THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017
NEWS
Trump defends firing FBI chief
Microsoft aiming to make artificial intel...
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“He wasn’t doing a good job, it’s very simple, he was not doing a good job,” Trump
told reporters.
Under Comey, the FBI concluded that
Russia tried to sway the election in Trump’s
favor through an influence and cyber-hacking campaign. The bureau has been probing
whether Trump’s campaign colluded with
such an effort - something the president dismisses as “fake news”. The president’s comments came moments after he hosted
Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office, a
rare honor for a foreign minister and one
that threw salt in the eyes of Trump’s critics.
During the meeting, Trump called on
Russia to rein in Syrian President Bashar AlAssad and his key ally Iran, as Washington
and Moscow sought to boost their fragile
ties with high-profile White House talks.
Trump described the meeting with Lavrov,
the highest-profile Kremlin official to visit
the White House in years, as “very, very
good”. “We’re going to stop the killing and
the death (in Syria),” he added. Lavrov, who
last set foot in Washington in Aug 2013,
meanwhile dismissed all claims of election
meddling as “fabrications”.
The Republican leader nevertheless told
Lavrov that Moscow should “rein in the Assad
regime, Iran and Iranian proxies,” the White
House said. Lavrov, who came to Washington
seeking US support for a Russian plan to create safe zones in Syria, said “concrete mechanisms that we can manage together” were
discussed. “Today, we have a common understanding that, as active players in the diplomatic process regarding Syria, we are going
to pursue these contacts together and with
other key countries, especially those in the
region,” he said.
Trump’s decision to terminate Comey’s
tenure, effective immediately, drew comparisons to the Watergate scandal that brought
down Richard Nixon, and stunned
Washington. By midday yesterday, hundreds
of demonstrators had gathered in protest in
front of the White House. Meanwhile furious
Democrats demanded a special counsel be
appointed by the Justice Department to
look into Trump’s links to Russia. They fear
that current investigations in the
Republican-controlled Senate and the House
of Representatives, and now the FBI have
been irrevocably politicized.
The White House says Comey was fired
because of his handling of the investigation
into the email practices of Trump’s 2016 rival
Clinton. Trump took to Twitter early yesterday to launch a vociferous defense of his
decision to fire Comey. “Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington,
Republican and Democrat alike. When things
calm down, they will be thanking me!” he
insisted. “James Comey will be replaced by
someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI.”
Before Tuesday only one FBI director had
been fired in the bureau’s century-long history. The post is normally considered above
politics, with incumbents serving one 10year term. “ This is nothing less than
Nixonian,” charged Senator Patrick Leahy of
Vermont, who called Trump’s official justification for firing Comey “absurd”. “That fig leaf
explanation seeks to cover the undeniable
truth: The president has removed the sitting
FBI director in the midst of one of the most
critical national security investigations in the
history of our country - one that implicates
senior officials in the Trump campaign and
administration,” Leahy said. — Agencies
Marathon premier grillings end...
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The panel was also asked to investigate
the issues raised by the second grilling.
Following the debate of the two quizzes, the
grillers managed to secure the signature of
only six lawmakers, four shor t of the
required number.
But a number of opposition MPs still
warned the government of more grillings if it
did not reinstate the citizenships of the
opposition figures. MP Abdullah Al-Fahhad
said over 20 opposition lawmakers are ready
to grill the prime minister again if the government fails to fulfill its promises. MP
Mohammad Hayef said that he did not sign
the non-cooperation motion because of the
pledge the opposition lawmakers gave to
suspend grilling the prime minister in return
for reinstating the citizenships. He said that
some of the citizenships will be returned
next week.
Following the end of the two grillings, the
Assembly began just before midnight to
debate in public the grilling of MP Shuaib AlMuwaizri against State Minister for Housing
Yasser Abul. The grilling accuses the minister
of failing to implement the housing plan,
making Kuwaiti citizens as a result wait for
many years to get their homes.
is something that we want,” he said. “The future of computing is
going to be defined by the choices that you as developers make and the
impact of those choices on the world.”
There is much discussion in the tech world about what AI will mean
for society, especially since it is quickly driving change that could eliminate jobs, with applications such as self-driving trucks or “bots” which
take over many skilled functions. “What happens to lower-level, blue-collar jobs that might be impacted?” Gartner research director of app design
and development Jason Wong ask rhetorically. “That is part of the
dystopia that can occur because of the abruptness of AI; in less than a
generation we will be seeing things like driverless cars.”
Microsoft is infusing all of its products and services with AI, and
enabling those who develop on its platform to imbue creations with customized capabilities, according to executive vice president of artificial
intelligence and research Harry Shum. “We’ve been creating the building
blocks for the current wave of AI breakthroughs for more than two
decades,” Shum said. Microsoft research has gone deep into areas such as
machine learning, speech recognition, and enabling machines to recognize what they “see”. “Now, we’re in the unique position of being able to
use those decades of research breakthroughs,” Shum said.
Microsoft rivals including Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM have all
been aggressively pursing the promise and potential of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is getting a foothold in people’s homes, with
personal assistants answering questions and controlling connected
devices such as appliances or light bulbs. Digital assistants already boast
features such as reminding people of appointments entered into calendars and chiming in with advice to set out early if traffic is challenging.
Microsoft’s aim yesterday was on businesses and software developers, whether they be students building mobile games or professional
technology teams. “Microsoft is trying to use AI for businesses to solve
business problems and app developers to make applications better,” said
Moor Insights and Strategy principal analyst Patrick Moorhead. “Which is
different from Amazon, Facebook, and Google whose primary business
model is to mine personal information using AI to sell you things or put
ads in front of you.” — AFP
Philippines tourist sites face kidnapping threat
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Until recently, foreign governments had
not warned of kidnapping threats in the
central and western Philippines.
Fresh advisories from the Canadian and
British embassies yesterday that backed up
the American warning about Palawan also
referred to tourist hotspots in the central
Philippines near Bohol. These included
Dumaguete, Siquijor and Cebu. Asked in
Manila about the latest travel warnings for
Palawan, Duterte said he wanted the suspects dead. “My order to the security forces is
shoot them on sight. Kill them,” Duterte said.
Duterte last year ordered a major military
offensive to extinguish the Abu Sayyaf on
their southern bases, but the militant threat
continued to grow. The Philippines is looking
to conduct joint patrols with Indonesia and
Malaysia to stop the rising number of kidnapping raids on cargo and merchant vessels
near the Abu Sayyaf’s bases. Duterte yesterday repeated a warning that the Islamic State
group was gaining influence in the
Philippines. “We have a problem with terrorism. What looms very big ahead is the IS. They
are coming in,” Duterte said. The Abu Sayyaf
and other militant groups have in recent years
pledged allegiance to IS. — AFP
Comey firing stirs memories of Nixon, Watergate...
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Both men had promised Congress that
Cox would not be fired, except for just cause.
That left Cox’s firing to the solicitor general,
Robert Bork, who was next in line as acting
attorney general. Bork, who had made no
promises to Congress, dismissed Cox. The
episode was a political and public relations
disaster for Nixon.
For the first time, polls taken after Cox’s
firing showed the public was shifting in favor
of Nixon’s impeachment. Cox was replaced
by another special prosecutor, and Nixon
eventually agreed to release transcripts of
many of the tapes. But the momentum
toward impeachment became insurmountable, and Nixon resigned on Aug 8, 1974.
Students of the era see striking similarities
to Trump’s firing of Comey, but also differences. “In both, an angry and besieged president acted to remove an independent figure
who was aggressively investigating people
in the president’s inner circle,” Andrew Kent, a
law professor at Fordham University in New
York, told AFP. One significant difference is
that the president has full authority to fire
the FBI director whereas, by law, Cox could
only be fired “for cause”.
Yet, only one other FBI director has been
fired - in 1993, then president Bill Clinton
sacked William Sessions, and that was over
relatively small-bore ethics infractions. FBI
directors traditionally have had enormous
independence, and have guarded it jealously. Democrats argue that Comey’s firing
underscores the need for a special counsel to
investigate Russia’s alleged meddling in the
US election.
“Let’s remember that we face a looming
constitutional crisis, very much like happened in 1973, the midnight massacre. This
episode has very much the feel of that chapter in our history, one that we should not
repeat,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a
Democrat, said on CNN. John Dean, Nixon’s
former White House counsel and a central
protagonist of the Watergate scandal, on the
other hand, says Trump’s actions don’t have
the same feel at all. “Archibald Cox was defying the president and taking his own course
of action and making a decision that was
very much placing Nixon in jeopardy,” he
said on PBS News Hour Tuesday.
The FBI is investigating whether Trump’s
campaign aides colluded with Russia to try
to tilt the US election in his favor. But the
Trump administration cited “serious mistakes” in the director’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email as the reason for his dismissal. “Somewhere Dick Nixon
is smiling,” Roger Stone, a Trump associate
who once worked for Nixon, told The New
York Times. “Comey’s credibility was shot. The
irony is that Trump watched him talk about
bumbling the Hillary investigation, not the
Russia investigation - and decided it was
time to get rid of him.” — AFP