the chancellor on Saturday to warn him directly against applying the new tax as part of his forthcoming budget. The confrontation comes as the US mounts a last-ditch attempt to stop Britain using technology from China’s Huawei in its 5G network.
Continue reading...Like the big banks, big tech uses its lobbying muscle to avoid regulation, and thinks it should play by different rules. And like the banks, it could be about to wreak financial havoc on us all. By Rana Foroohar
‘In every major economic downturn in US history, the ‘villains’ have been the ‘heroes’ during the preceding boom,” said the late, great management guru Peter Drucker. I cannot help but wonder if that might be the case over the next few years, as the United States (and possibly the world) heads toward its next big slowdown. Downturns historically come about once every decade, and it has been more than that since the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, banks were the “too-big-to-fail” institutions responsible for our falling stock portfolios, home prices and salaries. Technology companies, by contrast, have led the market upswing over the past decade. But this time around, it is the big tech firms that could play the spoiler role.
You wouldn’t think it could be so when you look at the biggest and richest tech firms today. Take Apple. Warren Buffett says he wished he owned even more Apple stock. (His Berkshire Hathaway has a 5% stake in the company.) Goldman Sachs is launching a new credit card with the tech titan, which became the world’s first $1tn market-cap company in 2018. But hidden within these bullish headlines are a number of disturbing economic trends, of which Apple is already an exemplar. Study this one company and you begin to understand how big tech companies – the new too-big-to-fail institutions – could indeed sow the seeds of the next crisis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Whistleblower tells of links between Paola Cuneo, PM and US businesswoman
A Whitehall official who ran the scheme that granted Jennifer Arcuri a coveted entrepreneur visa had worked for Boris Johnson when he was mayor, the Guardian has learned.
The US businesswoman, who is at the centre of a conflict of interest row over her friendship with the prime minister, beat nearly 2,000 applicants to gain one of 200 sought-after tier 1 entrepreneur visas on the government’s Sirius programme after Johnson helped promote her firm, Innotech, by giving keynote speeches at her events.
Continue reading...Case involves possible conflict of interest when Boris Johnson was mayor of London
Boris Johnson has been formally referred for potential investigation into whether he committed the criminal offence of misconduct in public office, over allegations about a conflict of interest with a US businesswoman while he was mayor of London.
An official from the Greater London Authority, the city’s devolved government, has written to the prime minister noting claims he had “on more than one occasion” used his position as mayor to “benefit and reward” Jennifer Arcuri, a tech entrepreneur.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Hannah Fry says ethical pledge needed in tech fields that will shape future
Mathematicians, computer engineers and scientists in related fields should take a Hippocratic oath to protect the public from powerful new technologies under development in laboratories and tech firms, a leading researcher has said.
The ethical pledge would commit scientists to think deeply about the possible applications of their work and compel them to pursue only those that, at the least, do no harm to society.
Continue reading...Star listing of domestic tech firms is seen as an attempt to bypass US markets in trade war
China’s tech scene was handed a fresh vote of confidence as investors piled into Shanghai’s new Nasdaq-style stock exchange and sent shares skyrocketing up to 500%.
The launch of the Star listing of domestic tech firms is seen as China’s answer to the US’s Nasdaq, and an attempt to sidestep American markets in its long-running trade war with Washington.
Continue reading...Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has signed a deal to move his payments company to Oakland – which activists say will only exacerbate an already brutal housing crisis
Photographs by Jason Henry
The knocks on Maria Espinoza’s front door became a nightly occurrence.
If the 60-year-old Oakland woman wasn’t home, her frightened partner would turn off the lights and TV and remain silent. On evenings Espinoza did answer the door, her new landlord would be outside with the same question: When are you moving out?
Continue reading...Apple says it is ‘deeply committed to responsible sourcing of materials’
Electronics companies, including Canon, Apple and Nokia, are re-evaluating their supply chains following reports they may be using gold extracted from a Tanzanian mine that has been criticised for environmental failures.
Over the past 10 years, at the North Mara goldmine – which is operated by London-listed Acacia Mining – there have been more than a dozen killings of intruding locals by security personnel.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...Company beat sales and profit expectations to join Apple and Amazon in prestigious club
Microsoft has become the third publicly listed US company, after Apple and Amazon, to boast a market value of more than $1tn after bumper quarterly results boosted its share price.
The company beat sales and profits expectations in the three months to 31 March, thanks in part to its cloud computing business, which signed up major corporate clients over the period.
Continue reading...Damian Collins warns of ‘deepfake films’ showing doctored footage of politicians
Online disinformation is only going to get more sophisticated, the chair of the committee investigating disinformation and fake news, Damian Collins, has warned.
Related: Facebook labelled 'digital gangsters' by report on fake news
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