One year of war in Ukraine has left deep scars — including on the country’s natural landscape.
The conflict has ruined vast swaths of farmland, burned down forests and destroyed national parks. Damage to industrial facilities has caused heavy air, water and soil pollution, exposing residents to toxic chemicals and contaminated water. Regular shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, means the risk of a nuclear accident still looms large.
The total number of cases of environmental damage tops 2,300, Ukraine’s environment minister, Ruslan Strilets, told POLITICO in an emailed statement. His ministry estimates the total cost at $51.45 billion (€48.33 billion).
Of those documented cases, 1,078 have already been handed over to law enforcement agencies, according to Strilets, as part of an effort to hold Moscow accountable in court for environmental damage.
A number of NGOs have also stepped in to document the environmental impacts of the conflict, with the aim of providing data to international organizations like the United Nations Environment Program to help them prioritize inspections or pinpoint areas at higher risk of pollution.
Among them is PAX, a peace organization based in the Netherlands, which is working with the Center for Information Resilience (CIR) to record and independently verify incidents of environmental damage in Ukraine. So far, it has verified 242 such cases.
Left: Hostomel, Ukraine, after a Russian assault. Right: Port of Mykolaiv after a Russian strike | Imagery courtesy of Planet Labs PBC
“We mainly rely on what’s being documented, and what we can see,” said Wim Zwijnenburg, a humanitarian disarmament project leader with PAX. Information comes from social media, public media accounts and satellite imagery, and is then independently verified.
“That also means that if there’s no one there to record it … we’re not seeing it,” he said. “It’s such a big country, so there’s fighting in so many locations, and undoubtedly, we are missing things.”
After the conflict is over, the data could also help identify “what is needed in terms of cleanup, remediation and restoration of affected areas,” Zwijnenburg said.
Rebuilding green
While some conservation projects — such as rewilding of the Danube delta — have continued despite the war, most environmental protection work has halted.
“It is very difficult to talk about saving other species if the people who are supposed to do it are in danger,” said Oksana Omelchuk, environmental expert with the Ukrainian NGO EcoAction.
That’s unlikely to change in the near future, she added, pointing out that the environment is littered with mines.
Before and after flooding in the Kyiv area, Ukraine | Imagery courtesy of Planet Labs PBC
Agricultural land is particularly affected, blocking farmers from using fields and contaminating the soil, according to Zwijnenburg. That “might have an impact on food security” in the long run, he said.
When it comes to de-mining efforts, residential areas will receive higher priority, meaning it could take a long time to make natural areas safe again.
The delay will “[hinder] the implementation of any projects for the restoration and conservation of species,” according to Omelchuk.
And, of course, fully restoring Ukraine’s nature won’t be possible until “Russian troops leave the territory” she said.
Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol before and after a Russian attack |Imagery courtesy of Planet Labs PBC
Meanwhile, Kyiv is banking that the legal case it is building against Moscow will become a potential source of financing for rebuilding the country and bringing its scarred landscape and ecosystems back to health.
It is also tapping into EU coffers.In a move intended to help the country restore its environment following Russia’s invasion, Ukraine in June became the first non-EU country to join the LIFE program, the EU’s funding instrument for environment and climate.
Earlier this month, Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius announced a €7 million scheme — dubbed the Phoenix Initiative — to help Ukrainian cities rebuild greener and to connect Ukrainian cities with EU counterparts that can share expertise on achieving climate neutrality.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Washington is trying to “demonize Russia” and “fuel the Ukrainian crisis” by accusing Moscow of crimes against humanity, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said on Sunday.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced Saturday that Washington has formally determined that Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine, in an address at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
In a message on the social media network Telegram, Antonov said: “We consider such insinuations as an attempt, unprecedented in terms of its cynicism, to demonize Russia in the course of a hybrid war, unleashed against us. There is no doubt that the purpose of such attacks is to justify Washington’s own actions to fuel the Ukrainian crisis,” he said.
Harris had said Russia is responsible for a “widespread and systematic attack” against Ukraine’s civilian population, committing war crimes — as the administration formally concluded last March — and illegal acts against non-combatants. She cited evidence of execution-style killings, rape, torture and forceful deportations.
The Biden administration will continue to assist Ukraine in investigating these alleged crimes, she said, pledging to hold “to account” the perpetrators and “their superiors.”
“Let us all agree: on behalf of all the victims, both known and unknown: justice must be served,” Harris added.
With the effective takeover of personal communication by the internet-powered cell phone, hundreds of fortune hunters and vested interests are generating content for a diverse audience. Offering the flip side of the virtual world, Fahd Khan reports the ways and means of the new fortune-hunting and the costs society pays on a long-term basis
social media
Over the years, the cell phone supposed to help mankind in real-time better communication has emerged as a key player in reshaping life. Connected with the internet, it has already made obsolete a huge electronic equipment basket comprising nearly 50 items from GPS to a watch. It has taken the sheen away from newspapers and is currently threatening the library. Smartphones have already taken a huge sliver of the classroom as the banking sector is the new target. Covid19 triggered work-from-home culture has taken the crowd out of the offices and online governance has done away with the time-space matrix.
Regardless of how anti-social it might be making its users and which kind of vision and orthopaedic issues it may lead to, the small device is a huge time killer.
Never ever in human history was this much data generated or consumed at a mass level as it is happening now. Kashmir, with more than 90 per cent of cell phone penetration, is as good on this parameter as any developed nation could be. But, what are we consuming?
Ubaid Taj’s Hello Hish might have taken the internet by storm in Kashmir and people of all age groups have bombarded social media with lip sync reels without even recognizing what the words represent or what the music is trying to serve or promote. They just jump into the bandwagon wishing their reels to go viral and become instant celebrities.
Level Playing Field
Cell phones have been a disruptive intervention. It demolished the routine hierarchies and opened multiple sectors for almost everybody. Now people go directly to the virtual world with their artworks, music, photography, writings and music.
They can make significant incomes while lounging at home in luxury. Writing blogs and running websites might formerly be the only way to make money online, but with India’s digital revolution and the introduction of fast internet (now 5G), that is no longer the case. From being a consumer to a prosumer, there has been a shift.
People used to merely consume content, but now easy access to the internet has enabled them to generate content too. Content consumers are prosumers now. More and more people are trying their luck on social media to obtain notoriety and recognition, but only a handful of people are able to achieve it.
Now, users decided what to watch and that decides who earns what. A general trend in Kashmir, unlike the rest of the world that consumes knowledge, is that users consume a lot of data, apparently categorised as entertainment and music
Now, there is a bulk of platforms that can help prosumer to reach out to a host of consumers. It is Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and a host of other applications. Chinese TikTok’s lip sync service in 2016 took the world by storm. Even those living in remote areas started making videos, and some of them even rose to fame overnight and started making money. However, as a result of the standoff between India and China, the app was blocked in India. Taking advantage of the deficit, Instagram developed Reels that allow users to create 60-second videos based on popular music and filmy dialogues.
The Eco System
Everyone who has achieved success on social media has a similar slow growth trajectory as it all begins with the creation of an account, after which they are influenced by other creators and decide to try their luck by making lip-sync videos. If this strategy proves successful, they eventually decide to start a YouTube vlogging channel where they make regular day-to-day videos and let their viewers into their personal lives. However, when they shift from lip sync to producing content, the problem arises.
YouTube content creators have started posting videos where they discuss their incomes, show purchasing luxury goods and automobiles with money they earned online, and generally cajole viewers into doing the same.
Kashmir witnessed a surge in content creators, and there are several individuals who have achieved online fame. Singer Ishfaq Kawa, who will make his Bollywood debut soon, began his career by uploading songs. Kawa has established himself as a household brand and now makes substantial earnings from his YouTube channel, which has about 500000 members.
Almost all the new ‘singers’ connect with the masses through the internet, leaving their traditional counterparts to the age-old practices.
Fame and Fortune
YouTube is a huge platform for these content creators so is Facebook. In India, a video with 10 lakh views might trigger a business of US $800 to US $2500. The earnings depend on the geographical location the views come from, the quality of the videos, the niche and the type of adverts displayed on the channel.
This advantage has inspired a large number of Kashmiris to launch their own YouTube channels and make content creation a career. Some of them are into comedy and some into “singing” and there is a lot of trash too. Some of them imitate famous artists from other regions of the world by producing videos that are identical to theirs. It is being seen as a surefire method to have fame and money. It is a simple formula: “one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.”
There are some huge successes and Kawa is one of them. This is despite the prevalence of stereotypes that usually gets invoked when a female content creator attempts to chase a virtual goal.
Kashmiri Kalkharabs is a young group of satirists and stand-up comedians having nearly 900 thousand followers. Bakus, another video creator apparently inspired by the roast-content creator Carryminati, has 324 thousand subscribers, all of whom have been garnered either by making roasting others or by creating cringe songs. It makes fun of other’s content to make its own profile, a legitimate virtual world reality.
Amir Majid, a content creator from Jammu, has 23 lakh subscribers on YouTube where he posted his rags-to-riches story. In a video, he shows how he was living in an old house and how YouTube changed his life forever. The YouTuber explores different places and also arranges meet-ups with his fans in different parts of India. In one of his fans’ meet up in Srinagar, thousands of fans gathered to meet him. People were in such large number that police was called in to control the mob. His channel is also evident in how much fortune he has made through the platform.
Kashmiri singer Reshi Sakeena who at many times was compared to Dhinchak Pooja, the queen of cringe pop music, now dances at private parties and uploads content. Not everyone can pull off what she does: sing off-key, miss every beat, and still win millions of fans. On YouTube, all of Sakeena’s videos have accumulated millions of views and she has earned well.
Off late, pranks have come to Kashmir. Popularised by some private FM radio studios, pranksters were able to capture the audience’s interest right away. However, as time went on, people began to lose interest since the content was drab and old. There has been an explosion of such videos on the internet where creators create self-humiliating videos that might make one feel uncomfortable at times. While some content makers do it for enjoyment, others do it to gain notoriety and make money from their films. These creators’ primary goal is to get popular online.
Amir Bhat has a Facebook page where he plays pranks on others and has earned 100 thousand followers.
You-tuber Idrees Mir is famous Vlogger with around 900 thousand followers on YouTube and Facebook. He recently made a trip to two foreign destinations and uploaded videos buying automobiles and tech equipment on regular basis, indicating that he earns well.
Risking Lives
Some creators even risked their life for creating content. Murtaza Rafiq known by the name of The EmmInErr recently crossed a milestone of 100 thousand subscribers on his channel and uploaded a video where he spent a night camping in an ordinary summer tent at Gulmarg. Accompanied by the two young children, his video was uploaded with the caption Surviving in Snow for 24 hours in minus 13.
Kashmir’s winter wonderland, Gulmarg is mostly the coldest place where temperatures dip to minus 15 degrees during the night. This act of creating content could have proved fatal for the trio as they didn’t carry proper equipment.
There was also another video creator who jumped into the frozen Nigeen Lake for his video, a media report said.
‘Virtual Politics’
With formal politics squeezed to a level, a group of youth have emerged as “virtual politicians’. They create and upload cringe content presuming it is politics but the people consume it as comedy.
The comic character of Fayaz Scorpio surfaced on the internet during the Covid19 pandemic soon after he became Deputy Sarpanch of Dandoosa (Rafiabad). His rise was his infatuation and an uncanny demand for a Scorpio vehicle. Now, he has become a household name in Kashmir. His clumsy speaking and mannerism have turned him into a laughing stock in Kashmir, and all of his online videos receive millions of views. Scorpio’s fame is so established that people rope him for advertising their products.
His contemporary is Mohammad Shafi, who calls himself Babar Sher, the lion. He moves from one party to another, is driven in a Scorpio vehicle and is always well-dressed. He jumps into any crowd and becomes its “leader” and is known for his theatrics and interesting “statesmanship”. His commentary is sure to make the video viral.
While their virtual presence indicates the tragedy of politics in Kashmir, the fact remains that the people barely watch formal politics the way they see this content. Unlike formal serious politics, these rib-tickling capsules give people moments of pleasure and reasons to laugh at the shift in the space-time matrix.
The Music
In the recent past, one had to be a serious singer or musician, spending years of his life practising to get in the zone of being good, just to be taken seriously and to get a launch by any Music label. Now, anybody can make music and have access to free tools, auto tuners, vocal plugins, melody, and free beats, and it hardly matters whether one sounds good or bad. On top of that, literally, anyone can sing, shoot an album on their smartphone and upload it to Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
This is the tragedy the entertainment and culture sector shares with the media. Anybody with a smartphone and microphone in hand is seen as a “journalist”. The coverage of a murder case in Pampore, where a brother-in-law strangled his sister-in-law to death for rebuffing sexual assault, is evidence of how low video creators have descended. In a viral video on social media, journalists can be seen asking the slain victim’s daughter to describe what transpired, but she seemed hesitant to do so concerning the age of the victim.
Promoting Vulgarity
Musaib Bhat is one of the social media “influencers” whose musical content has been consumed a lot and was very well appreciated. He initially began creating TikTok videos by lip-syncing on well-known Kashmiri tunes. His video gained popularity among all age groups, especially for his copying of female conversations on phone. Apparently, he is attempting to make the virtual world his career.
Recently one of his ‘songs’ Excuse Me, featuring transgender Manu Bebu hogged the headlines for its questionable content. He is being accused of glorifying eve-teasing and objectifying women. One of the lines of his ‘song’ says: When you leave home for the tuition, Everyone including the baker and Milkman swoons at you.
Despite his public apology, his video is still accessible and earning.
The promotion of sexism and the objectification of women through songs and films is not limited to Musaib alone.
Ubaid Taj has released only two songs to date and both of them were watched by millions. Both legitimise the objectification of women. The songs show a man trying to ‘own’ a woman and objectifying her with or without her wish. It dubs a woman a biscuit.
There is another content creator by 7afazul on Instagram who started a new trend of reels in which a person is being asked “che chuy zanh love gomut” (have you ever fallen in love?) His reels have huge views. His popularity has given birth to a similar channel on Instagram where they ask people if they have even fallen in love and shockingly some videos have surfaced where children or mentally challenged people were not spared. Instagram is quite popular among teens and youth groups.
Response
“These songs are good for providing enjoyment, but apart from gathering views and followers, every content creator has certain social duties,” a female university student said. “Everything has an effect, and these song lyrics encourage eve-teasing, which breeds crime and other social evils.
Another girl, who wishes to remain anonymous, said the impact is being seen when girls are being referred to as “biscuit” in real life now. “Tragedy is that future generation is getting impacted. One of the song’s lines, which is subtly advocating eve teasing, is being repeatedly hummed by my 8-year-old cousin.”
When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he promised an era of openness for the social media platform. Yet that transparency will soon come at a price.
On Thursday, the social-networking giant will shut down free and unfettered access to reams of data on the company’s millions of users. As part of that overhaul, researchers worldwide who track misinformation and hate speech will also have their access shut down — unless they stump up the cash to keep the data tap on.
The move is part of Musk’s efforts to make Twitter profitable amid declining advertising revenue, sluggish user growth and cut-throat competition from the likes of TikTok and Instagram.
But the shift has riled academics, infuriated lawmakers and potentially put Twitter at odds with new content-moderation rules in the European Union that require such data access to independent researchers.
“Shutting down or requiring paid access to the researcher API will be devastating,” said Rebekah Tromble, director of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at George Washington University, who has spent years relying on Twitter’s API to track potentially harmful material online.
“There are inequities in resources for researchers around the world. Scholars at Ivy League institutions in the United States could probably afford to pay,” she added. “But there are scholars all around the world who simply will not have the resources to pay anything for access to this.”
The change would cut free access to Twitter’s so-called application program interface (API), which allowed outsiders to track what happened on the platform on a large scale. The API essentially gave outsiders direct access to the company’s data streams and was kept open to allow researchers to monitor users, including to spot harmful, fake or misleading content.
A team at New York University, for instance, published a report last month on how far wide-reaching Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election had been by directly tapping into Twitter’s API system. Without that access, the level of Kremlin meddling would have been lost to history, according to Joshua Tucker, co-director at New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics.
Twitter did not respond to repeated requests to comment on whether this week’s change would affect academics and other independent researchers. The move still may not happen at all, depending on how Twitter tweaks its policies. The company’s development team said via a post on the social network last week it was committed to allowing others to access the platform via some form of API.
“We’ll be back with more details on what you can expect next week,” they said.
Yet the lack of details about who will be affected — and how much the data access will cost from February 9 — has left academics and other researchers scrambling for any details. Meanwhile, many of Twitter’s employees working on trust and safety issues have either been fired or have left the company since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October.
In Europe’s crosshairs
The timing of the change comes as the European Commission on Thursday will publish its first reports from social media companies, including Twitter, about how they are complying with the EU’s so-called code of practice on disinformation, a voluntary agreement between EU legislators and Big Tech firms in which these companies agree to uphold a set of principles to clamp down on such material. The code of practice includes pledges to “empower researchers” by improving their ability to access companies’ data to track online content.
Thierry Breton, Europe’s internal market commissioner, talked to Musk last week to remind him about his obligations regarding the bloc’s content rules, though neither discussed the upcoming shutdown of free data access to the social network.
“We cannot rely only on the assessment of the platforms themselves. If the access to researchers is getting worse, most likely that would go against the spirit of that commitment,” Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, told POLITICO.
“It’s worrying to see a reversal of the trend on Twitter,” she added in reference to the likely cutback in outsiders’ access to the company’s data.
While the bloc’s disinformation standards are not mandatory, separate content rules from Brussels, known as the Digital Services Act, also directly require social media companies to provide data access to so-called vetted researchers. By complying with the code of practice on disinformation, tech giants can ease some of their compliance obligations under those separate content-moderation rules and avoid fines of up to 6 percent of their revenues if they fall afoul of the standards.
Yet even Twitter’s inclusion in the voluntary standards on disinformation is on shaky ground.
The company submitted its initial report that will be published Wednesday and Musk said he was committed to complying with the rules. But Camino Rojo — who served as head of public policy for Spain and was the main person at Twitter involved in the daily work on the code since November’s mass layoffs — is no longer working at the tech giant as of last week, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions within Twitter. Rojo did not respond to a request for comment.
American lawmakers are also trying to pass legislation that would improve researcher access to social media companies following a series of scandals. The companies’ role in fostering the January 6 Capitol Hill riots has triggered calls for tougher scrutiny, as did the so-called Facebook Files revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen, which highlighted how difficult it remains for outsiders to understand what is happening on these platforms.
“Twitter should be making it easier to study what’s happening on its platform, not harder,” U.S. Representative Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement in reference to the upcoming change to data access. “This is the latest in a series of bad moves from Twitter under Elon Musk’s leadership.”
Rebecca Kern contributed reporting from Washington.
This article has been updated to reflect a change in when the European Commission is expected to publish reports under the code of practice on disinformation.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
When a major corruption scandal broke in Ukraine last weekend, reporters faced an excruciating dilemma between professional duty and patriotism. The first thought that came to my mind was: “Should I write about this for foreigners? Will it make them stop supporting us?”
There was no doubting the severity of the cases that were erupting into the public sphere. They cut to the heart of the war economy. In one instance, investigators were examining whether the deputy infrastructure minister had profited from a deal to supply electrical generators at an inflated price, while the defense ministry was being probed over an overpriced contract to supply food and catering services to the troops.
Huge stories, but in a sign of our life-or-death times in Ukraine, even my colleague Yuriy Nikolov, who got the scoop on the inflated military contract, admitted he had done everything he could not to publish his investigation. He took his findings to public officials hoping that they might be able to resolve the matter, before he finally felt compelled to run it on the ZN.UA website.
Getting a scoop that shocks your country, forces your government to start investigations and reform military procurement, and triggers the resignation of top officials is ordinarily something that makes other journalists jealous. But I fully understand how Nikolov feels about wanting to hold back when your nation is at war. Russia (and Ukraine’s other critics abroad) are, after all, looking to leap upon any opportunity to undermine trust in our authorities.
A journalist is meant to stay a little distant from the situation he or she covers. It helps to stay impartial and to stick to the facts, not emotions. But what if staying impartial is impossible as you have to cover the invasion of your own country? Naturally, you have to keep holding your government to account, but you are also painfully aware that the enemy is out there looking to exploit any opportunity to erode faith in the leadership and undermine national security.
That is exactly what Ukrainian journalists have to deal with every day. In the first six months of the invasion, Ukrainian journalists and watchdogs decided to put their public criticism of the Ukrainian government on pause and focus on documenting Russian war crimes.
But that has backfired.
“This pause led to a rapid loss of accountability for many Ukrainian officials,” Mykhailo Tkach, one of Ukraine’s top investigative journalists, wrote in a column for Ukrainska Pravda.
His investigations about Ukrainian officials leaving the country during the war for lavish vacations in Europe led to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues. It also sparked the dismissal of the powerful deputy prosecutor general.
The Ukrainian government was forced to react to corruption and make a major reshuffle almost immediately. Would that happen if Ukrainian journalists decided to sit on their findings until victory? I doubt it.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended up imposing a ban on officials traveling abroad during the war for non-work-related issues | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Is it still painful when you have to write about your own government’s officials’ flops when overwhelming enemy forces are trying to erase your nation from the planet, using every opportunity they can get to shake your international partners’ faith? Of course it is.
But in this case, there was definite room for optimism. Things are changing in Ukraine. The government had to react very quickly, under intense pressure from civil society and the independent press. Memes and social media posts immediately appeared, mocking the government’s pledge to buy eggs at massively inflated prices. Ultimately, the deputy infrastructure minister was fired and the deputy defense minister resigned.
This speedy response was praised by the European Commission and showed how far we really are from Russia, where authorities hunt down not the officials accused of corruption, but the journalists who report it.
As Tkach said, many believe that the war with the internal enemy will begin immediately after the victory over the external one.
However, we can’t really wait that long. It is important to understand that the sooner we win the battle with the internal enemy — high-profile corruption — the sooner we win the war against Russia.
“Destruction of corruption means getting additional funds for the defense capability of the country. And it means more military and civilian lives saved,” Tkach said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Public authorities in the Netherlands are being told to steer clear of TikTok amid growing concerns across the EU and U.S. that the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform poses privacy risks.
Dutch ministries and agencies are mostly following a recommendation to shun TikTok accounts and stop government communication and advertising on the platform, two government officials told POLITICO. This is despite the app’s skyrocketing popularity in the Netherlands, where it has around 3.5 million users.
The Dutch pivot away from TikTok follows advice issued by the general affairs ministry to “suspend the use of TikTok for the government until TikTok has adjusted its data protection policy” announced in November. While the recommendation resembles a recent U.S. government decision from December to ban the use of TikTok on government devices, the Dutch guidance is far more limited in scope and enforcement.
It’s the latest example of how TikTok, owned by the Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, is facing headwinds in Europe, adding to its troubles in the U.S. The firm is already under investigation for sending data on European Union users to China. One of the video app’s fiercest European critics is French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called TikTok “deceptively innocent” and a cause of “real addiction” among users, as well as a source of Russian disinformation.
Dutch officials have sought to strengthen ties with Washington in recent months as the U.S. pushes for more export controls on selling sensitive technology to China, including machines made by Dutch chips printing giant ASML. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte this month met with U.S. President Joe Biden, where they discussed how to “quite frankly, meet the challenges of China,” the U.S. leader told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The Dutch policy on TikTok, which is effectively a pause rather than a ban, is mainly targeted at stopping the use of TikTok for “media” purposes, a spokesperson for the general affairs ministry said, and doesn’t explicitly instruct government officials to delete the app from phones.
The spokesperson said it’s hard to evaluate how strictly government services have abided by the advice since the ministry isn’t monitoring separate services’ use of the app. But the two officials said the advice had triggered a clear shift away from the Chinese-owned app, in line with growing security concerns across the West.
A junior Dutch government coalition party called in November for a full ban on the app “in its current form.” Asked by reporters what he thought of this proposal, Rutte said this was “the opinion of five seats in the Dutch lower chamber.”
TikTok admitted in early November that some of its China-based employees could access European TikTok user data. It also came under intense scrutiny in the U.S. over a report in Forbes magazine in December that employees had accessed data to track the location of journalists covering TikTok.
This month, TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew visited Brussels to assuage concerns in meetings with EU commissioners including Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, Vice President for Values Věra Jourová and Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
“I count on TikTok to fully execute its commitments to go the extra mile in respecting EU law and regaining [the] trust of European regulator,” Jourová said in a warning shot at the company. There could not be “any doubt that data of users in Europe are safe and not exposed to illegal access from third-country authorities,” she said.
TikTok said in a comment that it’s open to engaging with the Dutch government “to debunk misconceptions and explain how we keep both our community and their data safe and secure.”
UPDATED: This article was updated to add TikTok’s comment.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Continued deliveries of arms to Ukraine by its allies in the West will lead to retaliation with “more powerful weapons,” a top official in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime said on Sunday.
Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, threatened Europe and the U.S. with “global catastrophe” over their continued military support to the government in Kyiv, which is trying to continue retaking territory it lost in the Russian invasion.
Volodin directly invoked the use of nuclear weapons in his statement over messaging app Telegram.
“Arguments that the nuclear powers have not previously used weapons of mass destruction in local conflicts are untenable. This is because these states have not faced a situation in which the security of their citizens and the territorial integrity of their countries were threatened,” the Russian official wrote in his social media post.
The threat comes amid arguments over whether Germany will send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion. Kyiv has requested the German-made tanks, which it says it needs to renew its counteroffensive against Moscow’s forces. But Berlin has so far resisted the call from Ukraine and its allies to send the tanks without the U.S. making the first move, over fears of an escalation in the conflict.
Berlin also hasn’t approved deliveries of the tanks from its allies, as Germany gets a final say over any re-exports of the vehicles from countries that have purchased them.
Newly appointed German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is planning a trip to Ukraine, which could come in the next month, German newspaper Bild, a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group, reported on Sunday, citing an interview. Asked about the Leopard tanks, Pistorius said: “We are in very close dialogue on this issue with our international partners, above all with the U.S.”
In his Telegram post, Russia’s Volodin said: “With their decisions, Washington and Brussels are leading the world to a terrible war … foreign politicians making such decisions need to understand that this could end in a global tragedy that will destroy their countries.”
It’s not the first time that top Russian politicians threaten a nuclear escalation. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invoked the use of nuclear weapons more than once since the outbreak of the conflict 11 months ago.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Boris Johnson leaped back into the spotlight on Sunday after videos of the former British prime minister visiting Ukraine were posted online, in a move likely to irritate the Conservative government back home.
Posts on Twitter show Johnson meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and visiting the war-struck towns of Bucha and Borodyanka near Kyiv.
Johnson is a member of the British parliament but doesn’t hold any official role in the government led by Rishi Sunak.
The former prime minister was removed by his own Conservative party last year amid collapsing support in the polls and an administration dogged by a seeming never-ending series of scandals. He is now also facing questions about his financial dealings.
But in Ukraine, Johnson is regarded as a hero for his steadfast support of the country after its invasion by Russia in February 2022. He was awarded an honorary “Citizen of Kyiv” medal from the city’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko at Davos last week.
The Ukraine visit — which according to the Telegraph was not announced in advance nor arranged via the British embassy — could be seen as a move to undermine Sunak. Johnson, a seasoned politician, is known for his crowd-pleasing stunts and rhetorical flourishes. Though he was removed by his fellow Conservatives, he’s still popular among a hard core of supporters in the party.
Johnson weighed into the ongoing debate about supplying Ukraine with advanced battle tanks. The U.K. has agreed to send Challenger 2 tanks to the Ukrainian battlefield, but Germany continues to hesitate about delivering Leopard 2 tanks.
“The only way to end this war is for Ukraine to win — and to win as fast as possible,” Johnson said in a statement. “This is the moment to double down, and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job.”
A spokesperson for No. 10 Downing Street said Sunak is “always supportive of all colleagues showing that the U.K. is behind Ukraine and will continue to support them.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
SRINAGAR: Social media influencers and celebrities will face a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh on repeat offence and even lead to a ban of up to six years, on violation of guidelines for them, which were released by the consumer affairs ministry on Friday.
Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh told mediapersons, while releasing the guidelines, that the whole issue is centred around consumers’ right.
“It is the responsibility of the endorser, celebrities and influencers or other advertisers to truthfully disclose whatever information the consumer must know before making any decision for purchase,” the guidelines said.
Singh further said social media influencers should disclose the nature of their endorsements.
“Individuals or groups who have access to an audience and the power to affect their purchasing decisions about a product, brand or service because of the influencer’s authority, knowledge, position or relationship with their audience,” the guidelines said.
Influencers are defined as creators who advertise products with a strong influence on the decisions or opinions of their audience. Virtual influencers, which are defined as fictional computer-generated people with realistic features of humans, are also required to disclose their endorsements, the guidelines said further.
The department noted that, “When there is a material connection between an advertiser and celebrity/influencer that may affect the weight or credibility of the representation made by the celebrity/influencer.”
These material connections include monetary or other forms of compensation, free products, contests and sweepstakes entries, trips or hotel stays, media barters, coverage and awards, or any personal, family or employment relationship, the rules note.
The influencers should be able to substantiate the claims made by them. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 provides the framework for the protection of consumers against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements.
The product and service must have been actually used or experienced by the endorser, the ministry said, adding that consumers can seek legal actions against those defaulting. (IANS)
