The estranged father of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as a defense witness in her lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper, court papers reveal.
Meghan is suing the newspaper and its parent company Associated Newspapers for publishing a letter she wrote to her father Thomas Markle. The civil lawsuit accuses the newspaper of copyright infringement, misuse of private information and violating the U.K.’s data protection law with the publication of the letter.
Documents filed at the High Court show the newspaper plans to rely on evidence from Markle, stating that he “had a weighty right to tell his version of what had happened between himself and his daughter, including the contents of the letter.”
Papers drawn up by lawyers for the newspaper argue that members of Britain’s royal family “generate and rely on publicity about themselves and their lives in order to maintain the privileged positions they hold and to promote themselves.”
The paper also argues the letter’s publication was in response to a “one-sided” article in People Magazine in February 2019 featuring an interview with five unnamed “close friends” of the duchess which referenced the letter, meaning its existence was in the public domain.
The documents came to light this week amid the firestorm of attention that followed Meghan and Prince Harry’s decision to issue a statement announcing that they wanted to step back from their royal roles, become financially independent and split their time between Britain and North America. Queen Elizabeth II convened a family summit on Monday at her Sandringham estate in eastern England and decided the couple could to live part time in Canada.
Meghan was seen in Canada for the first time since the crisis began when she visited the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre in Vancouver to discuss issues affecting women in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The shelter posted a photograph of the duchess’s visit.
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Month: January 2020
The National Security Agency has discovered a major security flaw in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and tipped off the company so that it can fix it.Microsoft made a software patch to fix it available Tuesday and credited the agency as the flaw’s discoverer.The company said it has not seen any evidence that hackers have used the technique discovered by the NSA.”Customers who have already applied the update, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected,” said Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft, in a statement.Priscilla Moriuchi, who retired from the NSA in 2017 after running its East Asia and Pacific operations, said this is a good example of the “constructive role” that the NSA can play in improving global information security. Moriuchi, now an analyst at the U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said it’s likely a reflection of changes made in 2017 to how the U.S. determines whether to disclose a major vulnerability or exploit it for intelligence purposes.The revamping of what’s known as the “Vulnerability Equities Process” put more emphasis on disclosing unpatched vulnerabilities whenever possible to protect core internet systems and the U.S. economy and general public.Those changes happened after a group calling itself “Shadow Brokers” released a trove of high-level hacking tools stolen from the NSA.
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The European Union rolled out a massive, trillion-dollar investment plan Tuesday to deliver on promises to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050.The EU would designate one-quarter of its budget to fighting climate change over the next decade. The trillion-dollar price tag would come from a mix of EU and national government funds, as well as investment from the private sector. It targets the EU’s ambitious goal of ensuring greenhouse emissions reach net zero in 30 years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who late last year announced that goal — a plan she calls the “Green Deal” — says the investments are for the climate, as well as EU citizens. “It will be invested in the huge transition ahead of us, which consists of upskilling people in new jobs, clean technologies, green financing, new procedures,” she said.FILE – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a media conference after an extraordinary meeting of the EU college of commissioners at EU headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 8, 2020.The plan prioritizes investment to help coal-dependent countries like Poland transition to green energy. Poland is the only EU member that has not yet signed onto the Green Deal, which would support scientists, businesses and other players in the energy transition. Some of the financing is seed money aimed at triggering much bigger investment. States that want to qualify for funding must present proposals on low-emission projects as part of how they plan to restructure their economies to be climate friendlier. The European commissioner for budget and administration, Johannes Hahn, detailed the investment plan at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “We have no time to waste if we want to deliver results for the citizens,” Hahn said. “Or, again in a nutshell, we provide climate cash in order to avoid a climate crash.”A recent poll shows Europeans fear climate change more than terrorism or losing their jobs. Still, some EU lawmakers suggest details of the green investment plan are too sketchy. Others believe it should link the funds to deadlines for phasing out coal. The European Investment Bank, which is mobilizing the chunk of money, announced last year it would end financing for all fossil fuel projects by the end of 2020, and align future financing goals with the Paris climate agreement. EU lawmakers are expected to hold a non-binding vote Wednesday on the Green Deal. Von der Leyen aims to have climate legislation adopted by March.
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It sounds like science fiction, but a number of tech wearables are letting users control devices with their thoughts. The implications for consumers and businesses are significant. But to start out, the goal of two developers is to simply enable more productivity. Tina Trinh meets the Brooklyn team behind a thought-powered headset.
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Vice President Mike Pence has formally sworn in in Gen. John “Jay” Raymond as the new Chief of Space Operations Tuesday at the White House.Raymond assumed the duties of the first head of the Space Force on December 20, 2019, when U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act that officially launched the new force.”The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground,” Trump said at the NDAA signing last month.Officials say the Space Force will organize, train and equip military personnel who primarily focus on space operations.Vice President Mike Pence, right, applauds during swearing in ceremony for Air Force General John Raymond as Chief of Space Operations, in his Ceremonial Office in the White House complex, Jan. 14, 2020 in Washington.Raymond was named commander of the new United States Space Command upon its creation in August of last year. That command, which sought to better organize the U.S. military’s space assets and operations, is being phased out as personnel are transferred to the Space Force.The military’s role in space has come under scrutiny because the U.S. is increasingly reliant on orbiting satellites that are difficult to protect. Satellites provide communications, navigation, intelligence and other services vital to the military and the national economy.The Space Force is the newest military service branch and will fall under the Department of the Air Force, much as the U.S. Marine Corps is a separate service within the Department of the Navy.Officials have said the Space Force will initially include thousands of Air Force service members and civilian personnel currently serving within the Air Force’s Space Command.Personnel from the Army and Navy’s space programs also are eventually expected to be integrated into the new service branch.
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Greece’s government is extending its offer of citizenship to Tom Hanks to his wife and their two children, in recognition of the family’s help in assisting victims of a deadly wildfire near Athens in 2018.Last month, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos signed an honorary naturalization order allowing the 63-year-old actor, who has spent his recent summer vacations at a family home on the Greek island of Antiparos, to claim Greek citizenship.The decision published in a government gazette Tuesday and co-signed by Greek Interior Minister Takis Theodorikakos, revealed that the order also includes Hanks’ wife, actress and producer Rita Wilson, and their two sons, Chester and Truman.The wildfire killed more than 100 people in July 2018, sweeping through the coastal town of Mati and other nearby resorts east of Athens.“The Hanks family gave a signal all over the world for immediate relief actions to help our fire-stricken fellow citizens,” the order signed on Dec. 27 said. It added that in their effort to assist charity efforts they had provided “exceptional services to Greece.”Honorary naturalization, under Greek law, may be granted to people “who have provided exceptional services to the country or whose naturalization serves the public interest.”Hanks became an Orthodox Christian before his second marriage in 1988 to Rita Wilson, who is of Greek and Bulgarian descent.Hanks, Wilson, and Hollywood producer Gary Goetzman co-produced the 2002 romantic comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay.In a post on Instagram last week, Hanks said: “Starting 2020 as an Honorary citizen of all of Greece! Kronia pola! (more or less, ‘Many years to you!’). Hanx”The post shows the shadow of Hanks holding up his left arm against an ancient Greek statue.
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The world’s oceans were the hottest in recorded history in 2019, scientists said on Tuesday, as manmade emissions warmed seas at an ever-increasing rate with potentially disastrous impacts on Earth’s climate.Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of excess heat created by greenhouse gas emissions and quantifying how much they have warmed up in recent years gives scientists an accurate read on the rate of global warming.A team of experts from around the world looked at data compiled by China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) to gain a clear picture of ocean warmth to a depth of 2,000 meters over several decades.They found that oceans last year were by far the hottest ever recorded and said that the effects of ocean warming were already being felt in the form of more extreme weather, rising sea levels and damage to marine life.The study, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, said that last year the ocean was 0.075 Celsius hotter than the historical average between 1981-2010.That means the world’s oceans have absorbed 228 Zetta Joules (228 billion trillion Joules) of energy in recent decades.”That’s a lot of zeros,” said Cheng Lijing, lead paper author and associate professor at the International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences at the IAP.”The amount of heat we have put in the world’s oceans in the past 25 years equals 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom bomb explosions.”The past five years are the five hottest years for the ocean, the study found.As well as the mid-term warming trend, the data showed that the ocean had absorbed 25 Zetta Joules of additional energy in 2019 compared with 2018’s figure.”That’s roughly equivalent to everyone on the planet running a hundred hairdryers or a hundred microwaves continuously for the entire year,” Michael Mann, director of Penn State’s Earth System Sciences Center, told AFP.Centuries of warming The 2015 Paris accord aims to limit global temperature rises to “well below” 2C, and to 1.5C if at all possible.With just 1C of warming since the pre-industrial period, Earth has experienced a cascade of droughts, superstorms, floods and wildfires made more likely by climate change.The study authors said there was a clear link between climate-related disasters — such as the bushfires that have ravaged southeastern Australia for months — and warming oceans.Warmer seas mean more evaporation, said Mann.”That means more rainfall but also it means more evaporative demand by the atmosphere,” he said.”That in turn leads to drying of the continents, a major factor that is behind the recent wildfires from the Amazon all the way to the Arctic, and including California and Australia.”Hotter oceans also expand, leading to sea level rises.The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a landmark oceans report last year warned that tens of millions of people could be displaced from coastal areas by the end of the century because of encroaching seas.And given that the ocean has a far higher heat absorption capacity than the atmosphere, scientists believe they will continue to warm even if humanity manages to drag down its emissions in line with the Paris goals.”As long as we continue to warm up the planet with carbon emissions, we expect about 90 percent of the heating to continue to go into the oceans,” said Mann.”If we stop warming up the planet, heat will continue to diffuse down into the deep ocean for centuries, until eventually stabilising.”
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The Academy Award nomination for a Brazilian documentary about the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff has once again laid bare the polarization of Latin America’s largest democracy.
In “The Edge of Democracy,” 36-year-old filmmaker Petra Costa uses her personal story to argue that Brazil’s democracy is at risk after the abrupt end to governments led by the leftist Workers’ Party.
With Rousseff’s removal in 2016, her conservative vice president, Michel Temer, assumed power and in 2018, far-right Jair Bolsonaro defeated the Workers’ Party candidate to win the presidency.
Leftist politicians said Monday’s nomination validates their interpretation of Rousseff’s impeachment as a soft coup, as Costa suggests. Rousseff’s mentor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who recently was released from jail pending appeal of his corruption conviction, praised Costa on Twitter for “the seriousness in which she narrated this important time of our history.’
“Truth will prevail,” he wrote.
Conservatives fired back, slamming the film’s veracity and insisting Brazil’s first female president deserved to be ousted for manipulating budget figures.
“Congratulations to filmmaker Petra Costa on her nomination for best fiction and fantasy,” the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, which was instrumental in Rousseff’s impeachment process, said on Twitter.
Roberto Alvim, Bolsonaro’s secretary of culture, also said Costa’s documentary amounts to fiction and told local newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that its recognition by Hollywood proves the culture wars are being waged internationally.
Costa, for her part, said on her social media channels that the documentary was urgent “in a time where the far right is spreading like an epidemic.”
The other films nominated for best documentary are “American Factory,” “The Cave” “For Sam” and “Honeyland.” The winning film will be announced at a Feb. 9 ceremony in Los Angeles.
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Pollution kills three times more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, according to new estimates. It’s one of the leading causes of death. But it’s a neglected issue in most of the world, despite the enormous toll. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Jury selection resumed Monday at the trial of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who has pleaded not guilty to charges he raped a woman in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and sexually assaulted another in 2006.The initial screening process, now on its fifth day, has been stymied by a host of challenges and distractions, including repeatedly denied requests from the defense and a noisy protest outside the courthouse.Both sides hope to deliver opening statements before the end of this month.If convicted at a trial expected to last into March, the 67-year-old could face life in prison.The former studio boss behind such Oscar winners as I and “Shakespeare in Love” has said any sexual activity was consensual.About 120 prospective jurors are being summoned to court each day. Last Tuesday, they were introduced as a group to Weinstein and were read a list of names that could come up at trial, including actresses Salma Hayek, Charlize Theron and Rosie Perez.As his New York trial was getting underway a week ago, Los Angeles prosecutors announced new charges in a separate case against Weinstein. Those charges accuse him of raping one woman and sexually assaulting another woman there on back-to-back nights in 2013, days before he walked the Oscars with his then-wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, who was pregnant at the time.Weinstein has not entered a plea in the Los Angeles case, which will be tried later.
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Dark comic book tale “Joker” topped the Oscar nominations Monday, picking up 11 nods including best picture and best director, as women and ethnic minorities were largely shut out once again.The pre-dawn Academy Award announcement capped months of ceaseless campaigning by A-listers and studios, revealing which stars and movies have a shot at Hollywood’s ultimate prize next month.Todd Phillips’s “Joker,” a bleak, arthouse take on the comic book villain starring Joaquin Phoenix, was just ahead of three films.Quentin Tarantino’s 1960s Tinseltown homage “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” Sam Mendes’s World War I odyssey “1917” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” each earned 10 nominations, including best picture as well as best director.South Korean class satire “Parasite,” from Bong Joon-ho, secured the final best director slot, meaning once again no female directors made the shortlist.Much of the focus so far this award season has been on the lack of women and ethnic minority filmmakers honored.Greta Gerwig’s acclaimed “Little Women” adaptation has been notably absent in several award nominations announcements, although it was one of nine films nominated for the best picture Oscar.”Unfortunately there are just five nominees” for best director in an “incredibly strong year,” one Academy voter who asked not to be named told AFP, pointing to the revered track records of the likes of Scorsese, Tarantino and Mendes.Controversy over those omissions, in an industry criticized for its lack of diversity, was fueled at last week’s BAFTA nominations, which were also condemned for overlooking ethnic minorities.Showbiz legendThe Oscars picked only one non-white actor — British star Cynthia Erivo, who plays U.S. anti-slavery icon Harriet Tubman in “Harriet.”Notable snubs included Eddie Murphy for blaxploitation biopic “Dolemite Is My Name,” Jennifer Lopez for “Hustlers,” Awkwafina for “The Farewell” and Lupita Nyong’o for “Us.”Last year, three of the four acting Oscars went to non-white performers.Voting for Oscar nominees ended last Tuesday, two days after the Golden Globes.But Taron Egerton’s Globe-winning turn as Elton John in “Rocketman” was not enough to earn an Oscar nomination in an outrageously competitive best actor field.Renee Zellweger, who has swept the best actress nominations so far during this awards season, headed the best actress Oscar shortlist thanks to her acclaimed turn as showbiz legend Judy Garland in “Judy.”Some 9,000 Academy members vote for the Oscars.In the nominations round of voting, members were asked to rank their top choices only for best picture, and for the categories corresponding with the specific Academy branch to which they belong.Voting for winners — in which members can vote in every category — begins January 30, closing five days later.The Oscars will be handed out in Hollywood on February 9.
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The World Health Organization confirmed Monday the first case in Thailand of a new virus from the same family as SARS that is behind a Chinese pneumonia outbreak.The U.N. health agency said a person traveling from Wuhan, China, had been hospitalized in Thailand on January 8 after being diagnosed with mild pneumonia.”Laboratory testing subsequently confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told AFP in an email, referring to the new virus.WHO said it might soon host an emergency meeting on the spread of the new virus.The case marks the first outside of China, where 41 people with pneumonia-like symptoms have so far been diagnosed with the new virus in the central city of Wuhan, with one of the victims dying last Thursday.The episode has caused alarm due to the specter of SARS, or Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which in 2002-2003 killed 349 people in mainland China and another 299 in Hong Kong, whose economy was hit hard by the epidemic’s devastating impact on tourism.The WHO has confirmed that the outbreak in China has been caused by a previously unknown type of corona virus, a broad family ranging from the common cold to more serious illnesses like SARS.The agency said Monday it had been informed by Thai health officials that the patient there was recovering from the illness.It stressed that it was not surprising that the virus had spread beyond China.”The possibility of cases being identified in other countries was not unexpected, and reinforces why WHO calls for on-going active monitoring and preparedness in other countries,” it said in a statement.It pointed out that it had issued guidance on how to detect and treat people who fall ill with the new virus, and stressed that China’s decision to rapidly share the genetic sequencing of the virus made it possible to quickly diagnose patients.WHO has not recommended any specific measures for travelers or restrictions on trade with China, but stressed Monday it was taking the situation seriously.”Given developments, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will consult with Emergency Committee members and could call for a meeting of the committee on short notice,” it said in a statement.
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China says its diplomats and government officials will fully exploit foreign social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter that are blocked off to its own citizens.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Monday likened the government to “diplomatic agencies and diplomats of other countries” in embracing such platforms to provide “better communication with the people outside and to better introduce China’s situation and policies.”
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have tried for years without success to be allowed into the lucrative Chinese market, where Beijing has helped create politically reliable analogues such as Weichat and Weibo. Their content is carefully monitored by the companies and by government censors.
Despite that, Geng said China is “willing to strengthen communication with the outside world through social media such as Twitter to enhance mutual understanding.” He also insisted that the Chinese internet remained open and said the country has the largest number of users of any nation, adding, “we have always managed the internet in accordance with laws and regulations.”
The canny use of social media by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong has further deepened China’s concern over the use of such platforms, prompting further crackdowns on the mainland, including on the use of virtual private networks.
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The nominees for the Academy Awards have been announced in Los Angeles.
Issa Rae and John Cho announced nominees in 24 categories that honor the best achievements in films released in 2019.The nominees for best picture are: “Ford v. Ferrari”; “The Irishman”; “Jojo Rabbit”; “Joker”; “Little Women”; “Marriage Story”; “1917”; “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”; “Parasite.”The nominees for best actor are: Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”; Adam Driver, “Marriage Story”; Jonathan Pryce, “The Two Popes”; Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker.”The nominees for best supporting actress are: Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”; Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”; Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”; Florence Pugh, “Little Women”; Margot Robbie, “Bombshell.”The nominees for best international film are: “Corpus Christi,” Poland; “Honeyland,” North Macdeonia; “Les Miserables,” France; “Pain and Glory,” Spain; “Parasite,” South Korea.The nominees for documentary feature are: “American Factory”; “The Cave”; “The Edge of Democracy”; “For Sama”; “Honeyland.”The nominees for best animated feature film: “How to Train a Dragon: The Hidden World”; “Toy Story 4”; “I Lost My Body”; “Klaus”; “Missing Link.”The nominees for best supporting actor are: Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”; Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes,”; Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”; Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”; Al Pacino, “The Irishman”.The nominees for best original score are: “Joker”; “Little Women”; “Marriage Story”; “1917”; “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”The nominees for best visual effects: “Avengers: Endgame”; “The Irishman”; “The Lion King”; “1917”; “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”The nominees for costume design are: “The Irishman;” “Jojo Rabbit;” “Joker;” “Little Women;” “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”
This year’s nominees will bring plenty of star power to the Feb. 9 ceremony – a good thing, too, since the show will for the second straight year go without a host.
The 92nd Academy Awards will take place Feb. 9 in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre. ABC will again broadcast the show, viewership for which last year rose 12% to 29.6 million.
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China’s health officials say there is no danger that a new strain of coronavirus could cause a worldwide spread of pneumonia-like illness similar to the 2003 SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus) pandemic. More than 40 people have been diagnosed with the new virus in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province and one person has died from the complications caused by it. Chinese authorities are applying measures to prevent the spread of the infection within the city as well as in other parts of China. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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World health officials say an outbreak of pneumonia in the central Chinese city of Wuhan is being caused by a new strain of the virus that led to the deadly SARS outbreak over a decade ago. VOA’s Jeff Custer reports from Washington.
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As part of a surprise announcement distancing themselves from the British royal family, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, declared they will “work to become financially independent” — a move that has not been clearly spelled out and could be fraught with obstacles.The couple indicated in their statement Wednesday that they want to be free to work on their own terms while continuing to support the work of Queen Elizabeth II, Harry’s grandmother. And that could be a problem, some royal watchers say.”I don’t think it is going to work, to be honest,” said David McClure, a television producer and writer who examined the wealth of the royal family in his book “Royal Legacy.””How can you be half in, half out? Half the week perform public duties and the other half earn your own income with TV, lectures, books? It is fraught with dangers,” he said.And the plan appeared not to have been coordinated with the palace, which quickly issued its own statement saying discussions “were at an early stage” and there were “complicated issues that will take time to work out.”FILE – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, and Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry watch a flypast of Royal Air Force aircraft pass over Buckingham Palace in London, July 10, 2018.On Thursday, the 93-year-old queen moved to take control of the situation, ordering officials representing the monarch, her son Prince Charles, grandson Prince William, and Harry and Meghan to meet to find “workable solutions” within “days, not weeks,” Britain’s national news agency, Press Association, reported.Blurry financial linesMeanwhile, questions swirled about what the term “financial independence” might mean for the royal couple.Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, have said they plan to cut ties to the taxpayer support given each year to the queen for official use, which currently covers 5% of the costs of running their office. But they may still continue to rely heavily on private funding provided by Harry’s father, Prince Charles, who controls a vast, lucrative estate known as the Duchy of Cornwall.Taxpayer support is provided by the Treasury to the queen each year through a fund called the Sovereign Grant. In the last fiscal year, the queen paid 329 million pounds ($429 million) into the Treasury from the Crown Estate and received 82 million pounds ($107 million) for official use — some of which went to fund Harry and Meghan’s office costs.But the majority of funding for the couple’s office comes from Charles, who uses the revenue from the Duchy of Cornwall to pay for many of his activities along with those of his wife, Camilla, and his sons Harry and William.The Duchy of Cornwall was established in 1337, and under its medieval charter, Charles is not allowed to sell any of its real estate or other assets — but he is entitled to the annual income it generates, which in the last year was roughly 21.6 million pounds ($28.2 million).Harry and Meghan may be able to credibly assert they are not relying on taxpayer money, which could be their definition of financial independence.They faced a barrage of stinging criticism recently for using more than 2 million pounds ($2.6 million) of taxpayer funds for the renovation of their home near Windsor Castle. They say they plan to continue using Frogmore Cottage as their U.K. base — if the queen agrees.Meghan as lifestyle influencer Harry and Meghan also have considerable assets of their own. Harry inherited an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.1 million) from his late mother, Princess Diana, that has grown with interest, as well as money from his great-grandmother. Meghan is a millionaire in her own right after a successful acting career on the popular TV show “Suits.”FILE – Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, pats a dog during a visit to a community picnic at Victoria Park in Dubbo, Australia, Oct. 17, 2018. Her Outland Denim jeans quickly sparked a buying fenzy.Before her 2018 marriage to Harry, Meghan was positioning herself as a lifestyle influencer like businesswomen Gwyneth Paltrow and Reese Witherspoon. Meghan’s blog was called The Tig, with a now-closed website and Instagram account.”I can see her relaunching The Tig in a different form. People want to know what she’s wearing, what she’s eating, how she’s living. She certainly has an understanding of the power of her appearance,” said Lauren Sherman, chief correspondent in New York for the London-based Business of Fashion news site.As the Duchess of Sussex, the clothes Meghan wears — as well as the ones she dresses her 8-month-old son Archie in — often sell out quickly and spike online searches.Last year, Meghan collaborated with her friend, designer Misha Nonoo, to create a line of office wear for women to benefit the U.K.-based women’s charity Smart Works, which provides office-appropriate clothing and work-skills training to disadvantaged women.But, Sherman also noted the potential pitfalls of any future involving fashion.”They’re going to have to be very, very careful,” Sherman said. “A lot of brands now are mission-based. She would need to partner with a brand that has a mission or has a charitable element and preaches transparency on a lot of different levels or is very entrepreneurial and female driven. There aren’t many brands that would sort of pass the muster.”Chris Addison, an Emmy Award-winning writer and director from Britain whose credits include “Veep,” is curious about Meghan and Harry’s future plans.”I’d love to know what they’re going to do … because they’ve clearly been thinking about it for a long time,” he said Thursday at a TV critics meeting in Pasadena.Asked if he could envision working with the couple to produce content — similar to Barack and Michelle Obama’s Netflix deal — Addison replied, “Never say never to anything.”Taxpayer-funded travel, securityThe royal couple will still be using British taxpayer money in some cases. Taxpayer funds are routinely used to pay for official overseas travel that the royals carry out, often at the request of the Foreign Office, which uses the family as goodwill ambassadors in many parts of the world, particularly Commonwealth countries.Harry and Meghan, who were vilified in the press for accepting rides on private jets while calling for positive action on climate change, say on their website that they will continue to use taxpayer money for official trips when carrying out royal duties in support of the queen and the government.They say they will pay for all trips taken on their own time.There is also a gray area concerning the costs of their personal security. The royals are protected by a special unit of the Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard, that is funded by taxpayers for a variety of roles, including leading Britain’s counter-terrorism efforts and keeping the streets safe.The British government does not provide a public breakdown of the cost of protecting the royal family for fear that would be useful to anyone considering an attack. There have been no indications that Harry or Meghan wish to give up this protection.
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Queen Elizabeth II has moved quickly to take control of the crisis surrounding the decision by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, to distance themselves from the royal family, ordering royal courtiers to find a future role for the pair within days.Officials representing the most senior members of the family — the monarch, her son Prince Charles, grandson Prince William, and Prince Harry and Meghan — were meeting to sort out a workable solution for the couple within the royal family.In the meantime, Meghan has returned to Canada, where she and Harry spent the Christmas holidays, instead of with other royals at the queen’s estate in Sandringham, England. The former actress has longstanding ties to the country, having lived in Toronto while filming the TV show “Suits.”The talks come after the royal pair released a “personal message” Wednesday evening that said they were stepping back from being senior members of Britain’s royal family, aimed to become financially independent and would “balance” their time between the U.K. and North America.FILE – Newspapers are seen for sale in London, Jan. 9, 2020.Harry and Meghan faced a barrage of criticism from the British press over their decision.The couple has long complained of intrusive media coverage and accused some British media commentators of racism. They slammed the country’s long-standing arrangements for royal media coverage and insisted that from now on they prefer to communicate directly with the public through social media.The monarch and other members of the family were said to be “hurt” by the announcement because they weren’t informed about the communique before it was released. News of the talks followed.The latest developments reveal more divisions within the British monarchy, which was rocked in November by Prince Andrew’s disastrous television interview about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew, the queen’s second son, has stepped away from royal duties and patronages after being accused by a woman who says she was an Epstein trafficking victim who slept with the prince.Personal assetsHarry, 35, is Elizabeth’s grandson and sixth in line to the British throne, behind his father, brother and his brother’s three children. The former British Army officer is one of the royal family’s most popular members and has spent his entire life in the public eye.Before marrying the prince in a wedding watched around the world in 2018, the 38-year-old Meghan was a star of the TV legal drama “Suits.” The couple’s son Archie was born in May 2019.The couple’s statement on Wednesday left many questions unanswered — such as what they plan to do and how they will earn private income without tarnishing the royal image. At the moment, they are largely funded by Harry’s father, Prince Charles, through income from his vast Duchy of Cornwall estate.They said they plan to cut ties to the taxpayer support given each year to the queen for official use, which currently covers 5% of the costs of running their office.Harry and Meghan also have considerable assets of their own. Harry inherited an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.1 million) from his late mother, Princess Diana, as well as money from his great-grandmother. Meghan has money from a successful acting career.
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U.S. government officials are watching and waiting, with many believing it is only a matter of time before Iran lashes out in cyberspace for the U.S. drone strike that killed Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week.According to the latest advisory from the Department of Homeland Security, there are still “no specific, credible threats” to the United States. But officials say Iran’s public assurances that it is done retaliating mean little.“Iran has been one of the most malicious actors out there,” a senior State Department official said Thursday. “We’re very concerned about Iran’s capabilities and activities.”U.S. government officials have been hesitant to comment in any detail on what Iranian cyber actors have been up to in recent days, though they note Iran’s capabilities are on par with Russia, China and North Korea when it comes to using cyber to target industrial control systems or physical infrastructure.“DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is operating under an enhanced posture to improve coordination and situational awareness should any specific threats emerge,” a department spokesperson told VOA.The spokesperson added DHS is coordinating with U.S. intelligence agencies, key private sector companies and organizations, and is ready to “implement enhanced security measures, as needed.”Iranian Cyber ActivityBracing for a ‘significant’ attackIntelligence officials say much of Iran’s cyber activity is driven by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sometimes using front companies or sometimes carrying out cyberattacks themselves.Past Iranian cyberattacks have ranged from distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which block access to websites by overwhelming the server hosting the site with internet traffic, to efforts to deface websites or attempts to steal personal data.An alert this week from the FILE – The Twitter and Facebook logos, Nov. 26, 2019.Ramping up disinformation campaignsAnd once the U.S. airstrike took out Soleimani, the Iranian disinformation machinery went into action.“As that news came out, we saw them ramp their program and start pushing that stuff out,” Hultquist said.The disinformation from Iran’s proxy forces in the Middle East further increased Tuesday during Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Iraqi bases hosting U.S. and coalition forces — “in terms of reports coming in about certain hits that happened and numbers of casualties from the Iranian response,” said Phillip Smyth, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been tracking social media activity by the Iranian-backed militias.But Iran-linked cyber actors have also eyed more ambitious campaigns.In October 2018, for example, Facebook and Instagram removed 82 accounts, pages and groups from their platforms.The posts, Facebook said, focused on “politically charged topics such as race relations, opposition to the [U.S.] president and immigration.”Facebook Removes 82 Iranian-Linked Accounts
Facebook announced Friday that it has removed 82 accounts, pages or groups from its site and Instagram that originated in Iran, with some of the account owners posing as residents of the United States or Britain and tweeting about liberal politics.At least one of the Facebook pages had more than one million followers, the firm said. The company said it did not know if the coordinated behavior was tied to the Iranian government.
Analysts said while those Iranian disinformation efforts paled in comparison to the campaign run by Russia in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the effort showed signs of increasing sophistication, which has continued to this day.Some former U.S. officials and analysts also suspect Iran may be targeting news outlets.The Kuwaiti government Wednesday said the Kuwait News Agency’s Twitter account was hacked after it posted false reports that the U.S. was withdrawing all troops based in the country.Separately, hackers claiming to be working on behalf of Iran defaced the website of the U.S. Federal Depository Library Program.Despite suspicions and concerns, though, officials have yet to definitely attribute either attack to Iran. And there is a risk that such attacks are actually the work of other cyber actors.For example, former officials said there have been instances in the past where Russian cyber operatives hijacked Iranian infrastructure or malware to launch intrusions of their own.Targeting AmericansIran, though, has other tools it can use to strike the U.S. and the West. “Iranian cyber actors are targeting U.S. government officials, government organizations and companies to gain intelligence and position themselves for future cyber operations,” U.S. intelligence agencies warned in their most recent threat assessment.Iran’s Cyber Spies Looking to Get Personal
Iran appears to be broadening its presence in cyberspace, stealing information that would allow its cyber spies to monitor and track key political and business officials, including some in the United States.A new, U.S. intelligence report released Tuesday warned Iranian cyber actors "are targeting U.S. Government officials, government organizations, and companies to gain intelligence and position themselves for future cyber operations."The latest Worldwide Threat Assessment also said Tehran has been…
The U.S.-based cybersecurity firms FireEye and Symantec have said their research shows Iranian-linked cyber actors have paid particular attention to telecommunications and travel companies, mining them for personal data that could prove useful in such cyber campaigns.Not everyone, however, is convinced Iran is positioned to launch a major cyber offensive.“A lot of the doom and gloom headlines that are out there right now, I think, are overblowing or overhyping the immediate cyberthreat coming from Iran,” Hoover Institution Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider said.“The reality is that Iranians have been conducting these cyberattacks over the last year, if not longer,” she said, adding that while there may well be an uptick in attacks, “they’ve been trying this entire time.”Still, a former U.S. National Security Agency threat manager cautions even a small cyberattack can inadvertently do widespread damage.“There’s always the potential that an attack or an intrusion, which is physically or strategically designed to only impact a certain geography or certain network, creeps to other parts of the network,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, now head of nation-state research at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
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Two award-winning documentaries capture death and destruction in the war-torn Syrian cities of Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta through the eyes of women. Waad al-Kateab’s film “For Sama,” and Feras Fayyad’s film “The Cave,” document civilians’ struggle to survive in devastated cities where doctors in makeshift hospitals tend to throngs of injured and dying people. VOA’s Penelope Poulou interviewed both filmmakers and has more.
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American comedian, writer and director Buck Henry, who was behind one of the most influential films in history, has died of a heart attack. He was 89.The Dartmouth-educated Henry first emerged in the late 1950s, playing a puritanical character who was offended by so-called naked animals and wanted them to wear clothes.Many in the media failed to realize it was a joke and booked Henry’s character on news and interview shows.FILE – Key members of NBC’s comedy, “The New Show,” from left, Dave Thomas, Steve Martin, Lorne Michaels, Valri Bromfield, Jeff Goldblum, and Buck Henry, hold a news conference announcing the show in New York, Dec. 31, 1983.In 1965, Henry co-created the television comedy Get Smart, a satire of James Bond. Instead of the smooth martini-drinking spy, the Get Smart lead character, Maxwell Smart, was a dense bumbler whose apologies to his boss of “Sorry about that, chief” became a national catch phrase.Three years later, Henry co-wrote and appeared in The Graduate, a film that influenced generations of young people. In it, Dustin Hoffman played a former college student who had no ambition or clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life and wound up having an affair with a woman twice his age.With a musical score by Simon and Garfunkel, Henry’s script for The Graduate earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. His second nomination came 10 years later for the hugely popular film Heaven Can Wait. Henry’s other hit films included Catch-22 and What’s Up, Doc?The short and bespectacled Henry, who died Wednesday in Los Angeles, also had appeared on numerous television comedy and variety shows.
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President Donald Trump Thursday announced changes to a 50-year-old environmental law that he calls “broken and outdated,” but that critics say will now give developers a green light to pollute.Trump said the National Environmental Policy Act “ties up and bogs down” infrastructure projects by an “outrageously slow and burdensome federal approval process.”The president alleges some projects take as long as 30 years to get built because of what he calls the environmental “regulatory nightmare.””These endless delays waste money, keep projects from breaking ground, and deny jobs to our nation’s incredible workers,” he said.Shortens time for impact studiesThe changes Trump proposes would exclude projects primarily funded by private companies, including oil and gas pipelines. It also cuts the time federal agencies are given to carry out environmental impact studies from four and a half years to two years.The president also wants to exclude what the law says are the “cumulative” impact such projects would have on the environment from the approval process.Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune is arrested outside the White House in Washington, Feb. 13, 2013, as prominent environmental leaders tied themselves to the White House gate to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline.Some environmental groups say they will challenge Trump’s order in court.”Today’s action is nothing more than an attempt to write Donald Trump’s climate denial into official government policy,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said. “Communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change. But rather than protect them, Trump is pulling out all the stops to silence their voices and further prop up his corporate polluter friends.”When a reporter asked Trump Thursday whether he still believes climate change is a hoax, the president said it is a real problem, but added that the U.S. has the cleanest air and water on Earth.Court challenge expectedA court challenge from environmentalists could tie up Trump’s proposal for the rest of his term.Republican President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law in 1970 when the U.S. started becoming more and more aware of the impact of air and water pollution.The law as published says it was written to “create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony.”
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Vietnamese startups are heading into the new year looking to avoid the mistakes of such companies as Uber and WeWork, which disappointed investors in 2019 for failing to turn a profit after so much buildup.Investors and entrepreneurs in the communist nation are taking a more critical look at their businesses after seeing others get burned overseas. WeWork, which rents out shared workspaces, was seen as a cautionary tale of a startup that did not live up to expectations and was not profitable.For years, investors were willing to back losing businesses to gain market share. But now, there is more scrutiny of new investments.Benchmarks setThe Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA) requires its technology startups to meet a list of benchmarks throughout their time in the program.“Apart from very intuitive selection criteria that all applying startups have to go through, the program has introduced a new development measurement method, which helps us to capture the progress of startups that are accepted into VIISA,” Hieu Vo, a board member and chief financial officer at VIISA, said. “I think this process will bring out the best in each person for the particular business they have founded and committed to.”Vo said his colleagues sit down with startups when they join the accelerator to discuss key performance indicators, or KPI, that will be set as goals. VIISA also does training for the young businesses so they have quantifiable skills, such as how to structure a business deal, or how to set up their accounting system.Having metrics and ratings, Vo said, supports “both business performance, as well as personal transformation of founders.”Founder scrutinyThe founder as an individual has become a point of scrutiny for investors, who used to be more forgiving of an eccentric or aggressive founder, seen as part of the package to have a tech genius head an innovative business. But there has been a backlash among those who think too much permissiveness can damage a business, from the sexual misconduct amid the workplace culture of Uber, to the conflicts of interest in business decisions at WeWork.It helps to not just think short term and to have an outside perspective, according to Pham Manh Ha, founder and chief executive officer of Beekrowd, an investment platform in Ho Chi Minh City.“As a first-time founder, it seems impossible for us to look beyond the first six months to a year of our business,” he said, adding that experienced third parties can help businesses take the long view. “They stand outside the trees that are blocking us from seeing the forest.”To see the forest, Vietnamese businesses like his are taking a more measured approach. Vietnam has seen an escalation of tech startups, as investors have rushed to put their money to work and take advantage of the economy’s fast growth.They also remember the dot-com bubble in the United States, and the more recent global tech bubble, two reminders for caution.
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The agency that oversees the United States’ nuclear arsenal says it doesn’t need to do any broad environmental reviews of a proposal that calls for ramping up production of plutonium triggers at federal installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.The National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday released a supplemental analysis related to the project, saying the determination was made after reviewing extensive documentation and public comments that were received last year.Nuclear watchdogs, government accountability advocates and other critics argue that the decision skirts requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and a decades-old court order that included a mandate for an environmental review when the federal government embarked on plans to boost production to more than 80 of the nuclear cores a year.A key component of every nuclear weapon, most of the plutonium cores in the stockpile were produced in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the nuclear agency.FILE – Barrels of radioactive waste are loaded for transport to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, at the Radioactive Assay Nondestructive Testing (RANT) facility in Los Alamos, N.M., April 9, 2019.Federal officials have set a deadline of 2030 for ramped-up core production, with work being split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At stake are jobs and billions of dollars in federal funding that would be needed to revamp existing buildings or construct new factories to support the work.The NNSA said it would prepare an environmental impact statement on core-making at Savannah River. A less extensive review is being done for Los Alamos, but watchdogs say that analysis will fall short of the nationwide public review required by such a significant proposal.Legal challengeLawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment first threatened legal action last fall. They reiterated Thursday that a legal challenge is possible since the nuclear agency has declined to prepare a broader review.”We need to find smart ways to face the world’s renewed nuclear arms race. Unnecessary expanded production of questionable plutonium bomb cores is not the way to do it,” said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Waste New Mexico.Under the National Environmental Policy Act, Coghlan said the federal government should be considering credible alternatives to ensuring the reliability and sustainability of the nuclear arsenal rather than the rubber stamping of a “nukes forever” agenda that is funded by taxpayers.Years-long debateWhile the NNSA’s decision comes as President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed overhauling the half-century old National Environmental Policy Act, the issues surrounding plutonium pit production have spanned multiple presidential administrations.Elected leaders in New Mexico and South Carolina long have been jockeying for the lucrative mission. Some members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have resisted the nuclear agency’s plan, arguing that production should be centered at Los Alamos — the once-secret city in northern New Mexico where the atomic bomb was developed decades ago as part of the Manhattan Project.The mission of producing the cores has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011 as the lab has been dogged by a string of safety lapses and concerns about a lack of accountability.Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico criticized the Trump administration Thursday for its proposed rollbacks, saying the environmental policy act is the only law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental and climate related consequences of federal actions. As for the plutonium project, the senior senator has yet to say whether he would support more environmental reviews.
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