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Saturday, 30 June 2018
US trying to make friends, counter China with massive naval exercise
But as ships were arriving in Hawaii for RIMPAC, China was completing naval exercises of its own, with a series of live-fire naval drills off Taiwan that began on June 17.
That the two sets of exercises overlap only serves to reinforce the differences between the two super powers, as both countries vie for military influence in the Pacific.
RIMPAC is about “building relationships,” US military leaders said at a press conference in Hawaii on Thursday, pointing out Indo-Pacific nations making first-time or upgraded contributions to the exercises, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, which all have claims in the South China Sea.
“We work together, build relationships here, so later on … it’s hard to turn down a friend,” said Vice Adm. John Alexander, commander of the US Navy’s 3rd Fleet told the Pearl Harbor gathering marking the beginning of the games.
And RIMPAC shows the US Navy is better at making friends than its Chinese counterpart, analysts say.
“China’s absence means that it loses an opportunity to … establish professional and potentially personal relationships with its regional and global naval counterparts,” said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.
Beijing does not host any naval exercises on the scope of RIMPAC, Schuster said.
“There is a bit of the ‘I’m the popular kid on the block’ approach to all this,” said Peter Layton, visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, pointing out that the US Navy knows how to show off its and its partners’ capabilities.
Among the planned RIMPAC missions are new missile demonstrations, amphibious exercises, mine clearing and anti-piracy exercises, according to the US Navy.
Expect all to be well publicized with tweets, photos and videos and postings on the RIMPAC Facebook page.
“It highlights in graphic media detail lasting a month that navies want to exercise with the US Navy,” Layton said.
And the presence of the South China Sea nations at RIMPAC shows loyalties in the region remain very much in play, said Layton.
Making friends and extending influence
Washington has periodically sent warships within boundaries declared by China around disputed islands, but those so-called “freedom of navigation operations” have not been joined by other Southeast Asian navies.
RIMPAC gives those Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) a chance to show “passive support” for the US position, Layton said.
The 10 ASEAN nations include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. All but Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are at RIMPAC.
“ASEAN states might not be willing to sail with the US Navy through the disputed waters but they are keen to exercise with the US Navy and show solidarity that way,” Layton said.
“Vietnam for the first time attending this year’s exercise is significant in that regard. The Philippines involvement similarly indicates they wish to hedge their bets and remind China they have other options,” he said.
Broad coalition
Outside of Southeast Asia, the US is giving important roles to other allies.
Canadian and Japanese admirals will be in the Nos. 2 and 3 overall command positions and Australian and Chilean commanders will the maritime and air components respectively.
“The trust built in RIMPAC will pay dividends when we all respond together to crises that may arise,” Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said at Pearl Harbor on Thursday.
China, meanwhile, sent a flotilla of warships for a week of “real combat training” around Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory but has been a self-governed, democratic island since 1949 following a civil war on the Chinese mainland.
Beijing said the combat exercises were “directed at separatist elements advocating “Taiwan independence,” according to a report from the state-run Xinhua news service.
The Chinese military said two warships from its Eastern Theater Command spearheaded the exercises — with added units from air and coastal defense forces — in the Taitung Strait, the Bashi Strait and the Taiwan Strait, according to Xinhua.
Highlighting that the exercises were conducted by the Eastern Theater Command, formed during a Chinese military reorganization in 2016, was important, according to Schuster, the former US Navy officer now a Hawaii Pacific University professor.
“It means the PLA Navy and the joint command structure are getting better, more capable and they want Taiwan and the United States to know it,” he said.
The exercises came while US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who had pulled China’s RIMPAC invitation in early June, visited leaders in Beijing.
They included President Xi Jinping, who made his position on the South China Sea clear.
“Our stance is steadfast and clear-cut when it comes to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Xi said, according to state media, adding that “any inch of territory passed down from ancestors cannot be lost while we want nothing from others.”
Alternative alliances
Beijing isn’t showing any envy of RIMPAC either. On Thursday, the Defense Ministry announced its planning naval drills with the 10 ASEAN nations later this year, aiming to “enhance mutual trust, expand exchange and cooperation, and safeguard regional peace and stability,” Xinhua reported.
Meanwhile, Layton says for all the US military’s talk of building relationships, there’s one person who could burn them down during the month of RIMPAC — Donald Trump.
The US President has meetings with NATO and European Union leaders as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled for July.
“Donald Trump is widely expected to insult the Europeans and the Canadians, and actively try to damage NATO and the EU, while heaping praise on Putin for Syria and the Ukraine,” the Australian analyst said.
“Some EU nations and maybe others may wonder why they are supporting a US exercise in the Pacific,” Layton said. “Trump in attacking allies and friends will undo for all participants some of RIMPAC’s soft power aspects.”
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World T20 No 1 spot on line in Zimbabwe
Harare – Australia, Pakistan and Zimbabwe meet in a T20 tri-series starting in Harare on Sunday with the world No 1 ranking on the line in the sport’s shortest format.
Pakistan travel to Zimbabwe as the world’s top rated team, but if the Australians are able to put their torrid tour of England behind them they could claim that status for themselves.
Australia are in dire need of a confidence booster after enduring a 6-0 drubbing across limited overs formats on their tour of England, and ahead of their arrival in Zimbabwe coach Justin Langer insisted “there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
Australia slipped down to third in the ICC’s T20 rankings after their defeat to England but could come out of the Zimbabwe tri-series with the top ranking if they are able to reverse their losing streak.
The challenge is a stiff one, however, as Australia are currently missing six key limited overs players, with Steve Smith and David Warner currently serving bans while Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitch Marsh all recovering from injuries.
They will be up against a Pakistan side brimming with confidence after having lost only one of their eight T20 internationals this year.
Looking to extend their success, Pakistan named a full strength squad for their trip to Zimbabwe.
They decided not to rest fast bowler Mohammad Amir for this tour, while the contributions of 19-year-old leg-spinner Shadab Khan will also be crucial in conditions expected to favour spin.
The experienced Mohammad Hafeez will likely return to their top order after his bowling action was cleared as legal last month.
“Hafeez warranted a place after clearing his action,” said Pakistan selector Inzamam-ul-Haq.
Uncapped opener Sahibzada Farhan was also included “after showing good form in domestic matches,” said Inzamam. Pakistan will also bank on the experience of captain Sarfraz Ahmed, who has toured Zimbabwe twice before.
Hosts Zimbabwe have had their own side shorn of valuable experience due to a pay dispute between Zimbabwe Cricket and several senior players.
There will be a new look to their team when they take on Pakistan in Sunday’s opener, with young batsman Tarisai Musakanda tipped to be named as new captain.
The Zimbabweans will also be distracted by the potential outcomes of the ongoing ICC conference, where their cricket board’s massive debts are being discussed.
The signs are that this could be a difficult first outing for new coach Lalchand Rajput.
“To be very honest, I just look at the players who are available and the best 15 or 17 which we have picked,” he said.
“So my job is to get the 17 who are available and prepare them for the tri-series. I am not interested in who is available or not available. My job is for the people who are available and I want to prepare them well for the tri-series.”
The three teams will play each other twice, with a rest day on Saturday before the top two sides meet in next Sunday’s final.
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Austrian mountaineer dies in avalanche on Pakistan mountain
One member of a three-man mountaineering expedition has died in an avalanche on a more than 7,000-meter (7,658-yard) high peak in northern Pakistan, officials said Saturday.
Karrar Haidri, secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan, said Austrian mountaineer Christian Huber was killed when an avalanche hit the climbers’ tent Friday night during a strong storm at a height of 5,900 meters (6,455 yards) on Ultar Sar Peak in the Hunza Valley.
Officials said the other two mountaineers in the group, Britons Bruce Normand and Timothy Miller, suffered injuries but were safe and helicopters were being sent to rescue them.
The three-member expedition started in late May and was permitted to go till the first week of July. The team was being managed by Higher Ground Expeditions, a tour operating company in Hunza Valley.
Higher Ground employee Abdul Karim Zouqi said a rescue helicopter will pick up the two survivors once the crew gets a weather clearance to do so. He said the body of the deceased mountaineer and his gear were found and would be brought back.
However, Zouqi said expedition leader Normand emailed him saying the weather was getting worse.
In January, volunteers rescued a French mountaineer stranded on a Himalayan peak but called off efforts to retrieve a Polish climber who was declared dead after a dramatic rescue effort.
Elisabeth Revol and Tomasz Mackiewicz were climbing Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest peak in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet), but called for help.
Four volunteers from a separate Polish expedition set out to find them and managed to reach Revol, a renowned mountaineer who was suffering from frostbite on her feet and could not walk. Poor weather prevented the team from reaching Mackiewicz, who had snow blindness and altitude sickness.
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Eldest daughter of parachute plot army sergeant says she’s glad he’s in jail
Emile Cilliers was jailed and sacked from the Royal Army Physical Training Corps after he was found guilty of attempted murder
The eldest daughter of the Army sergeant who tried to kill his wife by cutting her parachute has said she is glad he is in prison.
Emile Cilliers’ daughter Cilene said her father’s conviction was ‘justice for everyone who has crossed paths with him and been hurt’.
Cilene, 18, did not know until the trial that she had four half-brothers and sisters who were children of Cilliers by different women, the Mirror reported.
Cilliers was jailed and sacked from the Royal Army Physical Training Corps after he was found guilty of attempted murder by sabotaging his wife Vicky’s parachute in Wiltshire.
The father-of-six, who the prosecution called a ‘charmless unfaithful penniless scoundrel’, was also sleeping with his ex-wife Carly, Mrs Cilliers and a Tinder lover named Stefanie Goller.
Cilene, whose mother was Nicolene Shepherd – another partner – said: ‘Dad did manage to achieve something good – his children.
‘I’d love to get to know them all properly. They’re my half brothers and sisters and have lost their father, just like me.’
She said her father was ‘nowhere to be seen’ when she was young as Cilliers was secretly maintaining a relationship with British woman Carly Taylor.
Cilene said that 10 years had passed without seeing him, in which time she tried to contact Cilliers on social media but received no response, before they met again in a Travelodge.
She said they shared a ‘weak and awkward’ when Cilliers met Cilene and her brother and she was left feeling ‘disappointed’ and ‘sidelined’.
Cilliers was found guilty of attempted murder by sabotaging his wife Vicky’s parachute in Wiltshire (pictured together in happier times)
Vicky Cilliers was sent plummeting from 4,000 feet after her husband cut her parachute in 2015 but incredibly survived.
Emile CIlliers first tried to gas his wife with their children in the house but the smell alerted her to the danger and she later jokingly texted him to say: ‘Are you trying to kill me?!’.
Three days later he suggested his wife, an experienced parachutist, go skydiving over Easter weekend 2015 and then sabotaged her kit on the eve of her 4,000ft jump at Netheravon Airfield, Wiltshire.
Cilliers tangled her main canopy and removed vital links from her reserve in a toilet cubicle after he told Mrs Cilliers one of their children needed the loo.
The soldier, described as a ‘boobaholic’ by his wife who knew he was part of a sex club, also contacted prostitutes about meeting up on the proviso sex was unprotected and he could film the liaison – but cancelled after they tried to charge £60 instead of £50.
He also signed up to a sex club and swingers’ site to find a ‘f*** buddy’.
Vicky about to do a jump from a plane. She is a veteran of an astounding 2,600 jumps
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Friday, 29 June 2018
Govinda is back fighting fit, but the rain gods have other plans
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On Wednesday rain halted Govinda’s exuberance. Govinda was shooting for his comeback film Rangeela Raja wittier and nimbler on his feet than ever before. Producer Pahlaj Nihalani was shooting a song at suburban studio with the star-actor whom Nihalani had introduced 32 years ago in Ilzaam
The camaraderie between them is palpable. “Look what Pahlaj is making me do. I am supposed to be shooting a song and we are stranded because of the rains. I’ve three heroines in the film. But none here to give me company,” grumbles Govinda good-naturedly.
He is back doing what he likes doing the most. That after so many decades Govinda still commands a huge fan following is evident from the popularity of the ‘Dancing Uncle’ whose Govinda moves are breaking the internet.
Says Govinda warmly, “God bless Sanjeev Shrivastava. If my dancing has helped him find fame I am happy and grateful that God has given me a talent that others can use.”
Govinda feels he needs to re-invent his own skills as an actor and dancer. “I’ve been through so many experiences. I feel I am entering a new phase in my life,” he says.
Also Read: Govinda IMPRESSED with the recreation of his song ‘Aap Ke Aa Jane Se’ by Dancing Uncle
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Drake Admits to Fathering a Son in Tracks on New Album ‘Scorpion’
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Expect flexibility in Indian middle order: Kohli
Captain promises game-time for all players in squad after defeating Ireland in first T20I
IMAGE: Yuzvendra Chahal celebrates with his team mates after taking the wicket of Andrew Balbirnie. Photograph: Kind courtesy, Cricket Ireland/Twitter
India captain Virat Kohli wants to “surprise the opposition” by experimenting with his middle order in the remaining T20s against Ireland and the subsequent three-match series against England.
Kohli pushed himself down the order at six in the opening T20, which India won by 76 runs. Suresh Raina came to bat at three and M S Dhoni four after the openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma put up a 160-run stand.
“We have already announced that apart from the opening combination we are going to do a lot of experiments in the middle order. We are going to be flexible in the next few T20s. We will look to throw in guys when the situation requires them to come in and try to surprise the opposition,” said Kohli in the post-match presentation.
“It presents the opportunity for the batsmen who couldn’t get the opportunity to bat. The guys who couldn’t get a chance today will get an opportunity in the next match. The guys had a great time in IPL but they need to get time in the middle here too.”
Kohli assured that everyone in the squad will get a game.
“The team management decided to give a go to everyone in the squad. The guys are fine with this decision. We are looking to give everyone game-time and want them to portray the qualities they possess because many guys go on tour and never get an opportunity to play,” said the skipper.
IMAGE: India’s MS Dhoni in action during the match against Ireland. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
There was not much to complain either after India outplayed Ireland in all departments.
“The opening combination was excellent. The last over bowled by Ireland was terrific. Great effort by Rohit and Shikhar to put us in a good position. And good strikes from MS, Raina and Pandya in the end. Bowlers did a clinical job too,” Kohli added.
The Indian spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal started the UK tour with a bang, taking four and three wickets respectively.
Ireland captain Gary Wilson said his batsmen will have to find a way to play the Indian spinners better.
“They are a world-class side and their lads at the top played beautifully. I expected it to be a good wicket, I did not expect it to spin as it did in the second innings. We could have bowled spinners in the powerplay,” said Wilson.
“You can always do things differently when things don’t go your way. We are going to have a chat to tackle their spinners. James Shannon (opener) had a good match so that is one positive we can take from this match,” he added.
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Trump casts doubt on Russian election meddling ahead of Putin summit
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Some of things Trump said about Putin in the past before they met in person.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump has met with Russian President Putin for the first time. Some of things Trump said about Putin in the past before they met in person.”,”title”:”Where and when did nerve agent attack happen?”,”duration”:”02:09″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180315225913-uk-nerve-agent-attack1-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN’s Melissa Bell looks into the timeline behind the military grade nerve agent attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuilia in Salisbury on March 4.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN’s Melissa Bell looks into the timeline behind the military grade nerve agent attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuilia in Salisbury on March 4.”,”title”:”Russia accuses US of nerve agent attack”,”duration”:”01:53″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/171111093428-01-trump-putin-111117-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Just a day after President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election victory, the Kremlin suggested that the US was responsible for the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. 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CNN’s u003ca href=”https://ift.tt/2DTv9h9 Pleitgenu003c/a> has the story.”,”title”:”Trump expels 60 Russian diplomats over UK attack”,”duration”:”00:50″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180316123958-trump-putin-split-0316-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump is ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington, in the wake of the UK nerve agent attack, the White House announced.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump is ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington, in the wake of the UK nerve agent attack, the White House announced.”,”title”:”Late night takes jabs at Trump for Putin call”,”duration”:”01:05″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180321032819-colbert-3-21-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, joke about Donald Trump’s congratulatory call to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “,”descriptionText”:”Late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, joke about Donald Trump’s congratulatory call to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “,”title”:”Cooper to Trump: Where is Putin’s nickname?”,”duration”:”06:33″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180321205454-anderson-cooper-3-21-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN’s Anderson Cooper discusses US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN’s Anderson Cooper discusses US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”title”:”Ana Navarro slams Trump’s ‘appalling’ call”,”duration”:”01:07″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180320235619-ana-navarro-march-20-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN political commentator Ana Navarro criticizes President Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin after he was elected to another six-year term as Russia’s president.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN political commentator Ana Navarro criticizes President Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin after he was elected to another six-year term as Russia’s president.”,”title”:”Trump: I congratulated Putin on 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month”,”duration”:”02:00″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/06/28/trump-putin-summit-helsinki-july-date-set-abby-phillip-newday-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/06/28/trump-putin-summit-helsinki-july-date-set-abby-phillip-newday-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180411072715-01-trump-putin-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/06/28/trump-putin-summit-helsinki-july-date-set-abby-phillip-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”As President Trump prepares to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland, he continues to cast doubt on US intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.”,”descriptionText”:”As President Trump prepares to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki, Finland, he continues to cast doubt on US intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.”,”title”:”Officials: Trump, Putin to hold first summit”,”duration”:”02:26″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/06/27/trump-putin-summit-pleitgen-dnt-vpx.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/06/27/trump-putin-summit-pleitgen-dnt-vpx.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180402101940-putin-trump-split-0402-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/06/27/trump-putin-summit-pleitgen-dnt-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet after US national security adviser John Bolton confirmed details of the summit with Putin. CNN’s u003ca href=”/profiles/frederik-pleitgen” target=”_blank”>Frederik Pleitgen u003c/a>reports. “,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet after US national security adviser John Bolton confirmed details of the summit with Putin. CNN’s u003ca href=”/profiles/frederik-pleitgen” target=”_blank”>Frederik Pleitgen u003c/a>reports. “,”title”:”Obama adviser: Putin winning because of Trump”,”duration”:”01:03″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/06/08/ben-rhodes-putin-winning-trump-tsr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/06/08/ben-rhodes-putin-winning-trump-tsr.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180608173430-ben-rhodes-putin-winning-trump-tsr-00000000-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/06/08/ben-rhodes-putin-winning-trump-tsr.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes discusses President Trump’s proposal of readmitting Russia into the G7.”,”descriptionText”:”Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes discusses President Trump’s proposal of readmitting Russia into the G7.”,”title”:”Lt. Colonel: Convinced Putin has grip on Trump”,”duration”:”01:20″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/06/07/colonel-leaves-fox-news-putin-trump-intv-sot-ac.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/06/07/colonel-leaves-fox-news-putin-trump-intv-sot-ac.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180606204036-us-ac-intv-screengrab-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/06/07/colonel-leaves-fox-news-putin-trump-intv-sot-ac.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who recently left Fox News and Fox Business News after 10 years as a strategic and military analyst, tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin “has a grip” on President Donald Trump.”,”descriptionText”:”Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, who recently left Fox News and Fox Business News after 10 years as a strategic and military analyst, tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin “has a grip” on President Donald Trump.”,”title”:”WSJ: WH in early talks for Trump-Putin summit”,”duration”:”01:22″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/06/02/wsj-white-house-possible-trump-putin-summit-ctn.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/06/02/wsj-white-house-possible-trump-putin-summit-ctn.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180402101940-putin-trump-split-0402-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/06/02/wsj-white-house-possible-trump-putin-summit-ctn.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”The Wall Street Journal reports the White House is in early talks about a potential summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”descriptionText”:”The Wall Street Journal reports the White House is in early talks about a potential summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”title”:”What Putin wanted from Trump Tower meeting “,”duration”:”02:28″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/05/16/putin-motives-trump-tower-meeting-todd-dnt-tsr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/05/16/putin-motives-trump-tower-meeting-todd-dnt-tsr.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180515094518-01-kerch-strait-bridge-putin-file-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/05/16/putin-motives-trump-tower-meeting-todd-dnt-tsr.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Newly released transcripts of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s priorities for the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. CNN’s u003ca href=”/profiles/brian-todd-profile” target=”_blank”>Brian Toddu003c/a> reports. “,”descriptionText”:”Newly released transcripts of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee reveal some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s priorities for the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. CNN’s u003ca href=”/profiles/brian-todd-profile” target=”_blank”>Brian Toddu003c/a> reports. “,”title”:”Ex-CIA director says Trump fears Putin”,”duration”:”01:31″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/21/brennan-trump-fears-putin-msnbc-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/21/brennan-trump-fears-putin-msnbc-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/171111093428-01-trump-putin-111117-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/21/brennan-trump-fears-putin-msnbc-orig-vstop-bdk.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin might have personal dirt on President Trump.”,”descriptionText”:”Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan speculated that Russian President Vladimir Putin might have personal dirt on President Trump.”,”title”:”Things Trump has said about Putin”,”duration”:”01:27″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:””,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2017/07/05/things-trump-said-about-putin-orig-bw.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2017/07/05/things-trump-said-about-putin-orig-bw.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170407053321-02-trump-putin-split-0407-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2017/07/05/things-trump-said-about-putin-orig-bw.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump has met with Russian President Putin for the first time. Some of things Trump said about Putin in the past before they met in person.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump has met with Russian President Putin for the first time. Some of things Trump said about Putin in the past before they met in person.”,”title”:”Where and when did nerve agent attack happen?”,”duration”:”02:09″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180315225913-uk-nerve-agent-attack1-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/world/2018/03/16/uk-nerve-agent-where-when-bell-pkg.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN’s Melissa Bell looks into the timeline behind the military grade nerve agent attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuilia in Salisbury on March 4.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN’s Melissa Bell looks into the timeline behind the military grade nerve agent attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuilia in Salisbury on March 4.”,”title”:”Russia accuses US of nerve agent attack”,”duration”:”01:53″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/171111093428-01-trump-putin-111117-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/21/russia-blames-us-nerve-agent-attack-pleitgen-dnt-tsr.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Just a day after President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election victory, the Kremlin suggested that the US was responsible for the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. CNN’s u003ca href=”https://ift.tt/2DTv9h9 Pleitgenu003c/a> has the story.”,”descriptionText”:”Just a day after President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election victory, the Kremlin suggested that the US was responsible for the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. CNN’s u003ca href=”https://ift.tt/2DTv9h9 Pleitgenu003c/a> has the story.”,”title”:”Trump expels 60 Russian diplomats over UK attack”,”duration”:”00:50″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”https://www.cnn.com/”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180316123958-trump-putin-split-0316-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/26/us-expels-russian-diplomats-lkl.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”President Donald Trump is ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington, in the wake of the UK nerve agent attack, the White House announced.”,”descriptionText”:”President Donald Trump is ordering the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington, in the wake of the UK nerve agent attack, the White House announced.”,”title”:”Late night takes jabs at Trump for Putin call”,”duration”:”01:05″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180321032819-colbert-3-21-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/21/trump-putin-call-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-fallon-fsc-orig.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”Late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, joke about Donald Trump’s congratulatory call to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “,”descriptionText”:”Late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, joke about Donald Trump’s congratulatory call to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “,”title”:”Cooper to Trump: Where is Putin’s nickname?”,”duration”:”06:33″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180321205454-anderson-cooper-3-21-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/22/kth-trump-putin-call-cooper-ac.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN’s Anderson Cooper discusses US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN’s Anderson Cooper discusses US President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”,”title”:”Ana Navarro slams Trump’s ‘appalling’ call”,”duration”:”01:07″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180320235619-ana-navarro-march-20-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/21/trump-putin-congrats-navarro-appalling-ctn-sot.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”CNN political commentator Ana Navarro criticizes President Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin after he was elected to another six-year term as Russia’s president.”,”descriptionText”:”CNN political commentator Ana Navarro criticizes President Trump’s congratulatory phone call to Vladimir Putin after he was elected to another six-year term as Russia’s president.”,”title”:”Trump: I congratulated Putin on victory”,”duration”:”01:10″,”sourceName”:”CNN”,”sourceLink”:”http://www.cnn.com”,”videoCMSUrl”:”/video/data/3.0/video/politics/2018/03/20/trump-putin-meet-soon-sot.cnn/index.xml”,”videoId”:”politics/2018/03/20/trump-putin-meet-soon-sot.cnn”,”videoImage”:”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180320123844-trump-3-20-large-169.jpg”,”videoUrl”:”/videos/politics/2018/03/20/trump-putin-meet-soon-sot.cnn/video/playlists/presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin/”,”description”:”While meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone and that they will be meeting soon.”,”descriptionText”:”While meeting with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, President Donald Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone and that they will be meeting soon.”],’js-video_headline-featured-cysecq’,”,”js-video_source-featured-cysecq”,true,true,’presidents-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin’);if (typeof configObj.context !== ‘string’ || configObj.context.length
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Lincolnshire girl invents fruit bowl to prevent food waste which alarms when food about to expire
An 11-year-old schoolgirl has invented a fruit bowl fitted with an alarm that sounds when its contents are about to go off.
Rumaan Malik, from Grasby, Lincolnshire, is the brains behind the Alarm Cup gadget – a fruit bowl with a difference that lets its owner know when the fruit or other food inside has two days left before it expires.
The Grasby All Saints Primary School pupil has now won Ocado’s Food Waste Challenge, a competition which asked schoolchildren across the country to produce ideas for a gadget to help prevent food waste.
Rumaan Malik, from Grasby, Lincolnshire, has invented a fruit bowl that alerts its owner when its contents are due to go off by lighting up and making a sound
The bowl is just a prototype for now but it could be developed further to help prevent food waste in people’s homes
Fruit is one of the UK’s most wasted food groups, according to Ocado, with 1.3 million apples thrown away every year as part of £13 billion worth of binned food annually in the country.
However Rumaan hopes her device can help stop some of the waste.
She said: ‘I started thinking about what we throw away at home and what would help us stop this happening.
‘Apples are my favourite fruit, but they were always going all soft when my mum left them out in the fruit bowl and forgot about them.
‘That’s when I thought of my idea and started drawing The Alarm Cup. I thought that we all need something that could help us use up our fruit by sounding an alarm before it goes off, instead of letting it end up in the bin.’
The gadget works by placing fruit or other food into the bowl.
The bowl allows you to program in the fruit’s expiry date so that it will alert you when it’s about to go off, much like an alarm clock (pictured: Rumaan with her gadget)
The device will then light up and sound a helpful reminder to let its owner know that the contents of the bowl are two days away from expiring.
The nifty bowl also pairs with Ocado’s app, which will share recipes with users that could inspire them to make a dish to use up leftover fruit, such as apple crumble or banana bread.
Rumaan won the competition by submitting a design but she’s now had a working prototype developed (pictured with the bowl before it was glazed)
Her invention beat 500 entries submitted after workshops in schools across the country by Little Inventors, a group which aims to inspire children to invent.
Rumaan said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when my teacher told me I had won! Things like this never happen to me.’
She initially submitted a drawing of the product, but now a working prototype has been made which will go on show at the Little Inventors stand at the Great Exhibition of the North this summer from now until Sunday September 9.
Helen White, special advisor on household food waste at food waste charity WRAP, who helped judge the entries, said: ‘We were particularly impressed by Rumaan’s invention as it addresses one of the key reasons food ends up in the bin: not using it in time.
‘Even if we understand the difference between date labels, we can still struggle to use what we’ve bought.
‘The Alarm Cup challenges this by reminding us when our food needs using up, and nudges us towards adopting positive behaviours that can help to reduce the 5 million tonnes of good food wasted from our homes every year.’
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Pix: Broken hearts in Senegal after harsh World Cup exit
IMAGE: A Senegal fan wears a shocked reaction after the match against Colombia on Thursday. Photograph: Mikal McAllister/Reuters
Senegal’s dramatic exit from the World Cup was met with heartache in the capital Dakar on Thursday after the team lost to Colombia, dashing hopes of an African team advancing into the knockout stages.
Senegal, nicknamed the Lions, lost 1-0 to their South American opponents, despite being the better side in the first half and having a penalty decision overturned. Senegal lost out on a second spot in the group to Japan because of a worse disciplinary record.
The drums never stopped beating as hundreds of expectant supporters gathered on a muggy afternoon to watch the match live in a palm tree-lined square in Dakar. Vuvuzela-wielding fans scaled trees, walls and scaffolding to watch the big screens.
IMAGE: A Sengalese fan reacts after the match against Colombia in Dakar on Thursday. Photograph: Mikal McAllister
After their team conceded a goal and then squandered good chances in the dying minutes, the carnival atmosphere gave way to silence and finally the kind of frustration that had been building since Senegal drew with Japan last Sunday, despite twice leading the match.
“We didn’t make the most of our chances. The problem was with the coach. I don’t know why, but referees do not like African teams,” said electrician Elly Sy, the Senegalese flag painted on both cheeks, echoing the litany of grievances voiced in the local press this week.
Senegal followed Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Nigeria — all failing to advance past the group stage, meaning no African team has reached the second round for the first time since the 1982 finals in Spain.
IMAGE: A distraught Senegal fan in Dakar. Photograph: Mikal McAllister/Reuters
The poor showing will no doubt reignite a debate as to why African teams have failed to perform. But before that, there was simple, gutting disappointment.
The Dakar crowd thinned quickly after the match, leaving a few shedding tears in the trash-strewn square. It was a stark contrast to the rowdy celebrations when Senegal beat its former coloniser France in 2002, prompting then-President Abdoulaye Wade to cruise the crowded capital in an open-topped motorcade.
Still, crestfallen fans took some positives from their country’s showing in Russia, especially their first-match victory over Poland. Their team did what they could, many said.
“I felt proud that we were the last African team in the cup,” said Mustapha Thiam, a 28-year-old trader after the game. “Senegal isn’t a small team anymore.”
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Thursday, 28 June 2018
US ends 70 years of military presence in S. Korean capital
The United States formally ended seven decades of military presence in South Korea’s capital on Friday with the opening of a new headquarters farther from the tense border with North Korea.
The U.S. military had been headquartered in Seoul’s central Yongsan neighborhood since American troops first arrived at the end of World War II. The Yongsan Garrison had been a symbol of the U.S.-South Korea alliance aimed at deterring a North Korean attack, but its occupation of prime real estate was also a long-running source of anti-American sentiment.
The command’s move to an expanded facility at Camp Humphreys, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul, comes amid a fledgling detente on the Korean Peninsula, but the relocation wasn’t linked to that. It had been planned for more than a decade ago, but postponed several times because of construction and funding problems.
The new 3,510-acre (1,420-hectare) command, whose construction cost $11 billion, is the largest overseas U.S. base. Located on the western South Korean port city of Pyeongtaek and close to a U.S. air base, the new U.S. command is an optimal location that allows for the rapid movement and concentration of troops in a crisis.
It also makes sense to move the U.S. military command away from the hundreds of North Korean artillery guns targeting the Seoul metropolitan area, although Camp Humphreys is still within reach of the North’s newer guns, such as the 300-millimeter guns it revealed in 2015.
In a message read out by a presidential aide, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that the U.S. forces headquarters is the “cornerstone of the U.S.-South Korea alliance as well as the future” and that the recent diplomacy between Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang was only made possible by the allies’ “strong deterrence and response posture.”
“In opening a new era of the U.S. forces headquarters in Pyeongtaek, I hope that the U.S.-South Korea alliance will develop beyond a ‘military alliance’ and a ‘comprehensive alliance’ and become a ‘great alliance,'” Moon said in the statement.
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Do You Believe in Magic? I Do
Do I sound like a kook? I don’t think so, but no kook ever does.
Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, a Harvard physician, told a New Yorker writer several years ago that he’s always “believed there is an important component of medicine that involves suggestion, ritual and belief.” He added: “All ideas that make scientists scream.”
Dr. Kaptchuk is the chief of Harvard’s program in placebo studies and the therapeutic encounter, which is focused on studying the power of the mind to influence health outcomes. In that same interview, he noted that medicine has known for centuries that some people respond to the power of suggestion — but not why or how.
During his tenure at Harvard, Dr. Kaptchuk wrote in an email, “I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs.” He sent along a list of the more than a dozen studies he’s either led or participated in that show how placebos, rituals, beliefs and talismans play a role, albeit “modest,” when compared with surgery and medication.
When you’re in a fight for your life, “modest” is something to hang on to.
Five years after my diagnosis, my oncologist said I was cured. I believe science played the key role in that. But I also think the hope embodied in the bunny made a difference to my well-being, reducing anxiety and giving me more good days than bad.
Can I prove it? No. Does that mean it’s not true? No. As Dr. Kaptchuk told The New Yorker, “We need to stop pretending that it’s all about molecular biology. Serious illnesses are affected by aesthetics, by art, and by the moral questions that are negotiated by practitioners and patients.” All ways of saying, by luck or magic.
These days my now-scuffed bunny is in other hands. I’ve lent it to my sister Julie, who was given a diagnosis of ovarian cancer last fall. After three decades without a name, it now has one (“Ramelle,” after a character in Rita Mae Brown’s book “Six of One”). Friends have given Julie various good luck charms — new bling that Ramelle sports along with her fraying tutu.
Not long ago, I asked Julie what Ramelle represents to her and she replied in a flash: “Beauty, faith, love, acceptance and happiness.” What could be more hopeful — or magical — than that?
Steven Petrow, a Hillsborough, N.C., writer, is a regular contributor to Well.
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Quiz app leaked data on ~120M users for years – TechCrunch
Facebook knows the historical app audit it’s conducting in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal is going to result in a tsunami of skeletons tumbling out of its closet.
It’s already suspended around 200 apps as a result of the audit — which remains ongoing, with no formal timeline announced for when the process (and any associated investigations that flow from it) will be concluded.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the audit on March 21, writing then that the company would “investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity”.
But you do have to question how much the audit exercise is, first and foremost, intended to function as PR damage limitation for Facebook’s brand — given the company’s relaxed response to a data abuse report concerning a quiz app with ~120M monthly users, which it received right in the midst of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Because despite Facebook being alerted about the risk posed by the leaky quiz apps in late April — via its own data abuse bug bounty program — they were still live on its platform a month later.
It took about a further month for the vulnerability to be fixed.
And, sure, Facebook was certainly busy over that period. Busy dealing with a major privacy scandal.
Perhaps the company was putting rather more effort into pumping out a steady stream of crisis PR — including taking out full page newspaper adverts (where it wrote that: “we have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it”) — vs actually ‘locking down the platform’, per its repeat claims, even though the company’s long and rich privacy-hostile history suggests otherwise.
Let’s also not forget that, in early April, Facebook quietly confessed to a major security flaw of its own — when it admitted that an account search and recovery feature had been abused by “malicious actors” who, over what must have been a period of several years, had been able to surreptitiously collect personal data on a majority of Facebook’s ~2BN users — and use that intel for whatever they fancied.
So Facebook users already have plenty reasons to doubt the company’s claims to be able to “protect your information”. But this latest data fail facepalm suggests it’s hardly scrambling to make amends for its own stinkingly bad legacy either.
Change will require regulation. And in Europe that has arrived, in the form of the GDPR.
Although it remains to be seen whether Facebook will face any data breach complaints in this specific instance, i.e. for not disclosing to affected users that their information was at risk of being exposed by the leaky quiz apps.
The regulation came into force on May 25 — and the javascript vulnerability was not fixed until June. So there may be grounds for concerned consumers to complain.
Which Facebook data abuse victim am I?
Writing in a Medium post, the security researcher who filed the report — self-styled “hacker” Inti De Ceukelaire — explains he went hunting for data abusers on Facebook’s platform after the company announced a data abuse bounty on April 10, as the company scrambled to present a responsible face to the world following revelations that a quiz app running on its platform had surreptitiously harvested millions of users’ data — data that had been passed to a controversial UK firm which intended to use it to target political ads at US voters.
De Ceukelaire says he began his search by noting down what third party apps his Facebook friends were using — finding quizzes were one of the most popular apps. Plus he already knew quizzes had a reputation for being data-suckers in a distracting wrapper. So he took his first ever Facebook quiz, from a brand called NameTests.com, and quickly realized the company was exposing Facebook users’ data to “any third-party that requested it”.
The issue was that NameTests was displaying the quiz taker’s personal data (such as full name, location, age, birthday) in a javascript file — thereby potentially exposing the identify and other data on logged in Facebook users to any external website they happened to visit.
He also found it was providing an access token that allowed it to grant even more expansive data access permissions to third party websites — such as to users’ Facebook posts, photos and friends.
It’s not clear exactly why — but presumably relates to the quiz app company’s own ad targeting activities. (Its privacy policy states: “We work together with various technological partners who, for example, display advertisements on the basis of user data. We make sure that the user’s data is pseudonymised (e.g. no clear data such as names or e-mail addresses) and that users have simple rights of revocation at their disposal. We also conclude special data protection agreements with our partners, in which they commit themselves to the protection of user data.” — which sounds great until you realize its javascript was just leaking people’s personally identified data… [facepalm])
“Depending on what quizzes you took, the javascript could leak your facebook ID, first name, last name, language, gender, date of birth, profile picture, cover photo, currency, devices you use, when your information was last updated, your posts and statuses, your photos and your friends,” writes De Ceukelaire.
He reckons people’s data had been being publicly exposed since at least the end of 2016.
On Facebook, NameTests describes its purpose thusly: “Our goal is simple: To make people smile!” — adding that its quizzes are intended as a bit of “fun”.
It doesn’t shout so loudly that the ‘price’ for taking one of its quizzes, say to find out what Disney princess you ‘are’, or what you could look like as an oil painting, is not only that it will suck out masses of your personal data (and potentially your friends’ data) from Facebook’s platform for its own ad targeting purposes but was also, until recently, that your and other people’s information could have been exposed to goodness knows who, for goodness knows what nefarious purposes…
The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal has underlined that ostensibly frivolous social data can end up being repurposed for all sorts of manipulative and power-grabbing purposes. (And not only can end up, but that quizzes are deliberately built to be data-harvesting tools… So think of that the next time you get a ‘take this quiz’ notification asking ‘what is in your fact file?’ or ‘what has your date of birth imprinted on you’? And hope ads is all you’re being targeted for… )
De Ceukelaire found that NameTests would still reveal Facebook users’ identity even after its app was deleted.
“In order to prevent this from happening, the user would have had to manually delete the cookies on their device, since NameTests.com does not offer a log out functionality,” he writes.
“I would imagine you wouldn’t want any website to know who you are, let alone steal your information or photos. Abusing this flaw, advertisers could have targeted (political) ads based on your Facebook posts and friends. More explicit websites could have abused this flaw to blackmail their visitors, threatening to leak your sneaky search history to your friends,” he adds, fleshing out the risks for affected Facebook users.
As well as alerting Facebook to the vulnerability, De Ceukelaire says he contacted NameTests — and they claimed to have found no evidence of abuse by a third party. They also said they would make changes to fix the issue.
We’ve reached out to NameTests’ parent company — a German firm called Social Sweethearts — for comment. Its website touts a “data-driven approach” — and claims its portfolio of products achieve “a global organic reach of several billion page views per month”.
After De Ceukelaire reported the problem to Facebook, he says he received an initial response from the company on April 30 saying they were looking into it. Then, hearing nothing for some weeks, he sent a follow up email, on May 14, asking whether they had contacted the app developers.
A week later Facebook replied saying it could take three to six months to investigate the issue (i.e. the same timeframe mentioned in their initial automated reply), adding they would keep him in the loop.
Yet at that time — which was a month after his original report — the leaky NameTests quizzes were still up and running, meaning Facebook users’ data was still being exposed and at risk. And Facebook knew about the risk.
The next development came on June 25, when De Ceukelaire says he noticed NameTests had changed the way they process data to close down the access they had been exposing to third parties.
Two days later Facebook also confirmed the flaw in writing, admitting: “[T]his could have allowed an attacker to determine the details of a logged-in user to Facebook’s platform.”
It also told him it had confirmed with NameTests the issue had been fixed. And its apps continue to be available on Facebook’s platform — suggesting Facebook did not find the kind of suspicious activity that has led it to suspend other third party apps. (At least, assuming it conducted an investigation.)
Facebook paid out a $4,000 x2 bounty to a charity under the terms of its data abuse bug bounty program — and per De Ceukelaire’s request.
We asked it what took it so long to respond to the data abuse report, especially given the issue was so topical when De Ceukelaire filed the report. But Facebook declined to answer specific questions.
Instead it sent us the following statement, attributed to Ime Archibong, its VP of product partnerships:
A researcher brought the issue with the nametests.com website to our attention through our Data Abuse Bounty Program that we launched in April to encourage reports involving Facebook data. We worked with nametests.com to resolve the vulnerability on their website, which was completed in June.
Facebook also claims it received De Ceukelaire’s report on April 27, rather than April 22, as he recounts it. Though it’s possible the former date is when Facebook’s own staff retrieved the report from its systems.
Beyond displaying a disturbingly relaxed attitude to other people’s privacy — which risks getting Facebook into regulatory trouble, given GDPR’s strict requirements around breach disclosure, for example — the other core issue of concern here is the company’s apparent failure to enforce its own developer policy.
The underlying issue is whether or not Facebook performs any checks on apps running on its platform. It’s no good having T&Cs if you don’t have any active processes to enforce your T&Cs. Rules without enforcement aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
Historical evidence suggests Facebook did not actively enforce its developer T&Cs — even if it’s now “locking down the platform”, as it claims, as a result of so many privacy scandals.
The quiz app developer at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Aleksandr Kogan — who harvested and sold/passed Facebook user data to third parties — has accused Facebook of essentially not having a policy. He contends it is therefore Facebook who is responsible for the massive data abuses that have played out on its platform — only a portion of which have so far come to light.
Fresh examples such as NameTests’ leaky quiz apps merely bolster the case Kogan made for Facebook being the guilty party where data misuse is concerned. After all, if you built some stables without any doors at all would you really blame your horses for bolting?
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