Thursday, May 23, 2013

Algerian govt. pushing VimpelCom hard to buy stakes in Djezzy

vimpelcomAlgerian government is pushing the Russia-focused VimpelCom in a corner and wishes to buy controlling stake of 51 percent in VimpelCom’s Algerian Mobile business Djezzy. The government wants to nationalize Djezzy though Reuter reports that talks between both parties have not yet failed.
VimpelCom declined to comment on the matter and the Algerian Finance Minister Karim Djoudi, who has been handling the issue, also informed the reporters earlier that he would not comment until a deal was concluded.
Djezzy was taken over by VimpelCom in 2010 when it bought 51.92 percent stakes of the Egyptian telecom operator Orascom in a $6 billion deal. Djezzy is Orascom’s most lucrative asset.
A main point of conflict was the ban on foreign exchange transfers implemented by Bank of Algeria in 2010 on Orascom Telecom Algeria (Djezzy) which prevents it from buying equipment abroad.
Moreover, Djezzy was fined $1.3 billion by the government in March 2012 for violating the foreign currency regulations, souring the talks and prompting Vimpelcom to announce it would seek to international arbitration against Algeria.

Two-step authentication introduced by Twitter

India’s Freedom of Expression Comes under Fire Due to Arresting a Man for His TweetTwitter has started a new authentication system to help save its users from illegal and unauthorized use of their accounts. The new two-step authentication system requires you to know your username and password and have your cell phone with you as Twitter will send you a code via SMS that would be required to log in.
If your cell phone is missing, dead or out of range or there is any other issue due to which you cannot use your cell phone, there is an alternative: Google Voice.
Instead of registering your actual mobile number with Twitter, you can register a Google Voice number. Google Voice is free and easy to set up and lets you forward text (SMS) messages and phone calls to several phones so that an incoming text or call can be answered or viewed from any of the phones associated with your Google Voice account. So now you can only get the SMS on your mobile via Google Voice but also can view it on the web when required.
Twitter had recently suffered massive attacks on its site which resulted in compromise of data for a number of users.