In a fateful swipe at telecommunications giant Huawei, the Trump administration issued an executive order Wednesday apparently aimed at banning its equipment from U.S. networks and said it was subjecting the Chinese company to strict export controls.

Huawei would be the largest business ever subjected to the controls, a law enforcement measure that requires it to obtain U.S. government approval on purchases of American technology, said Kevin Wolf, who had been the assistant secretary of commerce for export administration in the Obama administration.

"It's going to have ripple effects through the entire global telecommunications network because Huawei affiliates all over the planet depend on U.S. content to function and if they can't get the widget or the part or the software update to keep functioning then those systems go down," he said.

Asked if that could include barring Apple from selling its Android operating system, which Huawei uses on its handsets, Wolf said it would be premature to say until he's seen a published order from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security to be sure of the scope.

The executive order declares a national economic emergency that empowers the government to ban the technology and services of "foreign adversaries" deemed to pose "unacceptable risks" to national security — including from cyberespionage and sabotage.

While it doesn't name specific countries or companies, it follows months of U.S. pressure on Huawei. It gives the Commerce Department 150 days to come up with regulations.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a trade war that partly reflects a struggle for global economic and technological dominance, and Wednesday's actions up the ante.

The export restriction is a "a grave escalation with China that at minimum plunges the prospect of continued trade negotiations into doubt," said Eurasia Group analysts in a report.

"Unless handled carefully, this situation is likely to place U.S. and Chinese companies at new risk," the report said.

It appears the law invoked in Wednesday's executive order, the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, has never before been declared in a way that impacts an entire commercial sector. It has routinely been used to freeze the assets of designated terrorists and drug traffickers and impose embargoes on hostile former governments.

The order addresses U.S. government concerns that equipment from Chinese suppliers could pose an espionage threat to U.S. internet and telecommunications infrastructure. Huawei, the world's biggest supplier of network gear, has been deemed a danger in U.S. national security circles for the better part of a decade.

U.S. justice and intelligence officials say Chinese economic espionage and trade secret theft are rampant. They have presented no evidence, however, of any Huawei equipment in the U.S. or elsewhere being compromised by backdoors installed by the manufacturer to facilitate espionage by Beijing. Huawei vehemently denies involvement in Chinese spying.

Huawei said blocking it from doing business in the United States would hamper introduction of next-generation communications technology in which the company is a world leader.

"We are ready and willing to engage with the U.S. government and come up with effective measures to ensure product security," the company said in a statement.

The restrictions "will not make the U.S. more secure or stronger," the company said. It said the United States would be limited to "inferior yet more expensive alternatives," which would hurt companies and consumers.

A senior U.S. administration official, who briefed reports on condition of anonymity, said in a hastily arranged call that the order was "company and country agnostic" and would not be retroactive. Officials said "interim regulations" were expected before final rules were set but were vague on what that meant.

In a statement, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called the executive order "a significant step toward securing America's networks."

"It signals to U.S. friends and allies how far Washington is willing to go to block Huawei," said Adam Segal, cybersecurity director at the Council on Foreign Relations. Many in Europe have resisted a fierce U.S. diplomatic campaign to institute a wholesale ban on the Chinese company's equipment in their next-generation 5G wireless networks.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former telecoms executive, called the order "a needed step" because Chinese law compels Huawei to act as an agent of the state.

The order's existence in draft form was first reported by The Washington Post last June. Segal said that with U.S.-China trade talks at a standstill, the White House "felt the time had finally come to pull the trigger."

It is a "low-cost signal of resolve from the Trump administration," Segal said, noting that there is little at stake economically.

All major U.S. wireless carriers and internet providers had already sworn off Chinese-made equipment after a 2012 report by the House Intelligence Committee said Huawei and ZTE, China's No. 2 telecoms equipment company, should be excluded as enablers of Beijing-directed espionage.

Last year, Trump signed a bill that barred the U.S. government and its contractors from using equipment from the Chinese suppliers.

The FCC also has a rule in the works that would cut off subsidies for companies that use any equipment banned as posing a national security threat. Huawei's handsets are virtually nonexistent in the U.S., and last week the FCC rejected a Chinese phone company's bid to provide domestic service .

Huawei says it supplies 45 of the world's top 50 phone companies. But only about 2 percent of telecom equipment purchased by North American carriers was Huawei-made in 2017.

The domestic economic impact will be restricted mostly to small rural carriers for whom Huawei equipment has been attractive because of its lower costs. That could make it more difficult to expand access to speedy internet in rural areas.

Blair Levin, an adviser to research firm New Street Research and a former FCC official, said the order is likely to widen the digital divide.

Roger Entner, founder of telecom research firm Recon Analytics, tweeted: "Banning Huawei in the U.S. has the FCC in a conundrum: Low cost Huawei equipment helps to build out broadband in rural America faster." He wondered if the FCC would subsidize small rural carriers.

Requests for comment from a group representing small carriers, the Competitive Carriers Association, were not immediately returned. Administration officials told reporters they will welcome comments from the telecommunications industry as regulations are set.

They did not say whether subsidies would be considered.

Early this year, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against Huawei, a top company executive and several subsidiaries, alleging the company stole trade secrets, misled banks about its business and violated U.S. sanctions on Iran. The sweeping indictments accused the company of using extreme efforts to steal trade secrets from American businesses — including trying to take a piece of a robot from a T-Mobile lab.

The executive charged is Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the company's founder. She was arrested in Canada last December. The U.S. is seeking to extradite her.

Cape Canaveral, May 15 (AP/UNB)  — NASA's chief said Tuesday that the Trump administration's proposed $1.6 billion budget boost is a "good start" for getting astronauts back on the moon within five years.

Administrator Jim Bridenstine addressed employees a day after the White House introduced the budget amendment.

During an hourlong town hall from NASA headquarters in Washington, Bridenstine said $1.6 billion is enough for 2020. But more money will be needed in the years ahead to land "the next man and the first woman" at the south pole of the moon by 2024.

NASA is once again turning to Greek mythology for the name of the project. It's being called Artemis, after the twin sister of Apollo. Apollo was the name of NASA's moonshot program that, 50 years ago this summer, achieved the first manned lunar landing.

NASA landed 12 men on the moon over six Apollo missions. For the next go-around, the space agency wants its moonwalkers to reflect today's more diverse astronaut corps, thus the name of Apollo's sister. Artemis was goddess of the hunt as well as the moon.

"I have a daughter, she's 11 years old, and I want her to see herself in the same position that our current, very diverse astronaut corps currently sees itself, having the opportunity to go to the moon," Bridenstine said. "In the 1960s, young ladies didn't have the opportunity to see themselves in that role. Today, they do."

Bridenstine said he's heartened by the fact that the extra money, if approved by Congress, will come from outside NASA, rather than being taken from the International Space Station or other departments within the space agency.

The administration seeks to use money from Pell Grants for college education, for NASA's new spending.

Bridenstine said he's already heard criticism of how the new spending will be "dead on arrival" in Congress because neither NASA nor the administration worked in advance with Congress on it. As a former congressman from Oklahoma, he said he knows how the process works and assured the space agency's 17,000 employees that would not be the case.

"This is a good out-of-the-gate first start, a very honest proposal from the administration that keeps us all together, moving forward," he said.

He also plugged NASA's ongoing Space Launch System megarocket and Orion spacecraft, both under development, and a proposed outpost in the vicinity of the moon, called Gateway.

A few hours later, Bridenstine found himself before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, talking up the Artemis moon plan. The space agency envisions that the effort will involve private industry as well as other countries. Just last week, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos introduced a mock-up of his own planned lunar lander for his Blue Origin space company.

In March, Vice President Mike Pence urged NASA to accelerate its moon-landing program, moving it up from 2028 to 2024.

NASA has flip-flopped between the moon and Mars, a victim of changing presidential administrations. More recently, President Barack Obama targeted Mars as astronauts' next big destination, while President Donald Trump has favored the moon.

Dhaka, May 14(UNB)- Robi’s digital travel solution, ‘Ghurbo’, has recently come up with attractive travel package offers ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr.

As part of the offer, travelers can enjoy up to 15 percent discount on any international flights from Dhaka, 10 percent discount on any hotel booking and up to 1,000 taka discount on any travel packages offered by Ghurbo.                                                                                                                                 

These offers can be availed by Robi users only; offers will be valid until June 6.

While the discount offer is limited to Robi users only, anyone using the app can avail the monthly EMI facility from Ghurbo for any product or services as long as the value of the product or service is at least 5,000 taka.          

Payments for any services from Ghurbo can be made using credit cards from 15 reputed banks of the country, including City Bank, Brac Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, Eastern Bank, Dhaka Bank, Bank Asia, Jamuna Bank etc.

Anyone can download the Ghrubo app (https://goo.gl/ViMSwo) from Google Play Store to enjoy the offers. The offers will be served on first come first serve basis. Besides mobile app, Ghurbo is also accessible via website ghurbo.com.

Spyware crafted by an "advanced cyber actor" infected multiple targeted mobile phones through the popular WhatsApp communications program without any user intervention through in-app voice calls, the company said.

The Financial Times identified the actor as Israel's NSO Group, and a WhatsApp spokesman later said "we're certainly not refuting any of the coverage you've seen."

The malware was able to penetrate phones through missed calls alone via the app's voice calling function, the spokesman for the Facebook subsidiary said late Monday. An unknown number of people — an amount in the dozens at least would not be inaccurate — were infected with the malware, which the company said it discovered in early May, said the spokesman, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

John Scott-Railton, a researcher with the internet watchdog Citizen Lab, called the hack "a very scary vulnerability." ''There's nothing a user could have done here, short of not having the app," he said.

The WhatsApp spokesman said the attack had "all the hallmarks of a private company that has been known to work with governments to deliver spyware that has the ability to take over mobile phone operating systems."

The spokesman said WhatsApp, which has more than 1.5 billion users, immediately contacted Citizen Lab and human rights groups, quickly fixed the issue and pushed out a patch. He said WhatsApp also provided information to U.S. law enforcement officials to assist in their investigation.

He said the flaw was discovered while "our team was putting some additional security enhancements to our voice calls" and that engineers found that people targeted for infection "might get one or two calls from a number that is not familiar to them. In the process of calling, this code gets shipped."

"We are deeply concerned about the abuse of such capabilities," WhatsApp said in a statement.

Spokespeople for NSO Group did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The revelation adds to the questions over the reach of the Israeli company's powerful spyware, which can hijack smartphones, control their cameras and effectively turn them into pocket-sized surveillance devices.

NSO's spyware has repeatedly been found deployed to hack journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and dissidents. Most notably, the spyware was implicated in the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year and whose body has never been found.

Several alleged targets of the spyware, including a close friend of Khashoggi and several Mexican civil society figures, are currently suing NSO in an Israeli court over the hacking.

Monday, Amnesty International — which said last year that one its staffers was also targeted with the spyware — said it would join in a legal bid to force Israel's Ministry of Defense to suspend NSO's export license.

That makes the discovery of the vulnerability particularly disturbing because one of the targets was a U.K.-based human rights lawyer, the attorney told the AP.

The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for professional reasons, said he received about several suspicious missed calls over the past few months, the most recent one on Sunday, only hours before WhatsApp issued the update to users fixing the flaw.

Dhaka, May 12 (UNB) – Search engine giant Google honored moms around the world on Mother's Day with a three-part, interactive Doodle featuring a duck and her ducklings.

This year, three buttons on the Doodle allow people to move among a series of lessons for life from a mama duck to her young offspring.

She tries to teach her young charges the proper way to waddle -- not without dealing with some challenges -- and that it's sometimes necessary to change direction. And when their plans go south, she welcomes them back to the fold, err, flock.

In most countries, Mother’s Day is celebrated every year on the second Sunday of May.

This day is celebrated to honor motherhood, acknowledge the efforts of mothers and their role in the upliftment of the society.