Threats risk abuse and misuse of media and information

London (CNN) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government have spent much of this week fighting with the EU and rowing with a European human rights court , all while playing down accusations that they are breaking international law and pandering to his party's base. On Monday, Johnson's foreign secretary, Liz Truss, revealed the long-awaited Northern Ireland Protocol Bill , a piece of legislation that, if passed, would allow the British government to unilaterally override parts of the Brexit deal it agreed with the EU in 2019. Two days later, the EU responded by launching legal proceedings against the UK over its failure to implement parts of the protocol to date, while Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president, said that "there is no legal nor political justification whatsoever for unilaterally changing an international agreement ... let's call a spade a spade: this is illegal." UK government officials responded angrily by insisting … [Read more...] about Boris Johnson’s wish to pick fights with his old enemies risks making the UK a pariah

(Photo by Zahid Izzani/The Edge ) - A + A ARAU (June 30): The Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP) is looking for solutions to tackle the problem of abuse of subsidised cooking oil to ensure that the issue does not recur, said KPDNHEP deputy minister Datuk Rosol Wahid. He said this included misappropriation committed by certain parties who mixed subsidised cooking oil with used cooking oil to be sold to biodiesel processing companies. Rosol said used cooking oil that was processed for the biodiesel industry is being sold at a higher price than subsidised cooking oil. "We have information that used cooking oil can reach up to RM4.20 per kilogramme (kg) compared to RM2.50 per kg for subsidised cooking oil," he said, adding that KPDNHEP is finding ways to resolve the problem. "Two days ago, KPDNHEP Johor busted a syndicate involved in the misappropriation of subsidised cooking oil in a raid mounted on a factory in Kota Masai, Pasir Gudang … [Read more...] about KPDNHEP finding total solutions to tackle abuse of subsidised cooking oil

FTC and 48 state attorneys general file lawsuits against Facebook Complaints seek to reverse Instagram, WhatsApp acquisitions 60% of Facebook's revenue expected to come from Instagram in 2022 On Wednesday, social media company Facebook was hit with not one, but two, antitrust lawsuits. The complaints filed by the Federal Trade Commission   and a coalition of 48 state attorneys general demand the unwinding of its acquisitions of Instagram (2012, costing $715 million) and WhatsApp (2014, costing $19.6 billion). These acquisitions are said to have both neutralized the direct threat and made it harder for new entrants to gain scale. The complaints also accuse the social media company of blocking third-party software developer's access to key APIs to stifle any potential competition. States want the firm to seek approval before it makes any future big buys. "Personal social networking is central to the lives of millions of Americans," said Ian Conner, Director of the … [Read more...] about Facebook Risks Popular Apps in Antitrust Lawsuits

Government officials have been slammed by the public for wasting taxpayer money. Thai netizens have slammed government officials in the central province of Pathum Thani for wasting taxes on a pointless trip to Phang Nga and Phuket. Government officials from the Mueng ท่าโขลง District were supposed to be taking part in a working seminar to develop women’s potential in Phang Nga, and Phuket, from June 23 – 26. But the non-profit organisation, Anti-Corruption of Thailand, criticised the government on its Facebook page, saying they used the 490,000 baht trip as a holiday. The pictures posted on the non-profit organisation’s Facebook page were taken from the Facebook accounts of the seminar participants. The picture captions were cutting. One said, “Others might go to the sea to escape from love and hot weather, but we escape from work.” Another said, “Go to Phuket! Thanks to the kind sponsors,” and another, “Wonderful activities for ท่าโขลง women.” The pictures reveal … [Read more...] about Thailand News Today | Govt officials slammed for wasting tax money

Sam Kiley is CNN's Senior International Correspondent. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. Kharkiv (CNN) For a man so schooled in Sophistry that truth has no meaning, it's hard to imagine more meaningful words from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson than when he warned that "the consequences for the world are absolutely catastrophic" if Russian President Vladimir Putin's war machine prevailed in Ukraine. He's absolutely right about that. Right too when he described Ukraine as being on a "knife-edge" during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G7 summit in Bavaria this week. Which is odd. Because Johnson has two things in common with Putin that serve the Russian president's strategic aims far more than his support for Ukraine threatens them. Ukrainians are dying for the right to join the European Union -- an international body Johnson fought to leave, and that Putin's worked hard to … [Read more...] about Opinion: Don’t be fooled by Boris Johnson’s backing of Ukraine

South Bangkok Civil Court yesterday ordered The Royal Thai Police to pay about 3.4 million baht in compensation for the false imprisonment and brutal torture of a teenager in 2009. Ritthirong Chuenchit was arrested by Prachin Buri Police’s criminal investigation team on January 28, 2009, for suspected theft. During the investigation, police tried to extract a confession from the victim, who was 18 at the time, by putting a plastic bag over his head causing suffocation and resulting in convulsions. Sound familiar? The police also threatened to kill the boy and dump his corpse in the เอาอีตี้ mountains if he didn’t confess to the crime. In other words, they were willing to commit murder over a theft crime. But it turns out the police arrested the wrong man. After 8 years of struggle trying to find the cash to hire a lawyer, Ritthirong filed a civil suit with the Southern Bangkok Civil Court against the Royal Thai Police in 2017 and demanded the police pay him … [Read more...] about Thailand News Today | Court sentences police for torturing teenager

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. His forthcoming paperback is " The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World ." View more opinion on CNN. (CNN) The former commander of the US Special Operations Command in Europe, retired US Army Maj. Gen. Mike Repass, says the international community has to greatly increase its support for Ukraine if the embattled nation is ever going to be able to drive the Russians out. Repass has advised the Ukrainian military for the past six years on a US government contract. Last month he visited Poland and western Ukraine to get a better feel for the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. I spoke to him Friday and Monday. He says the Ukrainian supply chain for military equipment is inefficient and that additional military forces are required to drive the Russians out of Ukraine. To win the war in Ukraine, Repass … [Read more...] about Retired US major general: What it will take for the Ukrainians to win

Roe v. Wade is no more, but this is not 1972, the year before it was passed. In some ways, it’s even worse. advertisement advertisement When the Supreme Court ruled last week that banning abortion is not unconstitutional, abortion immediately became illegal in several states with “trigger laws” primed to take effect with just such a ruling. It’s about to become illegal in several more states in which previously passed laws restricting abortion had been blocked by federal courts. Millions of people are about to lose access to safe, legal abortions, and those who provide abortion access or support will face consequences ranging from civil suits to arrest in some states. These are grim times for abortion access. And the forecast is even more grim because we now live in an era of unprecedented digital surveillance. I’ve spent most of my career helping to protect activists and journalists in authoritarian countries, where it is often wise to think … [Read more...] about Now that ‘Roe’ has been overturned, it’s up to the tech industry to protect our data

- A + A (June 30): It was an unusually frigid December weekend when Cheng Wei summoned his inner circle to his Beijing office. The founder of Didi Global Inc, dressed entirely in black, told his lieutenants to slash spending by a fifth in 2022 and begin layoffs after staff return from Lunar New Year vacations. He delivered his bombshell flanked by a giant Powerpoint slide that read: “Don’t live with illusions. Face reality.” “We had a tough year,” said the reserved billionaire known as Will, who that day seemed even gloomier than normal, according to people briefed on the gathering. “But next year will be even tougher.” That sombre gathering encapsulated what many in the room already suspected — the ride-hailing champion once feted for running Uber Technologies Inc out of China was no more. In its place was a defeated shell worth a fifth of its value at the peak, bleeding users, blocked from raising funds for cherished projects — and whose executives were constantly … [Read more...] about Inside Didi’s US$60b crash that changed China tech forever

London (CNN) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered a hammer blow to his authority on Friday after his party lost two parliamentary by-elections in a single night, raising new questions about his leadership . Labour's Simon Lightwood won the West Yorkshire seat of Wakefield, in northern England, with a majority of 4,925 on a swing of 12.7 percentage points from the Conservatives to Labour. Moments later, Liberal Democrat Richard Foord won the Tiverton and Honiton by-election in Devon, western England, with a dramatic swing of almost 30 points. The Conservatives had held the seat with a majority of more than 24,000 votes, so the win was one of the biggest ever majorities to be overturned at a UK parliamentary by-election. Helen Hurford, the defeated Conservative Party candidate, had locked herself in a room previously reserved for media interviews at the counting venue, and was reportedly refusing to speak to any media, PA Media reported. … [Read more...] about Boris Johnson’s future in peril as Conservative Party hit with double election losses