Terrorist Stephen Paddock kills 58, injures 515 at Las Vegas concert

News Network

October 2, 2017

Washington, Oct 2: As many as 58 people were killed and 515 injured when a terrorist opened fire on an outdoor music festival on Sunday night from the 32nd floor of an adjacent hotel in the Las Vegas Strip. Local police have described the incident as an act of “domestic terrorism.”

The Islamic State, an anti-Islamic terror group, claimed responsibility for the attack but the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has disputed the claim. “We have determined, to this point, no connection with an international terrorist group,” Aaron Rouse, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Las Vegas, said at a press conference on Monday.

Around 22,000 people had gathered for the Route 91 Harvest country music festival that is held over the three days. Jason Aldean was scheduled to be the headline performer on the final night on Sunday. However, he was not on the stage when the shooting began around 10:08 p.m. Eyewitnesses quoted by the National Public Radio said the shooting went on for several minutes.

The concert goers crowding Las Vegas Village initially did not realise that it was bullets raining on them from the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino that overlooks the outdoor venue. The shooter may have been staying in the hotel since Thursday, police said. “..approximately 406 people were transported to area hospitals," the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.

The incident is the deadliest mass shootings in recent time in the U.S. The June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida left 49 dead.

The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old white man, was found dead in his hotel room by the police. Police said they recovered “in excess of 10 rifles” from his room, which they blasted open, and suspected that he used automatic assault weapons in the attack. Paddock from Mesquite was a licensed pilot, owned two planes and had a hunting licence from Alaska, according to initial reports. However, no motives have been suggested for the deadly violence. The FBI has joined the investigation, along with the local police.

President Donald Trump termed the incident “an act of pure evil.” A presidential proclamation ordered flags be flown at half-staff on federal buildings. “We cannot fathom their pain, we cannot imagine their loss,” Mr. Trump said of those who lost loved ones in the massacre.

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US panel to grill Bezos, Cook, Zuckerberg, Pichai in antitrust hearing

Agencies

July 7,2020

Washington, Jul 7: The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will grill the CEOs of US tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon during an antitrust hearing on July 27.

Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Amazon's Jeff Bezos will testify before the antitrust panel that is working on proposals to reform and regulate the digital market.

The hearing would mark the first time all four top executives testify together in front of Congress, virtually or in-person depending on the panel's call in the COVID-19 pandemic times.

"Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) said in a statement on Monday.

"Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.”

The House Judiciary Committee announced its antitrust probe into the four tech giants in June last year.

Last month, the committee sent letters to technology giants Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet (Google's parent company), asking them to confirm if their chief executives will testify as part of the committee's tech competition investigation.

Committee chair David Cicilline said the documents that the investigators sought were "essential" to the probe and that requests like this were part of the "appropriate process" to obtain them.

"The only CEO who has expressed reservation about appearing, through a representative, has been Amazon," Cicilline said. "No one in this country is above the law ... nobody is above answering a congressional subpoena".

The lawmakers want the tech giants to furnish documents that have been produced in relation to other competition probes and internal communications.

The letters that the committee sent also posed questions related to possible harms to competition in the market.

In addition to the antitrust probe, Apple's App Store policies are also facing scrutiny from the US Department of Justice.

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Shared values between India-US are discrimination, bigotry, hostility towards refugees: Amnesty

News Network

February 24,2020

New Delhi, Feb 24: The shared values between India and the US are "discrimination, bigotry, and hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers", Amnesty International USA said in a joint statement with Amnesty International India ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to India on Monday.

Trump, accompanied by his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as senior officials of his administration, landed in Ahmedabad on the first leg of his two-day visit to India.

"Anti-Muslim sentiment permeates the policies of both U.S. and Indian leaders. For decades, the U.S.-India relationship was anchored by claims of shared values of human rights and human dignity. Now, those shared values are discrimination, bigotry, and hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers,” Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, was quoted as saying in the statement.

It was a reference to the anti-CAA protests in India, the internet lockdown in Jammu and Kashmir and the Muslim ban expansion by President Trump affecting Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania, the statement said.

It added that Amnesty International USA’s researchers travelled to Lebanon and Jordan to conduct nearly 50 interviews with refugees that as a result of the previous version of the ban have been stranded in countries where they face restrictive policies, increasingly hostile environments, and lack the same rights as permanent residents or citizens.

The statement also came down hard on the Indian government, hitting out at the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) 2019 and saying it legitimises discrimination based on religious grounds.

It criticised statements such as “identify them (the protestors) by their clothes” or “shoot the traitors” by Prime Minister Modi and his party workers. Such remarks "peddled the narrative of fear and division that has fuelled further violence", it said.

“The internet and political lockdown in Kashmir has lasted for months and the enactment of CAA and the crackdown on protests has shown a leadership that is lacking empathy and a willingness to engage. We call on President Trump and Prime Minister Modi to work with the international community and address our concerns in their bilateral conversations,” Avinash Kumar, executive director, Amnesty International India said in the statement.

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