United News of Bangladesh

A federal prosecutor says two associates of Sam Bankman-Fried have pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Carolyn Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm started by Bankman-Fried, and Gary Wang, who co-founded FTX along with Bankman-Fried, pleaded guilty to charges “related to their roles in the fraud that contributed to FTX's collapse,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday night. The guilty pleas were announced as Bankman-Fried was being flown to the U.S. from the Bahamas by U.S. law enforcement to answer to charges tied to his role in FTX's failure. In agreements signed with prosecutors on Dec. 19, Ellison and Wang agreed to plead guilty to charges including wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud. Bahamian authorities said Wednesday that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been extradited to the United States, where he faces criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange. Bahamas's attorney general's office said that Bankman-Fried would be leaving for the United States later Wednesday, noting he had waived his right to challenge the extradition. Reporters on the scene witnessed Bankman-Fried leaving a Magistrate Court in Nassau in a dark SUV earlier Wednesday. The vehicle was later seen arriving at a private airfield by Nassau's airport, from which he is expected to be flown to the United States. He is due to land in New York and will likely appear in front of a U.S. judge on Thursday. “The Bahamas has determined that the provisional arrest, and subsequent written consent by (Bankman-Fried) to be extradited without formal extradition proceedings satisfies the requirements of the (extradition treaty between the U.S. and the Bahamas) and our nation’s Extradition Act,” said Bahamian Attorney General Ryan Pinder, in a statement. Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried last week at the request of the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors allege he played a central role in the rapid collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried illegally used investors’ money to buy real estate on behalf of himself and his family. The 30-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in jail. Bankman-Fried was denied bail Friday after a Bahamian judge ruled that he posed a flight risk. The founder and former CEO of FTX, once worth tens of billions of dollars on paper, had been held in the Bahamas' Fox Hill prison, which has been has been cited by human rights activists as having poor sanitation and as being infested with rats and insects. Once he’s back in the U.S., Bankman-Fried’s attorney will be able to request that he be released on bail. Also read: Russian military to reach 1.5M; Putin vows to win in Ukraine Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper, with an estimated net worth of $32 billion. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars toward mostly left-leaning political causes and Democratic political campaigns. FTX grew to become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. He has said that he did not “knowingly” misuse customers’ funds, and said he believes his millions of angry customers will eventually be made whole. At a congressional hearing last week, the new FTX CEO John Ray III, who is tasked with taking the company through bankruptcy, bluntly disputed those assertions: “We will never get all these assets back,” Ray said.

Migrants along the U.S. border with Mexico sought shelter from the cold early Wednesday as restrictions that prevented many from seeking asylum in the U.S. remained in place beyond their anticipated end. The U.S. government asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday not to lift the limits before Christmas, in a filing a day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the pandemic-era restrictions in place. Before Roberts issued that order, they had been slated to expire Wednesday. Read: US plans for more migrant releases when asylum limits end Just after midnight, when Title 42 was supposed to be lifted, all was quiet on the banks of Rio Grande in El Paso where the Texas National Guard was posted. Hundreds of migrants had gathered by the concertina wire put up by the Texas National Guard but left earlier in the evening after being told by US officials to go to a gate to be processed in small groups. First Sergeant Suzanne Ringle said one woman went into labor in the crowd on the riverbank and was assisted by Border Patrol agents. She added many children were among the crowd. In the Mexican city of Juarez, across the border from El Paso, hundreds of migrants remained in line hoping that the restrictions would be lifted and they would be let through. In Tijuana, which has an estimated 5,000 migrants staying in more than 30 shelters and many more renting rooms and apartments, the border was quiet Tuesday night as word spread among would-be asylum seekers that nothing had changed. Layered, razor-topped walls rising 30 feet along the border with San Diego make the area daunting for illegal crossings. Read: Federal judge halts preparations for end of US asylum limit Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under a public health rule called Title 42. Both U.S. and international law guarantee the right to claim asylum. The federal government also asked the Supreme Court to reject a last-minute effort by a group of conservative-leaning states to maintain the measure. It acknowledged that ending the restrictions will likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” but said the solution is not to extend the rule indefinitely.

Peru's Congress is set Tuesday to consider holding early elections, beset by protesters who have blocked highways and clashed with security forces amid deadly nationwide unrest ever since the lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo. It's the second time in days that the lawmakers — easily the most reviled of a widely discredited political elite — are taking up the proposal to push forward to next year the elections for president and Congress originally planned for 2026. The measure has the backing of caretaker President Dina Boluarte, who took over from Castillo after the former rural school teacher tried to dissolve Congress on Dec. 7 — a move widely condemned by even his leftist supporters as a self-coup and act of political suicide. After the failed move, he was swiftly arrested. Read more: Peru judge orders 18-month detention for ousted president The early elections proposal failed to muster enough votes last week after leftist lawmakers abstained, conditioning their support on the promise of a constitutional assembly to overhaul Peru's political charter — something that conservatives denounce as putting Peru's free market economic model at risk. “Don’t be blind,” Boluarte said in comments over the weekend, slamming lawmakers for not moving more decisively to defuse mounting political tensions. “Look at the people and take action in line with what they are asking.” Castillo, a political novice who lived in a two-story adobe home in the Andean highlands before moving to the presidential palace, eked out a narrow victory in elections last year that rocked Peru's political establishment and laid bare the deep divisions between residents of the vibrant capital, Lima, and the long-neglected countryside. Castillo's attempts to break a stalemate with hostile lawmakers by closing Congress only deepened those tensions. Within hours of his attempted power grab, he was ousted by Congress and jailed facing a criminal investigation, accused of trying to usurp power in violation of the constitution. Read more: Anger in rural areas fuel protests against Peru government Boluarte, who has the backing of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and speaks fluently the native Quechua language of many protesters, has struggled to restore order in the restive nation. In several parts of the country, protesters who voted for her and Castillo's ticket last year have defied a 30-day state of emergency and taken to the streets to demand her immediate resignation. The death toll from the unrest rose to 26 on Monday after security forces firing tear gas dispersed thousands of informal miners who cut off the Pan-American Highway at two vital chokepoints for more than a week, forcing truckers to dump spoiled food and fish bound for market. Hundreds have been injured. Should lawmakers decide to push up elections, they would in essence be throwing themselves out of work. Under Peru's constitution, the 130 members of Congress are entitled to serve only a single term. Boluarte is also facing pressure from fellow leftists across Latin America led by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Ignoring calls by Boluarte and others to butt out of Peru's internal affairs, López Obrador has criticized Peru's conservative media and business establishment for the classist, sometimes bigoted way it portrayed Castillo during his 17-month presidency. On Monday he said that if lawmakers reject early elections and cling to power, and the president stays, then "everything will have to be achieved by force and repression, leading to a great deal of suffering an instability for the people.” The Mexican president has reiterated his willingness to grant asylum to Castillo, who was intercepted by protesters and security forces while trying to flee to the Mexican Embassy in Lima after his bid to shutter Congress backfired.

Negotiators reached a historic deal at a U.N. biodiversity conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world. The global framework comes a day before the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft earlier in the day that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum. The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected. “There has never been a conservation goal globally at this scale,“ Brian O’Donnell, the director of the conservation group Campaign for Nature, told reporters. “This puts us within a chance of safeguarding biodiversity from collapse ... We’re now within the range that scientists think can make a marked difference in biodiversity.” The draft also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework calls for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries — or about double what is currently provided. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030. Some advocates wanted tougher language around subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world. The document only calls for identifying subsidies by 2025 that can be reformed or phased out and working to reduce them by 2030. Read: UN chief appeals for more fund from developed countries to help preserve biodiversity “The new text is a mixed bag,” Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation finance for The Nature Conservancy, said. “It contains some strong signals on finance and biodiversity but it fails to advance beyond the targets of 10 years ago in terms of addressing drivers of biodiversity loss in productive sectors like agriculture, fisheries, and infrastructure and thus still risks being fully transformational.” The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries have mostly agreed that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt. Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. But they have struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it. The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later. Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030. Read: UN chief calls for greater ambition to reverse biodiversity loss “All the elements are in there for a balance of unhappiness which is the secret to achieving agreement in U.N. bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a negotiator from Namibia who is helping coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. “Everyone got a bit of what they wanted, not necessarily everything they wanted. Let’s see if there is there is a spirit of unity.” Others praised the fact the document recognizes the rights of Indigenous communities. In past biodiversity documents, indigenous rights were often ignored and they rarely were part of the larger discussions other than a reference to their traditional knowledge. The framework would reaffirm the rights of Indigenous peoples and ensure they have a voice in any decision making. “It’s important for the rights of Indigenous peoples to be there, and while it’s not the exact wording of that proposal in the beginning, we feel that it is a good compromise and that it addresses the concerns that we have,” Jennifer Corpuz, a representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity said. “We believe that it’s a good basis for us to be able to implement policy at the national level.” But the Wildlife Conservation Society and other environmental groups were concerned that the draft puts off until 2050 a goal of preventing the extinction of species, preserving the integrity of ecosystems and maintaining the genetic diversity within populations. They fear that timeline is not ambitions enough.

More than 280 million people have left their countries to pursue opportunity, dignity, freedom, and a better life, the UN said on International Migrants Day Sunday. Secretary-General António Guterres credited more than 80 percent of those who cross borders in a safe and orderly fashion as powerful drivers of economic growth, dynamism, and understanding. "But unregulated migration along increasingly perilous routes – the cruel realm of traffickers – continues to extract a terrible cost." Over the past eight years, at least 51,000 migrants have died, and thousands of others have gone missing, said the top UN official. "Behind each number is a human being – a sister, brother, daughter, son, mother, or father," he said. "Migrant rights are human rights." Read: US Asst Secretary Noyes in Bangladesh to discuss refugee, migration issues "They must be respected without discrimination – and irrespective of whether their movement is forced, voluntary, or formally authorised." Guterres pushed for search and rescue efforts, medical care, expanded and diversified rights-based pathways for migration, and greater international investments in countries of origin to ensure migration is a choice, not a necessity. Gilbert F Houngbo, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO), shone a light on protecting the rights of the world's 169 million migrant workers. "The international community must do better to ensure… [that they] are able to realise their basic human and labour rights." Leaving them unable to exercise basic rights renders migrant workers invisible, vulnerable and undervalued for their contributions to society, said the most senior ILO official. And when intersecting with race, ethnicity, and gender, they become even more vulnerable to various forms of discrimination. Houngbo said migrants do not only go missing on high-risk and desperate journeys. "Many migrant domestic, agricultural and other workers are isolated and out of reach of those who could protect them, with the undocumented, particularly at risk of abuse." Read: COP27: FM calls for collective action to mainstream climate-induced migration in negotiations Like all employees, migrant workers are entitled to labour standards and international human rights protections, including freedom of association and collective bargaining, non-discrimination, and safe and healthy working environments, said the ILO chief. They should also be entitled to social protection, development and recognition, he added. To make these rights a reality, Houngbo stressed the key importance of fair recruitment, including eliminating recruitment fees charged to migrant workers, which can help eradicate human trafficking and forced labour.

Elon Musk's abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover Twitter widens a growing rift between the social media site and media organizations that have used the platform to build their audiences. Individual reporters with The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other news agencies saw their accounts go dark Thursday. Musk tweeted late Friday that the company would lift the suspensions following the results of a public poll on the site. The poll showed 58.7% of respondents favored a move to immediately unsuspend accounts over 41.3% who said the suspensions should be lifted in seven days. The company has not explained why the accounts were taken down. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts, which he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim. Many advertisers abandoned Twitter over content moderation questions after Musk acquired it in October, and he now risks a rupture with media organizations, which are among the most active on the platform. Most of the accounts were back early Saturday. One exception was Business Insider's Linette Lopez, who was suspended after the other journalists, also with no explanation, she told The Associated Press. Lopez published a series of articles between 2018 and 2021 highlighting what she called dangerous Tesla manufacturing shortcomings. Shortly before being suspended, she said she had posted court-related documents to Twitter that included a 2018 Musk email address. That address is not current, Lopez said, because “he changes his email every few weeks." On Tuesday, she posted a 2019 story about Tesla troubles, commenting, “Now, just like then, most of @elonmusk’s wounds are self inflicted.” The same day, she cited reports that Musk was reneging on severance for laid-off Twitter employees, threatening workers who talk to the media and refusing to make rent payments. Lopez described his actions as “classic Elon-going-for-broke behavior.” Steve Herman, a national correspondent for Voice of America, told The Associated Press that his suspended Twitter account still hadn't been fully restored as of Saturday afternoon because of his refusal to delete three tweets that the company flagged for purportedly sharing Musk's whereabouts. Although Herman's Twitter timeline is now visible to most users, he said he can't see it himself nor can he post anything new until he removes the tweets that the company contends violate its revised terms of service. “I am in a new level of purgatory," Herman said. “I do not believe anything I have tweeted violated any reasonable standard of any social media platform." Read more: Twitter suspends journalists who wrote about owner Elon Musk Alarm over the suspensions extended beyond media circles to the United Nations, which was reconsidering its involvement in Twitter. The move sets “a dangerous precedent at a time when journalists all over the world are facing censorship, physical threats and even worse," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The reporters' suspensions followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data. That also led Twitter to change its rules for all users to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent. Several of the reporters suspended Thursday night had been writing about the new policy and Musk's rationale for imposing it, which involved his allegations about a stalking incident he said affected his family Tuesday night in Los Angeles. The official Twitter account for Mastodon, a decentralized alternative social network where many Twitter users are fleeing, was also banned. The reason was unclear, though it had tweeted about the jet-tracking account. Twitter also began preventing users from posting links to Mastodon accounts, in some cases flagging them as potential malware. “This is of course a bald-faced lie,” cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs posted. Explaining the reporter bans, Musk tweeted, “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else." He later added: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.” " Doxxing ” refers to disclosing someone’s identity, address, phone number or other personal details that violate their privacy and could bring harm. The Washington Post’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, said technology reporter Drew Harwell “was banished without warning, process or explanation” following the publication of accurate reporting about Musk. CNN said in a statement that “the impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising.” “Twitter’s increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter,” the statement added. Another suspended journalist, Matt Binder of the technology news outlet Mashable, said he was banned Thursday night immediately after sharing a screenshot that O’Sullivan had posted before his own suspension. The screenshot showed a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department sent earlier Thursday to multiple media outlets, including the AP, about how it was in touch with Musk's representatives about the alleged stalking incident. Binder said he did not share any location data or any links to the jet-tracking account or other location-tracking accounts. “I have been highly critical of Musk but never broke any of Twitter’s listed policies,” Binder said in an email. The suspensions come as Musk makes major changes to content moderation on Twitter. He has tried, through the release of selected company documents dubbed “The Twitter Files,” to claim the platform suppressed right-wing voices under its previous leaders. Read more: Elon Musk sells $3.58B worth of Tesla stock, purpose unknown He has promised to let free speech reign and has reinstated high-profile accounts that previously broke Twitter's rules against hateful conduct or harmful misinformation. He has also said he would suppress negativity and hate by depriving some accounts of “freedom of reach.” Opinion columnist Bari Weiss, who tweeted out some of “The Twitter Files,” called for the suspended journalists to be reinstated. “The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem,” she tweeted “I oppose it in both cases.” If the suspensions lead to the exodus of media organizations that are highly active on Twitter, the platform would be changed at the fundamental level, said Lou Paskalis, longtime marketing and media executive and former Bank of America head of global media. CBS briefly shut down its activity on Twitter in November due to “uncertainty” about new management, but media organizations have largely remained on the platform. “We all know news breaks on Twitter ... and to now go after journalists really saws at the main foundational tent pole of Twitter,” Paskalis said. “Driving journalists off Twitter is the biggest self-inflicted wound I can think of.” The suspensions may be the biggest red flag yet for advertisers, Paskalis said, some of which had already cut their spending on Twitter over uncertainty about the direction Musk is taking the platform. “It is an overt demonstration of what advertisers fear the most — retribution for an action that Elon doesn’t agree with," he added. On Thursday night, Twitter's Spaces conference chat went down shortly after Musk abruptly signed out of a session hosted by a journalist during which he had been questioned about the reporters' ousting. Musk later tweeted that Spaces had been taken offline to deal with a “Legacy bug.” Late Friday, Spaces returned. Advertisers are also monitoring the potential loss of Twitter users. Twitter is projected to lose 32 million users over the next two years, according to a forecast by Insider Intelligence, which cited technical issues and the return of accounts banned for offensive posts. Meanwhile, some Twitter alternatives are gaining momentum. Mastodon on Friday had more than 6 million users, nearly double the 3.4 million it had on the day Musk took ownership of Twitter. On many of the thousands of confederated networks in the open-source Mastodon platform, administrators and users solicited donations as disaffected Twitter users strained computing resources. Many of the networks, known as “instances,” are crowd-funded. The platform is designed to be ad-free.

Two students were killed and two other teens were wounded in a shooting Friday afternoon near a high school on Chicago's West Side, authorities said. Chicago fire officials said the four 16-year-olds were shot near Benito Juarez High School. Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown, speaking at a news conference, confirmed the deaths of two of the victims. Police spokesman Tom Ahern said the four were shot outside the school. Police and paramedics responded to the shooting shortly before 3 p.m. Friday. A Chicago Fire Department spokesperson said all four were taken to the same hospital. One boy was pronounced dead on arrival, another boy was in critical condition, and two other teens, a boy and a girl, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Ahern initially said. Also read: Vigil planned after 2 killed, 4 wounded in campus shooting Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez also appeared at the news conference, saying, “We want to first make sure we have the victims in our prayers." The school system, also known as CPS, released a statement saying in part that “the safety of our school community is our top priority." It added the system's safety and security office was working with school officials and school leaders to gather information on what happened.

A thunderous crush of soil and debris killed 21 people at a campground in Malaysia on Friday, and rescuers dug through the mud in the night for another 12 who were feared buried in the landslide. More than 90 people were sleeping on an organic farm when the dirt tumbled from a road about 30 meters (100 feet) above the site and covered about 1 hectare (3 acres). Two of the dead were found locked in an embrace, according to the state fire department chief. Authorities told local media that the landowners did not have a license to run a campground. At least seven people were hospitalized and dozens more were rescued unharmed, said district police chief Suffian Abdullah. Leong Jim Meng told the New Straits Times English-language daily that he and his family were awakened by a loud bang and felt the earth move at the campsite in Batang Kali, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital of Kuala Lumpur. “My family and I were trapped as soil covered our tent. We managed to escape to a carpark area and heard a second landslide happening,” the 57-year-old was quoted as saying. He said it was surprising because there was no heavy rain in recent days, only light drizzles. Also read: Landslide kills four of a family in Cox's Bazar's Ramu It is currently the season for monsoon rains in Malaysia, and the country's government development minister, Nga Kor Ming, said all campsites nationwide that are near rivers, waterfalls and hillsides would be closed for a week to assess their safety. The Selangor state fire department posted photos of rescuers digging through soil and rubble with an excavator and shovels. Officials said the rubble is believed to be 8 meters (26 feet) deep. More than 400 rescuers as well as tracking dogs are set to work through the night to find the dozen people still missing. Selangor state fire chief Norazam Khamis was cited by the Free Malaysia Today news portal as saying that two of the bodies found were “hugging each other” and believed to be mother and daughter. The fire department said five children were among those who perished. An estimated 450,000 cubic meters (nearly 16 million cubic feet) of debris — enough to fill 180 Olympic-sized swimming pools — hit the campsite, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the natural resources, environment and climate change minister, told local media. Suffian, the district police chief, said the victims entered the area, a popular recreational site for locals to pitch or rent tents from the farm, on Wednesday. The campsite is not far from the Genting Highlands hill resort, a popular tourist destination with theme parks and Malaysia’s only casino. After visiting the site late Friday, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced a special payment to the families of those killed as well as survivors. Nga told local media that the campsite has been operating illegally for the past two years. The operator has government approval to run an organic farm but has no license for camping activities, he said. If found guilty, Nga warned, the camp operator could face up to three years in prison and a fine.

Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of journalists who cover the social media platform and its new owner Elon Musk, among them reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications. The company hasn’t explained to the journalists why it took down the accounts and made their profiles and past tweets disappear. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts that he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim. The sudden suspension of news reporters followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data. That also led Twitter to change its rules for all users to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent. Several of the reporters suspended Thursday night had been writing about that new policy and Musk’s rationale for imposing it, which involved his allegations about a stalking incident he said affected his family on Tuesday night in Los Angeles. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” Musk tweeted Thursday. He later added: “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.” “Doxxing” refers to disclosing online someone’s identity, address, or other personal details. The Washington Post’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, called for technology reporter Drew Harwell’s Twitter account to be reinstated immediately. The suspension “directly undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech,” Buzbee wrote. “Harwell was banished without warning, process or explanation, following the publication of his accurate reporting about Musk.” CNN said in a statement that “the impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising.” Read more: Musk's Twitter tweaks foreshadow EU showdown over new rules “Twitter’s increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter,” CNN’s statement added. “We have asked Twitter for an explanation, and we will reevaluate our relationship based on that response.” Another suspended journalist, Matt Binder of the technology news outlet Mashable, said he was banned Thursday night immediately after sharing a screenshot that O’Sullivan had posted before the CNN reporter’s suspension. The screenshot showed a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department sent earlier Thursday to multiple media outlets, including The Associated Press, about how it was in touch with Musk’s representatives about the alleged stalking incident, but that no crime report had yet been filed. “I did not share any location data, as per Twitter’s new terms. Nor did I share any links to ElonJet or other location tracking accounts,” Binder said in an email. “I have been highly critical of Musk but never broke any of Twitter’s listed policies.” Binder said a message he received while trying to access his Twitter account showed that his suspension was permanent. But Musk later suggested the penalty would last a week in response to a question about his suspension of former ESPN and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. Late Thursday, Musk briefly joined a Twitter Spaces conference chat hosted by journalist Kate Notopoulos of Buzzfeed. He reiterated his claims that the journalists Twitter banned were “doxxing” him when they were reporting on the jet tracking accounts being banned. “There is not special treatment for journalists,” Musk said, after being asked by the Post’s Drew Harwell if he had a connection between the stalking incident and posting of real-time information. “You dox, you get suspended, end of story,” he added, before abruptly signing out. Read more: Musk's Twitter disbands its Trust and Safety advisory group Another suspended reporter, Steve Herman of Voice of America, said he assumes he was banned “because I was tweeting about other journalists being suspended for tweeting about accounts being booted that had linked to the Elon Jet feed.” The suspensions come as Musk makes major changes to content moderation on Twitter. He has tried, through the release of selected company documents dubbed as “The Twitter Files,” to claim the platform suppressed right-wing voices under its previous leaders. He has promised to let free speech reign and has reinstated high-profile accounts that previously broke Twitter’s rules against hateful conduct or harmful misinformation, but also has said he would suppress negativity and hate by depriving some accounts of “freedom of reach.” The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, which defends journalists around the world, said Thursday night it was concerned about the suspensions. “If confirmed as retaliation for their work, this would be a serious violation of journalists’ right to report the news without fear of reprisal,” the group said.

Self-proclaimed free speech warrior Elon Musk’s more unfettered version of Twitter could collide with new rules in Europe, where officials warn that the social media company will have to comply with some of the world’s toughest laws targeting toxic content. While the new digital rulebook means the European Union is likely to be a global leader in cracking down on Musk’s reimagined platform, the 27-nation bloc will face its own challenges forcing Twitter and other online companies to comply. The law doesn’t fully take effect until 2024, and EU officials are scrambling to recruit enough workers to hold Big Tech to account. Known as the Digital Services Act, the EU's sweeping set of rules aims to make platforms and search engines more accountable for illegal and harmful content including hate speech, scams and disinformation. They'll kick in next summer for the biggest digital companies like Google, Facebook and TikTok and then expand to all online services the following year. Those standards are poised to run up against Musk's whipsawing policies at Twitter: He abruptly axed a group of advisers this week who address problems like hate speech, child exploitation and self-harm, halved Twitter's workforce and issued conflicting decisions about content moderation. “A lot can change in six months, but it sure seems like Twitter is lining up to be Europe’s first major test case when it comes to enforcing the DSA,” said John Albert of Berlin-based AlgorithmWatch, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. Musk has called for “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach,” saying he wants to downgrade negative and hateful posts. The billionaire Tesla CEO considers the bloc's rules “a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis,” EU digital policy chief Thierry Breton recounted after a video call with Musk this month. Other jurisdictions are far behind Europe. In the U.S., Silicon Valley lobbyists have largely succeeded in keeping federal lawmakers at bay, and Congress has been politically divided on efforts to address competition, online privacy, disinformation and more. Britain is working on its own Online Safety Bill, but it was recently watered down and not clear when it will be approved. Musk’s style of making ad hoc changes won't fly under the new European rulebook, experts said. Read more: Musk's Twitter disbands its Trust and Safety advisory group Twitter’s disastrous rollout of paid “verified" blue checks likely would have triggered an EU investigation and possibly big fines because such major design changes wouldn't be allowed without a risk assessment, Albert said. The premium service was abandoned last month after a flood of imposter accounts spread disinformation. It relaunched this week. The abrupt disbanding of Twitter's Trust and Safety Council also would “raise some eyebrows in Brussels,” Albert said. Expert advisers aren’t required under the EU rules, but “good-faith voluntary efforts" show “European regulators that you care about transparency and are invested in trust and safety,” he said. Musk's tinkering — including dropping enforcement of COVID-19 misinformation rules and granting amnesty to suspended accounts — has already alarmed European officials. Musk’s approach is “a big issue” that calls for “more regulation,” French President Emmanuel Macron told “Good Morning America." In Europe, “you can demonstrate you can have free speech, you can write what you want. But there is responsibilities and limits,” he said. Macron, who met with Musk in the U.S. this month, tweeted that “efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations.” The bloc will require online companies to follow clear rules on dealing with illegal content and explain to users why the material was taken down or given a warning label. They will have to be transparent about the workings of their content moderation systems and recommendation algorithms, which suggest the next song, news story or product to users. They must let EU regulators review their efforts. Breton, the EU’s digital policy chief, said he reminded Musk about the penalties for violations, including fines worth 6% of global annual revenue that could reach billions. Repeat violations could result in an EU-wide ban. Musk and Twitter didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. Musk is already “backtracking on the absolutism” of free speech by suspending the rapper formerly known as Kanye West for a swastika post, said Marietje Schaake, a former European Parliament lawmaker who’s now international cyber policy director at Stanford University. “The problem is that there is a lot of hateful content below this threshold, which will make Twitter under Musk less safe and pleasant for women, minorities and people whose opinions are met with aggression,” Schaake said. To tackle such “lawful but awful” content that frequently bedevils content moderators, the EU will require extra scrutiny for the biggest online platforms — those with 45 million monthly users. There’s speculation Twitter might not qualify. It reported 238 million users before it was bought by Musk, who complained that the number of fake accounts was vastly understated. Companies have to report their user numbers to the EU by mid-February. Big platforms will have to assess how they’re dealing with “systemic risks,” such as harassment, election-related disinformation, hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics. By the summer, the first changes stemming from the rules should start appearing via digital “buttons” on websites and apps so users can easily flag illegal content. The wide-ranging rulebook also poses a challenge for regulators who need to hire enough enforcers. EU officials have estimated they will add more than 100 full-time staff by 2024 to enforce the DSA and other new rules on digital competition. Each of the 27 EU countries also will have to hire more people to police smaller platforms and coordinate with Brussels. On top of that, tech companies need to recruit more compliance staff. All three groups will be hiring for very specific and similar skill sets: experts who know how platforms and their algorithms work, have insight into sites' content moderation practices and have experience enforcing regulations. Read more: ‘Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!’: Musk tweets The problem is they “might end up competing for the same talents,” said Rita Jonusaite, advocacy coordinator at EU DisinfoLab, a nonprofit group that researches disinformation. There are concerns some European countries won’t have the means and expertise to enforce the rules, especially if they’re building skills in areas like disinformation from scratch. “Regulators need to train themselves and acquire capacity very quickly,” Jonusaite said. The EU’s executive Commission has launched a recruitment spree for dozens of expert jobs, including legal officers, data scientists, technology specialists, and digital policy officers to help supervise the systems that online platforms use to combat illegal content such as terrorist or child sexual abuse material and to fight harmful posts like disinformation. Meanwhile, Musk axed thousands of employees and many others resigned, including those in content moderation roles. It's unclear whether he plans to add staff to comply with Europe's rules. “As Musk is scrambling to both save money, comply with the law, and keep advertisers on board, the main question is whether he will dedicate the needed resources to monitor content at all,” said Schaake of Stanford. “It is one thing to make a conscious decision to leave racist content up, it is another to have it be up unnoticed" because teams monitoring content “are simply not there,” she said.