LONDON: British lawmakers have demanded that Facebook should be subject to a compulsory code of ethics to confront the spread of fake news.

The UK parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said that Facebook and other big tech companies had been ineffective in stopping damaging content and disinformation on their platforms, according to agencies.

A report of the committee said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg as a leader failed to take personal responsibility.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins said that the guiding principle of the ‘move fast and break things’ culture often seems to be that it is better to apologize than ask permission.”

He demanded radical shift in the balance of power between the platforms and the users saying that the age of inadequate self-regulation has to end.

STRASBOURG: The European Commission has added Saudi Arabia, Panama, and Nigeria to a blacklist of nations, which have been seen as ‘threat’ because of lax controls on financing terrorism and money laundering.

The move has been dubbed as a ‘part of a crackdown’ on money laundering after several scandals at EU banks. This, however, has been criticized by some EU countries including Britain, which is worried about their economic relations with Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi government, meanwhile, said it regretted the decision. “Saudi Arabia’s commitment to combating money laundering,” it said.

BERLIN: A survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center concluded that climate change has been the top security concern in several countries.

According to the survey, Islamist terrorism and cyber-attacks have been listed as other concerns after climate change. In the survey, respondents in a number of countries expressed their worry about the power and influence of the United States, reports said.

The survey said that in 13 of 26 countries, people listed climate change as the top global threat. Likewise, Islamic State militant group topped the list in eight and cyber-attacks in four, according to Reuters.

LONDON: Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth, has voluntarily given up his driving license after a crash last month, Buckingham Palace said.

According to Reuters, Philip, 97, escaped without injury on January 17 when the Land Rover he was driving flipped in a collision with a car in eastern England.

In a statement, the Royal Palace said that the Duke of Edinburgh has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving license after careful consideration.

Philip also received a warning from police for driving without a seat belt two days after the crash, according to the report.

Britain has no legal age to stop driving. However, drivers over 70 have to renew their licenses every three years. (Agencies)

ISTANBUL:  The Turkish fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Friday she hoped pressure from the US Congress would encourage the Trump adminstration to take a tougher stance on the killing. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was killed on October 2 by Saudi agents during a visit to his country’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork ahead of his wedding to Hatice Cengiz. During a press conference in Istanbul for a book on Khashoggi’s life, Cengiz left the door open to a meeting with US President Donald Trump if certain conditions were met.
The book, titled “Jamal Khashoggi: his life, his fight, his secrets”, was written by Turkish journalists Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Sinan Onus with testimony from Cengiz. An English version will be published next week.
In the book, Cengiz shares her memories and papers detailing the life of former Saudi insider turned critic Khashoggi “who was a journalist for you, but a man for me”.  In December, Cengiz rejected an invitation from Trump.
But on Friday, she said “a visit to the United States could take place in March”. She hoped the US leader would have a change of “attitude” and “follow the case closely”.
“I have hope, not necessarily regarding Trump, but about the fact that the new Congress will follow this case more closely,” she said, struggling with tears as she spoke.
Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that Khashoggi’s killing had been “planned and perpetrated” by Saudi officials. Khashoggi had written critical pieces on the Riyadh administration in the Post.
Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi.
His murder was met with international outrage and considerably hurt the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of having ordered the killing.
While Riyadh denies any involvement of Prince Mohammed, the crown prince has been implicated in the murder by American senators based on the CIA’s conclusions.
But the Trump administration has said there is no irrefutable evidence of Prince Mohammed’s involvement, and has stressed the importance of the strategic partnership between Washington and Riyadh.
Cengiz refused to comment on the accusations against the crown prince, saying only that she awaited the completion of Turkey’s investigation.
However she denounced the fact that Khashoggi’s remains still had not been found.

LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May will call on the European Union on Thursday to work with her to change a divorce deal and help her win the support of a divided parliament to smooth Britain’s departure from the bloc.

Before arriving in Brussels for talks with EU leaders, May acknowledged that her task – to force change to a deal agreed almost three months ago – would not be easy, and a government source said a breakthrough on Thursday was not expected.

If she cannot, Britain, and May, face an uncertain future, opening the door to several scenarios – leaving without a deal which some businesses say might cripple the economy, another referendum, an early election or never leaving the EU at all.

But she will tell European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and the European parliament’s Antonio Tajani she wants to work “urgently” with them to secure changes that she argues can win over not only her fractious Conservative Party but lawmakers across parliament.

Just weeks after parliament resoundingly rejected her Brexit deal, May needs to persuade a reluctant EU to change the Withdrawal Agreement to help her get lawmakers’ approval before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29.

If she cannot, Britain, and May, face an uncertain future, opening the door to several scenarios – leaving without a deal which some businesses say might cripple the economy, another referendum, an early election or never leaving the EU at all.

Acknowledging that the agreement “was the product of much hard work and was negotiated in good faith”, May will tell the leaders that parliament had sent “an unequivocal message that change is required”, according to her office.

“The government now wants urgently to work with the EU to secure such changes … We must show determination and do what it takes to now get the deal over the line.”

The main stumbling block to winning approval is the so-called Northern Irish backstop, an insurance policy that there will be no return of the checks at the border with EU member Ireland that in the past were a focus for sectarian violence.

Some lawmakers want her to remove the provision entirely, while others say they will accept legally-binding assurances that it would not lead to Britain being trapped in the EU’s sphere indefinitely or a way for London to end it unilaterally.

But the EU, and particularly Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, say they will not re-open the agreement, underlining that the political instability in Britain only further proved the need for the backstop. (Reuters)

TOKYO: There is still time to find a solution to the impasse on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Japan on Tuesday.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was rejected by parliament last month and she is trying to persuade the EU to accept changes to the agreement before the March 29 deadline for departure.

“From a political point of view, there is still time,” Merkel told an economic conference in Tokyo.

“That should be used, used by all sides. But for this it would be very important to know what exactly the British side envisages in terms of its relationship with the EU,” she said.

Acknowledging that the tight timeframe was difficult for businesses desperate for certainty given “just-in-time” production systems, Merkel said the “special” problem was the Irish border and the backstop agreement.

“It should be humanly possible to find a solution to such a precise problem. But this depends … on the kind of trade deal that we forge with each other,” she said. (Reuters)

PARIS : For the 12th straight weekend of protests, thousands of “Yellow Vest” protesters marched in Paris and other French cities on Saturday in relatively calm rallies, but some sporadic incidents led to 30 arrests in the French capital. As previous demonstrations, discontent people chanted the national anthem and anti-President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership slogans. Some of them had put plasters and others wore eye patches to pay tribute to those wounded in the months-long protests.
At the front of the fresh street action, Jerome Rodrigues who lost one of his eyes after being hit by a flash-ball last week, headed the rally in the French capital to say “Stop” to “Violence of State, Macron guilty”, as read in some banners. The French Interior Ministry said Saturday’s protests, coordinated via social media against Macron’s leadership, drew 58,600 participants nationwide. The turnout was down from a week ago when 69,000 people took part. In Paris, 10,500 people were gathered compared with 4,000 on Jan. 26.
After a calm debut where peaceful atmosphere reigned, tension arose in Paris after riot police used tear gas and water cannon in response to some protesters who set bins and a scooter ablaze. More standoffs were reported as officers moved to disperse protesters in the Republic square where they had planned an evening gathering, dubbed “Yellow Night”.
Similar scuffles clouded demonstrations in Tours, Valence, Toulouse and Bordeaux. The “Yellow Vest” movement, a nationwide protest against weak economic performance and stagnant income increase, started as a campaign against surge in fuel prices in November 2018.
Since then, thousands of drivers wearing highly visible yellow vests had blocked roads across the country and staged street protests that had been transformed into social rebellion demanding Macron to step down. Despite capitulating over plans for fuel taxes, France’s youngest president in its modern history has struggled to ease the anger that cast doubt on his political credentials to reform one of Europe’s major powers and lead the country, according to the country’s pollsters.

(Agencies)

BERLIN: While German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas would like to see an “exit from Brexit” – Britain abandoning its plan to leave the European Union – he said in a newspaper interview on Sunday that he saw such an outcome as extremely unlikely.

In the interview with the Funke media group, Maas repeated the EU’s position that the withdrawal agreement thrashed out between Brussels and London, which was rejected by Britain’s parliament last month, could not be renegotiated.

He added that Britain’s only path to avoiding a so-called “hard Brexit”, in which London exited automatically on March 29 with no transitional arrangements in place to ensure the continued flow of goods, medicines and transport links, was to accept the existing deal. (Reuters)

LONDON: Baldwin Street in Dunedin, on New Zealand’s south island, has a confirmed gradient of 35% at its steepest but residents of Harlech say their challenger, Ffordd Pen Llech, is steeper at 36%.

But it isn’t just about the gradient – a street must also have houses, be a public thoroughfare and be paved to be eligible for the title. Having passed those tests, however, Harlech residents have sent measurements to Guinness World Records to see if they can claim the title. The Kiwis aren’t impressed at the idea they could lose their world record.

“Whatever happens, this has been brilliant for Harlech and we’re proud of our little lane.”