Modi arrives in Myanmar, to step up engagement with ASEAN

Washington, Feb 27: President Donald Trump has said that the US' relationship with India is "extraordinary" right now and a lot of progress was made in bilateral ties during his maiden official visit to the country where America will be doing a lot of business.

Talking to reporters, after his return from India on Wednesday, Trump said, "He (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is a great gentleman, a great leader. It's an incredible country."

President Trump visited India from February 24 to 25. He was accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and the top brass of his administration, including national security advisor Robert O'Brien.

They visited Ahmedabad, Agra and New Delhi before leaving for Washington on Tuesday.

During his stay, he addressed a massive rally in Ahmedabad, visited Agra and held official meetings in New Delhi.

The US President was feted at the world's largest cricket stadium in the "Namaste Trump" event in Ahmedabad and was cheered by tens of thousands of people.

"We were treated very, very well and we really enjoyed it. A lot of tremendous progress was made in terms of relationship - our relationship with India is extraordinary right now," he said.

"We are going to be doing a lot of business with India, they are sending billions and billions of dollars now to the United States," Trump said in response to a question.

In a tweet, his daughter Ivanka said that, Trump announced that US international development finance corporation "will establish a permanent presence in India to strengthen our economic ties, improve development plus further women's economic empowerment through WGDP (Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative)!"

On her arrival from India, she thanked PM Modi for "your warm hospitality as we visited your beautiful country and celebrated the strength, spirit and unity of the US and India!"

"Throughout our visit we saw monumental achievements of human creativity and proof of the infinite capacity of the human heart!" she said.

The first lady tweeted two pictures of her with Trump facing the Taj Mahal in Agra.

"One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the breathtaking Taj Mahal!" she said.

President Trump "reaffirmed the strong strategic partnership, vibrant economic ties and expanding security relationship between our two countries. Wonderful trip, but glad to be home! Thank you India!" said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

During the visit, India and the US on Tuesday finalised defence deals worth $3 billion under which 30 military helicopters will be procured from two American defence majors for Indian armed forces.

The deals will include procurement of 24 MH-60 Romeo helicopters by India from the US at a cost of $2.6 billion. Another contract to acquire six AH-64E Apache helicopters for $800 million from the US is also on the table.

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.

The Japan government on Monday decided to lift the state of emergency for COVID-19 in Tokyo and four other prefectures of the country, the only places where the measure implemented to curb the pandemic had remained in force.

The lifting of the alert was backed by the coronavirus advisory panel and will be formally approved by the government later day, the economic revitalization minister and head of the working group to coordinate Japan's fight against COVID-19, Yasutoshi Nishimura, said.

The Japanese authorities made the decision after taking into account the number of infections and the situation of the health system in Tokyo, the three neighbouring prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama and the northern Hokkaido, the only ones where the state of emergency declared more than a month ago to control the pandemic remained in effect, reports Efe news.

The health alert was initially declared in Tokyo and six other prefectures on April 17 and subsequently extended across the country.

It allowed local authorities to ban large-scale public events and close bars and restaurants at night, among other measures, while the government has launched a campaign to encourage teleworking and staying at home.

The government resorted to this measure for the first time in the country's recent history to contain the spread of the virus and is now withdrawing it after a sustained slowdown in infections throughout the archipelago, where around 16,600 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 839 deaths have been recorded, according to the latest data.

The group of experts advising the government appreciated the efforts made by citizens to comply with the recommendations to achieve the target of reducing interpersonal contact by 80 percent, top government spokesperson Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference on Monday.

The recommendation for citizens to avoid unnecessary trips outside and the request for non-essential businesses to close were not mandatory nor accompanied by fines or other penalties for non-compliance, unlike the stricter containment measures implemented in other countries.

The government plans to formally approve the lifting of the state of emergency on Monday after consulting with other political parties in parliament and another meeting with the advisory panel, following which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold a press conference.

The government had already decided to lift the emergency in 39 prefectures on May 14 after they reported a marked decrease in the number of infections, leaving out the more populated regions such as Tokyo and Osaka.

To avoid new outbreaks of the virus, Abe has urged people to become accustomed to a "new lifestyle" that includes maintaining social distancing, the use of masks outside as well as a series of guidelines for the reopening of shops, restaurants and public facilities.