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SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations the platform gave advertisers some user information that was supposed to be employed to strengthen account security, US authorities said on Wednesday.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice accused Twitter of taking phone numbers or email addresses provided to tighten privacy and then letting advertisers use the details to make money.

"Twitter obtained data from users on the pretext of harnessing it for security purposes but then ended up also using the data to target users with ads," commission chair Lina Khan, said in a release.

The personal information that users hand over to tech companies, and how that data gets used, is a front of repeated conflict between regulators and powerful firms like Facebook parent Meta, Twitter and others.

Clashes over privacy have resulted in periodic suits or settlements but critics have long called for a comprehensive updating of US national rules for how people's data is handled online.

In a five-year period ending in 2019, more than 140 million Twitter users gave phone numbers or email addresses to the San Francisco-based service to help secure accounts with two-factor authentication, regulators said.

The security technique involves augmenting passwords with one-time codes sent by text or email messages.

Without telling users, Twitter let advertisers use the personal information to target ads, said the FTC, which worked with federal prosecutors to pursue a case against the tech firm.

"Consumers who share their private information have a right to know if that information is being used to help advertisers target customers," US Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in a release.

Along with agreeing to pay $150 million, Twitter will implement new measures including having its privacy program regular evaluated by an independent assessor, the settlement deal indicated.

"Keeping data secure and respecting privacy is something we take extremely seriously, and we have cooperated with the FTC every step of the way," Twitter chief privacy officer Damien Kieran said in a blog post.

"We have aligned with the agency on operational updates and program enhancements to ensure that people's personal data remains secure and their privacy protected", he added, noting the penalty has already been paid.

The settlement, which will need to be approved by a judge, also requires Twitter to inform all of the people who joined Twitter prior to late 2019 about the deal and options for protecting their privacy.

DAVOS, Switzerland — From soaring debt to the Ukraine war's impact on food and energy prices, the world is facing "multiple crises", the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said.

In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner discussed the challenges the planet is facing.

Here are three questions Steiner gave answers to: 

How is the war affecting food security?

"Essentially, Ukraine and Russia not selling grains as they would normally do on the world market has immediately translated into price rises, and in also an interruption of the supply chain.

We always have to remember there are countries that depend for 30, 40, 50 per cent of their wheat supplies for example on Ukraine. Quite a number of African countries, Arab countries, these are immediately affected. 

Secondly, hundreds of millions of people are being priced out of being able to buy their basic food for their sustenance because the impact on world prices literally means they can no longer afford the next day's meal. And that is a grave concern. 

In the United Nations, we estimate that, as of May of this year, we have well over 200 million people facing acute hunger. And the number of people that may be facing future threats is growing nowadays because of, for instance, the drought in East Africa in the Horn of Africa. 

And then you have the compounded effect of the fertiliser exports being stopped. So agriculture, in the short term is facing a supply chain shock.

"If we could find a political agreement on how to release the stocks that are currently in the silos in the Ukraine, and how Russia and Ukraine could perhaps find an international... agreement, we would have an immediate, let's say relief, both in terms of availability, but also prices would immediately come down, buying us time to also deal with the future of grain production."

What's the 

impact on debt? 

"The perhaps related phenomenon is that food prices are also driving a fiscal crisis. The ability of governments to purchase more expensive food on world markets is severely compromised as a result of the pandemic."

We estimate roughly 80 countries now essentially facing debt distress potentially this year. And this is obviously something that can quickly translate into also political rupture. 

When people are not able to feed themselves, governments are not able to provide for food in the marketplace, then politics quickly moves on to the street, and this is something that is obviously a grave concern to many of us. 

I think we have seen it in Sri Lanka. I think we could see it in Latin America, and certainly in Africa as well, because in the countries that are most likely to be facing both the extraordinary increase in price rises for food imports and energy imports. 

So we are talking really about the implications touching a significant part of humanity almost instantly, and probably for about 60 to 70 countries, all three crises are happening at the same time. And that is a group of countries that we're obviously most concerned about because that is where the international community now needs to step up. And at the moment, we're not stepping up adequately. 

The first step, I think, is to introduce more liquidity into the system. And we have to deal with the fact that governments simply have run out of money on the back of the pandemic. 

Is your messaging getting through 

at Davos? 

"I think we are struggling to some extent to comprehend both the magnitude and severity of the multiple crises that are unfolding across the globe right now." 

In terms of food security, affordability of energy, the cost of financing capital. These are very serious outlooks. And I think, to be very frank, the response by countries that are able to essentially make a difference here, whether it's the G-7, the G-20, the Bretton Woods institutions, our international platforms for responding are not yet really adequately being enabled to do so and resourced to do so.

"So the conversation also at the World Economic Forum is important because we need leaders in business. We need leaders in government, we need leaders and civil society to understand that this is a critical moment, both for crisis management, but also for the capacity of the world to continue to work together rather than against each other."

LONDON — Stock markets retreated on Tuesday on renewed concerns over weak global growth following a profit warning from the owner of Snapchat that spooked investors and further shocked the tech sector.

It comes amid concerns over the impact of China's COVID-19 restrictions on the world's second-largest economy after the United States.

Monday's strong Wall Street rally, where the Dow closed up two per cent  failed to carry over into Tuesday as Snap, the parent of social media app Snapchat, warned overnight that it saw the economic outlook as having darkened considerably.

Its share price plummeted 41.3 per cent in late morning trading. 

"Snap provided a shock," noted Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.

The company "spooked the market with a macroeconomic warning that dented tech the most and pointed to earnings revisions that could drag the market lower for longer", he added. 

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite quickly sank more than three per cent. Shares in Facebook-parent Meta fell 8.9 per cent and Google-owned Alphabet shed 6.7 per cent.

Patrick J. O'Hare at Briefing.com said that Snap's warning impacted the broader market as investors are worried about the economic trajectory.

"The real issue hitting the market in terms of the Snap warning is the context for the warning: 'the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated further and faster than anticipated'," he said.

Pound lashed 

The pound also took a knock after an S&P Global's economic sentiment survey for Britain fell to a 15-month low. 

"The extent of the fall points to a UK economy hitting the buffers hard as the combined effect of surging energy prices, and tax rises starts to curtail economic activity," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

Shares in British energy firms slumped following reports that the UK government may impose a windfall tax on excess profits enjoyed by electricity producers.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has so far indicated he does not want to impose such a tax on oil and gas producers despite them also earning vast sums as prices soar.

Shares in Drax fell by 16.1 per cent, SSE by 7.7 per cent and Centrica by 7.6 per cent.

Johnson argues an exceptional levy on the likes of BP and Shell would harm their efforts to invest in greener fuels like solar and wind power.

In China, Beijing's announcement of a fresh raft of measures to stimulate the economy did little to calm investors' nerves.

China's economy has taken a hit from Beijing's zero-COVID approach to the pandemic.

Prolonged virus lockdowns have constricted supply chains, dampened demand and stalled manufacturing.

Investment banks UBS Group and JPMorgan Chase have responded by cutting their China economic growth forecasts.

"The lingering restrictions and lack of clarity on an exit strategy from the current COVID policy will likely dampen corporate and consumer confidence and hinder the release of pent-up demand," UBS economists including Tao Wang wrote in a research note.

Concerns over the Chinese economy and its impact on oil demand weighed on crude prices on Tuesday.

DAVOS, Switzerland — The question of whether the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have sounded the death knell for globalisation has dominated the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Swiss resort Davos.

Some believe the crises have unleashed an opportunity for a transformation of international trade and supply chains as the world economy slows down.

Once advocated by anti-globalisation movements, far from the quiet rooms at Davos, talk of "deglobalisation" is back in the face of supply chain disruptions linked to the Ukraine conflict and lockdowns in China.

In the hope of building stronger networks unaffected by crises like war, deglobalisation would mean bringing production back closer to home, thus allowing the movement of goods across shorter distances.

The issue has become acute after COVID-19 and the misery at Shanghai port.

The Chinese city has become a symbol of global supply chain woes after its factories were closed for weeks and containers piled up as China sticks stubbornly to a zero-COVID strategy, causing delivery delays worldwide.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global food prices have hit an all-time high as the two countries make up a huge share of the globe's exports in several major commodities, like wheat.

Such snags are leading many, including the world's biggest companies, to consider what production should look like in the future.

Globalisation is "temporarily pausing", Loic Tassel, president for Europe at the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble said during an event at Davos.

"The price to pay or the time to wait is not compatible anymore with our industry," Tassel said, giving the example of Shanghai, which is the world's busiest container port.

"We are now bringing into the equation the cost and resilience of the supply chain, it was not in our mind three years ago," he said.

But rather than talk about "deglobalisation", Pamela Coke-Hamilton, director of the Geneva-based agency International Trade Centre, preferred to speak about diversification and relocalisation — where supply chains are closer and in areas where conflict is far away.

"The change will come by the shifting to near sourcing value chains," she said.

Sceptics said companies sought the cheapest options despite being aware of the risk of huge dependence on certain regions.

"We never imported so much from China as when we said we should rely on it less," noted Gilles Moec, chief economist at French insurance giant Axa, on the sidelines of Davos.

"One of the reasons why people are so nervous right now is that if China was unable to meet global demand because of the pandemic, that would be a catastrophe," he added.

Globalisation's identity crisis comes at a time when pessimism reigns over the future of the global economy.

"The horizon has darkened," said International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva at Davos on Monday.

While a global growth forecast of 3.6 per cent excludes the risk of recession right now, "it doesn't mean it is out of question" for certain countries.

The clouds are already gathering in developed countries, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

There was only 0.1 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2022, the OECD said Monday, and gross domestic product even fell by 0.1 per cent among G-7 countries.

The second quarter is likely to be equally sluggish, as the adverse effects of the Ukraine war and China's lockdowns take root.

After governments spent copiously during the pandemic, "the response to put in place is not obvious and that worries everyone a little," Axa's Moec said.

Meanwhile, inflation is pushing central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, to raise interest rates, which will make it costlier for both companies and consumers to borrow and slow economic activity.

The European Central Bank signalled on Monday the end of negative rates despite the European Commission's growth forecast for 2022 last week for the eurozone, from four per cent to 2.7 per cent.

Figures from China, the global engine of growth, revealed the pain inflicted by Beijing's strict zero-COVID policy as retail sales and factory production slumped to their lowest in over two years, while unemployment is near record levels.

LONDON — The euro jumped one per cent versus the dollar on Monday after European Central Bank Chief Christine Lagarde signalled the end of ECB negative interest rates.

The euro struck a one-month high at $1.0688 after Lagarde said the central bank would probably draw a line under the era of negative interest rates by September owing to soaring eurozone inflation.

"That's something that we were waiting for so long," noted Swissquote analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya. 

"Lagarde is finally showing that the [inflation] situation is serious in Europe as well," 

she said.

Central banks around the world are increasing interest rates to tackle the highest inflation in decades but so far the ECB has refused to follow the likes of the Federal Reserve and Bank of England in hiking borrowing costs from record-low levels.

Eurozone inflation soared by an all-time high 7.5 per cent in April. 

The surge has been driven by soaring energy and food prices as economies reopen from pandemic lockdowns and following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Oil prices jumped more than one per cent on Monday.

Elsewhere, stock markets mostly climbed after US President Joe Biden said he was considering lifting some trade tariffs imposed on China by predecessor Donald Trump.

Tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports are due to expire in July, and Biden has faced growing calls to get rid of the punitive duties to help combat the highest US inflation in more than four decades. Ending the tariffs could help cut roaring US inflation by making imports cheaper.

Speaking in Tokyo, Biden replied "no" when asked if a US recession is inevitable.

"This is going to be a haul, this is going to take some time," Biden said.

The US economy has recovered strongly from its COVID-19 era shutdown, but the highest inflation in four decades and persistent problems in getting international supply chains flowing again are driving pessimism — and Biden's sinking poll numbers.

Biden blamed inflation on fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other global problems and he defended US economic performance.

"We have problems the rest of the world has but less consequential," he said.

While acknowledging the high fuel prices and food supply crunches caused by the war in wheat-producing Ukraine, Biden said his administration would continue to "grow our economy, create jobs".

Last week Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said: "I really don't expect the United States to fall into a recession".

However, she cautioned that European countries, which are among the biggest US trading partners, "are more vulnerable" due to reliance on Russian energy imports.

On Wednesday, investors will be looking to the release of minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting for clues on the pace of future interest rate hikes by the US central bank.

MUSCAT — Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Oman on Monday as the two countries signed a string of trade deals and as international talks on Tehran's nuclear programme hang in the balance, leaving the Iranian republic under sanctions.

Raisi, on his second Gulf visit since taking office in August, was greeted by Sultan Haitham Bin Tareq at the airport and received a 21-gun salute at the royal palace, an Omani statement said.

Raisi's one-day trip comes at a time when renewed talks on restoring a 2015 nuclear deal are at a stalemate. Oman played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington in the build-up to the original agreement.

The countries signed 12 memoranda of understanding during the visit, including in the fields of oil and gas, transport, education, trade and investment, reported the official Oman News Agency.

"Trade exchanges between the two countries of Oman and Iran will improve definitely," Raisi said before departure, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA.

"Both countries are determined to upgrade the level of political and economic ties," he added.

A delegation of 50 Iranian businessmen travelled to Oman last week, IRNA said, adding that Iran's minister for roads and urban development has announced plans for a joint shipping line and tourist flights.

Oman is also seeking to import gas from Iran by building an offshore pipeline between the two countries, who are discussing the development of joint gas fields offshore.

The sultanate, which faces Iran across the Gulf of Oman, endured economic pain during the pandemic, with its GDP dropping 6.4 per cent in 2020 and government debt soaring. It saw rare protests over high unemployment and lay-offs last year.

Raisi visited Qatar in February, where he met with Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani and took part in a conference of gas exporting countries.

Stop-start talks to bring Iran back to the 2015 deal curbing its nuclear ambitions in return for a lifting of sanctions that was abandoned by former US president Donald Trump in 2018, began in April last year.