Major Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger outage

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, the two social networks and the two messenger services of the Californian giant, were experiencing a massive outage, potentially affecting tens of millions of users worldwide, as the group goes through one of its worst public relations crises.

Facebook indicated late Monday evening in a statement that the major outage of its networks and messaging services was caused by a “faulty configuration change” of its servers, which prevented its users from accessing the platform, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger for about seven hours. “People and businesses around the world depend on us to stay connected,” noted the group, which until then was not very vocal about the exceptional incident. “We apologize to those who were affected,” Facebook added, representing potentially several billion people according to various cybersecurity experts.

Vatican: resumption of the trial of a cardinal accused of embezzlement

The trial for various financial crimes of Cardinal Becciu and his co-defendants, which began at the end of July, resumed on Tuesday at the Vatican, where for the first time such a high-ranking cleric is being tried. As soon as it began on 27 July, the trial was postponed to October, after the court granted the defence's request for additional time to prepare. At the center of this extraordinary trial before the court of the smallest state in the world is Angelo Becciu, removed from office and deprived of his cardinal privileges by the supreme pontiff in September 2020. At the heart of the procedure: the expensive purchase of a prestigious building in London as part of the investment activities of the Holy See, whose real estate assets are considerable. Two years of investigation into the role of Angelo Becciu but also other senior officials of the Vatican administration, offshore companies and intermediaries have led to the indictment of ten protagonists who must in particular answer for fraud, embezzlement, abuse of power, money laundering, corruption, extortion

IN A NUTSHELL

Several countries and leaders have rejected the revelations of a large-scale investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) accusing several hundred political leaders and their families of hiding assets in offshore companies, including for the purpose of tax evasion.

On Monday, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine honored the American David Julius and the American of Lebanese-Armenian descent Ardem Patapoutian, two experts in the field of touch whose work has paved the way for anti-pain treatments. The Nobel Prize in Physics is expected on Tuesday.

Foot: the premium for living is worth less than before in the mind of Didier Deschamps, coach of the Blues in search of “freshness” and able to defeat Tauliers like Olivier Giroud by installing a less experienced group than usual this week for the Nations League.