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LISBON — Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is set to open Lisbon's Web Summit on Monday evening, putting more pressure on the company as tens of thousands arrive for the tech world's first mass gathering since the pandemic struck.

Organisers of one of the world's largest technology conferences, which was called off last year due to COVID-19, have hailed the fact that its return is taking place in a country with one of the world's highest vaccination rates.

With some 40,000 attendees flying in to Portugal from worldwide — all of them required to show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test — Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave said there was huge excitement, as well as caution.

"There's that very strange euphoria that probably happened at the start of the roaring twenties. People are coming out of an apocalyptic pandemic," Cosgrave told AFP.

The Web Summit's capacity has been cut from 70,000 to allow for greater social distancing, with masks required throughout the Altice Arena and one-way systems in place for an event which runs through Thursday.

Haugen, the former Facebook engineer who leaked a trove of damaging internal documents, tops the bill at a conference that will also see executives from some 70 tech unicorns — start-ups valued at over $1 billion — take to the stage.

The future of Facebook, the world's biggest social media platform, is set to provide a key talking point as the company struggles to move on from the scandal.

The "Facebook Papers" have unleashed a torrent of negative media reports in recent weeks, showing that company executives knew of their sites' potential for harm on numerous fronts.

These include spiralling concerns over the spread of hate speech on Facebook in developing countries, and worries over Instagram's impact on teens' mental health.

Haugen, who is due on stage some time after 1700 GMT, has testified before US and UK lawmakers, but this will mark her first appearance before a wider public.

Metaverse 'hype'? 

Top Facebook executives attending the Web Summit, including vice president Nick Clegg, will meanwhile be keen to move the conversation on to the company's much-discussed "Meta" rebrand.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that Facebook's parent company is changing its name, as he shifts his focus to creating the "metaverse", a futuristic vision of the internet that would involve heavy use of virtual reality.

"Within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, post hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers," Zuckerberg told a launch event that showed him exploring psychedelic-looking virtual worlds.

The metaverse would blur the physical world with the digital one, making online experiences — like chatting with a friend, or attending a concert — feel face-to-face.

While critics have derided the rebrand as an attempt to distract attention from Facebook's troubles, Silicon Valley enthusiasts nonetheless believe the metaverse could indeed represent the next great leap in the evolution of the internet.

Various events are themed around the metaverse at this year's Web Summit.

"I think some of the discussion will be, 'how much of it is hype and how much of it is real?'" Cosgrave said.

Beyond the metaverse, major themes of the Web Summit include the extent to which technology can help to mitigate climate change — a timely issue given that the conference coincides with the COP26 global climate negotiations in Scotland.

By Ana Fernandez
Agence France-Presse

NEW YORK — "A colleague needs help to recover his bicycle!" says a message in the WhatsApp group of the Delivery Boys United, a team of food delivery workers in New York who are organising to defend themselves following attacks and thefts.

Vicente Carrasco, a 39-year-old from Mexico, formed the group in March after he was assaulted. They aim to protect themselves and their electric bikes, which cost around $3,000 and, along with their phones, are their livelihoods.

Every night after a long day riding around the Big Apple, Carrasco and other "deliveristas", mostly men, meet under the Queensboro Bridge on the Manhattan side of the East River where they wait to come to the aid of any colleague in trouble.

"If there is a bicycle stolen with GPS we follow it," he tells AFP, stressing they never go alone.

"When there are many of us, we will always try to get it back. We don't want to risk our lives too much. You don't know if people are armed. We do what we can do."

There have been several reports of attacks on delivery personnel in New York this year. In October a 51-year-old rider was stabbed to death and had his e-bike stolen in Chinatown.

In April, a deliverista was shot dead in a Harlem. That same month, another on his scooter was hit by a vehicle in Queens.

Eric Adams, expected to be elected New York's next mayor on Tuesday, has pledged to make the city's streets safer should he take office in January.

For now, Carrasco's group is working alongside three other organisations that bring together more than 1,000 delivery riders across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

"This is my way of life," says another organiser Jose Rodrigo Nevares, whose friend was killed during a theft of his bicycle.

"With my bike, I feed my family, I pay my rent. I can't just leave it so someone takes it away," he adds.

There are roughly 65,000 deliveristas in New York, according to official figures.

With their frustration building over how police have handled cases, Carrasco and the other groups decided to take safety into their own hands.

"We did this because when you call the police when you've been robbed, they never arrive," he says. "We organise ourselves to be able to defend ourselves, to be faster."

For its part the New York Police Department says its "Operation Identification" helps recover registered stolen bicycles, and that NYPD duly investigates such crimes.

"The NYPD takes these crimes very seriously and will exhaust all leads available in order to catch those responsible," spokesman Sergeant Edward Riley tells AFP.

Some 80 per cent of the deliveristas are undocumented immigrants, according to rights groups, meaning they are often reluctant to contact police.

Nevares, who became a deliveryman after losing his waiter job during the COVID-19 pandemic, says that reluctance is "out of fear, because you know that you are going to get into trouble".

'Not violent' 

While Carrasco's group sometimes recovers stolen bikes on their own, the operations have raised safety concerns.

"Our fear is that someone will end up injured," says Ligia Guallpa, from the Labour Justice project, who has been fighting for years to improve conditions for undocumented workers.

Many who support the workers distance themselves from the self-defence groups.

But Carrasco dismisses suggestions that the men are vigilantes.

"We are not violent," he states.

Food delivery workers — many of whom are of Latino, African or Asian origin — average $2,345 a month, below the hourly $15 minimum wage in New York's service sector.

They receive no social security, no health insurance and no overtime. Nor do they have a right to unionise.

Guallpa calls the working conditions "inhumane".

Only from next year will they be allowed to use the restrooms of restaurants where they collect food, after a campaign by Guallpa's organisation.

Revenue from food delivery apps has surged more than 200 per cent over the past five years, with profits skyrocketing during the lockdown.

It's been a win-win for the apps, which earn fees from customers and restaurants while having no commitments to the freelance deliveristas, according to a 2020 survey conducted by the Labor Justice Project and Cornell University.

Activists say it's time to give the riders the same protections as other workers.

Almost half of the survey's 500 respondents said they had had an accident, including being run over, while working — and three quarters of those paid their medical expenses themselves.

Fifty-four per cent of respondents had their bicycles stolen — and one third of them had been victims of assault during the robbery.

"We have to change the system, otherwise we are not changing the root problem," says Guallpa.

RIYADH — Saudi Aramco's earnings rose 158 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter on higher oil prices and volumes sold as the global economy recovered, it said on Sunday.

Aramco's profits surge comes as world leaders prepare for the UN's COP26 climate summit starting in Glasgow later on Sunday, a key meeting in the battle against global warming.

Aramco's net income was $30.4 billion in the third quarter, up from $11.8 billion in Q3 last year, with free cash flow more than doubling to $28.7 billion. Shareholders will receive $18.8 billion in dividends.

The profits are the biggest since Aramco listed on the Saudi stock exchange in December 2019, before suffering a 44.4 per cent slump in 2020.

"The increase in net income was primarily the result of higher crude oil prices and volumes sold," the Saudi oil giant said in its earnings statement.

It also cited "stronger refining and chemicals margins in Q3, which were underpinned by rebounding global energy demand and increased economic activity in key markets".

The latest rise comes after profits nearly quadrupled in Q2 as the world economy bounced back from the COVID crisis, lifting demand and pushing oil prices back above $80 a barrel.

"Some headwinds still exist for the global economy, partly due to supply chain bottlenecks, but we are optimistic that energy demand will remain healthy for the foreseeable future," Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser said.

Nasser claimed that Aramco will "build on our track record of low-cost and low-carbon intensity performance" after announcing last week that it intends to achieve net zero carbon emissions in its operations by 2050.

The carbon-neutrality pledge by Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, was met by scepticism by environmentalists as it excludes emissions from the company's products.

Saudi Arabia, one of the world's biggest polluters as well as the top oil exporter, has also pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060.

Earlier this month Aramco announced that it planned to raise oil production to a maximum sustainable capacity of 13 million barrels a day by 2027.

In the latest statement, Aramco said its total hydrocarbon production was the equivalent of 12.9 million barrels a day, including 9.5 million barrels of crude.

It said it also has a 30 per cent stake in the 1.5 gigawatt Sudair solar plant, which will be one of the biggest in the region and will start producing in the second half of 2022.

Aramco added that it has expanded an investment programme partly focused on sustainability and would be "targeting new opportunities to achieve carbon footprint reduction".

By Bassem Aboualabass
Agence France-Presse

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Mussa Al Nahas sat outside his fragrance and spice shop overlooking the Red Sea beaming at the sight of Russian tourists, who are beginning to flood back to Sharm El Sheikh six years after a terror attack.

"Today is much, much better than three or four months ago because the Russians are back," he told AFP.

"The return of Russian flights has spurred other countries to also open up," he added.

Nahas, 42, has spent half of his life in the idyllic, sun-drenched Red Sea resort which was badly hit economically after the 2015 downing of a Metrojet plane that killed 224 mostly Russian passengers.

The attack was claimed by the so-called Daesh group, which has a presence in the restive North Sinai region.

In the wake of the crash, Russia instituted a blanket ban on all flights to the Red Sea from 2015, and even to Cairo for a few weeks.

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was a double blow driving away the remaining tourists — the country's lifeline.

Tourism represents about 10 per cent of the GDP of Egypt where a third of the 100 million-strong population lives below the poverty line.

"We used to say that Sharm El Sheikh had become a ghost town," said Nahas.

But in August, the fortunes of Sharm — as it is affectionately known — started to look up when the first plane from Moscow touched back down at the local airport.

After years of diplomacy, the long-running ban was finally lifted.

'Like things used to be' 

Tour guide Abdelqader Abdel-Rahman, 30, who was preparing to take a group of Hungarian adventurers on a desert safari on quad bikes, was delighted to see the tourists milling around town.

"Before 2015, there were about 120-150 flights coming from Russia weekly... We hope that things go back to what they used to be," he told AFP.

Currently, there are about 20 flights from Russia landing in Sharm every week.

Capitalising on the appetite for tourism after months of global lockdowns, Egypt's tourism ministry has waived visa fees for 28 countries including many from eastern Europe.

In April, the country welcomed half a million tourists alone, twice as many as January, according to official figures.

"Since Russian planes have started coming back, the town has begun moving. Lots of people have gone back to their old jobs and have opened up their bazaars and restaurants again," Abdel-Rahman said.

Tourists are also happy to be back in the largest Arab country with plenty to explore from the pyramids in the north to the beauty of the Red Sea corals.

Sipping tea in a Bedouin tent in the desert before hitting the dunes, Hungarian Roland Juni, 41, said he had last visited a decade ago.

"I don't feel too many differences. I liked it 10 years ago and I like it now," he said.

"Now I see many, many Russians here. More than before," he added.

In 2019, before the onslaught of the pandemic, Egypt's tourism revenues reached $13 billion. But they plummeted to $4 billion last year, a huge shock for some 2 million workers in the industry.

'We've missed it a lot' 

Russian tourists have also been lining up for Sharm's marine activities from snorkelling and diving to jet-skiing.

Standing on the deck of a boat, Alexei Volnyago, 35, extolled: "We don't have seas like this in Russia... It's spectacular over here."

"We haven't been to Sharm in five years... we've missed it a lot."

At a major shopping centre, another Russian tourist named Alexei was busy picking out juicy, ripe mangoes — a delicacy to savour in hot Egyptian climes.

"Prices are pretty good... and the people are kind," he told AFP, strolling the aisles.

Shopkeeper Nahas recalled his Russian doctor friend who for 11 years spent six months annually in Sharm. "We used to call him Alexei the Sharmawi," Nahas said.

"As soon as flights were back in the air, he also came back."

AMMAN — Arab Bank Group reported net income after tax of $271.7 million as compared to $215.2 million for the same period last year, recording a growth of 26 per cent. 

Arab Bank consolidated the financial statements of Oman Arab Bank under its group accounts increasing total assets by $8.4 billion to reach $63.7 billion compared to $52.5 billion for the same period last year, according to a statement from the bank.

Customer deposits grew by 24 per cent to reach $46.6 billion, while loans grew by 28 per cent, to reach $34.1 billion. The consolidation of Oman Arab Bank has materially increased customer deposits and loans by $7 billion and $7.5 billion, respectively.

Sabih Masri, chairman of the board of directors, remarked that the solid results demonstrate the bank’s strategic directive to maintain sustainable growth despite the challenging environment and highlighted that the bank continued focus on its digital transformation strategy.

Nemeh Sabbagh, chief executive officer, commented that the bank’s robust performance confirms its effectiveness in operating in a challenging economic environment with net operating income increasing by 6 per cent to reach $856.9 million. 

He added that the group enjoys high liquidity and a strong capital base with a loan to deposit ratio of 73.1per cent, equity of $10.4 billion, and a capital adequacy ratio of 16.8 per cent. The group continues to hold credit provisions against non-performing loans in excess of 100 per cent.

Sabbagh also noted that the bank has launched Reflect, the first Neobank in Jordan, which provides a branchless experience to millennials and facilitates their daily lifestyle activities from one banking app. 

Masri highlighted Arab Bank's capacity to successfully overcome challenges and achieve strong results and stressed Arab Bank's commitment to its customers and shareholders.

By Talek Harris
Agence France-Press

RIYADH — The climate crisis does not look like good news for the oil industry, but Saudi Arabia is sniffing an opportunity that could help retain its energy dominance for decades.

Not only is the world's top oil exporter ramping up production, it is also making a major play for the trillion-dollar emerging industries touted as a route to cleaner air.

Such a move by one of the globe's biggest polluters has not gone down well with environmental campaigners, with Greenpeace complaining of "greenwashing".

But a push for the Saudi-promoted "circular carbon economy" is likely to feature at the United Nations' COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, starting on Sunday, after winning G-20 approval during the kingdom's presidency of the body last year.

The message screamed out loud and clear at this week's Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh: The Saudis are sticking with oil, and they want it to be part of the solution.

"I'm sure that people have noticed that we have been repositioning ourselves," Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told the thousands-strong gathering dubbed "Davos in the desert", featuring superstars of the business world.

Prince Abdulaziz, who cast doubt on predictions of dwindling oil demand, was speaking after Saudi Arabia promised to go carbon-neutral by 2060 and pledged more than $1 billion for circular carbon economy initiatives and to produce "clean" fuel for 750 million of the world's poor.

'Green era'

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salmanhas called it a "green era" for the country, which is simultaneously raising oil production to 13 million barrels a day by 2027.

Prince Abdulaziz flashed up a graphic on the big screen emphasising Saudi plans for "preeminence in the global energy sector" through leadership in oil and gas, petrochemicals, renewables, hydrogen and carbon, listed in that order.

The UN has warned that even with aggressive cuts in greenhouse emissions, average world temperatures are poised to rise to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels by 2030, accelerating a devastating trend of drought, floods and extreme heat worldwide.

So circular carbon efforts — sucking carbon from the air and emissions, and repurposing it for products such as cleaner fuels and fertilisers — are needed to ease pollution further, experts say.

"The circular carbon economy may not sound great to those advocating for a hard break with hydrocarbons, but it is the logical way to produce a number of low or zero-emission fuels," Karen Young, director of the Programme on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told AFP.

The problem with carbon capture and reuse lies in implementation: the technologies are unproven, they can be costly and hard to scale, and they will need vast investment to get off the ground.

"The need is hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year," Bill Winters, group CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, told the FII.

"Without a market to facilitate that transfer from the private sector into the hands of people that can actually get the carbon out of the environment, we won't get there."

'Fossil fuel bastion'

Greenpeace cast doubt on Saudi Arabia's motives, saying environmental concerns were "at best secondary" in the switch to the new approach.

"Saudi Arabia remains the bastion of the fossil fuel era, despite their 'Green Initiatives' and renewable projects, which represent a fraction of the investment that they continue to pump into the fossil fuel industry," Greenpeace MENA Campaign Manager Ahmed Al Droubi told AFP.

"Their strategic position, as the cheapest producer of oil on the planet, is allowing them to continue to securely invest in fossil fuels, with at best secondary consideration to the impacts on the climate."

However, Saudi Arabia's strong position in the energy sector is likely to remain as the industry evolves, according to Young.

"Saudi Arabia can be dominant as we continue to use oil especially for petrochemicals and transport fuels, and more so natural gas in the next decade or two," she said.

"In renewables, Saudi Arabia has a strong stake in blue and green hydrogen production, solar production... and in solutions in carbon capture and storage. They will be in the energy business for many years to come."

On Monday John Kerry, US President Joe Biden's climate envoy, told world leaders at the Middle East Green Initiative summit in Riyadh that the shift to cleaner energy was the "biggest market opportunity the world has ever known".

"The winners are going to be the people that get into that market, and I think that is something the crown prince has understood," he said, nodding to MBS who was seated nearby.