Kuala Lumpur :
Malaysia’s Opposition leader was arrested Thursday on suspicion of corruption, a fresh blow to his party which was ousted at elections this year after six decades in power.

Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, a former deputy premier and ally of scandal-mired ex-leader Najib Razak, was detained after being questioned by anti-corruption authorities. He will be charged Friday.

He is head of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the lynchpin in a coalition of parties that ruled Malaysia from independence in 1957 until their shock defeat in May polls.
The UMNO has been on the ropes since, with many coalition partners abandoning a party that had become synonymous with widespread graft, divisive racial politics and a rotten ruling elite.

Lahore :
Authorities in Pakistan’s Punjab province have suspended 116 policemen in connection with the killing of demonstrators during a protest here in 2014.

The incident occurred in 2014 at Model Town area of Lahore where at least 14 persons were killed and 100 others injured when the police opened fire to disperse protesting Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers during an anti-encroachment operation outside the residence of cleric Tahirul Qadri.

Washington :
The Trump administration has said it is planning to “revise” the definition of employment and specialty occupations under the H-1B visas, a move which will have a detrimental impact on Indian IT companies and small- and medium-sized contractual firms mostly owned by Indian-Americans.

US move to abolish H-4 visas set to impact tens of thousands of Indians

The H-1B visa, most sought-after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) planned to come out with its new proposal by January 2019.

It will “propose to revise the definition of specialty occupation” to increase focus on obtaining the best and the brightest foreign nationals via the H-1B programme.

It will also “revise the definition” of employment and employer-employee relationship to “better protect” US workers and wages, the DHS said.

Such a move, which is part of the Unified Fall Agenda of the Trump administration, will have a detrimental impact on the functioning of Indian IT companies in the US and also small and medium-sized contractual companies in the IT sector, which are mostly owned by Indian-Americans.

In addition, the DHS will propose additional requirements designed to ensure employers pay appropriate wages to H-1B visa holders, the administration said.

The DHS reiterated that it was proposing to remove from its regulations certain H-4 spouses of H-1B non-immigrants as a class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation.

The H-4 visas are issued by the USCIS to immediate family members (spouse and children under 21) of the holders of H-1B visa.

The DHS said it was also finalising its interim regulation governing petitions filed on behalf of alien workers subject to the annual numerical limitations applicable to the H-1B non-immigrant classification.

This rule precludes an individual from filing duplicate petitions on behalf of the same alien temporary worker.

The rule also makes accommodations for petitioners to create a more efficient filing process for H-1B petitions subject to the annual numerical limitation.

Observing that the demand for H-1B visas had often exceeded the numerical limitation, the DHS said it was proposing to establish an electronic registration programme for such applications.

This will allow USCIS to more efficiently manage the intake and lottery process for these H-1B petitions, it said.

The Trump administration is reviewing the H-1B visa policy that it thinks is being misused by companies to replace American workers.

The administration has said publicly and also in its court filing that it wants to revoke work permits to H4 visa holders, a significant majority of whom are Indian-Americans and women.

The move will have a major impact on Indian women as they are the major beneficiary of the Obama-era rule.

Paris :

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire added his name to a growing list of government ministers and prominent business executives cancelling their attendance at a Saudi Arabia investment conference over the fate of a Saudi journalist.

Le Maire said Saudi authorities needed to explain the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi after he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was critical of the authoritarian kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was murdered inside the consulate. The Saudis have denied the allegations.

“No, I will not be going,” Le Maire told Public Senat TV.

“The allegations are serious”.

Paris and Riyadh enjoy close diplomatic ties and commercial relations spanning energy, finance and arms. Le Maire said he had informed his Saudi counterpart of his decision not to travel to Riyadh on Wednesday.

Asked if the move might jeopardise bilateral relations between the two countries, Le Maire said: “Absolutely not.” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his plans to attend an investment conference in Riyadh next week would be revisited on Thursday.

October 18

Facebook Inc has tentatively concluded that spammers looking to make money, and not a nation-state, were behind the largest-ever data theft at the social media company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The people behind the attack were a group of Facebook and Instagram spammers that present themselves as a digital marketing company, and whose activities were previously known to Facebook’s security team, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the company’s internal investigation.

Last week, Facebook said that cyber attackers had stolen data from 29 million Facebook accounts using an automated programme that moved from one friend to the next, adding that the data theft had hit fewer than the 50 million profiles it initially reported.

Facebook said in an email that it was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on this matter.

The breach has left users more vulnerable to targeted phishing attacks and could deepen unease about posting to a service whose privacy, moderation and security practices have been called into question by a number of scandals, cyber security experts and financial analysts have said.

Facebook first disclosed the breach in late September and said it had fixed the issue soon after discovering it on September 25.

Facebook said it was conducting an internal investigation into the incident and last week cut the number of affected users from its original estimate after investigators reviewed activity on accounts that may have been affected.

It had also notified the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Congressional aides and the Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where the company has European headquarters.