Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Jasem Al-Budaiwi said Friday it is essential for the GCC member countries to exert joint efforts to address information technology challenges. Al-Budaiwi said in an X post that the Gulf bloc's cybersecurity, e-government and technical committees were working closely to defeat such challenges and ensure joint Gulf cooperation in order to keep Gulf digital assets intact. The GCC chief underscored that technology is of paramount significance in all walks of life and at all levels amid the world's ongoing major IT outage that has negatively affected public and private facilities across the world. Earlier in the day, Microsoft Corp. announced that there was a glitch in its global public system, which led to technical problems at several airports in the United States and around the world. Microsoft said in a statement that this sudden glitch affected many applications and services, including operating systems such as Windows, disrupting operations in vario us sectors involving airlines, banks and several media outlets. Source: Kuwait News Agency