Samsung heir arrested in corruption probe

February 17, 2017

Seoul, Feb 17: The heir of South Korean giant Samsung was today arrested as part of a probe into corruption and influence-peddling that caused President Park Geun-Hye to be impeached. "It is acknowledged that it is necessary to arrest (Lee Jae-Yong) in light of a newly added criminal charge and new evidence," a court spokesman said in a statement. Lee Jae-Yong, Samsung Electronics vice chairman, is accused of paying nearly USD 40 million in bribes to Park's secret confidante to secure policy favours.

Samsung

He was already being held at a detention centre after appearing in court yesterday as judges deliberated whether to issue an arrest warrant. Lee, the son of the Samsung group boss Lee Kun-Hee, has been quizzed several times over his alleged role in the scandal that has rocked the nation. The 48-year-old, described as a key suspect in the scandal, narrowly avoided being formally arrested last month, after the court ruled there was insufficient evidence. But prosecutors on Tuesday made a second bid for his arrest, saying they had collected more evidence in recent weeks.

His arrest, the first for a Samsung chief, is likely to send shock waves through the group, which is a major part of the South Korean economy and includes the world's largest smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics. It is already reeling from the debacle over the recall of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 device and reports have suggested it could face sanctions from overseas authorities if Lee is punished. The scandal centres on Choi Soon-Sil, who is accused of using her close ties with Park to force local firms to "donate" nearly USD 70 million to non-profit foundations which Choi allegedly used for personal gain.

Samsung was the single biggest donor to the foundations. It is also accused of separately giving millions of euros to Choi to bankroll her daughter's equestrian training in Germany. The court is also deliberating an arrest warrant for another Samsung executive, who is also the head of Korea Equestrian Federation, over bribery charges. Samsung said in a statement on Wednesday that it had "not paid bribes nor made improper requests to the president seeking favours". Lee has effectively taken the helm of Samsung -- South Korea's biggest business group -- since his father suffered a heart attack in 2014.

Prosecutors are probing whether Samsung had paid Choi to secure state approval for the controversial merger of two Samsung units seen as a key step towards ensuring a smooth power transfer to Lee. The merger in 2015 of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was opposed by many investors who said it wilfully undervalued the former unit's shares. But the deal went through after Seoul's state pension fund -- a major Samsung shareholder -- approved it. Samsung is South Korea's largest business group and its revenue is equivalent to about a fifth of the country's GDP.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

US dictionary Merriam-Webster will update the meaning of the word "racism" after being contacted by a Missouri black woman, who claimed the current definition fell short of including the systematic oppression of people of colour, according to media reports.

"A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations," according to a statement of the 189-year-old dictionary shared by Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Drake University in Iowa, on her Facebook.

Mitchum, 22, emailed the dictionary last month, following the death of African American George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers, Xinhua news agency reported.

"I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world," Mitchum told CNN. "The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, it's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans."

Merriam-Webster's first definition of racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

"It's not just disliking someone because of their race," Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. "This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism."

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Agencies
July 3,2020

Mumbai, Jul 3: In yet another move to keep Chinese technologies companies at bay, the Centre has cancelled the 4G upgradation tender for BSNL as it has decided to come up with fresh specifications for the upgrade process, sources said.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to issue a fresh tender in the next two weeks.

People in the know said that the fresh tender may not allow Chinese companies to participate and that the new tenders that will be floated in the next two weeks will emphasise on Make in India.

As the border tussle with China escalated last month and around 20 soldiers lost their lives, the government had last month asked both BSNL and MTNL not to use equipment of Chinese makers in their upgrading process to 4G facilities.

Huawei and ZTE are the major Chinese telecom equipment makers working with Indian telecom companies and they would be the hardest hit by the decision.

The impact may be felt in terms of the much-awaited 5G trials in the country. After much deliberation, the Centre last December decided to allow Huawei to take part in the 5G trials.

The cancellation of tender for BSNL's 4G upgradation comes after the Centre on Monday banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, WeChat and UC Browser.

A statement by the Ministry of Electronics and IT said that the decision was taken since "there is credible information that these apps are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.

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