Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has no plans to run for US Presidential elections

  25 Jan 2017 , 11:45

Shelving rumours surrounding his plans to run for the US presidency, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has insisted that for now he has no such intentions, saying he would continue to work to grow his company. For now, he said he would continue working on growing his company as well as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) – the corporation he and wife Priscilla built which makes investments in scientific and leadership research.

According to Buzzfeed, Zuckerberg responded with a “No” when he was asked if he had any plans to run for president. “I am focused on building our community at Facebook and working on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,” he was quoted as saying on Tuesday. A source said that the Facebook founder has privately denied it as well.

“There’s absolutely no truth to the idea that Mark is running for office and I’ve heard it directly from him,” the source was quoted as saying. “Here’s the thing: For Mark, Facebook is global community that already plays this huge part in the lives of billions of people around the world and plays an incredibly important role in shaping the base on the issues that matter,” the source added.

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Ecuador cuts off Assange’s internet access over fears of interference in US elections

Image Credit: WikiLeaks.org

  20 Oct 2016 , 15:48

Ecuador says it has temporarily cut off internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over fears he was using it to interfere in the US presidential election. The move comes in the wake of the publication of leaked emails by WikiLeaks, including emails from the account of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign adviser John Podesta.

The Ecuadorean Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said WikiLeaks’ documents could interfere in the electoral process. It said Ecuador “respects the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states” and had cut off the internet access available to Assange because “in recent weeks WikiLeaks has published a wealth of documents, impacting on the US election campaign.

“In that respect, Ecuador, exercising its sovereign right, has temporarily restricted access to part of its communications systems in its UK Embassy,” the statement said. Ecuador clarified the move was not a result of pressure from Washington. The US denied WikiLeaks’ accusations on Sunday that it had asked Ecuador to stop the site publishing documents about Hillary Clinton.

The Ecuador statement also reaffirmed the asylum granted to Assange and reiterated its intention “to safeguard his life and physical integrity until he reaches a safe place”. Assange’s internet access was cut off on Monday morning. Assange has sought asylum at London’s Ecuadorean embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex assault allegation.

According to the latest leaked emails, Clinton told a Goldman Sachs conference she would like to intervene secretly in Syria. She made the remark in answer to a question from Lloyd Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, in 2013 — months after she left office as the Secretary of State. “My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she told employees of the bank in South Carolina, which had paid her about $225,000 to give a speech.

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