Xiaomi ได้สร้างประวัติศาสตร์ด้วยการเอาชนะ Apple ขึ้นมาได้ครองตำแหน่งที่สามในบรรดาผู้ผลิตสมาร์ทโฟนรายใหญ่ที่สุดของโลกเป็นครั้งแรก หลังจากการประกาศผลประกอบการไตรมาสล่าสุดซึ่งเปิดเผยโดยบริษัทวิจัยสามแห่ง ได้แก่ International Data Corporation (IDC) Counterpoint และ Canalys
The next United States administration should recognize the “unstoppable expanding role” of the Chinese economy, avoid a policy of “decoupling”, and unilaterally remove commitment targets for purchases by China in the US-China phase one trade deal, according to researchers at a Washington-based think tank.
As US voters cast their ballots to choose between incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, US researchers are compiling “actionable” to-do lists to tell policymakers what needs to be repaired while the country is heading into a new presidential term.
“No matter who wins the US presidential election tomorrow, work needs to be done to repair the global economy, which was fracturing even before the pandemic,” Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said on social media on Monday in introducing his institution’s policy proposals for the new presidency.
Nicholas Lardy, a leading US expert on the Chinese economy, said the incoming administration should assume that China’s economy and its influence on the overall world economy will continue to expand.
In a memo to the chair of the US delegation for bilateral economic talks with China, Lardy suggested the next administration “recognize China’s unstoppable expanding role” and “adopt and work toward obtainable goals”.
“These would not include slowing China’s economic rise or promoting regime change,” said Lardy, as “there is little the United States can do to significantly slow China’s economic rise and its increasing role in the global economy”.
For one thing, China is leading the global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily because it was successful in controlling the pandemic within three months of the initial outbreak, according to Lardy.
“In contrast, the United States and several other advanced economies continue to struggle more than six months after their initial outbreaks,” he wrote.
The new US presidential term will coincide with the start of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25). In explaining the proposals for the draft plan last week, President Xi Jinping said, “China has the world’s largest consumer market, which also possesses the greatest potential. The room for growth is huge.”
The International Monetary Fund said last month that China continues to be the only major economy to show positive growth in 2020, while the United States is forecast to see a 4.3 percent contraction in its gross domestic product during 2020.
“China accounted for 30 percent of global economic expansion in 2019, and its share in 2020 will almost certainly be larger. Thus, a US decoupling strategy would be a policy of economic self-isolation from a major source of global growth and trade,” Lardy said in the memo.
Little interest shown
Other countries have shown little interest in participating in a US-led decoupling strategy, given China’s growing global economic and financial role. They have even less of an appetite for joining a US-led effort to promote regime change in China, according to Lardy.
Even a narrower US decoupling in technology is likely to be a high-cost strategy for the United States. For example, shutting US semiconductor companies out of the China market will lead to the loss of 124,000 US jobs, he said.
Lardy proposed that the new president recognize that the “trade war” has failed and it should avoid weaponizing trade policy, such as through tariffs on Chinese imports, because the costs to the US will likely exceed anticipated benefits.
Chad P. Bown, another senior fellow with the Peterson institute, proposed that Washington “unilaterally drop the artificial targets of purchase commitments” in the US-China phase one agreement, “as these do not encourage trade liberalization or market reform”.
Bown, who runs a US-China phase one tracker, said he thinks that the incentives for China to fulfill its commitments relate to increased purchases by State-owned enterprises, not China’s private sector. He said the targets also encourage China to divert trade from US allies, undermining multilateral cooperation.
Other researchers, like Jason Furman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson institute and a former White House top economic adviser, highlighted international cooperation on climate change as a priority for the next administration.
Last week, the Brookings Institution also said that whoever wins the election will be challenged by an ongoing pandemic and the ensuing economic and social devastation, but will face opportunities, too, including the chance to make “highly consequential and hopefully constructive” choices on China, international trade and post-COVID-19 recovery.
InternationalNov 04. 2020Facebook had removed Dr Yan Myo Thein’s posts for breaching Community Standards.
By ZAW MIN NAING Eleven Media/ANN
As the 2020 General Election nears, posts written by political observers and analysts are getting removed or blocked by Facebook.
Many such posts, with the absence of any swearing or defamatory language, are being removed through targeting by the social media platform.
“It is getting worse. People are asking me to complani to Facebook. I’m not going to do it,” said a Myanmar political analyst Dr Yan Myo Thein.
Dr Yan Myo Thein is a veteran analyst and an author who has written political articles since the reign of the military junta in platforms such as True News, Flower News, Myanmar Post and many news journals. His body work consisted of many perspectives into the political hemisphere, particularly that of the formation of the 2008 constitution and is still continuing to put out political articles in both local and international media.
Ever since 2016-2017, he started noticing that his politics-related posts were getting removed from Facebook.
“It didn’t used to happen. It became quite notable in 2016 and 2017. I have always been critical but no action like this. Lately, a lot of it gets taken down. Even if it is just an observation, it is getting blocked and punished,” said Dr Yan Myo Thein.
Facebook removed his post on October 20 regarding the incident in which candidates from the National League for Democracy (NLD) that were captured by the Arakan Army (AA).
In that post, he shared his thoughts regarding the photos and statements regarding Rakhine NLD candidates captured by the AA. It was removed despite the post stressing the need to release captured candidates and encouraging discourse.
On October 31, Dr Yan Myo Thein wrote two posts concerning the Myanmar election. It only took minutes before it was taken down.
Those posts can be said to be critical of the ruling NLD as it concerns things that can happen to the NLD in the election, particularly in ethnic areas.
In the first one, Dr Yan Myo Thein pointed out that any predictions that claim that the NLD will see a bigger victory than the 2015 election is shallow and lofty, leading to negative consequences. If NLD leadership believes that to be so fully then it is rather detached from the true facts of the situation. It should be expected that as ethnic parties get stronger, the danger of losing many seats to them in the regional parliaments is a danger. It has to be expected that Tanintharyi, Ayeyawady, northern Sagaing and townships outside of Yangon’s municipality will have to be carefully waged competition.
Facebook removed the above mentioned post for 11 times total.
The second post stated that the “insinuation that ethnic parties engaging in fierce rallying to win landslide victories in their areas, causing the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to gain more power, is one-sided. Ethnic parties fight to win their own region, their own homes. They are the locals. As far as I understand, the NLD was stubborn in negotiating politically with friendly and colleague ethnic parties and thus, the current risk of ethnic parties winning their local seats. They are fighting for the betterment of their own people and that is deserving. But apart from pointing out that ethnic parties winning will strengthen the USDP in a battle between the NLD and USDP by some political analysts, more priority should be given to discussing the NLD not establishing political alliances with ethnic parties. If this goes on, ethnic states will see higher chances of ethnic parties winning as well as the USDP winning. I believe that this is a result of political greed and pride darkening the truth. I wish for the ethcnic parties to win their areas in the 2020 General Election.”
It was also removed as it went against ‘Community Standards’. It was never able to go back up no matter when or how many times was tried.
But those that copy-pasted from his post never had their posts removed.
Facebook is putting restrictions on not only political analysts but also toward some political parties.
Ko Nay Yan Oo, a Pyithu Hluttaw candidate representing Kamaryut Township for the People’s Pioneer Party (PPP), claims that online panel discussions that the PPP does weekly via Facebook Live gets taken down if there ever involved words that criticised the government.
Ko Nay Yan Oo was an IT professional and was also a regular writer regarding the Union government staff. His posts were also removed as it supposedly went against the rules.
“Initially, I just upload things that are part of my life and then, nothing was ever removed. Facebook started digging into me in 2019 when I criticized the union civil servants. I uncovered their mess. So then my post started getting targetted and removed,” said Ko Nay Yan Oo.
He also claims to have faced more restrictions campaigning online after he announced his decision to be a part of the PPP.
“It is worse now, especially more so as I am an opposition politician. It happened before the election period and also during it.”
“Number one is that I couldn’t upload anything on my Campaign Page on the very first day of the election period. No texts, no pictures, no videos, nothing. And it isn’t only the Campaign Page. There is another page that writes about the union government but Facebook had blocked it. So if it is the election campaign time and due to COVID-19, we cannot campaign on the ground so we have to do it online and the online option gets blocked then what do we do? The second thing is that we always hold a panel discussion online weekly every wednesday. We do it live with our voters. We faced this twice; everything was fine until we started criticizing the government. The alleged reason was that whatever we were talking about fringing copyright with BBC Burmese. So the excuse was that BBC reported us. In reality, the BBC did not report us. We have asked. And the other thing is we are talking live. We are not using any photos or texts or videos. We are speaking like we are speaking now on the phoe. There is no way that was getting copyrighted. It happened not the one time but twice. The last one, I think, many people have experienced. Things couldn’t be boosted. I tried boosting my picture with a western suit on (as I don’t have a lot of my photos in traditional clothing and it was COVID period so photo studios were closed) but I couldn’t boost it. Apparently my picture was too sexual. How is it possible that I have a suit on with a necktie that I am being sexually suggestive?” said Ko Nay Yan Oo.
Someone cleared to reply to The Daily Eleven had said that Facebook is working on blocking content that will use the political, religious and racial situation to incite hate.
The Daily Eleven had asked Facebook, in the middle of October, over the email regarding the removal of content from political analysts and how exactly were they qualified to be removed as those posts do not contain any words that may incite hate or utilized inflammatory language.
Facebook sent a reply that until November 22, they will be removing any content that can mislead and obstruct voters with misinformation or unverifiable rumors or anything that can harm the election process will all be removed.
“We have a clear set of rules on action against inciting hate and violence. If those rules were broken in Myanmar or anywhere else, it will be removed. On top of removing any potentially dangerous content, Facebook had also introduced technological products to lower the amount of incidents of inciting violence and hatred before and after the election period,” replied Facebook.
It also said that attacks under the religious or racial guise are being removed such as calling groups like migrants or the Bengali that are without citizenship rights “trespassers” or “illegal immigrants” or any other word that comes close to its meaning.
Facebook had also announced the expansion of their bullying and harrasment policies to include journalists, activisists, humanitarians and other distinguished persons that always easily come under attack.
According to its announcement, Facebook removed around 300 thousand hate speech related content in the second quarter of 2020. It also cited utilizing AI that can recognize and remove content written in a total of 45 languages, including Burmese, with hate speech in them before anybody could see.
But lately, the removal of posts from political analysts and party candidates as well as campaigning by political parties are arguable in its capacity to be removed by Facebook due to infringing ‘Community Standards’.
Even when the usage of inflmmatory language was involved with breaching community standards, users that exercise their right to colourful speech that are supporters of the ruling NLD do not see any action from Facebook while those that go against them will surely be removed or made not visible by Facebook.
Incidents of posts that get removed despite not containing any explicit language amount to censorship of the freedom of speech.
The (6/2017) meeting of the Union Government approved the formation of the Social Media Monitoring Team (SMMT) in order to keep tabs on social media platforms including Facebook. The President’s Office formed the team on Februaruy 7, allowing them a budget of 6.462 billion Kyats from the special presidential reserve to purchase necessary technologies and equipment.
Thus the criticisms that the ruling party is sending to Facebook requests that will benefit the ruling party.
In a nation utilizing the democratic system, the rights of citizens in their freedom of thinking and speech is a basic commodity and Facebook’s restrictions, despite not utilizing language that are inflammatory racially, class or otherwise, it certainly begs the question whether a deal was made with the current government between it and Facebook.
While the act of preventing and removing misinformation, fake news and manipulations is welcome at any time, election period or otherwise, the Facebook Team must be responsible for acting upon the taboo of censoring the people’s freedom of speech.
Moreover, it harms the election ultimately as it restricts the mind of the voters from going through with enough mental exercises with thoughts and opinions derived from political parties campaigns as well as observations of the professionals.
“It makes sense if they were removing criticism based on fake news, hate speech or abusive language. But rethinking is necessary for acts of punishment because it was against their community standards, despite it being real news or me extrapolating and analyzing facts. If they are to go on this way, the reputation of a network that is working towards fariness and free from political bias can be damaged,” said Dr Yan Myo Thein.
InternationalNov 04. 2020The logo of Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Oct 26, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]
By SHI JING China Daily/ANN
Fintech giant Ant Group’s initial public offering on the STAR Market will be suspended, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced on Tuesday night.
The Shanghai bourse explained that Ant Group has reported major matters, such as the change in supervision environment concerning fintech, due to which Ant Group may not be able to meet listing requirements at the bourse or meet related information disclosure requirements. Based on the stock exchange’s regulations and sponsors’ opinions, Ant Group’s IPO on the STAR Market will be postponed. The fintech company and its sponsors are required to make relevant announcements.
China’s top financial regulators, including the People’s Bank of China, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, conducted a joint regulatory talk with Alibaba’s top management on Monday. Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Ant Group’s chairman Eric Jing and the fintech company’s CEO, Simon Hu, attended the meeting. Further details were not provided.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange also referred to the Monday meeting in its latest announcement.
Ant Group, which also filed for a dual listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, announced on Tuesday it will suspend the listing on the Hong Kong bourse.
Ant Group, which filed in late August to float on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market, is poised to raise $34.4 billion in a record IPO, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion listing last year. Ant Group is estimated to be valued at about $315 billion, based on public filings. Its debut on the two exchanges was scheduled for Nov 5.
SINGAPORE – Temasek Foundation has invested in the effort to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, said Temasek International executive director and chief executive officer Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara on Tuesday (Nov 3).
He said this in response to a question on Temasek’s role in helping to procure and distribute the vaccine, during a discussion at the Temasek Trust Conversation.
Temasek Trust is the philanthropic arm of Singapore investment firm Temasek.
Mr Pillay said the foundation had invested in an entity considered to be a leader in the quest for developing an effective vaccine, but added that the responsibility for ensuring that sufficient vaccines are available is that of the Government.
The foundation will provide whatever help it can through its network and relationships as it is a collaborative effort, he added.
Amid the pandemic, Temasek has supported its foundation and partners in diagnosis, containment and contact tracing, treatment, protection and prevention, and enablement, which entails the donation of key supplies such as masks, test kits and ventilators to about 35 countries.
Reports have also said that Temasek is among the investors who have injected US$250 million (SGD$340 million) through private placement in German biotech firm BioNTech which is developing a Covid-19 vaccine.
Locally, Temasek has distributed 11 million masks to Singaporean residents and one million face shields to young schoolchildren and front-line workers in the food and beverage industry, while 250,000 oximeters – devices used to measure blood oxygen levels – were donated to various groups in the community.
By The Washington Post · Robert Mitchell · NATIONAL, POLITICS, WHITEHOUSE, HISTORY
Americans accustomed to learning on election night who their next president will be may mistakenly think, along with President Donald Trump, that the law requires a winner to be proclaimed that evening.
“I think it’s terrible when we can’t know the results of an election the night of an election in a modern-day age of computers,” said Trump, who also vowed to challenge the results in court.
But there is nothing in the Constitution or federal law that says the winner must be determined in the hours immediately after the polls close. And for much of American history, that would have been impossible.
The outcome of many presidential elections remained unresolved for days, weeks and – in one case – months.
In fact, in the early days of the republic, there was no single Election “Day.” States determined when they held their elections. Congress passed legislation in 1845 requiring the selection of presidential electors to occur on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Election Day – and election night – was born. But it did not produce immediate clarity.
In 1848, the first presidential election held under the new law, the New York Herald reported on the day after the presidential election that the “probable result” was a landslide win by Whig candidate Zachary Taylor over Democrat Lewis Cass. The Herald was half right: Taylor won, but with only 47.3% of the vote to Cass’s 42.5%. The big story of the election was the 10.1% received by the anti-slavery Free-Soil Party led by former president Martin Van Buren.
Several factors clouded 19th-century election results. Newspapers depended on the telegraph for information and typically went to press with incomplete results. They often reported on returns through a partisan prism that downplayed unfavorable trends for their favored candidate. Vote-counting could be excruciatingly slow.
When the election was a landslide – as in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant walloped Democratic candidate Horace Greeley – the result was clear. But the partisan equilibrium of the Gilded Age produced one agonizingly close election after another, many of which went days before a winner could be determined.
– 1876
This one was historic. Americans waited four months before learning the outcome of the election. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was not certified as the winner of the election (by one electoral vote, although he received fewer votes than Democrat Samuel Tilden) until March 2, three days before he was inaugurated in Washington.
– 1884
Democrat Grover Cleveland faced Republican James G. Blaine in a campaign whose outcome depended on New York, where vote totals came in with agonizing slowness. “It took more than a week,” historian Mark Wahlgren Summers has written, for Democrats to be sure that their candidate carried the Empire State and won the election.
– 1888
Four years later, Cleveland found himself in another nail-biter, this time against Republican Benjamin Harrison. Although the Los Angeles Herald published a wire story two days after the voting indicating that a Harrison victory appeared probable, the paper hedged its bets with a headline – “A Game of Guess” – that suggested the election was still up in the air. Harrison was elected but fell just short of winning a majority of the popular vote.
Election night uncertainty continued into the 20th century.
– 1916
More than two weeks passed before the election pitting Democratic President Woodrow Wilson against Republican Charles Evan Hughes was settled. “Presidential Vote Very Close; Both Parties Claiming Victory,” read the banner headline across the top of The Washington Post on Nov. 8, the morning after the election. Despite returns in the days that followed showing Wilson ahead, enough uncertainty remained to keep Hughes from formally conceding defeat until Nov. 22.
– 1948
Conventional wisdom, backed by polling, tabbed Republican Thomas E. Dewey as the likely winner over President Truman on Nov. 2. It seemed so probable that the headline on The Washington Post’s Election Day story read: “Dewey Deemed Sure Winner Today.” The Chicago Tribune, forced into an early press run because of a printer’s strike according to a history of the newspaper, splashed a banner headline across its Nov. 3 front page that declared “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
That’s not how things turned out. Returns coming in on election night showed a competitive race whose outcome, as The Post went to press, was uncertain. “Truman Takes Slight Early Lead in Both Popular and Electoral Votes,” The Post headline on Tuesday’s results read. The president’s narrow lead proved durable. Dewey stayed up until 8:30 a.m. Nov. 3 poring over the returns before taking a two-hour nap, studying the vote counts one final time, and sending a congratulatory telegram to Truman, United Press reported.
– 1960
Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy held a narrow lead over Republican Vice President Richard Nixon as returns came during the evening of Nov. 8 and into the early morning hours of Nov. 9. The battleground state of Illinois swung back and forth until late returns from Chicago put Illinois in Kennedy’s column. Although Republicans from President Eisenhower on down wanted Nixon to challenge the returns, Nixon conceded defeat in a telegram released Nov. 9.
– 1976
Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican President Gerald Ford closed a hard-fought campaign with an election night that dragged into the next morning before Carter could claim the presidency. Carter’s victory in Mississippi – no Democrat has carried the state since – put the peanut farmer and former Georgia governor over the top at 4 a.m. Eastern time, The Post’s David Broder reported.
– 2000
Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Texas Republican Gov. George W. Bush squared off in the most bitterly contested election since 1876. Election night came down to Florida, whose electoral votes would put one of the candidates into the White House, but confusion regarding the outcome in the Sunshine State continued for more than a month. On Dec. 12, a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision ended recounts in Florida and effectively gave the election to Bush.
Of course, not all elections have been cliffhangers. Perhaps the most lopsided came in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan easily defeated Democrat Walter Mondale. Reagan carried 49 states, losing only Minnesota and the District of Columbia to Mondale.
CBS election night coverage began at 6:30 p.m., The Post’s Tom Shales reported. “Dan Rather and CBS News crowned Ronald Reagan president of the United States again, just after 8 o’clock, and about 52 minutes later Rather declared, ‘Walter Mondale has seen the light at the end of the tunnel – and it’s out,’ ” Shales wrote. “Life can be cruel, and so can anchormen.”
As Americans head to the polls Tuesday, the South Korean government is watching closely and bracing itself for uncertainty. Whoever is elected, the result will have a lasting impact on the Korean Peninsula and the bilateral alliance for the next four years.
Seoul’s national security officials and related ministries are monitoring the election that will determine whether US President Donald Trump will lead the country for another four years or Democratic challenger Joe Biden will sweep the White House as polls have suggested. The final polls were incredibly bullish on former Vice President Biden, who is leading nationally and in the most important swing states, but Trump’s reelection remains a possibility.
For Seoul, several critical issues hinge on the battle between the two candidates, who offer starkly different visions of the US’ role in the world. They include the stalled efforts to denuclearize North Korea, the Seoul-Washington defense cost-sharing standoff and the future of the alliance amid heated US-China rivalry.
Observers say Trump will likely double down on his “America First” agenda in regards to foreign policy, keeping up pressure on the US’ allies to pay their “fair share” of the defense costs. In contrast, Biden is pledging to strengthen the alliance with Seoul. As for North Korea, the Trump administration is expected to continue its top-down approach and to arrange for Trump to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again. In contrast, Biden would likely opt for a “step-by-step” approach and push for tighter sanctions on Pyongyang, with a greater focus on coordinated efforts with allies and working-level talks, and less on summit diplomacy.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry launched an internal task force in August, preparing possible responses under both scenarios — either Trump heading for a second term or Biden winning the White House. Its officials have been analyzing the two candidates’ election pledges and their basic positions on major issues in order to grasp how the election outcome will affect Seoul’s foreign policy. Led by First Vice Minister Choi Jong-kun, the team consists of officials from bureaus in charge of North America affairs, nuclear negotiation with Pyongyang and bilateral economic affairs, among others.
The Defense Ministry here is also analyzing and preparing for the election result and its impact on the Korean Peninsula and the alliance, as well as keeping close tabs on North Korea due to the possibility of any provocations, in mind of Pyongyang’s precedent of military actions around or after the US election.
“The South Korean and the US intelligence authorities are carefully monitoring related movements while maintaining close coordination,” JCS spokesperson Col. Kim Jun-rak said Monday, on whether the military detected any unusual movement in the North after reports of increased activity at Pyongyang’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
The Unification Ministry, which is in charge of inter-Korean affairs, said it is closely watching the result with related agencies and experts, due to the possibility of change in North Korea policy depending on the result.
Seoul’s key security officials are also planning to visit Washington after the election, in a move to manage pending issues on North Korea and the bilateral relations.
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha is slated to meet her counterpart US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington after the election, though the exact timing hasn’t been decided yet. The two will address an array of outstanding bilateral issues, including the defense cost-sharing and deadlocked denuclearization efforts on North Korea.
Seoul’s top nuclear negotiator Lee Do-hoon is also expected to make a visit to Washington along with Kang, meeting his counterpart Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who doubles as the US point man on talks with the North. The two sides are likely to discuss on how to move stalled talks with the reclusive regime forward.
Unification Minister Lee In-young could also visit Washington after the election for the first time since he took office in July, observers said. The ministry on Tuesday has neither confirmed nor denied Lee’s possible visit to Washington.
Depending on the election results, Seoul officials’ trip to Washington will likely be tasked with different agenda. If Biden wins, officials will likely take some time to build rapport behind-the-scenes with people and experts that have connection with Biden’s aides and circles.
If Trump wins, the authorities will likely double down commitment on its bilateral alliance to solve unsettled issues and put efforts to move forward in dealing with North Korea.
The election result might become apparent on Wednesday (Korea time), but could also take longer because of an unprecedented number of mail-in and early in-person votes this year.
By The Washington Post · Denise Hruby, Loveday Morris, Luisa Beck · WORLD, EUROPE
VIENNA – Peering out a window at Vienna’s main synagogue compound Monday night, Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister watched as a gunman opened fire on customers in the bars and restaurants of the city’s main nightlife district.
The shots rang out – dozens of volleys, perhaps hundreds, he isn’t sure – sending people fleeing through the streets in panic and into bars to seek cover. The attacker followed them inside, Hofmeister said. More gunfire followed.
The shooting left at least five dead, including an assailant, a joint Austrian and North Macedonian citizen along with 22 people wounded.
The slain suspect was identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, who had been sentenced to 22 months in detention for trying to join the Islamic State but was released from prison early.
The militant group on Tuesday claimed credit for the attack.
The shooting came amid an uptick in extremist violence in Europe, with four people killed in knife attacks in France over the past month. Britain on Tuesday raised its terror threat to “severe” as a “precautionary measure.”
Terrorist attacks have been extremely rare in Austria, however. The last major incident was in 1985, at the Vienna airport.
Monday’s attack unfolded as the city’s residents relished a few final hours of revelry before a new coronavirus lockdown. Armed with an assault rifle, machete and fake suicide belt, Fejzulai spread mayhem for nine minutes until he was killed, officials said. In the initial chaos, police reported that there were multiple attackers, but security officials backpedaled Tuesday, saying that the videos examined so far – among tens of thousands sent submitted by the public – indicated a single shooter.
“It was an attack motivated by hate – hate for our core values, hate for our way of life, hate for our democracy in which all people are equal in rights and dignity,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a morning news conference. “But it’s clear that we will not be intimidated by the terrorists. It is a battle between civilization and barbarism, and we will fight this battle with all determination.”
A total of 18 house searches have been carried out with weapons discovered and 14 preliminary arrests made, authorities said.
The Islamic State described Fejzulai as a “soldier of the caliphate” in a statement released by the group’s Amaq News Agency Tuesday evening. It named him by the nom d’guerre Abu Dujana al-Albani. Earlier, Islamist militant forums circulated an image they claimed to be of Fejzulai, said Rajan Basra, a researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London. The picture showed a bearded man holding a large knife, a pistol and a Kalashnikov-style rifle. It was accompanied by a pledge to Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the attack, coming after Fejzulai’s early release from prison, pointed to “gaps” in the country’s deradicalization efforts. The suspect had “fooled” the system, he said.
“This is obviously going to raise huge questions in Austria about why he was released early,” said Basra, who specializes in researching Islamist militants within criminal justice systems.
Fejzulai was sentenced in April 2019, but was released by December that year.
He had set out to Syria in September 2018, according to news coverage of his trial. He made it to an Islamic State safe house in Turkey, but was detained there and spent four months in a Turkish jail. He and a co-defendant said they’d been ready to fight with the Islamic State, but a defense lawyer argued that they had renounced the group.
Fejzulai explained his radicalization by saying he’d gone to the “wrong mosque,” according to Austria’s Der Standard newspaper’s report at the time.
Countries across the continent saw citizens leave to fight alongside the Islamic State, at the height of its self-declared Caliphate. And since then countries have struggled with how to repatriate and reintegrate those citizens.
“Every country around Europe is facing that same issue,” Basra said, noting that individuals have convinced experts that they have reformed, or were taken advantage of, and pose less of a threat than they do.
Austrian security officials said the whole system needed to be evaluated. There is never “absolute certainty” that a person has been correctly assessed, said police President Gerhard Pürstl.
The gunfire began around 8 p.m. Monday in Vienna’s “Bermuda Triangle,” an area of the city known for bars where one can disappear during a night of heavy drinking.
Hofmeister, the rabbi, said he could not be sure about the number of shooters, but that he saw at least one attacker who seemed “professional.”
“He wasn’t shooting around randomly. It was very targeted and coordinated,” Hofmeister said, adding that he had called the police.
The rabbi said there was no indication that the synagogue was a target. The building was closed at the time, and there was no activity inside, whereas the streets outside in the Innere Stadt neighborhood were busy.
“We are here in a popular nightlife district, the nightlife district of the city,” he said. “It was a very warm evening, so a lot of people were out, and it was the evening before the lockdown.”
As midnight approached, the one suspect had been killed by law enforcement officers, but authorities said the situation remained active. Heavily armed officers swarmed the capital, blocking roads and searching vehicles. Medics set up a triage area to treat the wounded. Police urged residents to stay inside during the manhunt – and to stay home from work and school if possible Tuesday.
According to an initial law enforcement assessment, the shooting took place at six locations. But authorities said assessments were still being made and more details would be released later.
As the shooter roamed the streets, an elderly man, an elderly woman, a young passerby and a waitress were killed “in cold blood,” Kurz said. Fourteen people were wounded, including a police officer who stepped between civilians and a gunman, he said. That officer was in stable condition Tuesday after surgery.
Sara, a 20-year-old Albanian who moved to Vienna a year ago, was drinking coffee nearby. She heard shots but did not think it was a “big deal,” she said. Sara said she was too scared to have her last name published, with attackers still potentially on the loose.
“We thought it was maybe a stupid guy shooting at someone or a fight on the street,” she said.
Then people began running. They moved to another bar. “A guy came to us running and told us it was a terrorist attack,” she said. “And then we were scared. We saw the panic. We saw a girl, she was running, she was injured. She was crying.”
Sara lives in an apartment in the area and said she barely slept. Before Monday night, she had thought Vienna was the “safest city in the world,” she said. “We never expected this to happen. I don’t know how we are going back to our normal lives after this.”
Despite having some of Europe’s most lax gun ownership laws and a relatively high rate of private gun ownership, mass shootings are rare in Austria. The initial reports that a synagogue may have been attacked brought back memories of 1981, when Palestinian militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked the main synagogue during a bar mitzvah service and killed two people.
On Monday, Barbara Lovett, a 52-year-old opera singer manager, was watching a three-hour performance at the city’s opera house when the shooting started a half-mile away. It was only when she turned to her phone at 10 p.m., when the performance ended, that she realized what was happening. Police held the audience in the building.
Members of the orchestra began to play as they waited to be allowed to go home. “This is Vienna,” Lovett said, referencing a city famed for its opera and for producing classical composers such as Mozart, Strauss and Schubert. “We have to play music. That’s what we know.”
แม้ว่าเศรษฐกิจโลกจะยังลูกผีลูกคนและยังมีสงครามการค้าและสงครามเย็นที่กระทบกับจีนโดยตรง แต่บริษัท Xiaomi ก็ยังสามารถขยายตลาดได้
สถานการณ์ในยุโรปน่าเป็นห่วงเหมือนที่คาดการณ์กันไว้ว่าการระบาดอาจกลับมาอีกครั้งในช่วงฤดูหนาว ตอนนี้หลายประเทศเริ่มล็อคดาวน์อีกครั้ง
ซูเปอร์ไต้ฝุ่นโกนีถล่มฟิลิปปินส์แล้วในวันอาทิตย์โดยทางการเตือนให้พร้อมรัลกับสภาวะ “ภัยพิบัติ” ในภูมิภาคที่คาดว่าจะได้รับผลกระทบหนักที่สุด มีประชาชนมากกว่า 300,000 คนต้องหนีออกจากบ้าน
Facebook had removed Dr Yan Myo Thein’s posts for breaching Community Standards. ![The logo of Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Oct 26, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]](https://media.nationthailand.com//images/news/2020/11/04/30397305/800_54212af45831fc8.jpeg?v=1604457458)
The logo of Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, is pictured at its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Oct 26, 2020. [Photo/Agencies] 
