In the Baltic country of Lithuania, there’s growing debate over a Russian-owned taxi ride-sharing service that Lithuanian government officials warn could be spying on users through their smartphones. So, could an ‘app’ be the latest tool in Kremlin hybrid tactics, or has fear of all things Russian gone too far? From Vilnius, Charles Maynes reports.
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Category Archives: News
Worldwide news. News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called “hard news” to differentiate it from soft media
Florida Governor Scott Wins US Senate Seat Following Recount
Republican Rick Scott has won Florida’s U.S. Senate race, defeating incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson – ending two weeks of insults, lawsuits, charges, and counter-charges.
Scott says Nelson “graciously conceded” the election Sunday after a mandatory hand recount gave the Florida governor a 10,000 vote margin.
State election officials are expected to certify the results Tuesday.
President Donald Trump tweeted his congratulations to Scott, saying he waged a “courageous and successful campaign.”
Nelson, the incumbent, will likely retire from politics. He held the U.S. Senate seat from Florida since 2000 after serving 12 years in the House of Representatives.
Scott led Nelson on election night by about 15,000 votes, triggering an automatic machine recount that was also inconclusive. This led to a second automatic recount, this time by hand.
In the meantime, both Democrats and Republicans filed number of lawsuits relating to the recounts, including one that said many ballots were not counted because the signatures did not exactly match the ones on file.
There were also problems involving electronic counting machines and one recount coming up 800 votes short of the original tally.
Trump accused Nelson and the Democrats of fraud and trying to steal the election.
Federal judge Mark Walker berated all sides last week, saying Florida’s inability to decide elections has made the state a global “laughingstock.”
He was no doubt thinking about the 2000 presidential election which had to be decided by the Supreme Court when a state-wide vote recount in Florida was turning into a mess of confusion.
Two other Florida contests have also been decided after recounts.
Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded the race for governor to Republican Ron DeSantis Saturday. Gillum was trying to become Florida’s first African-American governor.
Democrat Nikki Fried narrowly beat Republican Matt Caldwell in the battle for Florida state agriculture commissioner.
Trump Gives Himself an A+ as President
Nearly halfway through his four-year term in the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump says he thinks of himself in the top rung of American presidents.
“I would give myself an A+,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. “Can I go higher than that?”
But the U.S. leader, in a White House interview taped Friday and aired Sunday, made a rare acknowledgement of an error in judgment, saying he should have gone last Monday to Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the country’s annual Veterans Day honoring those who have served in the U.S. armed forces or are currently serving in one of its military branches.
“In retrospect, I should have,” Trump told interviewer Chris Wallace. The U.S. leader, who has yet to visit U.S. troops in any war zones overseas, also said, “There are things that are being planned. I will be doing that.” He declined to say when such a visit might occur because of security concerns.
In the November 6 nationwide congressional and state elections, opposition Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years and captured key governor’s races in industrial states that were vital to Trump’s 2016 election as president. National political surveys show Americans disapprove of his White House performance by a 52.9 to 43.3 percent margin, according to an average of polls by Real Clear Politics.
But Trump took no blame for the losses because his name was not on the ballot, even though he told several political rallies ahead of the elections that voters ought to look at the voting that way, as a referendum on his policies and performance during the first 22 months of his presidency.
“I won the Senate and that’s historic, too,” Trump said. “That’s a tremendous victory.” Trump’s Republican party could add two seats to its current 51-49 majority bloc in the Senate, when two close contests are decided.
Trump said Republicans also “had a tremendous set of victories” by winning governorships in the southern states of Georgia and Florida and the midwestern state of Ohio, even as Democrats won governorships in other electoral battlegrounds, including the key midwestern states of Michigan and Wisconsin that had been held by Republicans.
As for the electoral losses, Trump said, “I didn’t run. My name wasn’t on the ballot. I had people that wouldn’t vote because I wasn’t on the ballot.”
Trump is already deep in planning for his 2020 re-election bid, while a long list of Democrats are considering whether to seek their party’s presidential nomination to oppose him.
California Governor Lauds Trump for Not Cutting Funding Amid Fires
California’s governor expressed optimism Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump would support the state as it battles one of the worst wildfires in its history.
Following Trump’s visit to California the day before, Democratic governor Jerry Brown said that the president has “got our back” and has pledged to continue to help in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“The president not only has signed a presidential declaration giving California substantial funding, but he said and pledged very specifically to continue to help us, that he’s got our back,” Brown said. “And I thought that was a very positive thing.”
Brown also suggested in Sunday’s interview that California’s wildfires will make the most ardent of climate change skeptics believers in the coming years.
Trump visited California Saturday to get a close-up look at the widespread damage that raging wildfires have inflicted on the state. He flew from Washington to California and back to Washington in one day.
“Nobody would have ever thought this could have happened,” he said to reporters after walking through burned-out ruins in the Northern California town of Paradise. “It’s like total devastation.”
At least 9,700 homes were destroyed in the flames and 76 people have died. More than 1,000 people are missing. The blaze known as the Camp Fire is now the deadliest one in California history. More than 5,500 firefighters are still trying to bring it under control. “I think people have to see this really to understand it,” Trump said.
Trump was accompanied on his visit by Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, California Governor Brown, Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, and Federal Emergency Management Agency head Brock Long.
He pledged to the California officials the support of the federal government, saying, “We’re all going to work together.” He vowed also to work with environmental groups on better forest management and added, “Hopefully this is going to be the last of these because this was a really, really bad one.”
But when asked if the fire had changed his mind on climate change, Trump said, “No, no.” He said he believes a lot of factors are to blame.
The president also visited a local command center in Chico, California, and praised the firefighters and other first responders. “You folks have been incredible,” he said, adding that those battling the flames are “fighting like hell.”
More than a week after the blaze erupted and raced through Paradise, the fire has burned about 590 square kilometers and is about 50 percent contained, officials said.
Woolsey fire
Late afternoon, Trump landed in Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire has burned nearly 390 square kilometers. Fire officials say the blaze had been about 60 percent contained by Friday. Evacuated residents are returning to the area.
En route from Northern to Southern California, Trump told reporters he had not discussed climate change with Governor Brown and Governor-elect Newsom, both of whom accompanied him on the flight.
“We have different views,” Trump said. “But maybe not as different as people think.”
On the same issue, Brown told reporters, “We’ll let science determine this over a longer period of time. Right now we’re collaborating on the most immediate response and that’s very important.”
Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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Pence, Xi Sell Competing Views to Asian Regional Economies
The United States and China offered competing views to regional leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Papua New Guinea, trading sharp words over trade, investment, and regional security. Washington said it can provide a better option for regional allies under is “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy. as VOA’s State Department correspondent Nike Ching reports, the APEC gathering ended without a formal leaders’ statement.
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British-based Startup ARC Debuts First Motorcycle for $117,000
British-based startup ARC unveiled its first motorcycle model in Milan this week, one being described as fast, advanced and expensive. The so-called Vector costs more than $100,000, but ARC says it’s for good reason. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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GOP Legislatures Look to Curb Democratic Governors’ Power
With their grip on power set to loosen come January, Republicans in several states are considering last-ditch laws that would weaken existing or incoming Democratic governors and advance their own conservative agendas.
In Michigan, where the GOP has held the levers of power for nearly eight years, Republican legislators want to water down a minimum wage law they approved before the election so that it would not go to voters and would now be easier to amend.
Republicans in neighboring Wisconsin are discussing ways to dilute Democrat Tony Evers’ power before he takes over for GOP Gov. Scott Walker.
And in North Carolina, Republicans may try to hash out the requirements of a new voter ID constitutional amendment before they lose their legislative supermajorities and their ability to unilaterally override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
Republicans downplay the tactics and point out that Democrats have also run lame-duck sessions, including in Wisconsin in 2010 before Walker took office and the GOP took control of the Legislature. But some of the steps Republicans are expected to take will almost surely be challenged in court, and critics say such maneuvers undermine the political system and the will of the people, who voted for change.
“It’s something that smacks every Michigan voter in the face and tells them that this Republican Party doesn’t care about their voice, their perspective,” House Democratic Leader Sam Singh said of the strategizing to control the fate of minimum wage increases and paid sick leave requirements.
Statewide sweeps
The moves would follow midterm elections in which Democrats swept statewide offices in Michigan and Wisconsin for the first time in decades but fell short of taking over their gerrymandered legislatures. That gives Republicans a final shot to lock in new policies, with Democrats unable to undo them anytime soon.
Michigan’s new minimum wage and sick time laws began as ballot drives but because they were preemptively adopted by lawmakers in September rather than by voters, they can be altered with simple majority votes rather than the support of three-fourths of both chambers.
One measure would gradually raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and increase a lower wage for tipped workers until it is in line with the minimum. The other would require that employees qualify for between 40 and 72 hours of paid sick leave, depending on the size of their employer.
It is unclear how the laws may be changed to appease an anxious business lobby. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says mandatory sick time, 10 other states also require it, will place “severe compliance burdens” on employers, including those with paid leave policies currently in place. The group also is urging lawmakers to “be pragmatic, not extreme” and revisit the wage hikes that would make Michigan’s minimum the highest in the Midwest.
Republicans seem unfazed by criticism that scaling back the measures would thwart the will of voters who resoundingly elected Democrat Gretchen Whitmer to replace GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, who reached his term limit. The Michigan Senate’s majority leader, Arlan Meekhof, said changes to the laws are needed to “continue to keep our economy on track and not put a roadblock or hindrance” in the way of businesses.
Lame-duck sessions
Lame-duck sessions, which are commonplace in Congress but rare among many state legislatures, are frenetic, as legislators rush to consider bills that are controversial or were put on the back burner during election season. Michigan’s 2012 session, for example, produced right-to-work laws and a contentious revised emergency manager statute for cities in financial peril, despite voters having just repealed the previous law.
The lame-duck period may be especially intense this year in Michigan and Wisconsin because they are among just four states in which Republicans are losing full control the governorship and both legislative chambers. Lawmakers in the other two states, Kansas and New Hampshire, will not convene until next year.
Six states with a split government now will be fully controlled by Democrats in 2019, and Alaska will be fully controlled by Republicans.
On GOP agendas
Wisconsin Republicans plan to consider a variety of ways to protect laws enacted by Walker. Those include limiting Evers’ ability to make appointments, restricting his authority over the rule-making process and making it more difficult for him to block a work requirement for Medicaid recipients. They might also change the date of the 2020 presidential primary so that a Walker-appointed state Supreme Court justice has better odds to win election.
In North Carolina, GOP legislators may use the session for more than approving additional bipartisan Hurricane Florence relief. They are expected to implement a voter photo ID requirement passed this month by the electorate and to consider other legislation that the Democratic governor would be powerless to stop until Republicans can no longer easily override his vetoes come 2019.
Two years ago, they reduced Cooper’s powers before he took office. He successfully sued over a law that diminished his role in managing elections. Other suits remain pending.
Michigan’s outgoing governor, Snyder, hasn’t weighed in on the plan to amend the minimum wage and sick leave laws, which would require his signature, unlike when they were passed. He is trying to persuade his fellow Republicans to boost and add new fees for environmental cleanup and water infrastructure upgrades, and he wants the Legislature to help facilitate a deal to drill an oil pipeline tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The agreement is opposed by Whitmer and the state’s Democratic Attorney General-elect, Dana Nessel.
Supporters of the existing wage and sick time laws have been mobilizing to keep them intact. MI Time to Care, the campaign backing guaranteed paid time off for workers who are sick or need to stay home with an ill family member, launched ads, mailed postcards and went door to door before the election reminding people of their rights under the law that is scheduled to take effect in March.
Chairwoman Danielle Atkinson said the sick leave proposal would have been approved in a “landslide” if it had been on the ballot.
“It’s clearly why the Legislature moved to pass it, and now they should uphold it as the promise that they made to the voters,” she said.
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Democrats Take Southern California GOP Stronghold
Democrat Gil Cisneros captured a Republican-held U.S. House seat in Southern California on Saturday, capping a Democratic rout in which the party picked up six congressional seats in the state.
In what had been the last undecided House contest in California, Cisneros beat Republican Young Kim for the state’s 39th District seat. The Cisneros victory cements a stunning political realignment that will leave a vast stretch of the Los Angeles metropolitan area under Democratic control in the House.
With Kim’s defeat, four Republican-held House districts all or partly in Orange County, California, a one-time nationally known GOP stronghold southeast of Los Angeles, will have shifted in one election to the Democratic column. The change means that the county — Richard Nixon’s birthplace and site of his presidential library — will only have Democrats representing its residents in Washington next year.
Democrats also recently picked up the last Republican-held House seat anchored in Los Angeles County, when Democrat Katie Hill ousted Republican Rep. Steve Knight.
With other gains, Republicans also lost a seat in the agricultural Central Valley, Democrats will hold a 45-8 edge in California U.S. House seats next year.
The district was one of seven targeted by Democrats across California after Hillary Clinton carried them in the 2016 presidential election.
Kim couldn’t shake Trump
Cisneros, 47, a $266 million lottery jackpot winner, had been locked in a close race with Kim in a district that has grown increasingly diverse. It’s about equally divided between Republicans, Democrats and independents, as it is with Asians, Hispanics and whites.
Kim, 55, a former state legislator, worked for years for retiring Republican Rep. Ed Royce, who is vacating the seat and had endorsed her.
In a state where President Donald Trump is unpopular, Kim sought to create distance with the White House on trade and health care. Her immigrant background — and gender — made her stand out in a political party whose leaders in Washington are mostly older white men.
“I’m a different kind of candidate,” she had said.
It wasn’t enough. Democratic ads depicted her as a Trump underling, eager to carry out his agenda.
Cisneros first-time candidate
Cisneros, a first-time candidate, described his interest in Congress as an extension of his time in the military — he said it was about public service. He runs a charitable foundation with his wife.
On health care, he talked about his mother who went without insurance for 16 years.
“That should just not happen in this country,” he had said.
While the election delivered mixed results around the U.S., it affirmed California’s reputation as a Democratic fortress.
Democrats are on track to hold every statewide office — again. The party holds a supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature and a 3.7-million advantage in voter registration.
There wasn’t even a Republican on the ballot for U.S. Senate.
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Clock Ticks Toward Sunday Deadline for Florida Recounts
The Sunday deadline for the end of the Florida election recounts is approaching, with Republican Gov. Rick Scott continuing to hold a lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
As of Saturday afternoon, Nelson trailed by about 12,000 votes, with no major changes expected.
The Florida governor’s race was essentially decided after a machine recount Thursday resulted in a 0.4 percentage-point lead for Republican Ron DeSantis over Democrat Andrew Gillum, enough of a margin to avoid a hand recount. Florida law requires a hand recount if a machine count finds the margin of victory is less than 0.25 percent.
Gillum conceded the race Saturday afternoon, posting a video on Facebook in which he congratulated DeSantis on the win. DeSantis’ campaign did not immediately respond to the announcement.
Florida counties have until noon on Sunday to finish their hand recounts. The race for state agriculture commissioner between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell also was undergoing a recount.
On Friday, Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s governor’s race, ended her challenge in the closely fought election but vowed to bring a lawsuit against what she called the state’s “gross mismanagement” of the vote.
Abrams told a news conference on Friday, “Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession” to Republican Brian Kemp. She acknowledged, however, that she had no further recourse under the law to fight the election results.
In accepting Abrams’ decision to end her campaign, Kemp said, “Hardworking Georgians are ready to move forward.” He praised Abrams’ “passion, hard work and commitment to public service.”
The close race drew national attention in part because of Abrams’ effort to become the first African-American female U.S. governor. Election officials said voter turnout was nearly as high as it was in the 2016 presidential race.
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Melania Trump’s Moment: First Lady Flexes Muscles in Big Way
It turns out there is more than one Trump who can employ a few well-chosen words as a poison dart.
With a bombshell public statement this week, it was first lady Melania Trump who revealed her ability to carry out a political hit. Her extraordinary call for the removal of a top administration official forced the president to banish a top aide, exacerbated tensions within the White House and provided fresh insight into the first marriage.
Above all, the moment showed that the enigmatic first lady is increasingly prepared to flex her muscles. While it was President Donald Trump who repeatedly promised to shake up his Cabinet and staff, it was his wife who forced one of the first moves after the midterm elections. And while first ladies have long held unique positions of influence in the White House, Mrs. Trump’s very public power play was an unusual move befitting an unconventional White House.
“There have been similar activities on a less publicized scale, but it came out after the fact. We’ve never seen a first lady have her office make a public statement like that,” said Katherine Jellison, chair of the history department at Ohio University and an expert on first ladies. “It will be interesting to see if this is the new Melania.”
Jellison and others said the best comparison would be Nancy Reagan’s conflict with White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan. But while that clash eventually became well known, Mrs. Reagan never issued a public statement.
Mrs. Trump, who appeared with her husband Friday at a White House ceremony to honor Medal of Freedom honorees, did not address the controversy directly.
The target of Mrs. Trump’s ire was Deputy National Security Adviser Mira Ricardel, who was said to have clashed with East Wing staff over logistics for the first lady’s trip to Africa last month.
A White House official said Mrs. Trump’s staff spent weeks working through “proper channels” to seek Ricardel’s ouster but that the situation came to a head earlier this week after reporters learned of the friction between Ricardel and the East Wing and began asking questions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
On Tuesday, the East Wing issued a terse and head-snapping statement about Ricardel: “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.”
A day later, Ricardel was gone from the White House.
The statement from Mrs. Trump’s office caught some senior White House officials by surprise. A White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly said there was a widespread feeling that the highly public spat reflected poorly on the West and East wings, reinforcing the idea that the administration is volatile and making the first lady look vengeful.
Both President Trump’s spokeswoman and National Security Adviser John Bolton issued glowing statements about Ricardel. The White House insisted she would move into a new administration role, though it was not clear what that position would be. Privately, insiders acknowledged that there was no way for Ricardel to stay in the West Wing once the first lady made her feelings known.
As the week closed, it appeared clear that the situation had heightened already fraught tensions between the two wings of the White House, with senior officials from Chief of Staff John Kelly and Bolton on down unhappy with how Ricardel, a Trump loyalist, was treated.
Mrs. Trump is considered an influential adviser to her husband. In an ABC News interview last month, she said there are people in the White House whom she and the president cannot trust. She declined to name anyone but said she had let the president know who they are.
“Well,” she added, “some people, they don’t work there anymore.”
Asked if some untrustworthy people still worked in the White House, Mrs. Trump replied, “Yes.”
The first lady has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is an entirely voluntary role. She opted to stay in New York for the first months of the administration so that the couple’s son Barron could conclude the school year and she has kept up a limited public schedule since arriving in Washington.
She has also taken pains to set herself apart from the rest of the White House and her husband. She launched an education campaign focused on bullying, despite the fact that the president is famed for verbal combat. She took an ambitious trip to Africa, not long after her husband was pilloried for labeling African nations as “s—hole countries.”
Clearly unafraid to make a deft pushback at times, the first lady’s office last summer put out a statement praising NBA superstar LeBron James’ charitable efforts after the president fired off a tweet questioning the basketball player’s intelligence. And when The New York Times reported that Trump was irate that his wife’s TV aboard Air Force One was tuned to CNN, her office issued a statement saying Mrs. Trump watches “any channel she wants.”
As for the matter of fighting cyberbullying when her husband gets rapped for his cyber habits, the first lady told an online safety conference on Thursday that “It is not news or surprising to me that critics and the media have chosen to ridicule me for speaking out on this issue, and that’s OK.”
Before her husband reversed himself and put a halt to family separations at the border, Mrs. Trump’s office put out a statement saying the first lady “hates” to see families separated and expressing hope that “both sides of the aisle” can reform the nation’s immigration laws.
Mrs. Trump then drew attention for heading to Texas to visit migrant children at the southern border in a jacket emblazoned with the words “I don’t really care. Do U?” She later told ABC News that she wore the jacket “for the people and for the left-wing media who are criticizing me. And I want to show them that I don’t care.”
The first lady this week also made it clear she doesn’t need outside help carving out her role in the White House, after her predecessor Michelle Obama said that Mrs. Trump had never called her for advice or help in the job.
“Mrs. Trump is a strong and independent woman who has been navigating her role as first lady in her own way,” spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham wrote via email. “When she needs advice on any issue, she seeks it from her professional team within the White House.”
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Federal Judge Orders White House to Return Press Pass to CNN Reporter
A federal judge ordered the White House to temporarily reinstate a Cable News Network correspondent’s press credentials, marking what press freedom advocates say is a win for the news media. CNN filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week, after the White House revoked the credentials of a reporter who sparred with the president during a press conference. The case could have broad repercussions for First Amendment rights of journalists, as VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff explains.
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Prosecutors in Plea Deal Talks With Accused Russian Agent
U.S. prosecutors and lawyers for accused Russian agent Maria Butina are engaging in negotiations, both sides said in a court filing Friday, raising the possibility the case could be resolved with a plea deal.
Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who has publicly advocated for gun rights, was charged in July with acting as an agent of the Russian government and conspiracy to take actions on behalf of Russia.
She is accused of working with a Russian official and two U.S. citizens to try to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobby group that has close ties to Republican politicians including President Donald Trump, and influence American foreign policy toward Russia.
Currently jailed awaiting trial, Butina has pleaded not guilty. She could face years in prison if convicted.
Potential resolution
The parties “continue to engage … in negotiations regarding a potential resolution of this matter,” prosecutors and Butina’s lawyers wrote in a joint filing Friday, without elaborating on what resolution might materialize.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan later granted a joint request for a delay in a status hearing in the case that had been set for Dec. 6, scheduling a new hearing for Dec. 19.
After the delay was granted, defense lawyers withdrew motions they had filed Thursday to dismiss the case. Such talks sometimes lead to a deal in which a defendant pleads guilty to lesser charges to resolve a case.
Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Butina and who is under a media gag order imposed by the judge in the case, declined to comment when asked whether his client may plead guilty in order to resolve the case.
Prosecution missteps
The prosecution has made serious missteps in the case, including erroneously accusing Butina of offering sex in exchange for a position in a special interest group. They later backed off the claim and earned scorn from the judge, who said the incorrect allegations were “notorious” and had damaged Butina’s reputation.
Butina’s lawyers have previously identified the Russian official with whom she was accused of working as Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who was hit with U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in April.
They identified one of the two Americans mentioned in the criminal complaint as being Paul Erickson, a conservative U.S. political activist who was dating Butina. Neither Erickson nor Torshin have been accused by prosecutors of wrongdoing.
Questions relating to Russia have cast a shadow over Trump’s presidency. Moscow has labeled the case against Butina “fabricated” and called for her release.
Prosecutors have called Butina a flight risk and said she had been in contact with Russian intelligence operatives and kept contact information for several Russian agents.
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Federal Reserve Policymakers See Rate Hikes Ahead, Note Worries
Federal Reserve policymakers on Friday signaled further interest rate increases ahead, but raised relatively muted concerns over a potential global slowdown that has markets betting heavily that the Fed’s rate hike cycle will soon peter out.
The widening chasm between market expectations and the rate path the Fed laid out just two months ago underscores the biggest question in front of U.S. central bankers: How much weight to give a growing number of potential red flags, even as U.S. economic growth continues to push down unemployment and create new jobs?
“We are at a point now where we really need to be especially data dependent,” Richard Clarida, the newly appointed vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said in a CNBC interview. “I think certainly where the economy is today, and the Fed’s projection of where it’s going, that being at neutral would make sense,” he added, defining “neutral” as interest rates somewhere between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent.
But that range that implies anywhere from two more to six more rate hikes, and Clarida declined to say how many more increases he would prefer.
He did say he is optimistic that U.S. productivity is rising, a view that suggests he would not see faster economic or wage growth as necessarily feeding into higher inflation or, necessarily, requiring higher interest rates. But he also
sounded a mild warning.
“There is some evidence of global slowing,” Clarida said. “That’s something that is going to be relevant as I think about the outlook for the U.S. economy, because it impacts big parts of the economy through trade and through capital markets and the like.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan, in a separate interview with Fox Business, also said he is seeing a growth slowdown in Europe and China.
“It’s my own judgment that global growth is going to be a little bit of a headwind, and it may spill over to the United States,” Kaplan said. .
The Fed raised interest rates three times this year and is expected to raise its target again next month, to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. As of September, Fed policymakers expected to need to increase rates three more times next year, a view they will update next month.
Over the last week, betting in contracts tied to the Fed’s policy suggests that even two rate hikes might be a stretch. The yield on fed fund futures maturing in January 2020, seen by some as an end-point for the Fed’s current rate-hike cycle, dropped sharply to just 2.76 percent over six trading days.
At the same time, long-term inflation expectations have been dropping quickly as well. The so-called breakeven inflation rate on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, has fallen sharply in the last month. The breakeven rate on five-year TIPS hit the lowest since late 2017 earlier this week.
Those market moves together suggest traders are taking the prospect of a slowdown seriously, limiting how far the Fed will end up raising rates.
But not all policymakers seemed that worried. Sitting with his back to a map of the world in a ballroom in Chicago’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans downplayed risks to his outlook, noting that the leveraged loans that some of his colleagues have raised concerns about are being taken out by “big boys and girls” who
understand the risks.
He told reporters he still believes rates should rise to about 3.25 percent so as to mildly restrain growth and bring unemployment, now at 3.7 percent, back up to a more sustainable level.
Asked about risks from the global slowdown, he said he hears more talk about it but that it is not really in the numbers yet.
But the next six months, he said, bear close watching.
“There’s not a great headline” about risks to the economy right now, Evans told reporters. “International is a little slower; Brexit — nobody’s asked me about that, thank you; [the slowing] housing market: I think all of those are in the mix for uncertainties that everybody’s facing,” he said.
“But at the moment, it’s not enough to upset or adjust the trajectory that I have in mind.”
Still, Evans added, the risks should not be counted out: “They could take on more life more easily because they are sort of more top of mind, if not in the forecast.”
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US Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley’s Move to Leave Key Opening
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday said he planned to relinquish the position next year, leaving a vacancy at the top of the panel, which is among those investigating alleged Russian political interference.
In a statement, the Iowa Republican said he would instead seek to return as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which he had previously run.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an initial Trump skeptic who has turned into one of his fiercest supporters, has publicly stated that he would aim to take over the chairmanship of the Judiciary panel if there was a vacancy.
The move could have significant implications regarding the federal probe into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Judiciary panel, along with several others in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, had been probing the allegations. The U.S. Special Counsel’s Office is also investigating.
On Thursday, Graham met with acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who now oversees the special counsel’s probe in the U.S. Department of Justice, and said Whitaker had said he was comfortable with the ongoing investigation.
As head of the Finance panel, Grassley said he would focus on additional tax relief and tax fairness, U.S. exports and improving health care.
Senate Republicans, who control the chamber, will finalize the posts when the next Congress convenes in January.
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Trump Says He Has Finished Answers to Special Counsel’s Questions
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he had completed his written answers for the federal investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016election, but had not yet submitted them to the U.S. Special Counsel’s Office.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he wrote the answers to the questions himself, not his lawyers.
Report: Russia Has Access to UK Visa Processing
Investigative group Bellingcat and Russian website The Insider are suggesting that Russian intelligence has infiltrated the computer infrastructure of a company that processes British visa applications.
The investigation, published Friday, aims to show how two suspected Russian military intelligence agents, who have been charged with poisoning a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury, may have obtained British visas.
The Insider and Bellingcat said they interviewed the former chief technical officer of a company that processes visa applications for several consulates in Moscow, including that of Britain.
The man, who fled Russia last year and applied for asylum in the United States, said he had been coerced to work with agents of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, who revealed to him that they had access to the British visa center’s CCTV cameras and had a diagram of the center’s computer network. The two outlets say they have obtained the man’s deposition to the U.S. authorities but have decided against publishing the man’s name, for his own safety.
The Insider and Bellingcat, however, did not demonstrate a clear link between the alleged efforts of Russian intelligence to penetrate the visa processing system and Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, who have been charged with poisoning Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March this year.
The man also said that FSB officers told him in spring 2016 that they were going to send two people to Britain and asked for his assistance with the visa applications. The timing points to the first reported trip to Britain of the two men, who traveled under the names of Alexander Petrov and Anatoly Boshirov. The man, however, said he told the FSB that there was no way he could influence the decision-making on visa applications.
The man said he was coerced to sign an agreement to collaborate with the FSB after one of its officers threatened to jail his mother, and was asked to create a “backdoor” to the computer network. He said he sabotaged those efforts before he fled Russia in early 2017.
In September, British intelligence released surveillance images of the agents of Russian military intelligence GRU accused of the March nerve agent attack on double agent Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. Bellingcat and The Insider quickly exposed the agents’ real names and the media, including The Associated Press, were able to corroborate their real identities.
The visa application processing company, TLSContact, and the British Home Office were not immediately available for comment.
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Votes Hand Recounted in Florida US Senate Race
A hand recount of the votes cast in Florida’s U.S. Senate race began Friday after a federal judge angrily told election officials they are making a mockery of the state around the globe.
“We have been the laughingstock of the world election after election, but we’ve still chosen not to fix this,” an angry Walker said Thursday.
His remarks were an apparent reference to the 2000 presidential election which had to be decided by the Supreme Court when a state-wide vote recount in Florida was turning into a mess of confusion, charges, and counter charges.
Florida law requires a hand recount if a machine count finds the margin of victory is less than 0.25 percent.
As of late Thursday, Democratic incumbent Senator Bill Nelson trailed his Republican challenger, Governor Rick Scott, by just 0.15 percent.
Election officials missed a Thursday deadline for recounting the ballots for the Senate, saying counting machines in Palm Beach kept breaking down.
Officials in Tampa Bay declined to turn in their recount result because it came up more than 800 votes short of the original election day tally.
Federal Judge Mark Walker refused to extend the deadline and berated election officials for not anticipating problems.
Both Democrats and Republicans have filed a number of lawsuits relating to vote counting.
He was no doubt also thinking about the 2000 presidential election which had to be decided by the Supreme Court when a state-wide vote recount in Florida was turning into a mess of confusion, charges, and counter charges.
Judge Walker has also given voters until Saturday afternoon to correct their ballots if they weren’t counted because of mismatched signatures.
Florida officials testified in court that nearly 4,000 ballots had already been rejected by local election officials because the signatures mailed in didn’t match the signature on file. The new deadline would apply to many ballots likely cast by young Democratic voters.
A study conducted before the elections by the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida discovered mail-in ballots from young voters were more likely to be dismissed, partially because the young voters – who primarily use computer keyboards – have not used handwriting enough to develop a consistent signature.
Democrats, meanwhile, continue to gain seats in the House of Representatives, after taking back the lower chamber last week for the first time in eight years. Democrats now have a 231 to 198 edge, with six races still undecided.
The latest Democratic victory was announced Thursday night. Katie Porter ousted two-term Congresswoman Mimi Waters in California’s 45th District, once a nationally known Republican stronghold. A law professor and champion of consumer rights, she ran on a progressive platform that included overturning U.S. President Donald Trump’s and the Republicans’ tax plan, Medicare for All and a ban on assault weapons.
Earlier Thursday, Jared Golden was declared the winner in a race in Maine against incumbent Republican Representative Bruce Poliquin. That contest represented the first test of a new state ranked-choice voting system, designed to prevent candidates in races featuring at least three contenders from winning office without majority support. Golden is a Marine veteran who also campaigned on progressive policies such as Medicare for everyone.
The day after the election, Trump boasted that “It was a big day yesterday. The Republican Party defied history to expand our Senate majority while significantly beating expectations in the House.”
“It was very close to a complete victory,” he trumpeted.
As results rolled in on election night, it appeared Republicans might add three or four seats to their current 51-49 Senate majority.
But a Republican lead for a contest in the southwestern state of Arizona collapsed, giving Democrat Kyrsten Sinema a seat that been held by Republicans for 30 years.
With Senate races in Florida and Mississippi yet to be decided, Republicans at most will add two seats to their majority.
South Africa Cannabis Ruling Leads to Pot-Themed Products
Now that South Africa’s highest court has relaxed the nation’s laws on marijuana, local entrepreneurs are trying to cash in on the popular herb. Among the latest entries to the market: several highly popular cannabis-laced alcohol products, which deliver the unique taste, though without the signature high. Marijuana activists say this could just be the beginning and that the famous plant could do much more for the national economy. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.
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Experts: Without Proof of Ownership, Land Laws Worthless
Land laws mean nothing unless communities can prove their ownership, researchers said Thursday, calling for better tools to map the land and stave off conflict over property.
From South Africa to the Amazon rainforest, battles over land and who owns it are unleashing unprecedented conflict and labyrinthine legal cases as governments and companies seek to exploit ever more of the world’s natural resources, from trees to minerals to rubber.
With an estimated 70 percent of the world unmapped, more than 5 billion people lack proof of ownership, according to the Lima-based Institute for Liberty and Democracy.
Laws no safeguard
Speaking at the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s annual two-day Trust Conference, which focuses on a host of human rights issues, experts said the existence of laws in itself was no safeguard against abuse.
South Africa enshrines security of tenure in its constitution but the government rides roughshod over locals by promoting controversial mining deals, said Aninka Claassens, director of the University of Cape Town’s Land and Accountability Research Center.
More than two decades after the end of apartheid, whites still own most of the land in resource-rich South Africa and ownership remains a highly emotive subject ahead of next year’s national election.
“Our constitution means nothing unless people affected can prove their land rights, that’s why recorded rights are so important,” she said. “Mining is destroying livelihoods and land.”
Who owns what, where
Mapping property rights is crucial to understand “who owns what, where and how,” said Anne Girardin, land surveyor at the Cadasta Foundation, which develops digital tools to document and analyze land and resource rights information.
“That allows you to monitor changes in land resources, but also to better protect them,” she added.
More than 200 activists protecting their land and environment were killed in 2017, according to a survey of 22 countries by Global Witness, marking the deadliest year since the human rights group began collecting data.
Better and more coordinated information is needed to ward off more deadly conflicts, the experts said, citing satellite images and smartphones as tools that could document land.
Technology is plentiful but resources are scattered, Girardin said.
“It would take all the land surveyors we have 200-300 years to map the world’s undocumented land, so we need to be more pragmatic and work together,” she said.
Communities document land
Rampant deforestation means communities should rush to document their own land rather than wait for governments to act, said Nonette Royo, executive director of the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, which helps indigenous people.
“In the world, forest area the size of Belgium disappears every year,” she said.
For Claassens, land rights should be mapped and recorded in accordance with who uses land as well as who actually owns it.
“Who uses the land? Most often, it’s women,” she said, adding that women were often excluded from property records.
Women are key in the fight for land rights from Brazil to Cambodia, often deployed at the frontline to ward off development and protect family plots, fields and villages.
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‘Perfect Time,’ Ethical Businesses Say, to Drive Social Change
Ethically driven businesses are becoming increasingly popular and profitable but they can face threats for shaking up the existing order, entrepreneurs said on Social Enterprise Day.
When Meghan Markle wore a pair of “slave-free” jeans on a royal tour of Australia last month, she sparked a sales stampede and shone a spotlight on the growing number of companies aiming to meet public demand for ethical products.
“Right now is the perfect time to have this kind of business,” said James Bartle, founder of Australia-based Outland Denim, which made the $200 (150 pound) jeans. “There is awareness and people are prepared to spend on these kinds of products.”
Social Enterprise Day
Social Enterprise Day, which celebrates firms seeking to make profit while doing good, is being marked in 23 countries, including Australia, Nigeria, Romania and the Philippines, led by Social Enterprise UK (SEUK), which represents the sector.
Outland Denim is one such company, employing dozens of survivors of human trafficking and other vulnerable women in Cambodia to make its jeans, which all contain a written thank-you message from the seamstress on an internal pocket.
Bartle said he wanted to create a sustainable model that gives people power to change their future through employment.
More companies are striving to clean up their supply chains and stamp their goods as environmentally friendly and ethical, with women and millennials, people born between 1982 and 2000, driving the shift to products that seek to improve the world.
“For-profits create the mess, and then the not-for-profits clean it up,” said Andrew O’Brien, director of external affairs at SEUK, which estimates that 2 million British workers are employed by a social enterprise. “We are an existential threat to that system, by coming through the middle and forcing businesses to change the way they do business.”
Risky business
Britain has the world’s largest social enterprise sector, according to the U.K. government. About 100,000 firms contribute 60 billion pounds ($76 billion) to the world’s fifth largest economy, SEUK says.
Elsewhere in the world, it can be a risky business.
“I get threats,” said Farhad Wajdi who runs Ebtakar Inspiring Entrepreneurs of Afghanistan, which helps women enter the workforce by training and providing seed money for them to operate food carts in the war-torn country. “I can’t go to the provinces.”
His work has met resistance in parts of Afghanistan, a conservative society where women rarely work outside the home.
“A social enterprise can lead to sustainable change in those communities,” Wajdi said on the sidelines of the Trust Conference in London. “It can propagate gender equality and create friction for social change at a grassroots level.”
Niche? Window dressing?
There is, however, a danger that social enterprise will remain a niche form of business or become window-dressing for firms that just want to improve their public image.
“I don’t want social enterprise to become the next (corporate social responsibility), another (public relations) move,” said Melissa Kim, the founder of Costa Rican-based Uplift Worldwide, which supports social enterprises.
“To me this is just good business, and good sustainable business is not just about the environment and human rights … if you care about your relationships internally and externally you will stay in business.”
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China Woos Pacific Islands With Loans, Showcase Projects
As world leaders land in Papua New Guinea for a Pacific Rim summit, the welcome mat is especially big for China’s president.
A huge sign in the capital, Port Moresby, welcomes Xi Jinping, picturing him gazing beneficently at Papua New Guinea’s leader, and his hotel is decked out with red Chinese lanterns. China’s footprint is everywhere, from a showpiece boulevard and international convention center built with Chinese help to bus stop shelters that announce their origins with “China Aid” plaques.
On the eve of Xi’s arrival for a state visit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, newspapers in the country ran a full-page statement from the Chinese leader. It exhorted Pacific island nations to “set sail on a new voyage” of relations with China, which in the space of a generation has transformed from the world’s most populous backwater into a major economic power.
With both actions and words, Xi has a compelling message for the South Pacific’s fragile island states, long both propped up and pushed around by U.S. ally Australia: they now have a choice of benefactors. With the exception of Papua New Guinea, those island nations are not part of APEC, but the leaders of many of them have traveled to Port Moresby and will meet with Xi.
The APEC meeting, meanwhile, is Xi’s to dominate. Headline-hogging leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are not attending. Trump’s stand-in, Vice President Mike Pence, is staying in Cairns in Australia’s north and flying into Papua New Guinea each day. Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison, the country’s fifth leader in five years, is barely known abroad.
“President Xi Jinping is a good friend of Papua New Guinea,” its prime minister, Peter O’Neill, told reporters. “He has had a lot of engagement with Papua New Guinea and I’ve visited China 12 times in the last seven years.”
Pacific island nations, mostly tiny, remote and poor, rarely figure prominently on the world stage but have for several years been diligently courted by Beijing as part of its global effort to finance infrastructure that advances its economic and diplomatic interests. Papua New Guinea with about 8 million people is by far the most populous, and with its extensive tropical forests and oil and gas reserves is an obvious target for economic exploitation.
Six of the 16 Pacific island states still have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a sizeable bloc within the rapidly dwindling number of nations that recognize the island regarded as a renegade province by Beijing. Chinese aid and loans could flip those six into its camp. A military foothold in the region would be an important geostrategic boost for China, though its purported desire for a base has so far been thwarted.
Beijing’s assistance comes without the oversight and conditions that Western nations and organizations such as the World Bank or International Monetary Fund impose. It is promising $4 billion of finance to build the first national road network in Papua New Guinea, which could be transformative for the mountainous nation. But experts warn there could also be big costs later on: unsustainable debt, white elephant showpieces and social tensions from a growing Chinese diaspora.
“China’s engagement in infrastructure in PNG shouldn’t be discounted. It should be encouraged but it needs to be closely monitored by the PNG government to make sure it’s effective over the long term,” said Jonathan Pryke, a Papua New Guinea expert at the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Sydney.
“The benefits of these projects, because a lot of them are financed by loans, only come from enhanced economic output over a long time to be able to justify paying back these loans,” he said.
“The history of infrastructure investment in PNG shows that too often there is not enough maintenance going on,” Pryke said. “There’s a build, neglect, rebuild paradigm in PNG as opposed to build and maintain which is far more efficient.”
Some high-profile Chinese projects in Papua New Guinea have already run into problems. A promised fish cannery hasn’t materialized after several years and expansion of a port in Lae, the major commercial center, was botched and required significant rectification work. Two of the Chinese state companies working in the country, including the company responsible for the port expansion, were until recently blacklisted from World Bank-financed projects because of fraud or corruption.
Xi’s newspaper column asserted China is the biggest foreign investor in Papua New Guinea, a statement more aspirational than actual. Its involvement is currently dwarfed by the investment of a single company—ExxonMobil’s $19 billion natural gas extraction and processing facility.
Australia, the former colonial power in Papua New Guinea, remains its largest donor of conventional foreign aid. Its assistance, spread across the country and aimed at improving bare bones public services and the capacity of government, is less visible.
But its approach is shifting in response to China’s moves.
In September, the Australian government announced it would pay for what is typically a commercial venture — a high-speed undersea cable linking Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands that promises to make the internet and telecommunications in the two island countries faster, more reliable and less expensive.
Earlier this month, Australia announced more than $2 billion of funding for infrastructure and trade finance aimed at Pacific island nations and also agreed to joint development of a naval base in Papua New Guinea, heading off feared Chinese involvement. It is also boosting its diplomatic presence, opening more embassies to be represented in every Pacific island state.
“The APEC meeting is shaping up to be a faceoff between China and Australia for influence in the Pacific,” said Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch.
That might seem a positive development for the region, but Pearson cautioned that competition for Papua New Guinea’s vast natural resources has in the past had little positive impact on the lives of its people.
“Sadly exploitation of resources in PNG has fueled violent conflict, abuse and environmental devastation,” she said.
Tech Firm Pays Refugees to Train AI Algorithms
Companies could help refugees rebuild their lives by paying them to boost artificial intelligence (AI) using their phones and giving them digital skills, a tech nonprofit said Thursday.
REFUNITE has developed an app, LevelApp, which is being piloted in Uganda to allow people who have been uprooted by conflict to earn instant money by “training” algorithms for AI.
Wars, persecution and other violence have uprooted a record 68.5 million people, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
People forced to flee their homes lose their livelihoods and struggle to create a source of income, REFUNITE co-chief executive Chris Mikkelsen told the Trust Conference in London.
“This provides refugees with a foothold in the global gig economy,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s two-day event, which focuses on a host of human rights issues.
$20 a day for AI work
A refugee in Uganda currently earning $1.25 a day doing basic tasks or menial jobs could make up to $20 a day doing simple AI labeling work on their phones, Mikkelsen said.
REFUNITE says the app could be particularly beneficial for women as the work can be done from the home and is more lucrative than traditional sources of income such as crafts.
The cash could enable refugees to buy livestock, educate children and access health care, leaving them less dependant on aid and helping them recover faster, according to Mikkelsen.
The work would also allow them to build digital skills they could take with them when they returned home, REFUNITE says.
“This would give them the ability to rebuild a life … and the dignity of no longer having to rely solely on charity,” Mikkelsen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Teaching the machines
AI is the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.
It is being used in a vast array of products from driverless cars to agricultural robots that can identify and eradicate weeds and computers able to identify cancers.
In order to “teach” machines to mimic human intelligence, people must repeatedly label images and other data until the algorithm can detect patterns without human intervention.
REFUNITE, based in California, is testing the app in Uganda where it has launched a pilot project involving 5,000 refugees, mainly form South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. It hopes to scale up to 25,000 refugees within two years.
Mikkelsen said the initiative was a win-win as it would also benefit companies by slashing costs.
Another tech company, DeepBrain Chain, has committed to paying 200 refugees for a test period of six months, he said.
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Facebook CEO Details Company Battle with Hate Speech, Violent Content
Facebook says it is getting better at proactively removing hate speech and changing the incentives that result in the most sensational and provocative content becoming the most popular on the site.
The company has done so, it says, by ramping up its operations so that computers can review and make quick decisions on large amounts of content with thousands of reviewers making more nuanced decisions.
In the future, if a person disagrees with Facebook’s decision, he or she will be able to appeal to an independent review board.
Facebook “shouldn’t be making so many important decisions about free expression and safety on our own,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with reporters Thursday.
But as Zuckerberg detailed what the company has accomplished in recent months to crack down on spam, hate speech and violent content, he also acknowledged that Facebook has far to go.
“There are issues you never fix,” he said. “There’s going to be ongoing content issues.”
Company’s actions
In the call, Zuckerberg addressed a recent story in The New York Times that detailed how the company fought back during some of its biggest controversies over the past two years, such as the revelation of how the network was used by Russian operatives in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Times story suggested that company executives first dismissed early concerns about foreign operatives, then tried to deflect public attention away from Facebook once the news came out.
Zuckerberg said the firm made mistakes and was slow to understand the enormity of the issues it faced. “But to suggest that we didn’t want to know is simply untrue,” he said.
Zuckerberg also said he didn’t know the firm had hired Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that spread negative information about Facebook competitors as the social networking firm was in the midst of one scandal after another. Facebook severed its relationship with the firm.
“It may be normal in Washington, but it’s not the kind of thing I want Facebook associated with, which is why we won’t be doing it,” Zuckerberg said.
The firm posted a rebuttal to the Times story.
Content removed
Facebook said it is getting better at proactively finding and removing content such as spam, violent posts and hate speech. The company said it removed or took other action on 15.4 million pieces of violent content between June and September of this year, about double what it removed in the prior three months.
But Zuckerberg and other executives said Facebook still has more work to do in places such as Myanmar. In the third quarter, the firm said it proactively identified 63 percent of the hate speech it removed, up from 13 percent in the last quarter of 2017. At least 100 Burmese language experts are reviewing content, the firm said.
One issue that continues to dog Facebook is that some of the most popular content is also the most sensational and provocative. Facebook said it now penalizes what it calls “borderline content” so it gets less distribution and engagement.
“By fixing this incentive problem in our services, we believe it’ll create a virtuous cycle: by reducing sensationalism of all forms, we’ll create a healthier, less-polarized discourse where more people feel safe participating,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post.
Critics of the company, however, said Zuckerberg hasn’t gone far enough to address the inherent problems of Facebook, which has 2 billion users.
“We have a man-made, for-profit, simultaneous communication space, marketplace and battle space and that it is, as a result, designed not to reward veracity or morality but virality,” said Peter W. Singer, strategist and senior fellow at New America, a nonpartisan think tank, at an event Thursday in Washington, D.C.
VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Judge Allows Mueller Case Against Russian Company to Proceed
A federal judge on Thursday refused to dismiss a special counsel indictment against a Russian company accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, allows the criminal case against Concord Management to proceed.
The company and two other entities were indicted in February for participating in an effort to sway American public opinion through social media posts ahead of the election.
Thirteen Russians were also charged, accused of meddling in the election through bogus Facebook posts aimed at sowing discord on hot-button social issues.
The indictment argued that the Russian defendants conspired to break the law by conspiring “obstruct the lawful functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit,” including by failing to register as foreign agents and by making expenditures in connection with the election without proper disclosure.
Lawyers for the company argued, among other things, that the indictment failed to accuse the company of knowingly breaking the law. Friedrich rejected that analysis in a 32-page opinion Thursday, the latest legal conclusion by a judge to affirm charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
The company, which has pleaded not guilty, had earlier asked for the indictment to be dismissed by challenging Mueller’s appointment as unlawful. That request was also denied.
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