World News Roundup

INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016

10

Facebook

Shift in policy

Private ‘gun’sales bannedSAN FRANCISCO, Jan 30, (Agen-cies): Facebook has banned people using the social network for unli-censed gun sales after pressure from anti-gun violence groups alarmed over the ease with which firearms are sold online in the United States.

Although Facebook and its Insta-gram photo-sharing service do not participate in outright gun sales, the sites have been a forum for negotia-tions.

The California-based social net-work on Friday updated its policy for managing regulated goods to prohibit people who aren’t gun dealers from using Facebook to

offer guns for sale or nego-tiate private sales of fire-arms.

“Over the last two years, more and more people have been using Facebook to discover prod-ucts and to

buy and sell things to one another,” Facebook head of product policy Monika Bickert said in an email re-sponse to AFP.

The policy change, however, will not affect licensed gun dealers who tout their wares on the social net-work, which is used by 1.59 billion people monthly.

Facebook has similar restrictions on regulated goods such as prescrip-tion and illegal drugs. Facebook and Instagram in 2014 restricted posts about buying or selling guns to users 18 years of age or older.

PoliticalThe social network has been

under political pressure in the United States to prevent posts that could result in people sidestep-ping gun-buying laws or back-ground checks.

Gun control groups — some of which have been pressuring Face-book for years to tighten firearms sales on the site — were jubilant about the policy change.

“A big thumbs up to Facebook for taking this important step!,” said Dan Gross, president of The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement issued after the announcement.

“The Brady Campaign urged Facebook to bar unlicensed gun sales in 2014 and we are happy to see that Facebook has finally adopt-ed our policy,” he said, adding that the move “will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.”

An anti-gun group, Moms De-mand Action for Gun Sense in America, said it was the fruition of two years of concerted pres-sure on Facebook by it and other groups.

Those efforts, said “Moms” founder Shannon Watts, led to “new policies to curb children’s ex-posure to guns and to clarify state laws around selling and buying guns online.”

“Our continued relationship with Facebook resulted in today’s even stronger stance, which will prevent dangerous people from getting guns and save American lives,” Watts said.

StifferAn affiliated organization fight-

ing for stiffer gun control in the United States, Everytown for Gun Safety, said it had launched an undercover investigation which showed that criminals often flock to the Internet when making illicit firearms purchases.

“We’re thankful that Facebook has listened to our call and shut down a key avenue that criminals have used to avoid background checks and buy guns with no ques-tions asked,” said the group’s presi-dent John Feinblatt, who urged other social network sites to follow suit.

Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama announced a series of executive orders to tighten regu-lations on firearm sales — includ-ing those conducted online.

Obama’s measures would strengthen the existing back-ground check system, and allow health care providers to report names of mentally ill patients into the database.

Watts said her group has found numerous cases of felons and mi-nors who were able to buy guns on the site, including two cases in which the buyers used the guns to slay others. Representatives of two gun-owner rights groups, includ-ing the National Rifle Association, did not immediately respond to re-quests for comment.

Facebook had announced some restrictions on gun sales and ad-vertising in 2014, saying it would block minors from seeing posts that advertised guns. But the social network did not ban private sales at that time.

Licensed firearms retailers can still promote their businesses on Facebook, but they aren’t allowed to accept orders or make sales on the site.

Gross

A US Navy carry team, carries the transfer case containing the remains of US Navy civilian Blance D. Bussell, of Virginia, upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base, Del on Jan 29. The Department of Defense announcedthe death of Bussell who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve-Bahrain. (AP)

‘Documents won’t be released’

US declares 22 Clinton emails top secretWASHINGTON, Jan 30, (Agen-cies): The Obama administration has confirmed for the first time that Hill-ary Clinton’s home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails that contained material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. The revelation comes three days before the Demo-cratic candidate competes in the Iowa presidential caucuses.

State Department officials also said Friday that the agency’s Diplomatic Security and Intelligence and Research bureaus are investigating if any of the information was classified at the time of transmission, going to the heart of Clinton’s defense of her email prac-tices.

The department published its latest batch of emails from her time as secre-tary of state Friday evening.

Republicans have been trying to slow the momentum of Clinton’s cam-paign by playing up her email issues, saying she played by her own rules when it came to national security.

It’s the potential political costs that are probably of more immediate con-cern for Clinton. She has struggled in surveys measuring her perceived trustworthiness, and an active federal investigation, especially one buoyed by evidence that top secret material coursed through her account, could negate one of her main selling points for becoming commander in chief: Her national security resume.

The Associated Press learned ahead of the release that seven email chains would be withheld in full for containing “top secret” information. The 37 pages include messages a key intelligence of-ficial recently said concerned “special access programs” — highly restricted, classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine pro-grams like drone strikes.

“The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence com-munity because they contain a cat-egory of top secret information,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP, calling the withholding of documents in full “not unusual.” That means they won’t be published online with others being released, even with blacked-out boxes.

DescribeDepartment officials wouldn’t de-

scribe the substance of the emails, or say if Clinton sent any herself.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, insists she never sent or received information on her personal email account that was classified at the time. No emails released so far were marked classified, but review-ers previously designated more than 1,000 messages at lower classification levels. Friday’s will be the first at top secret level.

Even if Clinton didn’t write or for-ward the messages, she still would have been required to report any clas-sification slippages she recognized in emails she received. But without classification markings, that may have been difficult, especially if the infor-mation was publicly available.

“We firmly oppose the complete blocking of the release of these emails,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said. “Since first provid-ing her emails to the State Department more than one year ago, Hillary Clin-ton has urged that they be made avail-able to the public. We feel no differ-ently today.”

Fallon accused the “loudest and leakiest participants” in a process of bureaucratic infighting for withhold-ing the exchanges. The documents, he said, originated in the State Depart-ment’s unclassified system before they ever reached Clinton, and “in at least

one case, the emails appear to involve information from a published news ar-ticle.”

“This appears to be overclassifica-tion run amok,” Fallon said.

Kirby said the State Department was focused, as part of a Freedom of Information Act review of Clinton’s emails, on “whether they need to be classified today.” Past classification questions, he said, “are being, and will be, handled separately by the State De-partment.” It is the first indication of such a probe.

Department responses for classifica-tion infractions could include counsel-ing, warnings or other action, officials said. They wouldn’t say if Clinton or senior aides who’ve since left gov-ernment could face penalties. The of-ficials weren’t authorized to speak on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Separately, Kirby said the depart-ment withheld eight email chains, to-taling 18 messages, between President Barack Obama and Clinton. These are remaining confidential “to protect the president’s ability to receive unvar-nished advice and counsel,” and will be released eventually like other presi-dential records.

The emails have been a Clinton campaign issue since 10 months ago, when the AP discovered her exclusive use while in office of a homebrew email server in the basement of her family’s New York home. Doing so wasn’t expressly forbidden. Clinton first called the decision a matter of convenience, then a mistake.

BusinessLast March, Clinton and the State

Department said no business conduct-ed in the emails included top-secret matters. Both said her account was never hacked or compromised, which security experts assess as unlikely.

Clinton and the State Department

also claimed the vast majority of her emails were preserved properly for archiving because she corresponded mainly with government accounts. They’ve backtracked from that claim in recent months.

The special access programs emails surfaced last week, when Charles I. McCullough, lead auditor for US in-telligence agencies, told Congress he found some in Clinton’s account.

Kirby confirmed the “denied-in-full emails” are among those McCullough recently cited. He said one was among those McCullough identified last sum-mer as possibly containing top secret information.

The AP reported last August that one focused on a forwarded news ar-ticle about the CIA’s classified US drone program. Such operations are widely discussed publicly, including by top US officials, and State Depart-ment officials debated McCullough’s claim. The other concerned North Ko-rean nuclear weapons programs, ac-cording to officials.

At the time, several officials from different agencies suggested the disagreement over the drone emails reflected a tendency to overclassify material, and a lack of consistent classification policies across govern-ment.

The FBI also is looking into Clin-ton’s email setup, but has said nothing about the nature of its probe. Indepen-dent experts say it’s unlikely Clinton will be charged with wrongdoing, based on details that have surfaced so far and the lack of indications she in-tended to break laws.

“Top secret” material was sent through Hillary Clinton’s private email server during her tenure as sec-retary of state, it was revealed Friday, just days before voters cast their first ballots in the presidential campaign.

Politics

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets members of the audience after speaking at a rally at the Col Ballroom

in Davenport, Iowa, on Jan 29. (AP)

Kerry Dion

Kerry confident: US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday he is confident that Canada’s contribution to the mission against the Islamic State group will be “significant” despite Canada’s previously announced decision to remove its fighter jets.

Kerry, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minis-ter Stephane Dion and Mexico’s Claudia Ruiz Massieu held a meeting in Quebec City on Friday. New Liberal Prime Min-ister Justin Trudeau has vowed to remove the six jets but has said Canada will ramp up its military training role.

Kerry said he looks forward to hearing the plan.

“While they have made a choice with respect to one particular component of that effort that does not reflect on the overall commitment or capacity to contribute sig-nificantly to the road ahead,” Kerry said. “We have confidence that Canada will continue to make a significant contribu-tion.”

Dion said Canada will unveil its plan soon and says it “will be well-received, I am quite optimistic.”

Canada was excluded from a meeting of defense ministers in Paris earlier this month to discuss the fight against IS in an apparent snub. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter didn’t mention Canada in a speech in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, ahead of the meeting when he said he would meet defense ministers from nations in Paris who are playing a “significant role” in the coalition.

The US has asked coalition members to boost their military contributions in Iraq and Syria against IS after the deadly attacks in Paris in November. (AP)

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Somali-born man gets 9 yrs: A Somalia-born man who US prosecutors said abandoned Britain where he had been a citizen to return to the country of his birth and joined the Islamist militant group al Shebab, was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday.

Mahdi Hashi, 26, was sentenced by US District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn, New York, in light of his guilty plea in May to a charge of conspiring to provide material support to al Shebab.

A week ago, the judge sentenced two Swedish citizens charged alongside Hashi for their support of al Shabaab, Ali Yasin Ahmed and Mohamed Yusuf, to 11 years in prison.

North America

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to lay a wreath outside the LaLoche Community school in La Loche, Saskatchewan, on Jan 29. (AP)

PM visits ‘La Loche’after school shootingOTTAWA, Jan 30, (AFP): Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Friday the aboriginal community of La Loche in Saskatchewan where a student shot two classmates and two teachers dead last week.

“Thanks for your respect, thank you,” said La Loche acting mayor Kevin Janvier as he welcomed the prime minister and his entourage to the remote lakeside town of 3,000 inhabit-ants on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

Last Friday, a 17-year-old went on a rampage at the local high school, killing two teachers and critically in-juring seven others. Two brothers — aged 13 and 17, respectively — were also killed at their nearby home.

Prosecutors had sought 15 years in prison for all three, and urged Gleeson to not give a lenient sentence to Hashi, whose United Kingdom citizenship was revoked in 2012.

But Gleeson called the facts as “compli-cated,” accepting in part Hashi’s position

that he joined al Shebab not to engage in violent attacks but because he thought it could restore peace to war-torn Somalia.

“I believe you believe this organization you joined was dramatically different than what you thought or hoped it would be,” he said.

Prosecutors said from December 2008 to August 2012, Hashi, Ahmed and Yusuf abandoned their homes in Britain and Sweden to travel to Somalia where they joined al Shebab. (RTRS)

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Rights groups sues US govt: A civil liberties group said on Friday it has sued the US government for more information about a federal program that tries to enlist Ameri-cans in helping to identify and discourage violent extremism in their communities.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University said it filed the lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan to force the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to release records about their “Countering Violent Extrem-ism” (CVE) program. Critics for years have questioned its effectiveness.

The Brennan Center said the program relies on a flawed approach to counterter-rorism that “all but ensures” it will stigma-tize Muslims and reinforce Islamophobic stereotypes, suppress dissent, and sow discord in communities.

Spokespeople for Homeland Security and the Justice Department were not im-mediately available to comment.

The agencies set up a task force in Janu-ary to boost the effort and other agencies have launched initiatives of their own. These actions came after President Barack Obama in 2011 unveiled a plan for “em-powering local partners to prevent violent extremism in the United States.”

At the same time, the government has pressured Silicon Valley to more force-fully limit the proliferation of extremist communications online. (RTRS)