International
Ola Bini, the computer scientist linked to Assange who will be five years old prosecuted in Ecuador
Ola Bini, the Swedish computer scientist and programmer who was arrested in 2019 in Ecuador and accused of an alleged cyber attack for links with the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is on the way to five years prosecuted, without yet seeing the light of the tunnel, despite the fact that a court has already descised to continue the case for lack of evidence.
“This whole process is very frustrating. It has been frustrating for a long time and I still don’t see the end,” he explained in an interview with EFE Bini, who first spent 70 days in pretrial detention and since then is at large, but prevented from leaving the country and forced to report periodically to the authorities.
This has been the life of this now 41-year-old computer scientist in the last five years, who was 37 when he was arrested on April 11, 2019 before he took a flight to Japan, and whom the Government accused of improperly accessing databases of the National Telecommunications Company (CNT).
Bini recalled that it was the Government that linked him to Assange under the accusation of an alleged plot to destabilize the Executive after the eviction of the Australian from the Embassy of Ecuador in London, but emphasized that in the file of the Prosecutor’s Office there is no reference to him.
And despite the fact that in January 2023 a court ruled in favor of filing the process against him, the Prosecutor’s Office appealed the ruling and now it is going to be reviewed by another court that in 2019 already denied Bini the appeal to the pretrial detention order, so for the computer scientist it is not a guarantee of a fair ruling.
“They already have an opinion about my case. So, I do not expect an objective trial or without a conflict of interest, and that is what generates the most uncertainty: not knowing when all this is going to end,” said Bini, who if what he anticipates is fulfilled is already clear that he will appeal to the National Court of Justice, the supreme court.
The Swede commented that he has already had that same uncertainty for five years, that “it can end tomorrow or continue for five more years.”
“I try to have a social life and train to lower my stress a little, but everything is difficult,” lamented Bini, who now works at the Center for Digital Autonomy to promote the protection of personal data and free software, and tries to lead a normal life, despite the fact that he assures that he permanently feels the follow-up of undercover policemen.
“I don’t understand why they watch me in this way. I don’t understand if this is something they do with any (prosecuted) after five years of judicial process and after they have declared my innocence,” Bini said.
For the computer scientist, “Ecuador is experiencing a very complicated situation (with an ‘internal armed conflict’ declared since the beginning of the year against organized crime) and it is not explained that they spend resources to monitor it “when there are all these problems in the country.”
The court that must review the sentence that gave up continuing with the accusation against Bini has tried to set up the hearing on two occasions, but the first did not have an official Swedish translator and then the communication seemed to make it impossible to develop the exhibitions for the Nordic.
Bini emphasized that this hearing is due to the appeal filed by the Prosecutor’s Office, because CNT, which was the private accusation, did not do the same.
According to Bini, the only thing they presented as evidence against them is the alleged photograph of a screen where it is evident that there is no intrusion, because “a connection appears, then a warning and a request from a user and password, and then a ‘time out’ (time exceeded to comply with entering the required information).”
“In this case there was no intrusion because there was a warning, and then nothing happens,” reiterated Bini, for whom also “they had no records of firewalls or other (cybersecurity) systems of CNT,” because “they did not show anything else, and even the reports said that it is clear that there was no intrusion.”
Bini’s case is practically unprecedented in the country, so he and his lawyers have to do a lot of pedagogy with the judges so that they know computer terms and procedures that are familiar to them.
“I understand that these issues have not been discussed before. So, if I am convicted with this type of thing, almost all activities on the network were going to be crimes and that is very dangerous at the same time,” Bini warned.
“I would like to stay in Ecuador, because Ecuador is my home, but of course, I would like to be able to travel and visit my family and friends (in Sweden). So what I would like is just to continue working here and continue living here, but to have my freedom to be with my relatives as well,” he concluded.
International
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.
In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.
The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.
Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.
The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.
This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.
Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.
AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.
International
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.
“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.
For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”
The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.
In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.
“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.
The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.
The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.
The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.
The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.
According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.
All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.
That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.
International
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.
The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.
According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”
Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.
“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.
He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.
It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.
In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.
Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.
Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.
Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.
The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.
Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.
It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).
Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
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