LONDON: Britain accused Russian news channel RT of being a tool of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign on Wednesday.
It also asked the media regulator to take action if needed after Russia recognized two rebel regions of eastern Ukraine.
Russian officials say RT is a way for Moscow to compete with the dominance of global media companies based in the United States and Britain which they say offer a partial view of the world.
Critics say RT, which broadcasts news in English, Arabic, Spanish and German, is the propaganda arm of the Russian state and aims to undermine confidence in Western institutions.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said in a letter to state media regulator Ofcom that she was concerned RT would seek to spread “harmful disinformation” about the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
“While respecting Ofcom’s regulatory independence, I call on you to ensure your actions are timely and transparent to reassure the British public,” the letter, seen by Reuters, said.
Asked in parliament whether he would request Ofcom review RT’s license, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he believed Dorries had asked the regulator to review that matter.
Johnson’s spokesman, asked later if the government was looking to ban the channel, sought to clarify the prime minister’s remarks.
“All the culture secretary is asking Ofcom (is to) take any appropriate action should there be any attempt to use Russia Today to spread disinformation,” the spokesman said.
Johnson had also said the regulator should make its own decisions.
“We live in a country that believes in free speech,” Johnson told parliament. “And I think it’s important that we should leave it up to Ofcom rather than to politicians to decide which media organizations to ban — that’s what Russia does.
RT said British politicians seemed to be trying to meddle in the affairs of a regulator, undermining its independence.
“The UK culture minister is now clearly directly interfering in institutions touted as supposedly wholly free from political pressure and influence,” Anna Belkina, RT’s deputy editor in chief, told Reuters.
Belkina said despite political pressure Ofcom had not found any breaches of the Broadcasting Code by RT in the past four years.
Ofcom said it would prioritize complaints about any broadcaster’s news coverage of Russia and Ukraine.
“Given the seriousness of the Ukraine crisis, we will examine complaints about any broadcaster’s news coverage of this issue as a priority,” the regulator said.
UK says Russian channel RT is tool of Kremlin disinformation
https://arab.news/6gak5
UK says Russian channel RT is tool of Kremlin disinformation
- Russian officials say RT is a way for Moscow to compete with the dominance of global media companies
- Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said in a letter to state media regulator Ofcom that she was concerned RT would seek to spread "harmful disinformation" about the Russia-Ukraine crisis
Palestinian journalist seriously wounded by rubber bullet
RAMALLAH: Moamen Sumreen, 22, a Palestinian journalist who was convering the Israeli raid, was seriously wounded after being hit in the head by a rubber bullet, his family told AFP.
Israeli troops on Thursday demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian accused of carrying out twin bombings in Jerusalem last November that killed two Israelis, including a teenager.
His uncle Mohammed Sumreen, also a journalist, said they had been among a group of reporters watching events unfold from the roof of a nearby building.
“Throughout the coverage, the soldiers were shining laser lights on us, targeting us with gas bombs and firing live bullets in our direction,” he said.
“Moamen wanted to change his position, he stood up and was directly hit by a bullet in the area under the ear,” he said, noting that Sumreen was wearing a jacket marked “press” when he came under fire.
The Israeli army said that the incident was “under review.”
The army used explosives to make the first floor apartment in Ramallah where Aslam Faroukh lived uninhabitable, an AFP journalist reported.
Faroukh was arrested in December and accused of carrying out the November 23 bombings at Jerusalem bus stops that killed a 15-year-old Israeli-Canadian and an Israeli in his 50s. They were the first bombings to have targeted Israeli civilians since 2016.
“The home was demolished after an appeal to the Supreme Court against the demolition was rejected,” the army said in a statement.
Originally from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, where he held an Israeli residency permit, Faroukh had lived in Ramallah for some years.
According to the army, he is alleged to have acted alone, “identifying with the Daesh (Daesh group) organization.”
Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, routinely demolishes the homes of individuals it blames for deadly attacks on Israelis.
Human rights activists say the policy amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.
But Israel says the practice is effective in deterring some Palestinians from carrying out attacks.
Faroukh’s mother, Um Aslam, told AFP that the demolition would only “increase their hatred and (desire for) revenge.”
Microsoft to offer OpenAI’s GPT models to government cloud customers
- Company said GPT technology will be integrated into Azure Government, which offers cloud solutions to government agencies
LONDON: Microsoft Corp. is bringing the powerful language-producing models from OpenAI to US federal agencies using its Azure cloud service, it said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The Redmond, Washington-based company has added support for large language models (LLMs) powering GPT-4 the latest and the most sophisticated of the LLMs from OpenAI, and GPT-3, to Azure Government.
Use of LLMs have boomed since the launch of ChatGPT from OpenAI, in which Microsoft holds a stake, and businesses of all shapes and sizes are racing to build features on top of them.
It is the first time Microsoft is bringing the GPT technology to Azure Government, which offers cloud solutions to US government agencies, and marks the first such effort by a major company to make the chatbot technology available to governments.
Microsoft generally offers it to Azure commercial cloud users through Azure OpenAI Services, which had 4,500 customers as of May.
Microsoft said government customers can adapt the language models for specific tasks including content generation, language-to-code translation and summarization.
Meta introduces broadcast tool Channels on WhatsApp
- New feature users will allow users to follow content on their hobbies, sports teams, updates from local officials
LONDON: Meta Platforms on Thursday introduced WhatsApp Channels, a feature that the social media giant said would help make the app a “private broadcast messaging product.”
Users in Colombia and Singapore will be the first to receive access to Channels. Over the coming months, Meta will expand the availability of the tool for users in more countries, it said.
The company said users will be able to follow content on their hobbies, sports teams, updates from local officials and others.
Profile photos and contact information of the channel admin would not be visible to followers. Similarly, followers will not have their phone numbers revealed.
Global launch partners for the feature will include the World Health Organization, FC Barcelona and Manchester City.
Fox News says Tucker Carlson breached his contract - Axios
- Fox News accused Carlson of the violation in a letter to his legal team after he posted a clip of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday
- Carlson was taken off the air by Fox last April following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud
WASHINGTON: Fox News on Wednesday notified Tucker Carlson’s legal team that the former prime-time host violated his contract with the network when he launched his own Twitter show on Tuesday, Axios reported, citing a copy of a letter obtained by the news website.
Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday, weeks after being taken off the air by Fox following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud.
Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent a letter to Carlson’s legal team saying Carlson “is in breach” of his contract agreement after he posted a clip of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday evening, according to Axios.
Carlson’s legal team could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters. His lawyer told Axios that any legal action by Fox would violate his First Amendment rights to free speech guaranteed by the US Constitution.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Carlson’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement cited by Axios.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The letter quoted by Axios refers to Carlson’s contract, and said its former prime time star was “prohibited from rendering services of any type whatsoever, whether ‘over the Internet via streaming or similar distribution, or other digital distribution whether now known or hereafter devised.’“
Chris Licht steps down as CNN chief following series of grave missteps
- The chief executive officer of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, informed CNN staff of Licht’s departure during the network’s daily editorial call
- The departure of 51-year-old Licht came after The Atlantic recently published an extensive article headlined “Inside the Tremendous Meltdown at CNN”
LONDON: CNN chief Chris Licht on Wednesday announced that he would be leaving the network after a one-year tenure marked by serious programming missteps.
The chief executive officer of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, informed CNN staff of Licht’s departure during the network’s daily editorial call, according to CNN Business.
The departure of 51-year-old Licht, CNN’s chairman and CEO, came after The Atlantic recently published an extensive article headlined “Inside the Tremendous Meltdown at CNN,” highlighting the muddles and low ratings the company had experienced in the last year.
The most recent of his missteps, which attracted backlash, was the network’s town hall meeting with former US President Donald Trump, which the Financial Times described as “controversial.”
During the meeting, Trump’s supporters cheered as he insulted the event’s moderator Kaitlan Collins, who attempted to fact-check the ex-American leader. Although CNN journalists were angered, Licht said: “America was served very well by what we did.”
On Monday, Licht apologized to CNN employees, describing his experience as “tremendously humbling.”
But on Wednesday, Zaslav said: “For a number of reasons things didn’t work out and that’s unfortunate. It’s really unfortunate. And ultimately that’s on me. And I take full responsibility for that.”
Licht will leave his role within 48 hours, Puck News reported on Wednesday.
