Facebook will fight US presidential candidate Warren's break-up plan: Mark Zuckerberg

Agencies
October 2, 2019

Massachusetts, Oct 2: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised his employees to "fight and win" if Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren wins the 2020 election and moves forward with her stated plan to break up the big US tech firms.

Adopting a more aggressive style than he habitually uses in his public appearances, Zuckerberg directed his remarks at his employees last July to address questions about the firm's present and future, an interview that was recorded and made public on Tuesday on the Web page The Verge, Efe news reported.

"I mean, if she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to have a major lawsuit against our own government. ... We care about our country and want to work with our government and do good things. But look ... if someone's going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight," he said.

Zuckerberg was referring to the Massachusetts senator's proposal to split up the biggest tech firms - if she wins the Democratic presidential nomination and is ultimately elected in 2020 - given that she feels that they have "excessive" power both as market entities and in relation to their users or customers.

On Tuesday, after the audio recording of Zuckerberg was released, Warren doubled down on her proposal and said on Twitter that "What would really 'suck' is if we don't fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy."

"I'm not afraid to hold Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon accountable. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech," the senator said in another tweet.

In the recordings provided by The Verge, Zuckerberg justified his opposition to Warren's plan by - among other things - saying that dividing big companies will not make interference in elections less likely, rather the reverse, given that in his judgment "the companies can't coordinate and work together."

The tech giant based in Menlo Park, California, in recent years has been mired in a multitude of scandals that have significantly strained its public image, the biggest of these being the one involving British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which used an app to gather personal data on millions of Facebook users without their consent and then used that info for political ends.

The consulting firm prepared psychological profiles on voters that it allegedly sold to the campaign of President Donald Trump during the runup to the 2016 election, among other things.

Facebook is being investigated for potential monopolistic practices by the Federal Trade Commission, which earlier this year levied a $5 billion fine on the firm for failing to properly maintain user privacy.

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News Network
April 27,2020

London, Apr 27: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to work on Monday more than three weeks after being hospitalised for the coronavirus and spending three days in intensive care.

Johnson, one of the highest-profile people to have contracted the virus, returned to 10 Downing Street on Sunday evening and will chair a meeting on Monday morning of the coronavirus "war cabinet", his colleagues confirmed.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary who has deputised in Johnson's absence, told the BBC on Sunday that his return would be a "boost for the government and a boost for the country".

Raab also claimed the prime minister was "raring to go".

Johnson, 55, was admitted to hospital on April 5 suffering from "persistent symptoms" of the deadly disease.

His condition worsened and he later admitted after being put in intensive care that "things could have gone either way".

He was discharged on April 12 and has been recuperating at his official residence, west of London.

In a video message after leaving hospital, Johnson thanked "Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal" for helping him recover.

On medical advice, he has not been doing official government work during his convalescence but has spoken to Queen Elizabeth and US President Donald Trump on the phone.

The British leader was diagnosed with the virus late last month but initially stayed at Downing Street and was filmed taking part in a round of applause for health workers in the days before he went to hospital.

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News Network
January 10,2020

New Delhi, Jan 10: One woman reported a rape every 15 minutes on average in India in 2018, according to government data released on Thursday, underlining its dismal reputation as one of the worst places in the world to be female.

The highly publicised gang rape and murder of a woman in a bus in New Delhi in 2012 brought tens of thousands onto the streets across India and spurred demands for action from film stars and politicians, leading to harsher punishments and new fast-track courts. But the violence has continued unabated.

Women reported almost 34,000 rapes in 2018, barely changed from the year before. Just over 85% led to charges, and 27% to convictions, according to the annual crime report released by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Women's rights groups say crimes against women are often taken less seriously, and investigated by police lacking insensitivity.

"The country is still run by men, one (female prime minister) Indira Gandhi is not going to change things. Most judges are still men," said Lalitha Kumaramangalam, former chief of the National Commission for Women.

"There are very few forensic labs in the country, and fast-track courts have very few judges," said Kumaramangalam, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The rape of a teenager in 2017 by former BJP state legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar gained national attention when the accuser tried to kill herself the following year, accusing the police of inaction.

Five months before Sengar was convicted last December, the accuser's family had to be provided with security after a truck crashed into the car she was in, injuring her and killing two of her relatives.

A 2015 study by the Centre for Law & Policy Research in Bengaluru found that fast-track courts were indeed quicker, but did not handle a high volume of cases.

And a study in 2016 by Partners for Law in Development in New Delhi found that they still took an average of 8.5 months per case - more than four times the recommended period.

The government statistics understate the number of rapes as it is still considered a taboo to report rape in some parts of India and because rapes that end in the murder are counted purely as murders.

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News Network
March 6,2020

Mar 6: UK stocks fell again on Friday as growing economic risks from the coronavirus outbreak shattered investor confidence, with Britain recording its first death from the pathogen.

A 1.5% fall for the FTSE 100 erased the blue-chip index's gains from earlier this week. Export-heavy companies have now lost over $230 billion in value since the epidemic sparked a worldwide rout last week.

The domestically focussed mid-cap index was down 1.9%.

Cruise operator Carnival dropped 4.2% to its lowest level since 2012, a day after its Grand Princess ocean liner was barred from returning to its home port of San Francisco on virus fears.

Britain said an older person with underlying health problems had succumbed to the flu-like virus on Thursday, while the number of infections jumped to 115.

In company news, drug maker AstraZeneca fell 1% after it said its treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal of improving overall survival in patients in a late-stage study.

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