At least 84 dead in 'terrorist' Nice truck attack

July 15, 2016

Nice (France), Jul 15: A truck ploughed into a crowd in the French resort of Nice, killing at least 84 people today in what President Francois Hollande called a "terrorist" attack on revellers watching a Bastille Day fireworks display.

Bastille

The driver was shot dead after barrelling the truck two kilometres through the festive crowd on the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais, sending hundreds fleeing in terror and leaving the area strewn with bodies.

Authorities said they found identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen in the truck, as well as "guns" and "larger weapons".

The attack was of an "undeniable terrorist nature," a sombre Hollande said in a televised national address, confirming that "several children" were among the dead as families came together to celebrate France's national day.

The bloodshed came on Bastille Day, a celebration of everything France holds dear, its secular republic and the values of "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity).

The attacker struck after a day of military pomp and ceremony in Paris -- where armed forces, tanks and fighter jets swooped down the Champs Elysees avenue -- and spectacular firework displays.

"France was struck on its national day ... the symbol of freedom," said Hollande. A photograph showed the front of the truck riddled with bullet holes and badly damaged, with burst tyres. A lone doll lay abandoned on the promenade where families celebrated the holiday just hours earlier.

Robert Holloway, an AFP reporter who witnessed the white truck driving at speed into the crowd, described scenes of "absolute chaos". "We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around. I had to protect my face from flying debris," he said.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters on the scene that the death toll stood at 84, with scores injured including 18 in "critical condition". The attack is the third major strike against France in less than 18 months and prosecutors said anti-terrorist investigators would handle the probe.

It comes eight months after Islamic State attacks on Paris nightspots left 130 people dead, dealing a hard blow to tourism in one of the world's top destinations.

US President Barack Obama condemned "what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack", although no group had yet claimed responsibility. Hollande announced he would extend France's state of emergency for three months in the wake of this latest attack and "step up" the government's action against jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

He also called up army reservists to bolster the country's security services that are stretched to the limit.

Comments

observer
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

Countries like USA, Russia, Israel and India are ruled by murderers engaging in destabilizing the world in the name of Islam. Anti Islam agenda is their prime aim.

arjun
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

@comment #3
Boppanna seems to be right going by the number of mindless terror attacks by Muslims. Terror has no religion but the terrorists are always Muslim. Shame on such a bike cult, where the majority abets the criminality of terrorists.
S

Bopanna
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

Muslims are like cockroaches and have no place in a civilized society.
They should be removed from civil society and put on islands

Bopanna
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

Moshanba you are the frustrated one not me. Taqiiyya always as usual
I can give u the verses if u want

naren kotian
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

where are jihadis in mangalore ... hahaha ... zakir naik skype video nodtha ummah ge jai , lakadi pakadi jummah ohh ummah ankondu kootirbeku ... or 4 options jothe population jaasthi madodu helkodtha irbahudu i mean appa amma aata... hahaha ... france incident proves who is real blood thirsty and it is another henious crimes committed by muslims ... very shocking and discgusting ... they can stoop anylevel ... kachada galu ...mekka and madina dalle bomb madagthave andre .. maklu yaav range nalli corrupted mind and frustrated souls agirbeku ...

moshanna
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

Being in Saudi Arabia our frustrated Bopanna might not aware of the  punishment for twisting the verses of holy quran (blasphemy) .

imtiaz
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

this is gruesome... some psycho can only do this kind of heinous acts.....but media doesn't have any ryt to put d blame on entire religion.... ISIS does not represent Islam at all....ISIS is not Islam...jus cos few bastards grow beard n waive black flags doesn't mean that they r muslims.....

ISlam is the religion Of Allah,,,, n Allah alone will protect His religion.....

Vijay
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

All \peace \" commentators left India to join IS?"

Bopanna
 - 
Friday, 15 Jul 2016

Why are the followers of Religion of \Piece\" not commenting here ?
It's written in the Koran that the month of Ramadan should be one to sow the seeds of terror in the hearts of non Muslims.

Can you tell the truth rather than taqiiyya ?"

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Agencies
January 6,2020

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is far from over. New explosive details leaked by a whistleblower shows that the extent of the rot is far deeper than previously thought.

An anonymous Twitter account, @HindsightFiles, has started releasing the documents, apparently on behalf of Brittany Kaiser, a former employee of the now defunct British data analytics and consulting company Cambridge Analytica.

"Democracies around the world are being auctioned to the highest bidder. We release the documents that explain how," reads the biography of the @HindsightFiles.

The document will reveal previously unreleased emails, project plans, case studies, negotiations and more spanning over 60 countries.

"Over the past two years I have given evidence to investigators, journalists and academics to analyse what happened at Cambridge Analytica, and how our data was used to influence democracies around the world. In the name of shedding light on these dark practices, I am releasing documents and emails in full for the public good," Kaiser, who worked with Cambridge Analytica from 2014 to 208, was quoted as saying.

"I do this to strengthen the case for data rights and enforcement of our electoral laws online globally. We should all be seeking more ethical digital future for ourselves and our children," added Kaiser who starred in the Oscar-shortlisted Netflix documentary "The Great Hack".

The details released so far includes links to material on the firm's activities in Malaysia, Kenya, Brazil and Iran, an addition to the John Bolton archive.

Over the next months, more than 100,000 documents relating to work in 68 countries are set to be released, according to a report in The Guardian.

More than one and a half year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal first became public, US regulators last month said that the now-defunct British data analytics and consulting company engaged in deceptive practices to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting.

According to Kaiser, the Facebook data scandal was part of a much bigger global operation designed to manipulate people in collaboration with governments, intelligence agencies, commercial companies and political campaigns.

The unpublished documents contain material that suggests the firm collaborated with a political party in Ukraine in 2017 even while under investigation as part of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, said The Guardian report.

"There are emails between these major Trump donors discussing ways of obscuring the source of their donations through a series of different financial vehicles. These documents expose the entire dark money machinery behind US politics," Kaiser was quoted as saying.

Similar tactics were deployed in other countries that Cambridge Analytica operated in, including Britain, she claimed.

The files released by Kaiser suggest that Cambridge Analytica offered to help United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the party of Malaysia's Former Prime Minister Najib Razak, to influence the voting of 40 parliamentary constituencies in the 14th General Election (GE14) in 2013.

Umno, according to the leaks, requested the company to prepare a proposal to regain 13 seats, The South China Morning Post reported on Saturday.

In 2018, Razak claimed that he had never engaged Cambridge Analytica in any way.

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Agencies
April 17,2020

Beijing/Wuhan, Apr 17: China's coronavirus death toll mounted to 4,632 on Friday as the country revised figures in its epicentre Wuhan with 1,290 additional fatalities amid international criticism of under-reporting of COVID-19 data.

The Wuhan municipal headquarters on Friday revised the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths due to the disease, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

As of April 16, the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Wuhan was increased by 325 to 50,333 and the number of fatalities up by 1,290 to 3,869.

The revised figure raised China's overall COVID-19 death toll to 4,632. The total number of cases also increased to 82,692.

The Wuhan municipal headquarters in a notification said the revisions were made in accordance with related laws and regulations as well as the principle of being responsible for history, the people and the deceased.

The revision of figures came amid sharp criticism of China by the US and other nations for its alleged under-reporting of the coronavirus cases and cover-up of the origin of the viral strain, which emerged in Wuhan in December last, reportedly from the local Hunan sea food market.

Explaining the reason for the figure revision, the Wuhan municipality said it was done to ensure that the information on the city's COVID-19 epidemic is open and transparent, and that the data are accurate.

Listing the reasons for the data discrepancies, it said the surging number of patients at the early stage of the epidemic overwhelmed medical resources and the admission capacity of medical institutions. Some patients died at home without having been treated in hospitals.

Besides, during the height of their treating efforts, hospitals were operating beyond their capacities and medical staff were preoccupied with saving and treating patients, resulting in belated, missed and mistaken reporting.

Also, due to a rapid increase of designated hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients -- including those administered by ministries, Hubei Province, Wuhan city and its districts, those affiliated to companies, as well as private hospitals and makeshift hospitals -- a few medical institutions were not linked to the epidemic information network and failed to report their data in time.

The registered information of some of the deceased patients was incomplete, and there were repetitions and mistakes in the reporting, the Wuhan authorities noted.

Citing an official of the Wuhan municipal headquarters, Xinhua reported that a group for epidemic-related big data and epidemiological investigations was established in late March.

The group used information from online systems and collected full information from all epidemic-related locations to ensure that facts about every case are accurate and every figure is objective and correct.

"What lie behind the epidemic data are the lives and health of the general public, as well as the credibility of the government," the official was quoted by the report.

The timely revision of the figures, among other things, shows respect for every single life, the official said.

Meanwhile, the revised cases were not included in the overall national figures released by China's National Commission (NHC) in its daily report on Friday as it reports previous day's cases.

As per NHC data, as of Thursday the overall confirmed cases of coronavirus was 82,367, including 3,342 deaths.

As many as 1,081 patients are being treated and 77,944 people discharged after recovery, it said.

NHC said it received reports of 26 new confirmed COVID-19 cases from the mainland on Thursday, of which 15 were imported.

The other 11 new cases were domestically transmitted, it said, noting that five cases were reported in Guangdong Province, three in Heilongjiang Province, two in Shandong Province and one in Liaoning Province.

No death was reported on Thursday on the mainland.

As of Thursday, China has a total of 1,549 imported cases, NHC said, adding that 879 were undergoing treatment with 45 in severe condition. Besides, there were 66 new asymptomatic cases, taking the tally to 1,038.

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Agencies
August 4,2020

Washington, Aug 4: US President Donald Trump gave popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok six weeks to sell its US operations to an American company, saying Monday it would be "out of business" otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.

"It's got to be an American company... it's got to be owned here," Trump said. "We don't want to have any problem with security."

Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.

But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share millions of Americans' personal data with Chinese intelligence.

Trump gave the company's Chinese parent ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.

"I set a date of around September 15, at which point it's going to be out of business in the United States," he said.

Whatever the price is, he said, "the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we're making it possible."

Trump compared the demand for a piece of the pie to a landlord demanding under-the-table "key money" from a new tenant, a practice widely illegal including in New York, where the billionaire president built his real estate empire.

"TikTok is a big success, but a big portion of it is in the country," he said. "I think it's very fair."

But Trump also threw a surprise new condition in any deal, saying the sale of TikTok's US business would have to result in a significant payout to the US Treasury for initiating it.

"A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States, because we're making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump told reporters.

"They don't have any rights unless we give it to them," he said.

Sell or shut down

The pressure for a sale of TikTok's US and international business, based in Los Angeles, left the company and ByteDance facing tough decisions.

Trump has made TikTok the latest front in the ongoing political and trade battles between Washington and Beijing.

The app has been under formal investigation on US national security grounds because it collects large amounts of personal data on all its users and is legally bound to share that with authorities in Beijing if they demand it.

Both its huge user base and its algorithm for collecting data make it hugely valuable.

But being forced by the US government to sell at least its US business or be shut down -- and to then split the sale price with the US Treasury as Trump is demanding -- was an almost unheard-of tactic.

Shutting down could force users to switch to competitors, and many content creators are already encouraging followers to follow them on other social media platforms.

"The most obvious beneficiaries are Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter, with Snapchat likely being the biggest beneficiary," said investment analysts at Lightshed Partners.

Earlier Monday, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming acknowledged the hefty pressure and said in a letter to staff, reported by Chinese media, that they were working around-the-clock "for the best outcome."

"We have always been committed to ensuring user data security, as well as the platform neutrality and transparency," Zhang said.

However, he said, the company faces "mounting complexities across the geopolitical landscape and significant external pressure."

He said the company must confront the challenge from the United States, though "without giving up exploring any possibilities."

According to Britain's The Sun newspaper Monday, as a possible consequence of the pressure, ByteDance is planning to relocate TikTok's global operations to Britain.

Pushing back

China's foreign ministry pushed back Monday, calling Washington hypocritical for demanding TikTok be sold.

"The US is using an abused concept of national security and, without providing any evidence, is making presumptions of guilt and issuing threats to relevant companies," said spokesman Wang Wenbin.

"This goes against the principle of market economy and exposes the hypocrisy and typical double standards of the US in upholding so-called fairness and freedom," he added.

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