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TikTok CEO to testify before US Congress in March

Photo: Fox Business

January 30 | By AFP |

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify in March to US lawmakers in Washington where the Chinese social media app faces accusations that it is beholden to the Communist Party in Beijing.

TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese, is fighting for its survival in the United States with rising calls from mainly Republican lawmakers that the company should be outright banned for its links to Beijing.

Chew will give testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23 after Republicans recently took over as the majority in the US House of Representatives.

“TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data,” US representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who heads the committee, said in a statement on Monday.

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“Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms,” she added.

Democrats have increasingly joined the groundswell of criticism against TikTok, and last month US President Joe Biden signed a law that bans the use of TikTok on government-issued devices.

This followed dozens of similar bans by US state governments and has put TikTok’s ability to remain a dominant tech player in the United States into sudden doubt.

To strengthen its position, TikTok for months held confidential talks with the US government to find a long-term arrangement that would satisfy any national security concerns.

A tentative proposal struck in August included direct oversight of TikTok USA by government officials and third-party companies.

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But this arrangement has been held up amid public criticism by FBI Director Christopher Wray who said he continues to see TikTok as a threat.

“138 million users in America use TikTok on a regular basis, average about 90 minutes a day,” said US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who co-heads the Senate’s Intelligence Committee.

“I’m not saying that the Communist party is driving the videos you see, but the fact is the algorithms that determine what you see on TikTok are determined out of Beijing by China,” he added, speaking to CBS’s  Face the Nation on Sunday.

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International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

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International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”

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