Daily: 09/02/2021

США: Байден назвав рішення Верховного суду про заборону абортів у Техасі «безпрецедентним нападом» на права жінок

Техаський закон забороняє аборти з моменту, коли можна виявити серцеву активність плоду – найчастіше це стається на шостому тижні вагітності

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ОАСК: Олександр Дубілет хоче зобов’язати МВС видалити інформацію про його розшук

Колишньому голові правління «Приватбанку» оголошені дві підозри в розтраті грошей, він перебуває в розшуку і заочно арештований

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Taliban Detain Former British Soldier, Ending Bid to Evacuate NGO Staff

The Taliban on Thursday briefly detained a former British soldier who was trying to evacuate overland 50 Afghan employees and 350 of their relatives, according to British media reports.  Ben Slater says he launched his own evacuation bid after British officials failed to approve visas in time for his staff, consisting mainly of women, to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last week.The Taliban interrogated him for several hours but then released him, telling him he could cross the border with one assistant, but the rest of his staff had to remain in Afghanistan as none of them had British visas, he told British reporters.”It’s a complete disaster, really. It’s disgusting. It’s beyond horrible,” Slater, chairman of a string of Kabul-based NGOs, told Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper. He and his employees spent two days at a hotel near a border checkpoint before he was detained and interrogated about members of his staff. Slater said he was also questioned about why some of the single women in his party were staying in the hotel without husbands.FILE – People gather at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S troops withdrawal, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 31, 2021.A former soldier in Britain’s Royal Military Police, the 37-year-old Slater has been publicly highly critical of Britain’s Foreign Ministry for failing to approve visas in time for his staff to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last month. Slater said Thursday that he had kept British officials informed of his escape plan and asked in advance for them to facilitate a border crossing.Midweek, before leaving Kabul, he told British reporters, “It’s going to be a long trip, and I am hoping on the other end that the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] have got our visas sorted, or at least have spoken to the foreign affairs ministry in our destination country to allow access for our vulnerable staff.” Growing anger toward RaabSlater’s failed bid to get his staff out of Afghanistan is adding to a political furor in London over last month’s airlift operations by the British government, with pressure mounting on the country’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to resign. Critics, including the chairs of the British Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committees, have accused Raab of a lack of preparation for the crisis.Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks during a press conference in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2021.He remained on a family vacation in the Mediterranean as the government of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani collapsed and the Taliban neared Kabul.”Dominic Raab should have resigned three times by now: for staying on the beach, for his department’s dismal failure to respond to thousands of cases of Afghans trying to get out of the country, and for the fact that potentially thousands of Afghans who helped our soldiers are now left stranded,” the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said in a statement Wednesday.Britain managed to airlift 17,000 people out of Afghanistan, 8,000 of them Afghans. Since the airlift concluded last week, British officials have suggested about 9,000 Afghans at risk of Taliban reprisals remained in the country, along with 100 to 200 British nationals, some dual citizens. Opposition parties and some lawmakers from Britain’s ruling Conservatives estimate the number is much higher, and Raab acknowledged Wednesday he couldn’t give a “definitive” figure for the number of Afghans eligible to be resettled in Britain because they worked for British security forces. More than 5,000 emails from Afghans to the British Foreign Office are still to be read, he conceded when questioned in the House of Commons. Afghan refugeesSlater’s failed bid to cross a land border with his staff also is adding to fears that the Taliban won’t keep promises made this week to Western leaders to allow Afghans to leave the country unhindered and unharmed. Taliban leaders have said Afghans who have passports and visas will be able to leave when commercial flights resume but have said little about Afghans leaving overland.Britain dispatched one of its top diplomats, Simon Gass, to Doha on Monday for face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders about securing safe passage for British nationals and at-risk Afghans who remain in Afghanistan. Gass chairs Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Canadian diplomats also have met with the Taliban in Qatar to discuss issues of safe passage. Neighboring countries have largely closed their borders. All the neighboring states remain reluctant to open their borders and have little appetite to see an influx of refugees. Pakistan already hosts 1.4 million documented Afghan refugees, and Iran 780,000. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans also are believed to live in both countries, and in recent years, both Iran and Pakistan have increased deportations.The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has urged Afghanistan’s neighbors to reopen their borders. “We’ve been intensifying our calls over the last week to neighboring countries to keep their borders open because of the gravity of the situation, and if any Afghans are unable to reach safety, that risks lives,” Kathryn Mahoney, UNHCR’s global spokesperson, told VOA this week.Taliban fighters wave as they patrol in a convoy along a street in Kabul on Sept. 2, 2021.UNHCR officials note 3.5 million Afghans are already displaced from their homes in Afghanistan, and worry that drought, rising unemployment and a banking collapse in that country could drive hundreds of thousands of people to the borders. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have indicated they are ready to serve as transit countries for Afghan refugees but also have said they don’t want large permanent settlements. Officials in Dushanbe and Tashkent say they don’t have the economic resources to cope. They also fear complicating their relations with Afghanistan’s new rulers, say Western diplomats. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported the Uzbeks are pressing Washington to transport out of Uzbekistan a group of Afghan military pilots who fled to Tashkent. Uzbekistan remains closed, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry. Tajikistan may allow some entry after the country’s Independence Day celebration on September 20. After a five-hour meeting, interior ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed Tuesday that the bloc should offer financial support for Afghanistan’s neighbors to manage the refugee crisis at their borders. There was no confirmation about how much money the bloc is considering, but privately officials say the number being considered is 1 billion euros. EU national leaders, as well as the European Commission, are fearful the continent could see a massive influx of Afghan refugees and a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis that roiled Europe politically and fueled the rise of populist nationalist parties. The refugees came not only from Syria but Iraq, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa. The offer of large payments to Afghanistan’s neighbors would be modeled on the agreement the EU struck with Turkey in 2016 to shelter refugees, while at the same time helping to block them from traveling to EU countries.   It isn’t clear whether Afghanistan’s neighbors will accept such a deal. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, appeared scornful Wednesday of the EU’s plan. “We house over 4 million Afghan refugees, this when the conversation in the West is about five more refugees is too many,” he told European broadcasters. He has been urging Western powers to engage politically with the Taliban and offer them financial support to prevent a refugee crisis. 

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«Аль-Джазіра»: в аеропорту Кабула завтра поновлять внутрішні рейси

Наразі не відомо, коли аеропорт Кабула почне здійснювати міжнародні перевезення

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«Роскомнагляд» вимагає від Apple та Google видалити додаток Навального

У повідомленні чиновників від 2 вересня Apple і Google знову погрожують штрафами

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У МЗС розцінюють відмову Росії продовжити мандат місії ОБСЄ на кордоні як «саботаж» Мінських угод

У МЗС наголосили, що розглядають таке рішення як свідчення планів Росії продовжувати та збільшувати «постачання зброї, військового обладнання, боєприпасів, регулярних військ і найманців» на Донбас

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В МВС заявили, що Геращенка призначили на посаду радника міністра

У серпні Геращенка звільнили з посади заступника міністра. Він працював на цій посаді з 2019 року

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For Spain’s African Migrant Vendors, Innovation is Key to Freedom

he clandestine sea route from the coasts of Senegal to Spain is a dangerous voyage for thousands of migrants. For those who make it, what awaits them is a life outside the law and the stigma of being called an illegal immigrant. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.Camera: Alfonso Beato

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Afghan Еvacuees in Albania Say They Feel Safe, But Worry About Homeland

Albania is temporarily hosting some 600 Afghan refugees who have fled the violence and chaos in their country. The last of several flights – with 150 people on board – arrived in Albania August 30. Ilirian Agolli spoke with some of them. Keida Kostreci narrates his story. 

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Ireland Fines WhatsApp for Breaching EU Privacy Laws

Ireland on Thursday slapped Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service with a record fine for breaching EU data privacy laws after European regulators demanded the penalty be increased.Ireland’s Data Protection Commission was entrusted with the case because Facebook’s European headquarters are situated in the country.”And following this reassessment the DPC has imposed a fine of 225 million euros ($267 million) on WhatsApp,” the commission said, by far the largest penalty it has ever issued to a company, dwarfing the 450,000-euro fine imposed on Twitter last year. As Ireland hosts the regional headquarters of a number of major tech players such as Apple, Google and Twitter, the DPC has been largely responsible for policing adherence to the EU’s landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) charter.But Ireland has come under pressure for not taking a firm enough line against tech giants, who are generally understood to be drawn to the country by its low corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent.WhatsApp said it would appeal the decision.”We disagree with the decision today” it said in a statement, calling the penalties “entirely disproportionate.”‘Dissuasive fine’The DPC launched the WhatsApp probe in December 2018 to examine whether the messaging app “discharged its GDPR transparency obligations” with regard to telling users how their data would be processed between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies.In an initial finding submitted to other European regulators for approval last December, the DPC proposed imposing a fine of between 30 and 50 million euros, but a number of national regulators rejected the figure, triggering the launch of a dispute resolution process in June.Last month, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) instructed the DPC to increase the fine, with Germany’s regulator leading the calls for the penalty to be higher. The EDPB said that the fine had to “reflect a significant level of non-compliance which impact on all of the processing carried out by WhatsApp” in Ireland.The fine had to be “effective, dissuasive and proportionate,” it said. Hailed as a potent weapon to bring tech titans to heel, the GDPR endowed national watchdogs with cross-border powers and the possibility to impose sizeable fines for data misuse.But Germany’s data protection commissioner, Ulrich Kelber, in March wrote an open letter criticizing the DPC for the “extremely slow” way it handled GDPR complaints.

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У Нью-Йорку оголосили надзвичайний стан. Щонайменше 9 людей загинули через негоду

Вода затопила деякі станції метро в Нью-Йорку. Влада міста запровадила заборону на рух автотранспорту, за винятком автомобілів екстрених служб

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Кулеба і Блінкен восени проведуть засідання оновленої комісії стратегічного партнерства України і США

Оприлюднену напередодні спільну заяву щодо стратегічного партнерства України і США Кулеба назвав «безпрецедентним документом»

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Some Nigerian-based Experts Warn of China’s Growing Influence in African Technology

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with cutting-edge digital technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored information and communications technology (ICT) competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa. Computer engineering finalist Muhammad Maihaja is set to graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria’s Kaduna state in November.  In 2019, he was part of a team of six from the school who represented Nigeria at the global Huawei ICT competition in Shenzhen, China, where they finished in third place. Huawei introduced the competition to Africa in 2014 to identify and nurture highly skilled ICT professionals — what the company says is part of its expanding talent search in Africa’s tech sector that has benefited some 2,000 African students like Maihaja.   “We have been exposed to devices and technologies we’ve never experienced before. As normal university students, we would not have experienced what we did experience in the competition. So, I’ll say … this has made me much more ICT inclined, so to say,” Maihaja said.The competition evaluates students’ competence in network and cloud technology. Maihaja and his team’s success in 2019 was a rare achievement for an African team, let alone a first-time participant. The feat inspired many other students like Hamza Atabor who tried out for the next edition in 2020. He and the other Nigerian students this time won the competition.  “I was inspired by, you know, when they talked about their stories, how they won the competition, and also when they were given their prizes and everything. I just felt, OK, this is something to actually make a sacrifice for,” Atabor said.Students like Maihaja and Atabor are meeting Huawei’s set objective, but critics say the company is only a fragment of China’s fast-paced dominance in Africa’s technology landscape. Huawei reportedly accounts for more than 70% of the continent’s telecommunications network. Mohammed Bashir Muazu, a professor of computer engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, says it’s no surprise China is gaining traction in Africa.   “Seeing the level of technological developments in China, I think what is actually happening is inevitable,” Muazu said. Concerns about China’s presence in Africa grew in 2019 after U.S. newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, reported that Huawei had helped Ugandan and Zambian authorities spy on political opponents.   Huawei denied the accusations and declined an interview on the matter. But ICT expert Samuel Adekola says China could use its competitive advantage for selfish gains. “It’s really dangerous. I cannot quantify how much they could do, but whoever has data, you can do a lot of things. You have a lot of information about a group of people, the nation,” Adekola said.As long as China continues to invest in Africa, students like Maihaja and Atabor will learn valuable skills, even though experts say Africa may have to pay a price for relying too heavily on foreign companies. 

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Представники Конгресу висловили підтримку посиленню відносин України зі США на зустрічі з Зеленським

«Від надання допомоги в галузі безпеки, що гарантує її оборонні можливості, до співпраці у викоріненні корупції, диверсифікації джерел енергії і підняття економіки і добробуту населення – Україна не має більшого друга, ніж Палата представників США»

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Facebook Invests in New Partnerships With Argentine Press

Social media giant Facebook will invest $1.5 million in Argentine media to train journalists and promote online development, a first in Latin America.The agreement signed last week with almost 150 media outlets will allow 3,000 journalists to be trained, while also helping Facebook develop commercial agreements.It’s part of the Facebook Journalism Project that involves collaboration with media all over the world.The three-year Argentine investment aims “to support almost 150 media of every size and region in the country,” Julieta Shamma, Facebook’s head of strategic media partnerships in Latin America, told AFP.The agreement involves commercial commitments with around 30 Argentine outlets including Clarin, La Nacion, Pagina12 and Infobae to attract more links to the Facebook platform.”We’re collaborating with media to try different forms of helping people find news on Facebook and connect with them,” Shamma said.Facebook will offer training in themes such as product development, format experimentation and using statistics, among others.”We believe the digital transformation will create new opportunities for the news ecosystem, offering different possibilities to expand the audience through social and interactive formats, and to monetize content,” Shamma said.Facebook has already invested $600 million worldwide since 2018 to support digital development in the news industry. The Silicon Valley-based company plans to invest another $1 billion in the next three years. 

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У Росії припинив існування створений Навальним «Фонд боротьби з корупцією»

Згідно з даними Єдиного державного реєстру юридичних осіб на сайті Федеральної податкової служби, ФБК ліквідована 31 серпня

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Зеленський повідомив, що було головним на зустрічі з Байденом

Президент України після завершення переговорів не став спілкуватися з журналістами

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