Pegasus row: Paper snatching episode rocks Rajya Sabha as more names show up in the snooping list
The Centre is learnt to be planning a privilege motion Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Shantanu Sen. The Opposition wants a discussion with the Modi government.
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| A+A A- By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Pegasus snoopgate continued to roil governments globally on Thursday, with French President Emmanuel Macron holding an emergency cybersecurity meeting to weigh action and rework security protocols after it emerged that his phone numbers figured among those that were potentially hacked.
In Mexico, reports said previous administrations from 2012 to 2018 had spent about $300 million to purchase the spyware from the NSO Group, an Israeli firm.
Protesters and fans gather in Tokyo as Olympic torch relay reaches final leg
From CNN s Emi Jozuka, Blake Essig and Daishi Kusunoki in Tokyo
Anti-Olympics protesters gathered in Tokyo ahead of Friday s opening ceremony. Emiko Jozuka/CNN
Anti-Games protesters and Olympics fans gathered Friday in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building as the Olympic torch reached its final destination ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday.
Dozens of protesters held “no Olympics anywhere” signs, chanted “get out IOC” and banged on tambourines, demanding the Games be called off amid a heavy police presence.
“I came here today because I still don’t think it’s too late for the Olympics to be canceled,” said Namaeshi, an anti-Olympics protester. “We are concerned about the Covid-19 cases increasing in Tokyo.”
Both U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping made important pledges at the Leaders Summit on Climate in Washington in April. Biden promised that the United States would reach net-zero carbon emissions by no later than 2050; Xi reiterated China’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 (an ambitious target) and insisted that China would begin to cut its coal-fired power generation by 2030. These positive announcements from the leaders of the two biggest carbon polluters together accounting for around 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions were encouraging ahead of the critically important UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.
A French lawyer for Morocco, Olivier Baratelli, said the government planned to lodge defamation lawsuits in Paris against nongovernmental organisations Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, according to French news outlet franceinfo on Thursday. The two groups participated in the Pegasus probe and alleged Morocco had targeted French officials for surveillance with the spyware.
Amid mounting EU concern, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin that spyware should be denied to countries where there is no judicial oversight.
Hungarian prosecutors on Thursday launched an investigation into multiple complaints received in the wake of the reports.
Israel has appointed an inter-ministerial team to assess reports based on an investigation by 17 media organisations that said Pegasus had been used in attempted or successful hacks of smartphones using malware that enables the extraction of messages, records calls and secretly activates microphones.