Prince Harry, the younger son of Prince Charles and sixth in line of succession to the British throne, stunned the world in January by announcing that he and his wife, Meghan Markle, were stepping back from their duties as senior royals and would chart an independent financial course by dividing their time between the UK and the US.
Questions flew thick and fast with very few authentic answers and now a new book, “Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family” by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand due later this year, promises the answers and more.
HarperCollins has announced it has acquired the world rights for the book.
As had happened in the 1980s with Harry’s mother, Princess Diana and Prince Charles, when news of the budding romance between a beloved English prince and an American actress broke, it captured the world’s attention and sparked an international media frenzy. But while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have continued to make headlines-from their engagement, wedding, and birth of their son Archie to their unprecedented decision to step back from their royal lives – few know the true story of Harry and Meghan.
To that extent, “Finding Freedom” goes beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan’s life together, dispelling the many rumors and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond.
As members of the select group of reporters that cover the British Royal Family and their engagements, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand have witnessed the young couple’s lives as few outsiders can.
“With unique access and written with the participation of those closest to the couple, ‘Finding Freedom’ is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world,” HarperCollins statement said.
“The aim of this book is to portray the real Harry and Meghan, a couple who continue to inspire many around the world through their humanitarian and charitable work but are often inaccurately portrayed. Our mission has been motivated by a desire to tell an accurate version of their journey and finally present the truth of misreported stories that have become gospel simply because of the amount of times they have been repeated. It is thanks to our sources that we have been able to share the definitive story of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” say Scobie and Durand.
Harry-Meghan telling all in book about split with the Royal Family
The 3Cs: Covid, China and Climate Change dominated the 47th annual G-7 Summit in Cornwall, UK. But overall the leaders were not able to present a united stand on any major issue.
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wanted the summit to showcase his brand of ‘Global Britain’, after Brexit. But there were terse exchanges between the French, EU and British leaders and officials on the issue. In effect, the summit turned out to be more Biden focused and expectations were raised high on some real agreement taking place on the 3C’s before the summit, though that was not the result ultimately.
Broadly, Biden sought to set a new tone after the unrestrained Trump years. Most G-7 leaders seemed relieved to have a return to a more predictable and traditional US administration. France’s Emmanuel Macron welcomed Biden back to the “club.” But the final Communique showed that even Biden’s expectations to ensure a consensus on many of his promises fell short.
On the issue of Covid-19, the leaders of the seven most affluent western nations seemed united, but there was a difference of opinion on the way forward. Earlier, they had shown commitment to donate 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses over the next year to poorer countries. But in reality the bloc fell short of its own goal — 613 million new doses pledged, instead of a billion.
Even so, the vaccine effort gave Biden some help with his China push. Biden has criticised China for a transactional brand of vaccine diplomacy, where the shots are being doled out for geopolitical advantage. Biden called on democracies to counter China and Russia by donating vaccines equally and based on need, without seeking favours in return.
On the second day of the summit, US unveiled plans to counter China through infrastructure funding for poorer nations. Promising to “collectively catalyse” hundreds of billions of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries, the G7 leaders said they would offer a “values-driven, high-standard and transparent” partnership.
G-7s “Build Back Better World” (B3W) project was aimed directly at competing with China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Infrastructure (BRI) initiative.
However, several leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, pushed back over worries about turning the G-7 into an anti-China group, suggesting any infrastructure programme should be framed as a more positive, pro-environment effort.
French President Emmanuel Macron also pushed back publicly, saying that the “G-7 is not a group that is hostile to China.” Macron was one leader who sought the middle ground.
China hit back at these statements dismissively saying that the days when “global decisions” were dictated by a “small group of countries are long gone”.
The final version of the communique skirted B3W, instead creating a task force to study how to spur infrastructure development abroad. It made no mention of BRI, though Biden renewed his call at a press conference, and said that, “I proposed that we have a democratic alternative to the Belt and Road initiative, to build back better.”
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced last month that due to surging Covid cases in India, he’d not travel to the UK, he addressed the summit virtually. He conveyed India’s commitment to “collective” solution to global health challenges, and called for “one earth, one health” approach, which aims for unity and solidarity among the states of the world to deal with the pandemic. He also emphasised the need to keep raw materials for vaccines easily accessible.
The summit’s Communique, which was issued several hours after the end of the summit, promises many things but falls short of what was expected to be achieved before the summit.
Rome: Italy became the first side to enter the knockout stages of Euro 2020 thanks to a 3-0 win over Switzerland here.
The result means they will now fight for the top spot in Group A in their final league game against Wales, who beat Turkey earlier in the day.
Manuel Locatelli was Italy’s hero with two goals as Roberto Mancini’s side displayed assured and attacking football, Xinhua reports.
In Group A’s other match at the Olympic Stadium in Baku, Aaron Ramsey and Connor Roberts scored a goal each for Wales as they won 2-0 against Turkey.
Both sides traded attacks in the first half, but Wales looked more dangerous in front of the goal and scored the opener in the 42nd minute when Ramsey chested Gareth Bale’s chip into the box before tapping the ball past Turkey goalkeeper Ugurcan Cakir.
Turkey’s Burak Yilmaz should have restored parity early in the second half, but the captain wasted a golden chance from close range following a corner. At the hour mark, Wales were awarded a penalty but Bale put the spot-kick over the bar.
Bale had a hand in Wales’s second goal though, as the striker danced through Turkey’s penalty box before squaring to Connor Roberts, who sealed the deal in the dying seconds of injury time.
Munich: Germany got their Euro 2020 campaign back on track — and blew Group F wide open — with a 4-2 romp against Portugal in Munich.
After Cristiano Ronaldo claimed his 107th international goal, leaving him two short of Ali Daei’s all-time record, to give Portugal an early lead, the Germans roared back with four unanswered goals. German pressure forced own goals by Ruben Dias and Raphael Guerreiro to put the hosts 2-1 up at half-time.
A Kai Havertz goal underlined Germany’s dominance before left-back Robin Gosens capped his man-of-the-match display by heading in Germany’s fourth goal to add to his two assists.
Portugal hit back when Diogo Jota tapped in Ronaldo’s hooked volley to make it 4-2 with 23 minutes left.
Germany continued their domination of Portugal, who they have now beaten five consecutive times at World Cup or European Championship finals since Euro 2000.
Germany created a huge amount of chances compared to 1-0 defeat by France, while Portugal lacked the composure of their 3-0 win over Hungary the same day.
This is the first time Portugal have conceded four goals since losing 4-0 to Germany at the 2014 World Cup.
With the result, France (4 points) remained atop the standings in Group F followed by Germany (3 points), Portugal (3 points) and Hungary (1 point).
With a win over Hungary on June 23, Germany can secure their progression, while holders Portugal face a tough task with France.
On June 15, the Anti-trust regulator in the UK announced it has opened a year-long probe into Google’s and Apple’s mobile ecosystems (iOS and Android) suspecting a possible stifling of competition.
Facebook is facing a challenge in the European Union on the issue of use of cookies to track users without their prior consent. Its user privacy infringement through use of cookies is in direct breach of EU data protection regulations.
Tik Tok is being sued by a Parents Group in the Netherlands for illegally accessing data on their children and compromising their privacy and safety. The UK similarly is suing the company over the use of data on millions of children.
India’s National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has sought a report from Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram regarding posts on these sites offering illegal adoption of children tragically orphaned from the Corona pandemic. A Parliamentary Committee has asked Twitter to appear before it to discuss safeguarding of citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social media platforms.
Across the world, with misuse of social networking sites posing a threat not only to individual but also to national security, social media behemoths are at last facing extra scrutiny for everything ranging from mergers, acquisitions and monopoly behavior, to privacy and free speech infringement.
While other countries are recognizing and taking legal steps to counter the threat, the US has been slow to take off. Some experts and legislators here have questioned whether these social media platforms are fulfilling their obligation as neutral digital public forums. Among them, liberals have expressed concern these sites are not doing enough to counter violent or false speech, while conservatives have argued that the platforms are unfairly restricting and banning public access to potentially valuable conservative speech.
Existing federal law does not offer recourse for users seeking to challenge a social media provider’s decision about whether and how to present a user’s content. Legal challenges to these sites remain largely unsuccessful absent federal law provisions that can make these private companies accountable for violating free speech.
Claims against social media companies are anyway barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to social media providers, both for decisions to host content created by others, and for actions taken “voluntarily” and “in good faith” to restrict access to “objectionable” material. Those fine but ambiguous terms provide enough elbow room to the companies to act freely, even irresponsibly.
India’s challenge to the mighty Social Media Empire Raj has accelerated with Twitter losing the coveted “safe harbor” immunity over its failure to appoint statutory officers on the company’s roll in line with the new IT rules.
But unrest among users is growing with liberals complaining not enough is done to exclude harmful incendiary and hate content posted by conservatives, and the latter protesting the bias against conservatives of the almost wholly liberal Silicon Valley controlled media platforms that work against Republican Party and favor Democrats.
Trump, who had often spoken against Section 230, did issue an executive order directing the executive branch to ask independent rule-making agencies whether new regulations could be placed on the social media companies. But that symbolic order meant little, with Trump’s own access to the Twitter and Facebook platforms ironically getting blocked!
That these bans are more political than principled is clear from Facebook’s recently announced decision to ensure Trump stays barred until slightly beyond the midterm elections at which point the company will revisit the ban’s extension. Only a fool would believe it will not be extended once again to prevent Trump from using his powerful internet potential to dislodge Biden. Hardly innocent, Facebook’s and Twitter’s actions clearly are a favor to Biden and Democrats.
While as Biden supporters we may welcome that outcome, regardless of our party affiliation, we should be horrified at the stranglehold placed by social media mandarins on public discourse and behavior. The selective use of banning in favor of one person, party, or cause is not only despicable but scary. That such unrestrained power of censorship can impact not only our politics and elections, but also destroy vital other sectors of our life such as public health, education, religious pursuit, and the economy, as was clearly demonstrated in the wake of the Corona pandemic, makes the threat to each of us personal.
As pressure intensifies for making these companies liable not only for third-party content posted on the platform but also for their biased interference with and manipulation of speech, it has finally provoked some Congressional action. Twitter and Facebook have been questioned in several Congressional committee hearings over their impartiality and excessive power to restrict free speech, and their ability to monopolize public discourse and commerce. Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill last June that would eliminate the Section 230 immunity unless tech companies submitted to an external audit certifying that their content moderation practices were politically neutral. But further progress is stalled on that and other legislative ventures due to difficulty in finding cross-party support.
Lobbyists meanwhile have aggressively sought to derail any attempt to legislate reform and placed a stranglehold on lawmakers by the corrupting power of money. Elected representatives and even bureaucrats in America in many cases depend directly or indirectly on the financial backing, charity, and goodwill of those powerful social media companies. If you dare to cross the imaginary and ambiguous red line they have arbitrarily set, you get cancelled, de-platformed, and de-funded.
At state level luckily, Florida’s Governor and legislative leaders have announced they intend to set new requirements for social media companies, including clearing the way for lawsuits and financial penalties against platforms that violate the requirements. The Texas Attorney General’s request to Twitter to explain their content guidelines is another example of state initiatives aimed at restraining social media platforms gaining momentum.
The discourse around Corona as we all noticed was and is heavily controlled, with the media platforms suspending or banning contrarian views on anything to do with Corona’s origins, diagnosis, therapeutics, and mitigation. By arbitrarily censoring whatever clashed with the versions advocated by the official infectious disease bureaucracy and scientists, they abused public trust. Worse, they likely colluded with the bureaucracy and the scientists to perpetuate one-sided discourse, as seen in the recently revealed email exchanges between National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Fauci and Facebook’s Zuckerberg.
After 18 months of highly manipulated information dissemination on Corona, as the Wuhan origin of the virus theory is becoming plausible, and some treatment therapies that were outlawed by the media companies as “Trump-speak” are beginning to be accepted as beneficial, there is ground not merely for recrimination but also monetary compensation for the socio-economic damages caused to the global community from excessive use of discretionary power and abuse of authority by the media.
President Biden’s appointment of Lina Khan, who has been a fierce critic of Big Tech’s market monopoly, to head the Federal Trade Commission is a promising development. But her impact is likely to be more on market fairness than on challenging suppression of free speech. (Photo courtesy AP)
Biden’s appointment of Lina Khan, who has been a fierce critic of Big Tech’s market monopoly, to head the Federal Trade Commission is a promising development. But her impact is likely to be more on market fairness than on challenging suppression of free speech. The same possibly is true of the multi-bill legislation introduced on June 10 2021 in the US House, which if passed would be the most daring Congressional venture to curtail the power of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google over online commerce, information, and entertainment.
In contrast, India’s challenge to the mighty Social Media Empire Raj has accelerated with Twitter losing the coveted “safe harbor” immunity over its failure to appoint statutory officers on the company’s roll in line with the new IT rules. Its top executives, including the country managing director, could face police questioning and criminal liability under Indian Penal Code over ‘unlawful’ and ‘inflammatory’ content posted on the platform by any user.
One can imagine Google, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram etcetera facing a similar fate.
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Based in California, the published author contributes opeds and essays regularly to The South Asian Times.
As the world of education and work makes a gradual recovery from the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, experts foresee the new trends and dramatic changes that will impact the careers of graduates who venture out in the market in 2021-22 onwards.
A new technology-driven focus, according to Marwadi University Provost Prof. Sandeep Sancheti, would emerge in the jobs that are likely to be in demand in the coming times. In the medical and health field, he lists some of these trending jobs to be: Health-care supporting staff like intake specialists, pharmacy technicians, and certified nursing assistants. This field also has roles such as mental health specialists and health and fitness coaches to be on the rise.
In the IT and Computer space, he foresees demand for data science specialists, data management analysts and data mining experts, along with artificial intelligence and machine learning engineers, user experience professionals like UI/UX design specialists, product design consultants, game developers, full stack developers and cloud engineers and architects, and cyber security experts.
“Among everything else, one thing is for sure, remote work is here to stay. The millennials and GenZ will be the trendsetters with Zoom and Google workspaces as the ruling platforms for remote work and the year 2021 will see more opportunities and prospects for dynamic and multi-tasking professionals with analytical, programming and marketing skills,” he says.
As per Dr Sandeep Shastri, Vice Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University, the career trends currently being offered in the second decade of this century are the most diverse ever available in human history. The fields are demanding super specializations and individuals are training to fill the gaps.
“The digital revolution has shown its effects in the hospitality sector in the form of automation of a huge chunk of repetitive tasks. Public policy traditionally being a blend of political science, law and sociology now has added data analytics to the mix. In areas like accounting and finance, new and extended career roles are outsourcing services, big data analytics, fintech, artificial intelligence, cloud accounting and block chain technology. Post-Covid era brings huge job opportunities in financial institutions like stock exchanges, depositaries, stock broking firms and investment banks etc which are employing tech-savvy economists en masse,” he says.
Digital content creators like podcasters, bloggers, influencers, video creators, and voice-over artists will be in demand in the future.
According to Sahil Aggarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Rishihood University, “with increasing options, access to information, and technological changes”, the current generation of students faces a different aspect of career growth.
Here are some tips on capitalizing on these career trends:
Entrepreneurial mindset
Employers are increasingly looking for employees who are self-driven. The best employees align with the company’s objectives, find new tasks, and work with teams to achieve. Those who work as if it is their own company are more likely to succeed than those who wait to be given a task list.
Interdisciplinary talent
Graduates who demonstrate an understanding of varied domains are appreciated more than those who are narrowly focused.
Creative potential
In a world changing so fast, successful companies are always creating new value for their customers. Employees who have creative potential are far more valuable than those who stick to the routine.
People skills
It is often repeated, and rightly so, that beyond a point, a person grows or stagnates based on how well one can work with others.
Learning to learn.
Once we stop learning, we are replaced by other humans or machines. The mindset of learning is key to succeed in the 21st century.
Geneva: President Biden went to Europe for a week to convince the allies that America was back, and for good; gather them in common cause against the rising threat of China; and establish some red lines for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he called his “worthy adversary.”
At G7 he made inroads on China on which in Europe here has been reluctance to think of China as a threat — economically, technologically and militarily.
In Geneva, Biden expressed cautious optimism about finding ways to reach a polite accommodation with Putin. But it is far from clear that any of the modest initiatives the two men described on Wednesday, after a stiff, three-hour summit meeting on the edge of Lake Geneva, will fundamentally change a bad dynamic, rcometns New York Times
Biden, one of his senior aides said after the meeting was over, “is perpetually optimistic” that Mr. Putin may, despite a long history of efforts to undermine the Western alliance, see advantage in changing course.
This was Biden’s first foreign tour as President. He began over the weekend in England, on the rocky shores of Cornwall, the venue for G7, talking about friendship, alliances, consultation, comity and multilateralism. At every stop he opened with the same three words: “America is back.”
In Brussels, at NATO’s 31st summit on Monday, he said it was up to Democratic nations to prove to the world that autocracies cannot deliver for their people. He said NATO members must root out corruption, guard against hatred and “phony populism,” and invest in strengthening institutions “that underpin and safeguard our cherished democratic values.”
