DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
Tens of thousands rally in Munich against far-right and new police laws Tens of thousands of people celebrated German Unity Day by taking to the streets of Munich to rally against the regional government, less than two weeks before Bavarian state elections. Marching under the banner "Jetzt Giltʼs" (roughly translated as "Now itʼs time"), activists protested against thelocal Christian Social Union (CSU) governmentand its shift to the right amid the rise of the populist AfD. Demonstrators also denounced the stateʼs hard-line police bill that came into effect back in May.Authorities said at least 21,000 people took part in the demonstrations, although organizers placed the number at around 40,000.
ʼRolls-Royceʼ of whisky fetches record $1 million at auction One of the worldʼs most indemand whiskies has been auctioned off in Edinburgh, Scotland, with the buyer shelling out a record-breaking £848,750 ($1.1 million, €957,800) for the distilled spirit. The Scotch whisky, a Macallan Valerio Adami 1926, was one of just 24 bottles produced by the Macallan distillery in 1986. Distilled in 1926, the whisky spent 60 years aging in a cask before being bottled. "Itʼs the Rolls-Royce of malts," said Martin Green, the whisky specialist at Bonhams, the luxury auction house that offered up the bottle on Wednesday. A private buyer from Asia placed the winning bid on the bottle via phone, Bonhams said. Bonhams drink expert Richard Harvey told the AFP news agency that interest from Asia in whisky is booming. About "a third to 40 percent of our sales go out to buyers in the Far East," Harvey said.
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Irish authority investigates security failure Facebook data breach:
Peru revokes Alberto Fujimoriʼs pardon as expresident hospitalized Alberto Fujimori has been taken to a hospital, just hours after the countryʼs top court annulled a pardon granted to the ex-president last year that protected him from prosecution for human rights crimes. Earlier Wednesday, Supreme Court Judge Hugo Nunez ruled that Fujimori was to serve out the remainder of his 25year prison sentence because the pardon he received in December was incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights, to which Peru is a signatory.
UK, Australia blame Russia for series of global cyberattacks Irelandʼs data protection authority has launched a probe into the Facebook security breach that affected some 50 million users. The move could see EU law — and strict fines — come to bear on the social media giant. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has launched an investigation into last weekʼs data breach at Facebookthat affected some 50 million users. The data watchdog said it would look into whether the tech giant had complied withEuropean data protection regulations that went into effect this year. In a statement Wednesday, Irelandʼs data regulator said it was examining whether Facebook put in place the "appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security and safeguarding of the personal data it processes." It marks the first major test for Europeʼs newly beefed-up data protection laws known as theGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in May. The regulations place strong controls on how technology companies store European user information. Facebookʼs European subsidiary is located in Ireland, so the Irish DPC is the organization that regulates the social network on the continent. The social network site admitted to the breach in a blog post last Friday, saying hackers had exploited a vulnerability in the websiteʼs code that may have given them access to millions of usersʼ accounts. Fewer than 10 per-
cent of the estimated 50 million affected accounts are thought to be European users, according tothe DPC. Under the EUʼs GDPR bill, companies in breach of the regulations can face amaximum fine of up to 4 percent of global revenues. Facebook made almost €35.2 billion ($40.6 billion) in revenues last year, meaning the total fine could amount to around €1.4 billion. However, EU Justice and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova has said the social media giant was unlikely to face the maximum fine because it had adhered to rules requiring it to report the data breach within 72 hours upon its discovery. This "is one of the factors which might result in lower sanctions," Jourova said Tuesday, although she ominously added that "this is only theoretical." Facebook has already suffered asullying of its reputation this year when it comes to data security. In March it was revealed how that information from tens of millions of user profiles was harvested and sent toCambridge Analytica, a political firm employed by the campaign to elect Donald Trump to the presidency. The companyʼs share price is down almost 8 percent year-to-date.
Britain has said Russiaʼs military intelligence agency GRU was "almost certainly" behind a campaign of online attacks targeting political institutions, businesses, media and sport bodies around the world. Attacks the UK has linked to Moscow include the 2017 BadRabbit ransomware attack that targeted an airport in Odessa and the Kyiv subway system, as well as media outlets in Russia, and the attempted hacking of the World AntiDoping Agency in 2017 in Switzerland . Other incidents include the hack of theUS Democratic National Committee in 2016and the theft of emails from a UK-based TV station in 2015. The British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) also identified numerous hacking groups, including APT28, Pawn Storm, Sandworm,Fancy Bearand the Sofacy Group, as being associated with the GRU.
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