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The Australian government says Facebook has agreed to allow Australians to resume viewing or sharing news content after the two sides reached an agreement over a proposal to make the digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content. The two sides announced the deal Tuesday just hours before the Australian Senate was set to begin debate on a set of amendments to a bill that was passed just last week by the lower House of Representatives. The amendments include a two-month mediation period that would give social media giants and news publishers extra time to broker agreements before they are forced to abide by the government’s provisions. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a joint statement with Communications Minister Paul Fletcher saying Facebook will restore Australian news outlets on the social media platform "in the coming days." Facebook regional director William Easton issued a statement saying the company was "satisfied" the Australian government agreed to the … [Read more...] about Facebook to Lift Block on Australian News Content after Agreement with Canberra

This month, Britain and Japan, the two most powerful offshore island nations on the Eurasian continent, undertook to strengthen a special relationship that they established over a century ago. In January 1902, the two countries agreed to a formal alliance, an arrangement whose scope was twice expanded, first in 1905 and again in 1911. The alliance’s objective was clear: They sought to contain Russian expansion in China. The current agreement again focuses on those countries, though it is China, rather than Russia, that the British and Japanese view as the primary threat to their security. The earlier treaties specifically provided for mutual defense, which led to Japan’s entering World War I on the side of the Allies. The current agreement does not go that far, but it does echo similar sentiments. Britain’s foreign and defense secretaries, Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace, and their Japanese counterparts, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi and Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, announced … [Read more...] about Britain is back in Asia, sending a message to Beijing

The lights are back on and the drinking water restored in most of Texas . Plumbers are fixing the pipes that burst in frigid, blacked out homes. Our state’s leaders will need years to fix what went wrong in our epic failure, which featured 500 times as many forced blackouts as California’s wildfires last summer. But national attention will fade if other Americans misinterpret last week’s blackouts as a uniquely Texan failure. In some ways, they were. Only Texas runs its power grid as an island , isolated from the two larger grids that cover most of the United States and Canada. That left Texas stranded when the Arctic blast slammed through. Other states restored power with imports from their neighbors. Our isolated grid also shielded Texas companies from federal regulators who may have forced them to better prepare for storms. ADVERTISEMENT Although these uniquely Texan traits exacerbated our crisis, the blackouts revealed a broader vulnerability of power systems … [Read more...] about The broader vulnerabilities revealed by the Texas blackouts

CHICAGO - As Ethiopia prepares for parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in June, the contest to win the hearts and minds of voters is already under way on social media, which democracy activist Befeqadu Hailu is closely watching. “Social media has offered us a means to organize, networking, and expressing ourselves safely, easily and cheaply,” he explained to VOA during a Skype interview from his office in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “But on the other hand, the political organizations and political groups are using social media in an organized manner so they can disseminate any information in the interest of their political advantage, so that is manipulating their followers.” Ethiopian elections come as unrest flares in its northern Tigray region, where ethnic and political tensions are exploited online. Facebook is the dominant social media platform in the country, although less than 20% of the overall population has internet access. “People disseminate whatever … [Read more...] about Carter Center Battles Online Misinformation Ahead of Ethiopia Elections