Facebook’s Zuckerberg Claims One Billion Users
Around one in seven human beings on earth are now active Facebook users, the social network’s leader, Mark Zuckerberg, claimed on Thursday, announcing a major symbolic milestone for the company.
“This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog posting on his Facebook page.
In an interview with the NBC “Today” program, Zuckerberg admitted that his company is in a “tough cycle” following its first public stock offering earlier this year described widely as disastrous.
But he insisted Facebook’s gaze was fixed firmly on the future, which he said would involve more emphasis on mobile internet technologies and applications.
“The future is really going to be about mobile and the opportunities for growth there,” Zuckerberg said.
On Wednesday, Facebook announced that it would begin testing a pay service allowing users to “promote” their postings on the network.
“The test started first in New Zealand in May and gradually rolled out to people in more than 20 countries,” a Facebook engineer wrote on his page. “It will now appear to people in the US.”
Under the plan, users would ensure that their postings were displayed more prominently in the feed that delivers those postings to Facebook friends.
“One of the ways Facebook — which has always gone by the slogan “It’s free and always will be” — is monetizing its platform is by allowing users to pay to promote their posts,” the New York Daily News said in a report.
Such a paid promotional service has been available to companies since May.
Turkey Warns Syria Against Further Attacks
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said that his country has no plans to start a war but would act with determination to defend its citizens and borders.
The Turkish parliament has authorized the government to launch cross-border military operations as a deterrent against potential attacks from Syria for the period of one year. The authorization followed Syria’s artillery shelling of a town in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, which killed five and injured 11 civilians.
“We could never be interested in something like starting a war,” Erdogan told reporters late on Thursday.
But he warned: “The Turkish Republic is a state capable of defending its citizens and borders. Nobody should try and test our determination on this subject.”
Turkey responded on Wednesday to Syrian attack by hitting targets near Syria’s border town of Tel Abyad from which the shelling took place.
Syria was quick to apologize for the worst border clash between the neighbors since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began in March 2011.
The incident threatens to further inflame tensions in the region and fueled fears that the violent conflict in Syria may drag other countries into a regional war.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Turkey and Syria on Thursday to exercise “maximum restraint” to avoid the escalation.
The UN Security Council has drafted a resolution condemning the Syrian shelling “in the strongest terms”, calling it a “violation of international law”.
Egyptian Gov’t Considers Austerity Measures for Budget Deficit
The Egyptian government is considering urgent asuterity measures to mitigate the budget deficit that exceeded the initial estimate in 35 billion pounds (about $5.4 billion USD).
Minister of Finance Mumtaz al Said announced that the implementation of progressive taxes on incomes and the cut of subsidies to fuels are the first two initiatives in the study.
The second measure can unleash mass protests in the Egyptian political climate, heated up by debates on President Mohamed Morsi’s promises for his first 100 days of mandate, as he has failed some of them so far.
Teachers, doctors, public mini bus drivers went on strike early this week for better economic conditions, and except the mini bus drivers, the rest of the strikes remain.
The deficit estimated in the endorsed budget project was 135 billion pounds, but the reality surpassed that prediction and is registered now in 170 billion pounds (about $24.63 million USD), admitted the Finance minister.
Only in subsidies for fuels, the budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year had expenditures valued at 70 billion pounds, but in fact they increased to 115 billion pounds.
In the current Egyptian economic conditions, those figures are an unsustainable burden and show why the government is desperate working for obtaining a loan from the International Monetary Fund.