Friday, March 23, 2018

Six In The Morning Friday March 23

Trump replaces National Security Adviser HR McMaster with John Bolton

President Donald Trump is replacing US National Security Adviser HR McMaster with Bush-era defence hawk and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton.
Mr Trump tweeted to thank Gen McMaster, saying he had done an "outstanding job & will always remain my friend".
Mr Bolton, who has backed attacking North Korea and Iran, told Fox News his job would be to ensure the president has "the full range of options".
He becomes Mr Trump's third national security chief in 14 months.



Steve Bannon on Cambridge Analytica: 'Facebook data is for sale all over the world'

Trump’s ex-chief strategist says he ‘helped put the company together’, but didn’t know about data harvested from Facebook


Steve Bannon tried to distance himself from the Cambridge Analytica scandal on Thursday, claiming: “I didn’t even know anything about the Facebook mining.”
Bannon is a former vice-president and board member of the political consultancy, which he agreed he “put together.” He claimed to a conference in New York that neither he nor Cambridge Analytica had anything to do with “dirty tricks” in the use of information harvested from Facebook to make computer models to sway elections.

Venezuela to knock three zeros off currency amid hyperinflation

Venezuela plans to remove three zeros off its battered currency. The largest bill in circulation, the 100,000 note, can hardly buy a cup of coffee.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday announced he would knock three zeros off the bolivar currency amid a crippling economic crisis and hyperinflation.
"I have decided to take three zeros off the currency and remove from circulation the current banknotes and coins and put into circulation new ones from June 4," Maduro said in a televised government meeting alongside bankers.
The move does not affect the bolivar's value.
The largest bill in circulation is the 100,000 bolivar note, which trades for about $0.50 on the black market. A kilo of sugar (2.2 pounds) costs around 250,000 bolivars.

‘We speak of chains and sneakers’

The battle inside Russia’s rap scene


By Kara Fox, CNN
With Victoria Butenko, for CNN
On the eve of Russia’s presidential election, thousands of Muscovites are gyrating in a packed concert hall; hands raised high, heads nodding to the beat.
They’ve come to see hip-hop quartet Kasta, who’ve hit the stage with an explosive set spanning a 20-plus-year catalogue. They drop the 2017 anthem “Skrepy” — a term President Vladimir Putin’s used in a speech about a large safety pin that could hold the nation together. The crowd knows the track well.

Report: Western states aided Egypt's military power consolidation

Defence monitor report says Egypt's military has received Western security aid without 'meaningful transparency'.

Western governments and arms companies have contributed to the Egyptian military's consolidation of political power, a new report said.
Titled The Officers' Republic, the report was published by Transparency International Defence & Security on Friday a week before Egyptians take to the polls in an election that is expected to see the president and military general, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, secure another four-year term.


How Facebook made it impossible to delete Facebook


We’ve adapted our entire culture around Facebook. That makes “just quitting” easier said than done.


To say Facebook has had a rough time of it lately would be putting it mildly. Between fake newsfalling stock, and glaring data breaches, the social media giant is in the middle of a public reckoning (and a self-reassessment) that is perhaps long overdue.
But Facebook users, in the middle of what seems to be a moment of broader cultural backlash against social media and technology, are also clearly grappling with the ramifications of their use of the platform.
Since reports of Cambridge Analytica’s massive harvest of Facebook user data surfaced last week, multiple media outlets have responded by reminding an agitated public that they do have options for deleting their Facebook accounts. And while alternative takes have made larger cases against Facebook’s core business model, the emphasis has largely been on users making up their minds about how to deal with the company on an individual level.

4 big construction firms face charges over alleged maglev bid-rigging

Japanese authorities on Friday pressed criminal charges against four major construction firms suspected of colluding to win contracts for Japan's multi-billion-dollar maglev project.
The state-of-the-art maglev, or magnetically levitated, trains are scheduled to begin commercial service between Tokyo and Nagoya in central Japan in 2027, later extending to the western hub of Osaka.
The giant project, estimated to cost nine trillion yen ($86 billion) in total, has seen various companies competing for contracts ranging from tunnelling work to building stations.

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