Google won a major case in the European Union on Tuesday, when the bloc’s top court ruled that the U.S. internet giant doesn’t have to extend the EU’s “right to be forgotten” rules to its search engines outside the region.

The case stems from a 2014 ruling that said people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online. They can ask Google, for example, to remove a link. The French privacy regulator then wanted that rule applied to all of Google’s domains, even outside the EU, and asked the EU’s top court for advice.

The European Court of Justice said Tuesday that there “is no obligation under EU law for a search engine operator” to extend the rule beyond the EU states.

It said, however, that a search engine operator must put measures in place to discourage internet users from going outside the EU to find that information.

The decision, which matches a preliminary opinion in January from the court’s adviser, highlights the need to balance data privacy and protection concerns against the public’s right to information. It also raises questions about how to enforce differing jurisdictions when it comes to the borderless internet.

In a reaction to the ruling, Google’s Senior Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said “it’s good to see that the Court agreed with our arguments” and added that Google had worked hard “to strike a sensible balance between people’s rights of access to information and privacy.”

The European Commission noted that the court again confirmed that the “right to be forgotten” exists in the EU.

The 2014 ruling that people in the EU have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online forced Google to delete links to outdated or embarrassing personal information that popped up in searches within the 28-nation bloc.

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One year later, the French privacy watchdog wanted Google to remove results on all its search engines on request, and not just European country sites like www.google.fr . Google refused and in the resulting court case, French legal authorities asked the EU’s highest court for advice.

On Tuesday, the EU court said it was illegal to apply an EU rule to business operations in countries outside the EU.

The ruling is final and becomes the benchmark on which courts in the 28-nation bloc must base their decisions relating to such cases.

Those who wanted to see such an extension argue that on the internet it is easy to switch from the national versions of the web site to ones outside the EU – by switching from google.fr to google.com for example – to find the information that must be removed within the EU.

Since Google started handling “right to be forgotten” requests in May 2014, the U.S. tech giant has removed about 1.3 million web links from its search results, or 45% of total requests processed, according to the company’s transparency report .

Online takedown requests filed by European residents are reviewed by Google staff based mainly in Ireland, who assess them on criteria including whether the webpage’s information is “inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant, or excessive.”

Google says it may reject a delisting request if the page contains information that’s “strongly in the public interest” with material that relates to the requester’s professional life, past crime, political office, position in public life, or whether the content consists of government documents or “journalistic in nature.”

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From: MeNeedIt

Russia’s Interior Ministry says a former Kremlin official, whom media reports have called a CIA informant, has been officially declared missing.

The ministry said on Monday that it had added Oleg Smolenkov, born in 1969, to its list of missing people and that it has launched a search to locate him.

Earlier this month, U.S. media reports from Reuters, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post said a CIA informant in the Russian government had been extracted and brought to the United States in 2017.

Some of the reports said the unidentified Russian had provided intelligence from inside President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The CIA, the State Department, and the White House have said the reports were inaccurate.

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Public records from the Russian government administration in 2008 and 2010 show a person named Oleg Smolenkov employed in the administration of Putin, who served as prime minister between 2008 and 2012. In 2010, Smolenkov was promoted to a relatively high civil-service ranking, under an order signed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev.

Smolenkov was listed earlier as working as a second secretary at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., according to a personnel listing from the time. The ambassador at that time was Yury Ushakov, who later returned to Moscow and became a deputy chief of staff for Putin and then a foreign-policy adviser.

The Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported that Smolenkov was the chief adviser to Ushakov in the Kremlin, and a New York Times reporter on September 11 posted a photo on Twitter of a phone listing for Ushakov’s team indicating that Smolenkov indeed held that post.

The Russian government confirmed Smolenkov’s employment, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 10 that “he was fired several years ago.”

According to the Russian media reports, Smolenkov disappeared with his wife, Antonina, and three children while on holiday in the Adriatic country of Montenegro in June 2017.

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From: MeNeedIt

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg scolded world leaders Monday at a United Nations summit calling for climate action, saying people are suffering and dying from the effects of global warming and that all the leaders have are empty words.

“We are in [the] beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money,” said Thunberg, who ignited a youth movement with her Friday school strikes for climate action.

She said the science has been clear for 30 years, and still they are not doing enough.

“You are failing us! But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal,” Thunberg said in a voice filled with emotion. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.”

The 16-year-old warned the more than 60 presidents and prime ministers gathered in the General Assembly hall for the summit that the youth would not let them “get away with this.” She said they draw the line here and now and “change is coming,” whether they like it or not. 

“My generation has failed in its responsibility to protect our planet,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “That must change.”

Guterres has called for the phasing out of fossil fuels and an end to construction of new coal power plants.

“Is it common sense to build ever more coal plants that are choking our future?” the secretary-general asked. “Is it common sense to reward pollution that kills millions with dirty air and makes it dangerous for people in cities around the world to sometimes even venture out of their homes?”

He said it is time to end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and shift taxes from salaries to carbon – taxing pollution, not people.

The U.N. chief has sought to highlight the importance of the summit and challenged leaders to “come with concrete plans” and not just “beautiful speeches,” which some outlined Monday.

India, which has one of the world’s highest levels of air pollution, said it would increase its renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022. Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted his country’s expansion into solar energy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare U.N. appearance, pledged that her country would reduce its carbon emissions by 2030 by 55% compared to its 1990 emissions. She said Germany would be carbon neutral by 2050.

“In 2030 we want to get two-thirds of our energy from renewables,” Merkel said. “In 2022, we will phase out the last of our nuclear power plants, and at latest, in 2038, we will phase out coal.”

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The meeting comes as the United Nations warns more must be done to meet targets for limiting carbon emissions

U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced his administration’s intention to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement soon after taking office, was not scheduled to attend or speak at Monday’s summit. Trump, however, made a brief appearance and was seen sitting at the U.S. delegation’s table before attending an event on religious persecution.

The U.N. released a report ahead of the summit compiled by the World Meteorological Organization showing there has been an acceleration in carbon pollution, sea-level rise, warming global temperatures, and shrinking ice sheets.
 
It warns that the average global temperature for the period of 2015 through the end of 2019 is on pace to be the “warmest of any equivalent period on record” at 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
 
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which has been ratified by 186 nations, calls for actions to prevent global temperatures from surpassing 2 degrees, and ideally remain within 1.5 degrees by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  One of the world’s biggest emitters – the United States – announced under President Trump that it would leave the pact. The U.S. decision has not stopped climate action at the state, local and private sector levels.
 
The report warns that in order to achieve the 2-degree target, “the level of ambition needs to be tripled.”
 

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From: MeNeedIt

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From: MeNeedIt

The British oil tanker seized by Iran in July will soon be released, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday.

The Stena Impero and its crew were seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the Strait of Hormuz for alleged maritime violations just weeks after British forces seized an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.

Britain accused Iran of trying to sell oil in violation of international sanctions against Tehran. Gibraltar released that tanker last month.

The head of the Swedish company that owns the Stena Impero told Swedish public broadcaster SVT that the tanker may be released within hours.

“We have received information now this morning that it seems like they will release the ship Stena Impero within a few hours. So we understand that the political decision to release the ship has been taken.” Erik Hanell said.

The head of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran in Hormozgan Province, Allahmorad Afifipour, told Fars that the the process of allowing the tanker to move into international waters has begun but that a legal case against the ship is still pending.

He did not release any other information about the tanker.

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From: MeNeedIt

Pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq known as Popular Mobilization Forces are becoming bolder, despite calls by Iraq’s Shiite spiritual leader and prime minister to put their weapons under government control.

The PMF is an umbrella organization of Iraqi Shiite militias formed in 2014 to fight the Sunni militant Islamic State (IS), whose capture of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul triggered a collapse of the nation’s military. PMF militias boast tens of thousands of fighters.

Earlier this month, Iraqi media circulated a letter purportedly from the PMF’s most dominant commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, ordering the creation of a PMF air force separate from the Iraqi military. His apparent order came after several aerial strikes on PMF bases in Iraq in recent months. The PMF blamed the strikes on Iran’s regional enemy Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in Shiite-majority Iraq, inspired the PMF’s creation through a June 2014 fatwa or religious decree encouraging Iraqis to “volunteer to join the security forces” to save the country from the IS threat. Iraqi Shiites responded by joining pre-existing and new Shiite militias with the approval of then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who granted them semi-official status under the PMF umbrella. The militias also received training and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force as they battled IS and helped Iraq’s revived military to defeat the Sunni militants in 2017.

Since then, the elderly Sistani has been urging Iraqis, through statements by his representatives, to join security forces specifically under the government’s authority. A week after the September 5 revelation of the PMF’s intention to create its own air force, Sistani’s office director in Lebanon, Hamed Alkhafaf, told Iranian Shiite news agency Shafaqna that the cleric believes weapons “should be, first and foremost, in the hands of the army and no party, group or clan other than government forces should hold arms.”

Iraq’s government also has been calling for PMF weapons to be brought under its control in recent years.

In late 2016, the Iraqi parliament enacted a law granting the PMF formal recognition as an autonomous branch of the Iraqi security forces and entitled it to government aid, with Iraq’s 2019 budget allocating $2.16 billion to the organization.

But the law also required PMF to put its weapons under Iraqi state control and abandon politics. Since the law’s passage, Iraq’s previous Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and incumbent Adil Abdul Mahdi also have issued decrees calling for the PMF to respect it.

In response to a dozen attempted attacks by suspected PMF militiamen on U.S. military, diplomatic and commercial targets in Iraq in the first half of this year, Prime Minister Mahdi in early July called on the PMF to become an “indivisible part of the armed forces and be subject to the same regulations.” He warned that any group failing to comply by July 31 would be treated as an outlaw.

Almost two months after that decree, the PMF has continued to operate outside of Iraqi government control. Some experts say Sistani’s ignored appeals for the PMF to abide by government decisions show the cleric no longer is the main influencer of the organization.

The PMF’s most powerful militias were established before Sistani’s fatwa and owe allegiance only to Tehran, according to Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi politician and former parliament member. Consequently, “the strength and weakness of these militias depends on the strength and weakness of the IRGC and the Iranian regime,” Alusi told VOA Persian.

Alusi said the PMF also has benefitted from the political support of some Iraqi Shiite politicians, particularly those affiliated to Islamist parties, who see the organization as a guarantor of continued Shiite rule of the country.  

Ismael Alsodani, a retired Iraqi brigadier general who served as an Iraqi military attaché in Washington, said those Iraqi politicians have manipulated Sistani’s 2014 fatwa, using it to call for government benefits for PMF militias while encouraging those militias to ignore government orders.

Mustafa Habib, an Iraqi political analyst and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that not all PMF militias have defied the Iraqi government. “There are those who respect the government and work under its leadership, and some who refuse to work with it and consider themselves part of an ‘axis of resistance’,” Habib said, referring to an alliance that includes Iran, Syria and non-state actors such as Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iraq’s pro-Iranian militias, some of whom the U.S. has designated as terrorist organizations, have increased in size by twenty times since 2010, according to a study published last month by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. From having as few as 4,000 operatives at the beginning of that period, the study said such militias now employ 81,000 to 84,000 personnel under the PMF umbrella.

Michael Knights, the author of the study and an Iraq military expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the significant growth of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, coupled with Iraq’s large population and weak government, make the country the fastest-growing arena for Iran’s expansion of perceived malign influence in the Middle East.

Knights told VOA that Iran’s major rivals in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have been watching this trend closely and are likely to act against it when necessary.

“Israel will keep striking in Iraq until such time as the Iranians stop using the PMF to move and hide missiles. The Israelis now consider Iraq to be a part of an extended battleground— first it was Syria, and then Iraq was added to it,” Knights said, referring to a series of recent unclaimed attacks that targeted PMF groups across Iraq and Syria.
 
“If you look at the suspected Israeli strikes, they all hit Kataib Hezbollah, which is a primary Iranian proxy in Iraq, but also is the most important player within the PMF,” he added.

The attacks, which killed and wounded several PMF members according to Iraqi media, raised the prospect of a new proxy war in Iraq, with Kataib Hezbollah threatening to strike back at Israel and hit U.S. bases in Iraq with missiles.

Ihsan al-Shamari, the head of the Iraqi Political Thinking Center in Baghdad, told VOA that Iranian influence over the PMF presents a major challenge to Iraq’s democracy and sovereignty.

“Iraqis don’t have any issue with the PMF as an institution, but their concern lies in Tehran’s dominance over its decision-making. Iran will continue to support a number of armed factions in Iraq as part of its strategy to maintain proxies in the region,” Shamari said.

“Ultimately, it is up to Iraq’s government to decide whether it be for this Iranian vision of the PMF or against it.”

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From: MeNeedIt

Hundreds of mourners gathered Sunday to commemorate the loss of yet another European glacier.

Dressed in mourning clothes, they hiked for hours in the Glarus Alps in eastern Switzerland to reach the remnants of the Pizol glacier at 2,600 meters above sea level.

The glacier has lost more than 80% of its volume since 2006.

“I have climbed up here countless times,” Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich university, told the mourners. “It is like the dying of a good friend.”

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Last month, About 100 people, including Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, held a similar ceremony for 700-year-old Okjokull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change.

“We can’t save the Pizol glacier anymore. … Let’s do everything we can, so that we can show our children and grandchildren a glacier here in Switzerland a hundred years from now,” Huss told the gathering.

His call came just two days after millions around the world went on a strike for climate change, inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

The funeral was organized by the activist group Swiss Association for Climate Protection which has collected more than 100,000 signatures to launch an initiative demanding the country reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

The Swiss government has voiced its support for the move.

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From: MeNeedIt

Iran’s president says his country should lead regional security in the strategic Persian Gulf.

Hassan Rouhani said Sunday Iran extends its “hand of friendship and brotherhood” toward cooperating with regional nations.

Rouhani also said the presence of foreign forces in the Gulf could cause problems for the world’s “energy security.”

The U.S. is sending more troops to the Gulf and leading a maritime coalition, which includes the U.K., Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations, to secure the area’s waterways and vital oil trade routes.

The U.S. has alleged Iran is behind a series of attacks on the region’s energy infrastructure, as Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers collapses. Iran denies the allegations.

Rouhani said he will offer a regional peace plan during his visit to the U.N. this week.

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From: MeNeedIt

Five brothers came to the US from Ukraine almost two decades ago in search of the American Dream — that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed in the United States. During those 20 years, they’ve had all kinds of jobs, from washing floors, to delivering mail to working at construction sites. But they had even bigger dreams, Khrystyna Shevchenko met with this unique family. Anna Rice narrates her story.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

In 20 months, an anti-smoking group in Lebanon collected 240,000 cigarette butts from around a university campus. It did not take long to put those butts to good use, creating something unique to help clean up Beirut’s beaches. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi gets to the bottom of this story.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Solomon Islands announced Saturday the establishment of diplomatic relations with China, becoming the second Pacific island nation in as many days to switch its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan.

The moves are part of a long-term effort by Beijing to undermine Taiwan’s recognition as an independent nation and come as a blow to its president, Tsai Ing-wen, who is seeking re-election in January. Both Beijing and Taipei claim to be the rightful government of China.

The Solomon Islands’ move had been expected after it severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan on Monday. The island nation of Kiribati announced on Friday that it was switching its recognition to China “in accordance with the best national interest for our country and people.”

The Solomons’ foreign minister also cited the national interest in announcing his country’s decision, saying the Solomons has “huge” development needs and that “we need a broader partnership with countries that also includes China.”

Both Beijing and Taipei have used development assistance to woo the support of small nations. The latest moves leave Taiwan with little more than a dozen countries plus the Vatican that recognize its independence.

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From: MeNeedIt

Protesters burned a Chinese flag and police fired pepper spray during a march Saturday in an outlying district of Hong Kong in renewed clashes over anti-government grievances.
 
Police accused protesters of spraying water at officers during the march by several thousand people in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong’s northwest. Reporters saw at least one person arrested.
 
The event was relatively small compared with previous demonstrations that have taken place every weekend since June. The protests started with opposition to a proposed extradition law and have expanded to include demands for greater democracy in the semiautonomous Chinese territory.
 
The events are an embarrassment for China’s ruling Communist Party ahead of Oct. 1 celebrations of its 70th anniversary in power. Hong Kong’s government has announced it has canceled a fireworks display that day, citing concern for public safety.
 
Protesters in Tuen Mun marched about 2 kilometers (1 1/2 miles) from a playground to a government office building. Many were dressed in black and carried umbrellas, a symbol of their movement.
 
Protesters chanted, “Reclaim Hong Kong!” and “Revolution of our times!”
 
Most were peaceful but some took down a Chinese flag outside a government office and set fire to it. Government broadcaster RTHK said some damaged fire hoses in the Tuen Mun light rail station.
 
Organizers announced the event, due to last two hours, was ending after one hour due to the chaotic scene at the station.
 
An organizer quoted by RTHK, Michael Mo, complained that police escalated tensions by sending armed anti-riot officers.
 
That will “only escalate tension between protesters and police,” Mo was quoted as saying.
 
Elsewhere, scuffles were reported as government supporters heeded a call by a pro-Beijing member of the Hong Kong legislature to tear down protest posters at subway stations.
 
Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, has agreed to withdraw the extradition bill. But protesters are pressing other demands, including an independent investigation of complaints about police violence during earlier demonstrations.
 
Protesters complain Beijing and Lam’s government are eroding the “high degree of autonomy” and Western-style civil liberties promised to the former British colony when it was returned to China in 1997.
 
The protests have begun to weigh on Hong Kong’s economy, which already was slowing due to cooling global consumer demand. The Hong Kong airport said passenger traffic fell in August and business is off at hotels and retailers.
 
Police refused permission for Saturday’s march but an appeal tribunal overturned that decision. The panel on Friday gave permission for a two-hour event that it said had to end at 5 p.m.
 
Protesters in Tuen Mun also complained about a group of women from mainland China who sing in a local park. Residents say they are too loud and accuse some of asking for money or engaging in prostitution.
 
Those complaints prompted a similar march in July.
 
Also Saturday, there were brief scuffles as government supporters tore down protest posters at several subway stops, according to RTHK.
 
The campaign to tear down protest materials was initiated by a pro-Beijing member of Hong Kong’s legislature, Junius Ho.
 
Near the subway station in the Tsuen Wan neighborhood, a woman who was tearing down posters threw a bag at a reporter and a man shoved a cameraman, RTHK reported. It said there was pushing and shoving between the two sides at stations in Yuen Long and Lok Fu.
 
Ho made an appearance in the Shau Kei Wan neighborhood but residents shouted at him and told him to leave, RTHK said.
 
Ho initially called for protest signs to be torn down in all 18 of Hong Kong’s districts but he said Friday that would be reduced to clearing up trash from streets due to “safety concerns.”
 
On Wednesday, the Hong Kong Jockey Club canceled a horse race after protesters suggested targeting the club because a horse owned by Ho was due to run.
 
Later Saturday, some protesters planned to go to another district, Yuen Long, where a group of men with sticks hit protesters and subway passengers in a July 21 incident that caused controversy in Hong Kong.

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From: MeNeedIt