Egyptian relic to be auctioned in London despite protests

Agencies
July 5, 2019

London, Jul 5: A brown quartzite head of young king Tutankhamen was due to be auctioned in London with an estimate of more than $5 million on Thursday, in the face of Egyptian demands for its return.

The more than 3,000-year-old sculpture, on display at Christie’s London auction house, shows the boy king taking the form of the ancient Egyptian god Amen.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Reuters he was disappointed the sale was going ahead, despite requests for information and protests from government officials and Egypt’s embassy in London.

“I believe that it was taken out of Egypt illegally ... They have not presented any documents to prove otherwise,” Waziri said. “We aren’t going to stop, we are going to keep following these guys, even the (buyer). We are going to keep asking again and again (for it to be returned),” he added.

Staff at Christie’s said they had taken the necessary steps to prove its provenance and the sale was legitimate.

“It’s a very well known piece ... and it has never been the subject of a claim,” Laetitia Delaloye, head of the antiquities department at Christie’s, told Reuters. “We would never offer a piece where there is any concern about the provenance.”

The 28.5 centimeters (11.22 inches) high piece was in “extraordinary condition”, she said, with just the ears and nose damaged. It is seen selling for more than £4 million, plus commission, with a collector the most likely buyer.

The head is being sold from the private Resandro collection of Egyptian art.

Christie’s says the head was acquired from Munich-based dealer Heinz Herzer in 1985. Before that, Austrian dealer Joseph Messina bought in 1973-1974. It says Prinz Wilhelm Von Thurn und Taxis “reputedly” had it in his collection by the 1960s.

“Historical objects by their nature, it’s impossible to track them back over the millennia of their existence, so what we endeavor to do is to research their modern history,” Delaloye said. Christie’s had been in touch with Egyptian authorities in Cairo and the London embassy, she added.

Egypt has long demanded the return of artefacts taken by archaeologists and imperial adventurers, including the Rosetta Stone kept in the British Museum - campaigns paralleled by Greece’s demands for the Parthenon sculptures, Nigeria’s for the Benin Bronzes and Ethiopia for the Magdala treasures.

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Agencies
July 4,2020

The Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission has captured the image of Phobos, the closest and biggest moon of Mars.

The image was taken on July 1 when MOM was about 7,200 km from Mars and 4,200 km from Phobos.

"Spatial resolution of the image is 210 m.

This is a composite image generated from 6 MCC frames and has been color corrected," ISRO said in an update along with the image.

Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.

According to ISRO, "the violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen in the large section gouged out from a past collision (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta."

"Stickney, the largest crater on Phobos along with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche & Grildrig) are also seen in this image," it said.

The mission also known as Mangalyaan was initially meant to last six months, but subsequently ISRO had said it had enough fuel for it to last "many years."

The country had on September 24, 2014 successfully placed the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft in orbit around the red planet, in its very first attempt, thus breaking into an elite club.

ISRO had launched the spacecraft on its nine-month- long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2013.

It had escaped the earth's gravitational field on December 1, 2013.

The Rs 450-crore MOM mission aims at studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scan its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on Mars).

The Mars Orbiter has five scientific instruments - Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA), Mars Colour Camera (MCC) and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer

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News Network
March 18,2020

San Francisco, Mar 18: Facebook said a bug in its anti-spam system temporarily blocked the publication of links to news stories about the coronavirus. Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity, said on Twitter Tuesday that the company was working on a fix for the problem.

Users complained that links to news stories about school closings and other information related to the virus outbreak were blocked by the company's automated system.

Later on Tuesday, Rosen tweeted that Facebook had restored all the incorrectly deleted posts, which also covered topics beyond the coronavirus.

Rosen said the problems were unrelated to any changes in Facebook's content-moderator workforce. The company reportedly sent its human moderators home this week because of the coronavirus outbreak.

A representative for Facebook did not immediately respond to questions on the status of Facebook's content moderators, many of whom do not work directly for the company and are not always able to work from home.

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Agencies
January 10,2020

Indian enterprises were flooded with a whopping 14.6 crore malware threats in 2019 - a growth of 48 per cent (year-on-year) compared to 2018, a new report said on Friday.

Manufacturing, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), education, healthcare, IT/ITES, and the government were the most at-risk industries in the country, said the report from Seqrite, the enterprise arm of Pune-based IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies.

Interestingly, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the threats were identified through 'Signatureless behaviour-based' detection by Seqrite, indicating how a growing number of cybercriminals were deploying new or previously unknown threat vectors to compromise enterprise security.

"With the latest Seqrite annual threat report, we want to empower CIOs, CISOs, business leaders and all key public stakeholders with the insights they need to combat the growing complexity of the threat landscape," said Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director and CTO, Quick Heal Technologies.

The most prominent trend was the drastic increase in the volume, intensity, and sophistication of cyber-attack campaigns targeting Indian enterprises in 2019.

The rapid integration of IoT devices, BYOD (bring your own device), and third-party APIs into enterprise networks has created newer security vulnerabilities that might go unnoticed until a major breach occurs.

Threat researchers at Seqrite observed several large-scale advanced persistent threats (APT) attacks deployed against organisations in the government sector.

"The entry of nation-states and organised cybercrime cells into the fray is expected to add more complication to this situation and will require Indian government bodies and corporate enterprises to shore up their cyber defence strategies in 2020 and beyond," the report noted.

More alarming, however, was the continued lack of security awareness amongst enterprises and government organisations.

"Unsecured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols continued to be targeted through brute-force attacks," said the report.

Spear phishing attack campaigns leveraging Office exploits and infected macros were also used extensively by cybercriminals to gain access to enterprise networks and steal critical data.

"India's digital journey depends on ensuring robust cybersecurity for all stakeholders within the enterprise ecosystem," said Katkar.

The sharp spike should be a cause of concern for CIOs and CISOs in the country, especially given the growing digital penetration within their enterprise networks.

"With network vulnerabilities and potential entry points increasing at a rapid pace, threat actors are expected to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to power their malware campaigns in the future to capitalise on newer attack vectors," the report added.

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