WASHINGTON: CrowdStrike on Sunday rejected a claim by Delta Air Lines that it should be blamed for flight disruptions following a July 19 global outage sparked by a faulty update, and suggested it had minimal potential liability.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said last week the outage had cost the US airline $500 million and that it planned to take legal action to get compensation from the cybersecurity firm.
CrowdStrike reiterated its apology to the airline operator, but said in a letter from an external lawyer that it is “highly disappointed by Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was grossly negligent or committed misconduct.”
Delta canceled more than 6,000 flights over a six-day period, impacting more than 500,000 passengers. It faces a US Transportation Department investigation into why it took so much longer for it to recover from the outage than other airlines.
The CrowdStrike letter said that “any liability by CrowdStrike is contractually capped at an amount in the single-digit millions.”
Delta declined to comment on the CrowdStrike letter.
Within hours of the outage incident, CrowdStrike reached out to Delta to offer assistance.
“Additionally, CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no response,” the letter said.
Bastian told CNBC last week CrowdStrike had offered “free consulting advice to help us.”
Delta told US lawmakers last week in a letter seen by Reuters that CrowdStrike’s faulty update “impacted more than half of Delta computers, including many of Delta’s workstations at every airport in the Delta network.”
The letter added Delta’s “complex IT system which distributes and synchronizes all our data, including the data that feeds our crew tracking and gating software, required manual recovery.”
The CrowdStrike letter added that if Delta files suit, it will need to answer “why Delta’s competitors, facing similar challenges, all restored operations much faster” and “why Delta turned down free onsite help from CrowdStrike professionals who assisted many other customers to restore operations much more quickly than Delta.”
A CrowdStrike spokesperson said “public posturing about potentially bringing a meritless lawsuit against CrowdStrike as a long-time partner is not constructive to any party. We hope that Delta will agree to work cooperatively to find a resolution.”
CrowdStrike rejects Delta Air Lines claims over flight woes
https://arab.news/2xjsa
CrowdStrike rejects Delta Air Lines claims over flight woes
- CrowdStrike reiterated its apology to the airline operator
- Within hours of the outage incident, CrowdStrike reached out to Delta to offer assistance
Catherine, princess of Wales, says she’ll return to public duties
The 42-year-old wife of Prince William is expected to undertake a light program of engagements until the end of the year.
The princess announced in March that she was being treated for an undisclosed type of cancer.
Kate attended a ceremonial birthday parade for her father-in-law King Charles III in June, and the following month presented the men’s winner’s trophy at the Wimbledon tennis championships.
UN rights chief voices ‘abhorrence’ of Afghanistan ‘vice’ law
- Taliban published widely-criticized law in August further tightening restrictions on women’s lives
GENEVA: The UN rights chief on Monday slammed Afghanistan’s latest laws curtailing women’s rights, decrying the “outrageous” and “unparallelled” repression of half the country’s population.
Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Council, Volker Turk made clear his “abhorrence of these latest measures.”
The Taliban government in Afghanistan — which took power in 2021 but is yet to be recognized by any other country — published a widely-criticized law in August further tightening restrictions on women’s lives.
While many of the measures have been informally enforced since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, their formal codification sparked an outcry from the international community and rights groups.
The new “vice and virtue” law dictates that a woman’s voice should not be raised outside the home, and that women should not sing or read poetry aloud.
It requires them to cover their entire body and face if they need to leave their homes, which they should only do “out of necessity.”
These measures, Turk pointed out, come on top of previous measures that included “forbidding girls from attending secondary school and women from attending university; denying women’s rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, opinion, expression and freedom of movement; and severely curtailing women’s rights to seek employment.”
He emphasized that “women who have sought to protest such laws or express any different opinion or form of dissent have faced harsh punishments.”
“I shudder to think what is next for the women and girls of Afghanistan.”
His comments came after the UN Security Council last week called for the repeal of the new laws, warning they “undermine” efforts to reintegrate the country with the international community.
Turk meanwhile described the “repressive control over half the population in the country” as “unparallelled in today’s world.”
“It is a fundamental rupture of the social contract. It is outrageous and amounts to systematic gender persecution,” he told the council.
“It will also jeopardize the country’s future by massively stifling its development,” he warned.
“This is propelling Afghanistan further down a path of isolation, pain and hardship.”
India, UAE enter into new agreements under comprehensive trade deal
- Modi, Sheikh Khaled agree to broaden CEPA to new, emerging areas
- Abu Dhabi crown prince will attend a business forum in Mumbai on Tuesday
NEW DELHI: India and the UAE signed new agreements and discussed ways to develop new areas of cooperation on Monday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed in New Delhi.
Sheikh Khaled was on his first official visit to India, leading a delegation of ministers and business leaders.
“The two leaders discussed the multifaceted India-UAE relations and avenues to broaden the comprehensive strategic partnership to new and emerging areas,” Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said in a statement.
India and the UAE signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022, which has become a template for similar trade pacts the UAE has since signed with other nations.
The pact reduced tariffs on about 80 percent of all goods and provided zero-duty access to 90 percent of Indian exports and has since significantly advanced bilateral exchanges.
As part of Sheikh Khaled’s visit, the two countries signed a number of agreements within their CEPA, including a memorandum of understanding in nuclear energy cooperation.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. also agreed to a 15-year deal to supply Indian Oil, while UAE investment and holding company ADQ entered a preliminary agreement to develop a major food and agriculture park with the Gujarat government.
“These agreements and partnerships encompass a range of priority areas of mutual interest in both the public and private sectors, ensuring the continued achievement of comprehensive economic cooperation aspirations between the two friendly nations,” the Emirates News Agency reported.
On Tuesday, Sheikh Khaled will lead his delegation to attend an India-UAE business forum in Mumbai, which will be focused on exploring potential cooperation in emerging fields, including biotechnology, artificial intelligence and agricultural technology.
Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted leader from India
- Weeks of student-led demonstrations in Bangladesh escalated into mass protests last month, with Hasina quitting and fleeing to India on August 5
- Hasina’s government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal is to seek the extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from neighboring India, its chief prosecutor has said, accusing her of carrying out “massacres.”
Weeks of student-led demonstrations in Bangladesh escalated into mass protests last month, with Hasina quitting as prime minister and fleeing by helicopter to old ally India on August 5, ending her iron-fisted 15-year rule.
“As the main perpetrator has fled the country, we will start the legal procedure to bring her back,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters on Sunday.
The ICT was set up by Hasina in 2010 to probe atrocities during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan.
Hasina’s government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents.
“Bangladesh has a criminal extradition treaty with India which was signed in 2013, while Sheikh Hasina’s government was in power,” Islam added.
“As she has been made the main accused of the massacres in Bangladesh, we will try to legally bring her back to Bangladesh to face trial.”
Hasina, 76, has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh, and her last official whereabouts is a military air base near India’s capital New Delhi. Her presence in India has infuriated Bangladesh.
Dhaka has revoked her diplomatic passport, and the countries have a bilateral extradition treaty which would permit her return to face criminal trial.
A clause in the treaty, however, says extradition might be refused if the offense is of a “political character.”
Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after the uprising, last week said Hasina should “keep quiet” while exiled in India until she is brought home for trial.
“If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus, 84, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
His government has been under public pressure to demand her extradition and trial over the hundreds of demonstrators killed during the weeks of unrest that ultimately toppled her.
More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, according to a preliminary United Nations report, suggesting the toll was “likely an underestimate.”
Bangladesh last month opened an investigation led by a retired high court judge into hundreds of enforced disappearances by security forces during Hasina’s rule.
Jewish peer in UK’s House of Lords backs Starmer’s decision to partially suspend arms sales to Israel
- UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced last Monday that Britain would suspend 30 of its 350 arms export licenses with Israel
LONDON: A Jewish member of the UK’s House of Lords has backed Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to partially suspend Britain’s arms deal with Israel, it was reported on Monday.
Alexander Charles Carlile, known as Baron Carlile of Berriew, wrote in The Independent newspaper that the prime minister’s decision last week showed “courage and conviction” despite the backlash it has received since.
Carlile condemned those who criticized the decision, including chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and slammed the previous Conservative government for its handling of the issue following legal advice it received about the potential for the weapons being used to break international law.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced last Monday that Britain would suspend 30 of its 350 arms export licenses with Israel due to a risk that such equipment could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law amid its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Carlile, who sits on a cross-party committee for Israel, claimed that the previous Foreign Secretary David Cameron received the same legal advice as that which prompted the Starmer government to partially suspend sales, but that he chose not to act upon it.
“The legal advice relied upon by Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy has long been known to senior UK Ministers. Lord Cameron as foreign secretary is said by officials to have known about the advice since February,” he wrote.
“Sitting on clear legal advice for more than a very short time cannot be justified. Starmer has shown courage and a conviction that the right thing must be done — however difficult it is,” he added.
This was denied by a source close to Cameron, who said that in making several decisions on the issue, “on each occasion maintaining existing licenses was consistent with legal advice.”
Carlile also outlined how allies of the UK had taken steps to limit or cease arms sales to Israel based on that same legal advice, and that those who criticized last week’s decision were guilty of “ignorance” on the matter.
“Surprisingly, the critics have demonstrated astonishing ignorance of the position taken on the same Israel armaments issue by valued international allies — or, possibly, found it inconvenient to reference international decisions,” he wrote.
“Italy decided in January 2024 to enter into no new contracts to send armaments to Israel. The Dutch courts have declared illegal all direct exports of military materiel to Israel. The Belgian authorities have restricted such exports, and have called for an EU-wide ban.
“In March, Canada halted future arms sales to Israel. Exactly the same conclusions on the law have been reached in those countries.
“It is crucial that the Rule of Law — which prevents the abuse of state power and applies to all — is not shouted down in an unruly way by people who are acting on prejudice, dressed up as principle.
“It is insidious that democracy, brought about by parliamentarians doing exactly what legal advice dictates, should be hijacked by populist sloganeering — especially when that comes from former Prime Ministers like Boris Johnson, who should know better,” he added.
Carlile was also highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he accused, alongside leaders of Hamas, of undermining the peace process in Gaza.
“This issue has highlighted a broader problem for those of us in public life who do not respect Netanyahu. He bears a long and, in parts, unattractive political history,” Carlile wrote.
“His stubborn resistance in recent months to sound advice given by IDF commanders, by the families of hostages who remain unaccounted for, and by senior international figures including the president and vice-president of the USA, to many of us signifies a person no longer fit for high office.
“Netanyahu and Hamas leaders alike have repeatedly undermined attempts at mediation determinedly and diligently pursued by Qatar, whose Emir and Prime Minister merit international praise.”
