Facebook Focus on India, Others In "Big Year Of Elections": Mark Zuckerberg

Agencies
April 5, 2018

Facebook has deployed technology tools like artificial intelligence and thousands of people to work on security as the company's "major focus" this year is to protect the integrity of upcoming elections in several countries, including India, on its platform, its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said.

Terming 2018 a "big year" for elections, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was enhancing its security features to prevent trolls from spreading information.

The social media giant has been slammed over a major data breach scandal by Cambridge Analytica, a British firm linked to Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

"In the US Senate Alabama special election last year, we successfully deployed some new artificial intelligence (AI) tools that removed Macedonian trolls who were trying to spread information during the election. We now have about 15,000 people working on security and content review and we'll have more than 20,000 by the end of this year," Mark Zuckerberg told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday.

"This is going to be a big year for elections ahead with the US midterms and elections in India, Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, Hungary and others. This is going to be a major focus for us," he said.

Several states like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are scheduled to go for polls this year and the general elections are due in a little over a year from now.

A day earlier, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook had taken big steps by taking down Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) pages that were targeting the US.

"Since we became aware of their activity after the 2016 US elections, we've been working to root out the IRA and protect the integrity of elections around the world," he said.

"There have been a number of important elections that we've focused on. A few months after the 2016 elections, there was a French presidential election and leading up to that we deployed some new AI tools that took down more than 30,000 fake accounts," he said.

In German election, the company developed a new playbook for working with the local election commission on share information on threats it received, he said.

"We have more work to do here and we're going to continue working very hard to defend against them. There's the Mexican presidential election, there are big elections in India and Brazil as well as in Pakistan and Hungary and a number of other countries and the US midterms, of course," he said.

The Facebook CEO pointed out three different types of activity that required different strategies for fighting.

Economic actors, who are basically spammers; the second are governments trying to interfere in elections, and then the third is just polarisation and sometimes lack of truthfulness in what you've described as the media, he said.

"If we just make it so that the economics stop working for them then they'll move on to something else. I mean, these are literally the same type of people who had been sending you Viagra e-mails in the '90s. We can attack it on both sides. on the revenue side, we make it so that they can't run the Facebook ad network," he said.

The second category are the national security type issues, Mark Zuckerberg said, adding that is the Russian election interference.

"In order to solve that, what we need to do is to identify these bad actors...What we need to do is to just track that really carefully in order to just be able to remove it from Facebook entirely," he said.

Mark Zuckerberg alleged that some media organisations that are sanctioned news outlets in Russia when investigated closely over time, clearly come out as organisations completely owned, controlled and operated by the IRA.

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News Network
July 10,2020

London, Jul 10: India's Reliance will load its first cargo of Venezuelan crude in three months this week in exchange for diesel under a swap deal the parties say is permitted under the US sanctions regime on the Latin American country, according to a Reliance source and a shipping document from state oil firm PDVSA.

Washington has exempted some Venezuelan oil trade from sanctions when transactions are in exchange for fuel and food or to repay debts rather than for cash. But that trade slowed as the US tightened restrictions and refiners, shippers and insurers have been steering clear of Venezuela to avoid any risk they may fall foul of sanctions.

Washington aims to deprive Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro of his main source of revenue with the sanctions, which have driven Venezuelan oil exports to their lowest level since the 1940s.

Reliance gave the US State Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice of the diesel swap and received word back that the policies that allowed the transaction were still in place, the Reliance source told Reuters.

Reliance has previously said that its supplies of fuel to PDVSA in exchange for crude were permitted under sanctions.

An oil tanker named Commodore would load the cargo of crude in Venezuela and ship it to India, the tanker's manager NGM Energy said.

"All details of the transaction and transportation were shared with US authorities, who confirmed that the U.S. policy authorizing such transactions remained in place," NGM Energy said in a statement to Reuters.

"The shipment is made in connection with the humanitarian exchange of oil for diesel fuel."

The Commodore is loading a 1.9-million barrel cargo of crude for Reliance at Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, according to an internal PDVSA cargo schedule seen by Reuters.

The Liberian-flagged Commodore was at the Jose Terminal on Thursday, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The US State Department, Treasury's enforcement arm OFAC, and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reliance has a swap deal to provide diesel to Venezuela in exchange for fuel but has not received a cargo of crude since April. Sources at Indian refiners told Reuters earlier this year they planned to wind down their purchases of Venezuelan oil to avoid any problems with supply due to sanctions.

Other long-time customers of PDVSA, including Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, have continued taking cargoes of Venezuelan crude this year under permission granted by the US Treasury Department to exchange the oil for diesel supply as part of debt repayment deals, according to sources from the companies.

NGM Energy also manages the Voyager I tanker, which the United States removed from its list of sanctioned vessels last week after NGM and the ship's owner Sanibel Shiptrade said they would increase measures to ensure vessels complied with international sanctions.

"Last month, NGM Energy SA adopted a firm policy of not allowing vessels under its commercial management to trade to Venezuela, or to carry Venezuelan petroleum cargoes, absent US government authorization," NGM said.

"NGM continues to stand by that pledge."

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News Network
March 7,2020

Srinagar, Mar 7: Two more accused, including a man who allegedly bought chemicals online for making improvised explosive device (IED) to be used in an attack on a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama last year, were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday, an official said.

The terror attack left 40 CRPF personnel dead in south Kashmir's Pulwama last year.

Waiz-ul-Islam, 19, from Srinagar and Mohammad Abbass Rather, 32, from Pulwama were arrested by the NIA, taking the number of those arrested in the case in the past week to five.

"During initial interrogation, Islam disclosed that he used his Amazon online shopping account to procure chemicals for making IEDs, batteries and other accessories on the directions of Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists," the official said.

He said Islam personally delivered the items to the JeM terrorists after buying them online as a part of the conspiracy to carry out the attack.

"Rather is an old overground worker of the JeM. He has disclosed that he gave shelter at his home to Jaish terrorist and IED expert Mohd Umar after he came to Kashmir in April-May 2018," the official said.

Rather also sheltered other JeM terrorists - suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar, Sameer Ahmed Dar and Kamran, a Pakistani -- at his house before the Pulwama attack, the official said.

"He also facilitated safe shelter for the JeM terrorists, including Adil, at the house of accused Tariq Ahmed Shah and his daughter Insha Jan of Hakripora, who were arrested on March 3," the official said.

He said Islam and Rather will be produced before the NIA special court in Jammu on Saturday, while further investigation in the case continues. The NIA took over the case to probe the conspiracy behind the February 14, 2019, attack in Pulwama.

The last video of Adil, which was released by the JeM from Pakistan after the terror attack, was filmed at the home of Tariq Ahmed Shah. On February 28, the NIA achieved a major breakthrough in the case when it arrested 22-year-old Shakir Bashir Magrey, a furniture shop owner and resident of Pulwama.

Magrey had given shelter and other logistical assistance to suicide bomber Adil. He was introduced to Adil in mid-2018 by Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Umar Farooq and he became a full-time OGW of the JeM.

The explosives used in the attack were determined through forensic probe to be ammonium nitrate, nitro-glycerin and RDX. During investigation into the attack, the identity of the suicide bomber to be Adil Ahmad Dar was confirmed through DNA matching with that of his father.

The other key terrorists involved in the attack have been found to be JeM's south Kashmir divisional head Muddasir Ahmad Khan, killed in an operation by the security forces on March 11 last year; Pakistani terrorists Muhammad Umar Farooq and IED expert Kamran, both killed on March 29 last year; the owner of the car Sajjad Ahmad Bhat, a resident of Anantnag who was killed on June 16 last year, and Qari Yassir, JeM's commander for Kashmir who was killed on January 25 this year.

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Agencies
June 9,2020

Srinagar, Jun 9: Suspended Jammu and Kashmir DSP Davinder Singh, who was nabbed while ferrying two Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway, moved a Delhi court on Tuesday seeking interim bail.

Besides Singh, two other accused -- Syed Naveed Mushtaq and Imran Shafi Mir -- have also sought bail. The Special Cell of the Delhi Police is probing their role in the alleged planning of a terror attack.

The trio has sought bail asserting that there is no evidence to show that there was any conspiracy to commit an act that would threaten the sovereignty of the country. The court has listed the matter for hearing on Wednesday.

"The accused are wrongly and falsely implicated in the case. There is also no material to substantiate that the accused had the intention or conspired to carry out a terror strike," the plea stated.

Singh is currently under judicial custody at the Hira Nagar Jail in J&K till June 16. Besides Singh, three other accused -- Javed Iqbal, Syed Naveed Mushtaq and Imran Shafi Mir -- are also under custody.

Delhi Police's Special Cell had brought him from Hira Nagar Jail to the national capital in March for interrogation in another case.

The police had earlier told the court that Mushtaq, who was the commander of Hizbul Mujahiddeen in Shopian district, along with other militants were planning to execute a terror attack in Delhi and other parts of the country and targeted killings of protected persons.

In connection with this, the Delhi Police had filed an FIR which stated that the youth of Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab are being trained for carrying out terrorist activities. Singh was taken into custody under this FIR and was also interrogated regarding the Khalistan angle.

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