A European non-governmental group has uncovered a network of 265 ‘fake’ news outlets managed by an Indian network to influence the European Union and the United Nations with content critical of Pakistan. During the investigation, the DisinfoLab found that the fake websites copy-pasted anti-Pakistan content from unusual press agencies and amplified material shared by politicians and obscure think tanks that supported Indian geopolitical interests.
Afghanistan will release two senior Taliban commanders and a leader of the Haqqani militant group in exchange for an American and an Australian professor who were kidnapped in 2016, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office said on Tuesday. The prisoner swap deal could pave the way for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Inc’s sales for its annual Singles’ Day shopping blitz hit 91.2 billion yuan ($13 billion) within the first hour, up 32% from last year’s early haul of 69 billion yuan. Akin to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States, Singles’ Day has been promoted as a shopping fest by Alibaba Chairman and Chief Executive Daniel Zhang since 2009.
The Supreme Court in India has ruled that the site in Ayodhya in northern India, where Hindu mobs destroyed the 460-year-old Babri mosque in 1992, must be handed over to a trust to oversee the construction of a Hindu temple. A separate piece of land in Ayodhya would be given over to Muslim groups to build a new mosque.
A judge has ordered US President Donald Trump to pay $2 million to an array of charities as a fine for misusing his own charitable foundation to further his political and business interests. New York state Judge Saliann Scarpulla imposed the penalty after Trump admitted to a series of abuses outlined in a lawsuit brought against him last year by New York attorney general’s office.
A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has blamed Pakistan and China for the high levels of pollution in India. The Indian lawmaker alleged that one of the two neighbouring countries are responsible for releasing poisonous gas in New Delhi. The leader claimed that Pakistan was ‘frustrated’ because “it could not register a single victory in any battle”.
Google has just announced that it’s buying wearable company Fitbit for $2.1 billion. In a blog post announcing the news, Google SVP of devices and services Rick Osterloh said that Fitbit purchase is “an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into market.” Under the deal, Fitbit will be joining Google itself.
China is all set to launch its own digital currency and by doing so, becoming the first country in the world to issue its Central Bank Digital Asset. The currency will be named DCEP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment), according to Huang Qifan, Executive Vice President of the China International Economic Exchange Centre. He also mentioned that People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has been working on rolling out the crypto currency for the past 5-6 years.
The Saudi government is going to add a new visa category ‘Host Visa’ in its newly-introduced regime. It will allow expatriates in the kingdom to invite their family members on personal sponsorship for up to 90 days and will be free to host their guests anywhere. The authorities are working on the new visa mechanism which will cost about 500 Saudi Riyals for a year.
China’s ByteDance, owner of video-sharing app TikTok, booked revenue of $7 billion to $8.4 billion in a better than expected result for the first half of the year. The owner also posted a profit in June and was confident of making a similar or better profit in the second half of the year. Tiktok’s robust growth has led to revise its revenue target for 2019 from 100 billion yuan to 120 billion yuan.