WhatsApp making a change to the way it saves your contacts

WhatsApp has introduced a new privacy feature that offers users enhanced control over contact management across multiple devices, by allowing them to choose whether to store their contacts within the app or sync them with their phone's address book.

This feature, which is easily accessible by navigating to WhatsApp Settings > Privacy > Contacts > WhatsApp Contacts, also enables to add and edit contacts seamlessly across their linked devices, WABetaInfo reported.

The new feature has introduced a new toggle labeled "Sync contact to phone" that appears when users add a new contact. It lets users decide whether to sync a particular contact to their phone or keep it solely within WhatsApp.

If users choose to maintain certain contacts exclusively within WhatsApp, then the chosen contacts will not appear in the phone's general contact list.

Additionally, WhatsApp has also introduced a new storage system called Identity Proof Linked Storage (IPLS), which securely stores contact information and allows users to restore their contacts even if they lose their phone.

This system implements Key Transparency, ensuring that users can verify the authenticity of their contacts and track any changes made to their identity keys.

To enhance security further, WhatsApp has partnered with Cloudflare, which provides independent verification to ensure that contact data is not tampered with.

Moreover, by using cryptographic hashes, WhatsApp protects the phone numbers of contacts who do not have an account on the app, without storing or sharing details on its servers.

It is worth noting that contacts stored in WhatsApp will also be automatically restored when users reinstall the app, change phones, or link a new device.

This feature is rolling out to even more people over the coming days.

Apple CEO visits China for second time this year as sales slump

Apple CEO Tim Cook was in China for the second time this year, he said on social media on Tuesday, as the US technology giant seeks to shore up slumping sales in a crucial overseas market.

The iPhone maker remains popular among Chinese consumers but has ceded ground to domestic rivals in recent years as the Asian nation faces slowing economic growth and sluggish consumption.

Cook said Tuesday on his official account on social media platform Weibo that he had met with Chinese university students using Apple products to boost sustainable farming practices.

And in another video uploaded to his official page late Monday, Cook accompanied fashion photographer Chen Man on a walk through a historic quarter of the Chinese capital.

“It’s great to be back in Beijing,” Cook wrote.

Apple reported a $21.4 billion profit in the three months ending in June, on $85.8 billion in revenue over the period. The revenue was a five per cent jump from a year ago.

But the iPhone maker’s sales in China have come under pressure from homegrown competitors like Huawei in recent years.

The company was only the sixth-biggest smartphone vendor in China in the second quarter, down from the third biggest in the equivalent period last year, according to data by Canalys, a market analysis firm.

Cook last visited China in March, when he opened a new Apple store in Shanghai and attended a forum in Beijing alongside other top executives.

Putin seeks to rival West with Brics summit

Two dozen world leaders gathered in Russia on Tuesday for the opening of a three-day summit of the Brics group, an alliance of emerging economies that the Kremlin hopes will challenge Western “hegemony”.

With the summit, the biggest such meeting in Russia since it ordered troops into Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin is seeking to show Western attempts to isolate Moscow over the two-and-a-half-year offensive have failed.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — all key partners for Russia — are scheduled to join the gathering, hosted in the western city of Kazan from October 22 to 24.

Putin, Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa have already arrived in Kazan, Russian media reported, while Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said Xi had landed.

Moscow has made expanding the Brics group — an acronym for core members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — a pillar of its foreign policy.

The main issues on the agenda include Putin’s idea for a Brics-led payment system to rival SWIFT, an international financial network that Russian banks were cut off from in 2022, as well as the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The Kremlin has touted the gathering as a diplomatic triumph that will help it build an alliance to challenge Western “hegemony”.

Ahead of the meeting, Modi praised what he called the “special and privileged strategic partnership” between Moscow and New Delhi, and said issues including climate change would be on the agenda.

‘Multipolar world’

The United States has dismissed the idea that Brics could become a “geopolitical rival” but has expressed concern about Moscow flexing its diplomatic muscle as the Ukraine conflict rages.

Moscow has been steadily advancing on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine this year while strengthening its ties with China, Iran and North Korea — three of Washington’s adversaries.

By gathering the Brics group in Kazan, the Kremlin “aims to show that not only is Russia not isolated, it has partners and allies,” Moscow-based political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin in 2023 over the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine, and the Russian leader abandoned plans to attend the previous summit in ICC member South Africa.

This time round, the Kremlin wants to show an “alternative to Western pressure and that the multipolar world is a reality,” Kalachev said, referring to Moscow’s efforts to shift power away from the West to other regions.

Security

Putin is set to individually meet Modi and Xi as well as the leaders of South Africa and Egypt on Tuesday, followed by separate talks with Erdogan and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is also undertaking his first trip to Russia since April 2022 to attend the summit. He will sit down with Putin on Thursday, according to a programme shared by Ushakov.

Ahead of the summit, AFP journalists in the city reported heightened security measures and a visible police presence.

The surrounding Tatarstan region, which is some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine, has previously been hit by long-range Ukrainian drone attacks.

Movement around the city centre is being limited, residents advised to stay home, and university students moved out of dormitories, local media reported.

Emboldened

The West believes Russia is using the Brics group to expand its influence and promote its own narratives about the Ukraine conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned other countries could feel emboldened if Putin wins on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Starting with four members when it was established in 2009, Brics has since expanded to include several other emerging nations such as South Africa, Egypt and Iran.

But the group is also rife with internal divisions, including between key members India and China.

Turkey, a NATO member with complex ties to both Moscow and the West, announced in early September that it also wanted to join the bloc.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cancelled his planned trip to the summit at the last minute after suffering a head injury that caused a minor brain haemorrhage.

Hezbollah says targeted Israeli ‘intel base’ in Tel Aviv suburbs

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it targeted Israeli positions in the Tel Aviv suburbs on Tuesday including an intelligence base, and launched rockets at a naval base in north Israel’s Haifa.

The attacks came after a tense night in Lebanon, with state media reporting heavy Israeli bombardment in and near south Beirut and authorities saying four people including a child were killed in strikes near the country’s biggest public hospital.

Hezbollah fighters launched a “salvo of rockets” targeting the “Glilot base of the 8200 military intelligence unit”, the resistance group said in a statement, after claiming similar attacks on the base in the Tel Aviv suburbs the night before.

Also Tuesday, the group said it fired rockets at another position in Tel Aviv’s suburbs, and launched a “salvo of rockets” targeting the “Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa”, a coastal city in northern Israel.

The Israeli military said in a statement that following sirens “in central Israel, approximately five projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon. The majority… were intercepted”.

It also said that following sirens “in the Upper Galilee area and northern Golan Heights, approximately 15 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” with some intercepted and the rest falling in open areas.

It said it was not immediately aware of any casualties.

A Lebanese security official told AFP news agency that the country’s national airline had to switch landing strips late Monday after Israeli strikes near Beirut’s only international airport hit close to the main runway.

On September 23, Israel escalated its air campaign against targets in Lebanon and later sent in ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, acting in support of Hamas resistance group fighting Israel in Gaza.

At least 2,467 people have been killed in a year of violence, according to Lebanese authorities, more than half of them since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Harris, Trump in dead heat across swing states in Washington Post poll

United States Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump remain in a tight contest across seven battleground states with just over two weeks until the November 5 US presidential election, a Washington Post/Schar School opinion poll showed on Monday.

Democratic former prosecutor Harris led among likely voters in Georgia 51 per cent to 47pc, while Republican Trump was slightly ahead in Arizona with 49pc to 46pc. Both findings fell within the plus or minus 4.5 percentage points margin of error in the poll, which surveyed 5,016 registered voters from September 30 to October 15.

Harris, who became the party’s candidate after President Joe Biden stepped aside in July, also had an edge in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — three states where she will campaign later on Monday with Republican former US Representative Liz Cheney.

Trump led in North Carolina and was tied with Harris in Nevada 48pc to 48pc, according to the poll. The former president will hold a rally in North Carolina later on Monday after surveying recent damage from Hurricane Helene.

Trump, 78, is making his third consecutive White House bid after losing to Biden.

Harris, 60, is a former San Francisco prosecutor, state attorney general and US senator seeking to rebuild the party’s diverse coalition of young voters, women and people of colour as well as pick up some Republicans disillusioned with Trump.

Monday’s findings from the Post and George Mason Univeristy’s Schar School of Policy and Government echoed other recent polls that found a neck-and-neck race in the seven battleground states ahead of Election Day on Nov 5, even as Harris holds an edge nationwide, according to some surveys.

Overall, 49pc of likely voters said they support Harris and 48pc backed Trump, the Post poll showed. Among registered voters, Reuters/Ipsos polling last week found Harris holding a steady, marginal 45pc to 42pc lead over Trump.

However, state-by-state results of the Electoral College will determine the winner of November’s contest. The seven battleground states are likely to be decisive, with surveys of their likely voters offering an indication of the race so far.

Microsoft to let clients build AI agents for routine tasks from November

Microsoft will allow its customers to build autonomous artificial intelligence agents from next month, in its latest push to tap the booming technology amid growing investor scrutiny of its hefty AI investments.

The company is positioning autonomous agents - programs that need little human intervention unlike chatbots - as "apps for an AI-driven world" that can handle client queries, identify sales leads and manage inventory.

Other big technology companies such as Salesforce have also touted the potential of such agents, tools that some analysts say could provide companies with an easier path to monetising the billions of dollars they are pouring into AI.

Microsoft said its customers can use Copilot Studio — an application that requires little knowledge of computer code — to create such agents in public preview from November. It is using several AI models developed in-house and by OpenAI for the agents.

The company is also introducing 10 ready-for-use agents that can help with routine tasks ranging from managing supply chain to expense tracking and client communications.

In a demo, McKinsey & Co, which had early access to the tools, created an agent that can manage client inquires by checking interaction history, identifying the consultant for the task and scheduling a follow-up meeting.

“The idea is that Copilot (the company’s chatbot) is the user interface for AI,” Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of business and industry Copilot at Microsoft, told Reuters.

“Every employee will have a Copilot, their personalised AI agent, and then they will use that Copilot to interface and interact with the sea of AI agents that will be out there.”

Tech giants are facing pressure to show returns on their big AI investments.

Microsoft’s shares fell 2.8 per cent in the September quarter, underperforming the S&P 500, but remain more than 10pc higher for the year.

Some concerns have risen in recent months about the pace of Copilot adoption, with research firm Gartner saying in August its survey of 152 IT organizations showed the vast majority had not progressed their Copilot initiatives past the pilot stage.

Indigenous Australian senator heckles King Charles

British King Charles III faced protest by an Indigenous lawmaker on Monday, telling the monarch the southern Pacific nation was “not” his land.

Clad in a fur cloak, Senator Lidia Thorpe raised her voice to make Charles listen to her statement after the monarch delivered his speech in the Australian parliament.

Secret services were seen walking towards and pushing the lawmaker out of the room, who accused the British monarch of committing genocide against the indigenous peoples.

“This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king,” Thorpe is heard saying in a video.

Charles and his wife Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday, on their first visit to Australia since ascending the throne.

They will spend five days in the region, including attending a meeting of the Commonwealth heads of government in Samoa.

“Treaty now,” Thorpe said, addressing the King.

The outspoken lawmaker has long demanded a treaty between Australia and First Nations peoples that would mean formally recognizing their sovereignty.

British began occupying parts of Australia in 1788 but made no agreements with First Nations peoples.

“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” Thorpe shouted, addressing the British monarch, who was accompanied by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“Give us a treaty, we want treaty” a transcript of her statement released by ABC News read.

Last year, the majority of Australians rejected a historic referendum to recognize the role of Aboriginal minorities in the Constitution.

Dubbed a "Voice to Parliament," if passed, the Indigenous Australians -- whose ancestors have lived on the continent for at least 60,000 years -- would have received a constitutional right to advise parliament on policies related to them, for the first time in the nation's history.

- Who are Australia’s Indigenous people?

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the “First Peoples of Australia,” known to have inhabited the continent for more than 60,000 years.

Aboriginal people mostly live on the Australian mainland and Tasmania, while the Torres Strait Islander people are settled on the islands of the Torres Strait, which lie between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The Torres Strait Islands are now part of the Australian state of Queensland. There are more than 600 different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, and each group has its own unique culture, customs and traditions.

Since the colonization of Australia by British settlers in 1788, the Indigenous people have faced immense hardships, ranging from the loss of traditional culture and homelands to the forced removal of children and denial of citizenship rights, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.