Tag: Plan

IRS releases plan to spend $80 billion windfall — with critical details missing

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But the vaguely worded report, which was delivered more than a month later than the deadline Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set, answered few of the questions that lawmakers have been lobbing at Yellen and IRS officials for months about specific budget forecasts and department hiring.
The IRS, which counted around 78,700 employees in 2021, says in the report that it plans to bring on nearly 30,000 new employees by the end of fiscal year 2025. That would include 8,782 hires in enforcement and 13,883 in taxpayer services and surely offset some attrition in the agency’s ranks from retirements.
The agency intends to spend $2.8 billion of the funding in 2023 and $5.4 billion in 2024 and, over a 10-year period, allot a hefty sum of $41.7 billion alone to scrutinizing the most sophisticated, high-income taxpayers.
However, the IRS did not provide essential information sought by lawmakers on the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, such as how many employees the agency would like to hire long term for enforcement; how exactly the IRS will comply with a pledge by Yellen not to increase audits on those making less than $400,000; and what the agency forecasts to spend on operations, enforcement and customer service from fiscal years 2025 through 2031.
Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo defended the limited budget forecast in a call with reporters Thursday, saying technology advancements such as digital scanning of paper returns and automated phone services will improve agency productivity. That creates uncertainty around how many employees the IRS will ultimately need to hire, Adeyemo said.
“I hope that we can get better at forecasting, but I just think it’s good management and leadership practice” to refrain from projecting beyond fiscal year 2024, Werfel added.
Still, those omissions could be no coincidence with Republicans primed to pounce on any details of the IRS’ bulked-up enforcement. When Treasury first asked for new money for the IRS, the department specified exactly how many workers the IRS would hire to crack down on tax cheats: 86,852.
Republicans have been using that figure ever since as grist for attack ads on Democrats.

Democrats have fired back that the agency has been starved of resources to fairly enforce the tax code — with audit rates for millionaires and corporations falling by 77 percent and 44 percent, respectively, from 2010 to 2017 — and that much of the new hiring is needed to replace the two-thirds of the IRS workforce that will be eligible to retire in the next six years.
Here’s a look at what the report says about key elements of the IRS strategy:
ENFORCEMENT
The agency says it wants to leverage data analytics and technology to audit complex tax returns and plans on hiring the first waves of specialists focused on big companies, partnerships and high-income individuals in fiscal year 2023. The IRS will increase enforcement activities on cryptocurrencies and in areas where audits have declined significantly over the years, such as in estate, gift and employment taxation.
That will involve increasing staff in the Office of Chief Counsel, the legal adviser to the IRS based at the Treasury Department, to help litigate cases and issue clear guidance on tax laws. The agency insists ramped-up enforcement will apply to only those making more than $400,000.
“People who get W-2s or Social Security payments or have a small business should not be worried about some new wave of IRS audits. We’re taking that off the table,” Werfel said.
In a nod to lawmakers’ concerns about a Stanford study published earlier this year finding that Black taxpayers are three to five times more likely to be audited by the IRS, the agency also said it will create a team in fiscal year 2024 to look at whether enforcement activities disproportionately burden certain groups and address any disparities in tax administration according to gender, race and age.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
The IRS wants to create online business accounts where taxpayers can let the agency know what communication methods they prefer — whether digital, phone or in-person — and hire more representatives to operate the phone lines and staff Taxpayer Assistance Centers.
Under the modernized system, the IRS said taxpayers will be able to access their entire account history, including notices and returns; make payments; and get status updates for their filings, all online. They would also receive personalized alerts from the IRS to better understand their tax obligations and eligibility for credits and deductions.
The IRS launched a new tool this filing season that allowed taxpayers to respond to the nine most common notices online, and the agency plans to add 72 more notices online by the end of fiscal year 2024.
“For many, letters from the IRS in the mail could be a thing of the past. For the first time, the IRS will help taxpayers identify potential mistakes before filing,” Werfel said.
The agency says it wants to make it easier for employees to review tax returns by implementing full digital scanning of paper forms — which National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins has called the “kryptonite” that jammed up the IRS during the pandemic — in the next five years and make that data easily accessible to employees in a centralized case management system.
TECHNOLOGY
The IRS is looking to replace old programming language in its aging computer systems and consolidate information on the cloud while improving cybersecurity to protect taxpayer privacy. Machine learning could be used to extract data and do advanced analytics on complex tax returns, the agency says.
PERSONNEL
The agency insists its hiring successes will not only depend on the prospects of higher pay for specialized employees, but also a cultural shift that gets workers excited about the IRS’s mission. It will prioritize recruiting from diverse and underrepresented talent pools and streamline the hiring process, which frequently gets bogged down in bureaucratic hurdles and discourages candidates from joining the IRS.
The agency will consider allowing employees to work from more locations around the U.S. to attract top-tier talent and employ gig workers on an as-needed basis. The IRS adds that it wants its employees to become far more data-savvy.
Brian Faler contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 6, 2023
DiCaprio tells D.C. jury of foreign mogul’s plan to fund Dems in 2012

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“At the risk of asking a stupid question, what is it you do for a living?” prosecutor Nicole Lockhart asked after DiCaprio, 48, finished spelling his name for the court reporter.
“I am an actor,” DiCaprio replied nonchalantly.
To the uninitiated, the Hollywood heartthrob’s presence at the trial could seem almost as unlikely as the government’s central contention in the criminal prosecution: that Michel, a member of the hip hop trio the Fugees, took more than $80 million from a Malaysian businessperson, Jho Low, to support President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential bid and later to buy influence with President Donald Trump’s administration.
But Low was friendly with DiCaprio and Michel for years and ultimately became a major funder of DiCaprio’s 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
U.S. prosecutors later alleged that Low was the architect of a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme that looted Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund known as 1MDB. In 2016, the Justice Department sought to seize the future profits from the film, arguing that it was paid for with money stolen from 1MDB. The feds ultimately settled for a $60 million payout, which was passed on to Malaysia’s government.
DiCaprio spent a little over an hour on the witness stand, recounting a slew of “lavish” parties where he met Low.
“He had a multitude of different parties,” the actor and film producer said of Low, who remains at large and was recently convicted in absentia by a Kuwaiti court for the 1MDB fraud and sentenced to 10 years in prison. “Some of them were on boats. Some were at nightclubs, … dinners.”
DiCaprio said Low also became a generous donor to the actor’s charitable foundation, even donating art that was auctioned in Saint-Tropez, France.

The most politically and perhaps legally salient thing DiCaprio offered up Monday was that he had a discussion with Low prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
“He mentioned in passing he and possibly a group of other partners of his were going to give a significant contribution to the Democratic Party,” DiCaprio testified. “I recall him saying a significant sum, something to the tune of $20 [million] to $30 million. … I said, wow, that’s a lot of money.”
Prosecutors allege that Low was not a U.S. citizen and lacked a U.S. green card, so he was not eligible to donate to U.S. political campaigns. It’s unclear who the “partners” were, if they existed, and whether they could donate legally.
The indictment in the case alleges that Low transferred over $21 million to the U.S. for use to back Obama in the 2012 presidential race and that Michel donated about $865,000 to the Obama campaign through straw donors and about $1 million to a super PAC supporting Obama. It’s unclear what became of the rest of the money.
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on DiCaprio’s testimony.

Pras Michel, left, accompanied by defense lawyer David Kenner, right, arrives at federal court for his trial on Thursday, in Washington.
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Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
Under cross-examination by Michel’s attorney David Kenner, DiCaprio offered even more illustrations of Low’s apparent wealth and extravagant spending. The defense attorney asked DiCaprio about a private-jet trip Low organized to Australia and then back to the U.S. about a decade ago in order to try to celebrate New Year’s Eve twice.
DiCaprio said he was hazy on the details but Low did have that goal.
“I remember a trip to Australia [with] a massive group of people,” he said. “I do remember [Low] saying that was an objective of his.”
DiCaprio said he wasn’t sure if the timing actually played out to usher in the new year twice. “It depends on how you look at it,” he quipped, prompting laughter from jurors and others in the court.
The prosecution objected to some of the repeated questions about over-the-top partying. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to allow an answer to one defense question about Britney Spears jumping out of a birthday cake for Low at one of his blasts.
However, Kenner may have scored some points for his client Monday by detailing the extensive vetting DiCaprio’s lawyer, his production team and Paramount Pictures did of Low and others involved in funding “Wolf of Wall Street.” The defense attorney passed up his opportunity last week to give an opening statement in the case, but he appeared to be suggesting that it was unrealistic to expect Michel to know details about Low’s citizenship or his alleged misdeeds when more experienced vetters apparently missed any signs of trouble in his background.
“My understanding was I was given a green light by my team, as well as the studio, to accept financing from Mr. Low,” DiCaprio told the jury. He said he believed “the background check was fine and he was a legitimate businessperson.”
Lockhart attempted to rebut some of that testimony by getting DiCaprio to acknowledge that, while U.S. political donations from non-resident foreigners are unlawful, foreign funding for films is entirely legal.
The sixth-floor courtroom at the courthouse near the Capitol was not quite full as DiCaprio began testifying late Monday morning.
However, onlookers steadily crowded the gallery as word spread about the Hollywood star making an in-person appearance. Law clerks and even one veteran courtroom clerk for another judge were seen ducking in briefly to get a glimpse of the actor better known for occupying the bow of the “Titanic” than a federal courtroom witness stand.
Paparazzi who joined the usual coterie of network television cameras staking out Trump-related grand juries at the courthouse were disappointed, as DiCaprio was whisked in and out of the building without passing the phalanx of cameras at both of the public entrances.
In 2018, DiCaprio testified in the same building before a grand jury investigating Michel, but his appearance was not reported until later.
Jurors’ reactions to DiCaprio’s testimony were hard to assess because the judge has ordered people in the courtroom to wear masks, although witnesses, lawyers questioning them and the judge typically do not.
DiCaprio said he’d known Michel since he hit stardom in the 1990s as part of the Fugees and met the band backstage at a concert. The two have been social friends since, the actor said.
The judge’s masking policy caused a complication Monday after the prosecutor asked DiCaprio to point out Michel, who was wearing a black mask. After the actor struggled briefly, Michel raised his hand in the air and pointed at the ceiling, easing the task.
An unusual number of court personnel seemed to interact briefly with DiCaprio during a short break in the testimony, but the cause for the crowding became apparent after the actor was excused shortly after noon Monday. As soon as he departed, almost every observer stood to leave the courtroom, prompting an outbreak of laughter from the judge and some jurors at the spectacle.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 4, 2023
Israeli cabinet approves establishment of Ben-Gvir’s national guard plan

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Jerusalem: Israel’s cabinet has voted in favour of establishing a National Guard force controlled by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The National Guard will deal with “national emergency situations,” such as violent clashes between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, according to a statement released by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
A committee composed of all security agencies will draft guidelines for the operation of the National Guard within 90 days, the statement said on Sunday, adding that the committee will also discuss what would be the powers of the force.

Last week, Ben-Gvir told Army Radio that the force will be deployed “exclusively” in Arab communities, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The police don’t deal exclusively with this, because they are too busy with other things,” he said.
Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news reported that Israeli police chief, Inspector-General Yaacov Shabtai has expressed his concerns about the National Guard to Ben-Gvir in a private letter.
In a tweet, Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Ben-Gvir of seeking “to turn his thug militia into a national guard, that will bring terror and violence everywhere in the country”.
Ben-Gvir is one the most extreme Ministers in Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet. Before entering politics, he was an ultranationalist activist who was convicted of supporting terrorism, incitement to racism and involvement in riots. The Minister is a resident of the hardline Jewish settlement in Hebron, located in the occupied West Bank.

Last week, Netanyahu announced that the overhaul of the country’s judiciary would be suspended. To gain Ben-Gvir’s support for the move, Netanyahu accepted Ben-Gvir’s demand to set up a National Guard under the National Security Ministry.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 3, 2023
Centrist Democrats hatch secret plan to head off debt ceiling calamity

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But Biden officials and party leaders, however, see it far differently and are bristling at the attempts at a compromise, according to four lawmakers familiar with the discussions. Their party’s message to those plotting centrists: Your efforts are unlikely to succeed and risk hurting our goal of a clean debt ceiling increase.
The intraparty friction is growing as Washington’s debt crisis gets less theoretical and more urgent with each passing week. And the freelancing Democratic centrists may not have helped their cause by getting involved just as party leaders began seeing a political advantage in the fiscal fight — as long as they can keep the onus on Speaker Kevin McCarthy to unveil a plan that might pass the GOP-controlled House, with unpopular spending cuts likely to be attached.
“We’re gaining ground because of [House Republicans’] inability to put together a plan,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a brief interview. “I’m certainly willing to entertain a mix of things on the budget. Not on the debt ceiling.”
A White House official said the administration has “not spoken to the Problem Solvers about this.” Centrist Democrats, however, say they’ve been made well aware the effort isn’t likely to win any endorsements from party leaders — and have decided to forge ahead anyway as the debt impasse sparks high anxiety, with Congress gone until April 17.
Biden and McCarthy have had zero recent contact on the debt other than jabs exchanged through the press, despite the jittery U.S. banking sector further rattling the situation. Democratic leaders say they’ll accept only a clean debt limit bill, but emboldened House Republicans insist that would never pass their chamber.
Complicating it all: Republican leaders won’t yet describe precisely what they want in exchange for their votes to raise the nation’s borrowing ceiling. Schumer, in response, has taken up the chant “show us your plan” for more than two months and counting.
Enter that group of moderate Democrats, who have privately met with GOP centrists since February, in defiance of their leadership. Their talks remain in the early stages, and two lawmakers familiar with the discussions said they have not honed specific details yet.
One centrist Democrat, who along with others addressed the talks on condition of anonymity, observed that “you’ve got party leaders in both houses that don’t want us to talk to one another.”

They’re not listening to those nudges to stop talking: “None of us work for the White House. We work for our constituents. And they should start talking and negotiating,” said Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who co-leads the centrist Blue Dog Coalition.
Centrist Republicans involved in the discussions call them a recognition of what Biden and most Hill Democrats have denied — McCarthy’s GOP simply won’t accept a clean debt hike. And as two months have passed since McCarthy’s last sitdown with Biden, moderate Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he’s one of those working within the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus because “we’ve got to have a plan B.”
With debt limit talks stuck in a mud puddle, House Republicans have seemingly abandoned plans to introduce a budget this spring, which could springboard the talks. That’s because GOP leaders are struggling to coalesce around a viable blueprint thanks to their members’ ever-expanding wish list and the realization that, for some hardline conservatives, there may be no level of austerity that would cut deep enough.
McCarthy and his team still want to draft their own package of deficit-reducing proposals, which his advisers say would mix ideas such as social program cuts with policies to increase U.S. energy production or tighten border security. Even so, the House GOP may not be able to unify behind such a plan.
“They don’t have a working majority,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.
Those dynamics have convinced Schumer and Biden administration officials that they’re winning the public messaging battle over the debt ceiling. And so they’re increasingly content to hold the line on their demand for a clean increase to the borrowing limit.
The White House has jumped at opportunities to hammer Republicans over their proposed spending cuts, terming one set of demands from the House Freedom Caucus a “five-alarm fire.”
While most lawmakers expect the standoff will drag into the summer, Biden allies have circulated recent remarks from centrist members like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) expressing concern over the prospect of a debt ceiling crisis — hopeful that more Republicans are deciding it’s not worth the fight.
“There’s starting to be more appreciation that the full faith and credit of the United States is not a source of leverage,” a White House official said.
But Senate Republicans across the Capitol aren’t fleeing McCarthy’s foxhole yet. The most active deal-cutting senators are either sitting out or in the dark.
“The only hints of an idea I hear is an effort among [House] Republicans to come up with something they can vote for and send it over here,” said Romney. “I don’t know of any bipartisan [effort] here. Not with me.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also said she’d heard nothing of the Problem Solvers’ work.
“I don’t think you can expect a lot of movement on an issue like that until you start getting a little bit closer,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said, adding that Democrats “want to run out the clock” but the strategy might not work: “I don’t think that they have that option.”
The Biden administration insists it won’t shift course. In a sign of the White House’s growing confidence, aides quickly brushed off McCarthy’s demand for a second meeting, arguing that there’s little point in the two men sitting down until Republicans decide among themselves what they want.
While Biden has not completely ruled out talking with McCarthy before Republicans publish their own budget, there’s little desire among aides to do anything that might help the speaker unite his fractious conference.
“How does he win here?” one economic adviser to the White House said of McCarthy. “They don’t really have a strategic plan.”
The White House has yet to weigh in formally on the ongoing centrist discussions about a backup approach. But there’s little doubt that it’s at odds with Biden’s preferred strategy. If anything, one adviser suggested, the likelihood that the moderates’ effort implodes or fails to win over either party’s leadership may only end up illustrating how far apart the two sides are.
Back in the Capitol, several Democrats said it’s worthwhile to discuss alternatives and broadly urged Biden to restart talks with the GOP.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), another member of the Problem Solvers, said it’s on both Biden and McCarthy to come up with a plan. ”Otherwise, it’s going to be a disaster. It already is, right?”
Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 3, 2023
Iran’s proposed new Hijab plan includes a $6,000 fine

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Tehran: Iranian authorities have proposed a new hijab plan that includes fines of up to 30 billion Iranian Rials ($6,000) for women who violate the country’s mandatory hijab law, local media reported.
In an interview in Yazd province, Hojjat-ul-Islam Hossein Jalali said, according to the law, the punishment for wearing a hijab includes a fine of 5 million to 30 billion Iranian Rials.
Other penalties may include revoking driver’s licenses and passports, or internet bans for celebrities and social media influencers and bloggers.
These penalties will apply to passengers who do not abide by the hijab rules while riding in vehicles, in restaurants, government institutions, schools, universities, airports, public transport stations, in cyberspace, celebrities, and in streets and other public squares.
According to a report by Asharq Al-Awsat, Jalali said, a bill for a new hijab law will be prepared within the next two weeks, and parliament will then approve it.
The hijab plan comes in response to the mass protests that have rocked the country since the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody on September 16, 2022.
Her death has since ignited anger over several issues, including the restrictions imposed on personal freedoms and strict rules regarding women’s clothing, as well as the living and economic crisis that Iranians suffer from, not to mention the strict laws imposed by the regime and its political and religious composition in general.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 30, 2023
Discussion on G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group work plan held in Udaipur

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Jaipur: Detailed discussion on the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG) work plan in 2023 was held in a three-day meeting of the group under the G20 India presidency in Udaipur.
The meeting concluded on Thursday.
“Discussion on SFWD work plan comprising three identified priority areas of mechanisms for mobilisation of timely and adequate resources for climate finance; enabling finance for the Sustainable Development Goals; and capacity building of the ecosystem for financing toward sustainable development were held in the meeting,” according to a release.
The meeting held on March 21-23 was attended by 93 delegates from G20 member countries, 10 invitee countries and 18 international organisations, including Asian Development Bank and United Nations Development Programme, among others.
“Keeping up with a collaborative spirit and arriving at a consensus, members agreed upon the way forward for important deliverables for the year that include a set of options for mobilising financial resources for climate action, developing an analytical framework for SDG-aligned finance and the G20 Sustainable Finance Technical Assistance Action Plan (TAAP),” the release said.
During the plenary sessions, members’ discussions and interventions were held on the three priority areas of the SFWG.
On the priority of mobilising finance for climate action, the G20 members agreed that MDBs play an important role in catalysing private finance and that they must strengthen this role.
“The catalytic role of the public sector was also stressed. The importance of creating an enabling environment in scaling up finance for climate action was underscored,” the release said.

On financing the SDGs, the members deliberated upon developing an analytical framework for SDG-aligned finance with discussions on best policies and approaches for scaling up wider adoption of social impact investment instruments and necessary frameworks to incorporate nature-related risks and opportunities into investment decisions of financial institutions and companies.
SFWG is working to develop a G20 Technical Assistance Action Plan that would include the identification and analysis of existing capacity-building activities and identifying the existing sustainable finance skill gaps.
“There were discussions on how various stakeholders can work together to develop capacity-building programmes that effectively address the unique needs of different groups while fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing in sustainable finance,” the release noted.
The delegates also participated in local sightseeing, such as a visit to the City Palace to witness the magnificent light and sound show, boat rides on the banks of lake Pichola along with several cultural programmes displaying the cultural heritage of Rajasthan.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023
Twitter’s plan to charge researchers for data access puts it in EU crosshairs

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Voiced by artificial intelligence.
Elon Musk pledged Twitter would abide by Europe’s new content rules — but Yevgeniy Golovchenko is not so convinced.
The Ukrainian academic, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, relies on the social network’s data to track Russian disinformation, including propaganda linked to the ongoing war in Ukraine. But that access, including to reams of tweets analyzing pro-Kremlin messaging, may soon be cut off. Or, even worse for Golovchenko, cost him potentially millions of euros a year.
Under Musk’s leadership, Twitter is shutting down researchers’ free access to its data, though the final decision on when that will happen has yet to be made. Company officials are also offering new pay-to-play access to researchers via deals that start at $42,000 per month and can rocket up to $210,000 per month for the largest amount of data, according to Twitter’s internal presentation to academics that was shared with POLITICO.

Yet this switch — from almost unlimited, free data access to costly monthly subscription fees — falls afoul of the European Union’s new online content rules, the Digital Services Act. Those standards, which kick in over the coming months, require the largest social networking platforms, including Twitter, to provide so-called vetted researchers free access to their data.
It remains unclear how Twitter will meet its obligations under the 27-country bloc’s rules, which impose fines of up to 6 percent of its yearly revenue for infractions.
“If Twitter makes access less accessible to researchers, this will hurt research on things like disinformation and misinformation,” said Golovchenko who — like many academics who spoke with POLITICO — are now in limbo until Twitter publicly decides when, or whether, it will shut down its current free data-access regime.
It also means that “we will have fewer choices,” added the Ukrainian, acknowledging that, until now, Twitter had been more open for outsiders to poke around its data compared with the likes of Facebook or YouTube. “This means will be even more dependent on the goodwill of social media platforms.”
Meeting EU commitments
When POLITICO contacted Twitter for comment, the press email address sent back a poop emoji in response. A company representative did not respond to POLITICO’s questions, though executives met with EU officials and civil society groups Wednesday to discuss how Twitter would comply with Europe’s data-access obligations, according to three people with knowledge of those discussions, who were granted anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.
Twitter was expected to announce details of its new paid-for data access regime last week, according to the same individuals briefed on those discussions, though no specifics about the plans were yet known. As of Friday night, no details had yet been published.
Still, the ongoing uncertainty comes as EU regulators and policymakers have Musk in their crosshairs as the onetime world’s richest man reshapes Twitter into a free speech-focused social network. The Tesla chief executive has fired almost all of the trust, safety and policy teams in a company-wide cull of employees and has already failed to comply with some of the bloc’s new content rules that require Twitter to detail how it is tackling falsehoods and foreign interference.
Musk has publicly stated the company will comply with the bloc’s content rules.
“Access to platforms’ data is one of the key elements of democratic oversight of the players that control increasingly bigger part of Europe’s information space,” Věra Jourová, the European Commission vice president for values and transparency, told POLITICO in an emailed statement in reference to the EU’s code of practice on disinformation, a voluntary agreement that Twitter signed up to last year. A Commission spokesperson said such access would have to be free to approved researchers.
European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová said “Access to platforms’ data is one of the key elements of democratic oversight” | Olivier Hoslet/EPA-EFE
“If the access to researchers is getting worse, most likely that would go against the spirit of that commitment (under Europe’s new content rules),” Jourová added. “I appeal to Twitter to find the solution and respect its commitments under the code.”
Show me the data access
For researchers based in the United States — who don’t fall under the EU’s new content regime — the future is even bleaker.
Megan Brown, a senior research engineer at New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics, which relies heavily on Twitter’s existing access, said half of her team’s 40 projects currently use the company’s data. Under Twitter’s proposed price hikes, the researchers would have to scrap their reliance on the social network via existing paid-for access through the company’s so-called Decahose API for large-scale data access, which is expected to be shut off by the end of May.
NYU’s work via Twitter data has looked at everything from how automated bots skew conversations on social media to potential foreign interference via social media during elections. Such projects, Brown added, will not be possible when Twitter shuts down academic access to those unwilling to pay the new prices.
“We cannot pay that amount of money,” said Brown. “I don’t know of a research center or university that can or would pay that amount of money.”
For Rebekah Tromble, chairperson of the working group on platform-to-researcher data access at the European Digital Media Observatory, a Commission-funded group overseeing which researchers can access social media companies’ data under the bloc’s new rules, any rollback of Twitter’s data-access allowances would be against their existing commitments to give researchers greater access to its treasure trove of data.
“If Twitter makes the choice to begin charging researchers for access, it will clearly be in violation of its commitments under the code of practice [on disinformation],” she said.
This article has been updated.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
Kyiv and Berlin slam Putin’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus

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Officials in Kyiv and Berlin condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.
The Kremlin “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Sunday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, added that the move was a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, something that Putin denied in his announcement on Saturday. Podolyak tweeted that Putin “is afraid of losing & all he can do is scare [us] with tactics.”
Putin said on Saturday that Russia would construct a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July. He likened the plans to the U.S. stationing its nuclear weapons in Europe, and said Russia would retain control of the nuclear arms stationed in Belarus.
“The United States has been doing this for decades,” Putin was quoted as saying. “They deployed their tactical nuclear weapons long ago on the territories of their allies, NATO countries, in Europe,” he said.
Saturday evening, the German Federal Foreign Office told national media that the decision was akin to a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation.”
“The comparison made by President Putin on the nuclear participation of NATO is misleading and cannot serve to justify the step announced by Russia,” the Foreign Office was quoted as saying.
The Biden administration in the U.S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement but would not adjust its nuclear weapons strategy.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”
Russia used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine for Putin’s invasion. And Moscow and Minsk have maintained close military ties as the Kremlin continues its war on Ukraine.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
Biden calls Israel’s Netanyahu to express judicial plan ‘concern’

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The White House in statement added that Biden “underscored his belief that democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the U.S.-Israel relationship, that democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”
“The President offered support for efforts underway to forge a compromise on proposed judicial reforms consistent with those core principles,” the statement said.
Netanyahu said Sunday the legal changes would be carried out responsibly while protecting the basic rights of all Israelis. His government — the country’s most right-wing ever — says the overhaul is meant to correct an imbalance that has given the courts too much power and prevented lawmakers from carrying out the voting public’s will.
Critics say it will upend Israel’s delicate system of checks and balances and slide the country toward authoritarianism. Opponents of the measure have carried out disruptive protests, and has even embroiled the country’s military, after more than 700 elite officers from the Air Force, special forces, and Mossad said they would stop volunteering for duty.
The conversation followed a Sunday meeting in Egypt between Israeli and Palestinian officials in which they pledged to take steps to lower tensions ahead of a sensitive holiday season. Administration officials praised the outcome of the summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. A joint communique said the sides had reaffirmed a commitment to de-escalate and prevent further violence.
Biden in the call “reinforced the need for all sides to take urgent, collaborative steps to enhance security coordination, condemn all acts of terrorism, and maintain the viability of a two-state solution,” according to the White House.
The Israeli and Palestinian delegations met for the second time in less than a month, shepherded by regional allies Egypt and Jordan, as well as the United States, to end a yearlong spasm of violence.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 20, 2023
Airtel Base Prepaid Plan for all 22 Circles in India – Check Benefits Here – Kashmir News

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Bharti Airtel recently hiked the base prepaid tariffs in all 22 telecom circles in India. The hike happened in a phased manner, wherein Airtel started the move with just two circles. Upon getting a positive response, the telco decided to move ahead with the same for the remaining circles.
In a matter of just two months, the base prepaid plan, which used to be the Rs 99 plan for Airtel consumers across India, became the Rs 155 plan. The Rs 155 plan is not a new plan, and thus, users are already aware of it and its benefits. For the few that aren’t aware and the ones who have forgotten its benefits, keep reading ahead.
Bharti Airtel Base Prepaid or Entry-Level Prepaid Plan in 2023
The new entry-level prepaid plan from Airtel for 2023 is the Rs 155 plan. With this plan, consumers get a total of 1GB of data. Along with that, users get truly unlimited voice calling and 300 SMS. The total validity of this plan is 24 days, meaning users are spending Rs 6.46 every day to use the services of this plan.
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The only downside to this plan is that it doesn’t have a lot of data, but then it is also very affordable. You can always recharge with a 4G data voucher that Airtel provides to customers with this plan. Note that if you want to use unlimited 5G from Airtel, then you can if you are recharging with the Rs 239 plan or more.
To enable unlimited 5G, you will have to go to the Airtel Thanks app and claim the offer. It is available for both the prepaid as well as postpaid customers of the telco. Coming back to the base prepaid plan of Airtel, users don’t get much in terms of benefits, but they have no other option but to recharge with the Rs 155 plan if they don’t want to spend more than the bare minimum to keep the SIM card active.
There are more plans from Airtel under Rs 200 that users can recharge with. There’s a Rs 179 as well as Rs 199 plan available for the customers, and these plans are also meant to offer users validity at a lower cost. The Rs 179 plan offers 2GB of total data, while the Rs 199 plan offers 3GB. The Rs 179 plan ships with a service validity of 28 days, while the Rs 199 plan ships with a service validity of 30 days. (TelecomTalk)

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#Airtel #Base #Prepaid #Plan #Circles #India #Check #Benefits #Kashmir #News
( With inputs from : kashmirnews.in )

March 19, 2023