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World @ Glance
Asia
MICROSOFT PRESIDENT SAYS NORTH KOREA BEHIND
WANNACRY CYBER ATTACK
Monday, October 16, 2017
Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith
stated that North Korea was responsible for the devastating
WannaCry ransomware attack that affected 47 NHS trusts.
With a high level of confidence, Smith said that he believed
that Pyongyang was behind the attack which impacted
200,000 computers in 150 countries around the world.
According to Smith, “all observers in the know” now
believe that North Korea stole the technology needed to
create the exploit from the US’ National Security Agency
before unleashing it on the world. Notably, the WannaCry
ransomware attack struck where computers were running
outdated software, infecting numerous machines
worldwide.
Reportedly, Smith said, “I think over the last six months,
we’ve seen threats come to life, unfortunately, in new and
more serious ways. The problem has become bigger. We
need governments to come together as they did in Geneva
in 1949 and adopt a new digital Geneva Convention that
makes clear that these cyber attacks against civilians,
especially in times of peace, are off-limits and a violation
of international law.”
Smith then said that Microsoft was not to blame for the
infection of systems using older operating systems,
especially, in this case, the obsolete Windows XP, for which
the company ended mainstream support in 2014.
KHATM-I-NABOOWAT DECLARATION IN ELECTIONS ACT 2017
RESTORED, NA PASSES BILL
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
The words in Form-A “I solemnly swear” had been replaced
with “I believe” in a clause relating to a candidate’s belief in
the finality of the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad and
it had been made not applicable to non-Muslim candidates.
On October 5, the National Assembly passed the Elections
Reforms Amendment Bill 2017, recorded by Law Minister
Zahid Hamid that amends, the recently-passed Elections
Act 2017 to restore a Khatm-i-Naboowat oath in which,
lawmakers are required to take back to its original state.
On October 3, Parliamentarians had pointed out that the
wordings of Form-A, submitted at the time of election by
candidates, had been changed into a declaration form
instead of an affidavit, which puts a candidate under oath.
N ovember 2017 | L egal E ra | www . legaleraonline . com
Sections 7B and 7C of The Conduct of General Elections
Order, 2002, relating to the status of Ahmedis, had also
been deleted from Elections Act 2017. Section 7B says that
the status of Ahmedis remains as stated in the Constitution
of Pakistan, while section 7C states that if an enrolled voter’s
belief in the finality of Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood
argues, they shall have to sign a declaration stating so,
failing which their “name shall be deleted from the joint
electoral rolls and added to a supplementary list of voters
in the same electoral area as non-Muslim”.
On October 4, changes were accepted by Speaker National
Assembly Ayaz Sadiq as “a clerical error” after parliamentary
leaders decided to restore the declaration and sections to
their original form.
Read more: http://www.legaleraonline.com/news/khatm-i-
naboowat-declaration-in-elections-act-2017-restored-na-passes-
bill