Putin says services like Microsoft, Zoom should be 'throttled' in Russia
MOSCOW :Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that foreign service providers like Microsoft and Zoom that act against Russian interests should be "throttled".
Putin said it was important for Russia to develop domestic software solutions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
a day ago
- CNA
Ukraine keeps Russia guessing over talks, US senator warns Moscow of sanctions
KYIV/MOSCOW: Ukraine resisted US and Russian pressure to commit to attending another round of peace talks on Monday (Jun 2), saying it first needed to see Russian proposals, while a leading US senator warned Moscow it would be "hit hard" by new US sanctions. US President Donald Trump has urged Moscow and Kyiv to work together on a deal to end their three-year-old war, and Russia has proposed a second round of face-to-face talks with Ukrainian officials next week in Istanbul. Kyiv has said it is committed to the search for peace, but that it was waiting for a memorandum from the Russian side setting out their proposals. "For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X on Friday after hosting Türkiye's foreign minister for talks in Kyiv. "Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results," he said, citing the lack of a document from Russia. Delegations from the two countries met in Istanbul on May 16 but the session yielded little other than an agreement for a prisoner exchange. Zelenskyy said he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday discussed in a phone call the conditions under which Ukraine would participate in the Monday meeting proposed by Russia. "There must be a ceasefire to move further toward peace. The killing of people must stop," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. "We share the view that this meeting cannot and should not be empty," Zelenskyy said. He did not commit Ukraine to attending on Monday, although he said he and Erdogan did discuss the possibility of organising a four-way meeting with the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye and the United States. Erdogan said it was important that Russia and Ukraine send strong delegations to Istanbul and added that a leaders' meeting could contribute to the peace process, the Turkish presidency said. Some Republicans in the US Congress and White House advisers have urged Trump to finally embrace new sanctions on Russia to put pressure on Moscow. Influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on a visit to Kyiv the Republican-led US Senate is expected to move ahead with a bill on sanctions against Russia next week. Graham, who met Zelenskyy in Kyiv, told a news briefing he had talked with Trump before his trip and the US president expects concrete actions now from Moscow. Graham accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to drag out the peace process and said he doubts the Istanbul meeting will amount to more than a "Russian charade." "The game that Putin has been playing is about to change. He is going to be hit, and hit hard by the United States, when it comes to sanctions," Graham said. Trump told reporters on Friday that both Putin and Zelenskyy were stubborn and that he had been surprised and disappointed by Russian bombing in Ukraine while he was trying to arrange a ceasefire. Trump made no mention of sanctions. The war, the biggest in Europe since World War Two, began with a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Expectations for the talks are modest because the positions staked out so far by the two sides are far apart and work between them has yet to begin in earnest on narrowing the gap. Nevertheless, both Kyiv and Moscow are keen to demonstrate to Trump they support his peace efforts. Kyiv wants more US military aid, while Moscow hopes Trump will ease existing economic sanctions on Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian delegation would be travelling to Istanbul and ready for talks with Ukraine on Monday morning. "Everyone is focused on the direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations. A list of conditions for a temporary truce is being developed," Peskov said. Moscow has said its delegation for Istanbul would be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a Kremlin aide who led the previous round on May 16. NO MORE NATO ENLARGEMENT? Reuters reported this week that Putin's conditions for ending the war include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards. Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said on Friday that Russia's concern over the eastward enlargement of NATO was fair and Washington did not want to see Ukraine in the US-led military alliance. Commenting on Kellogg's statement, Peskov said: "We are pleased that these explanations by the president are understood, including in Washington." Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters in Kyiv that the next step after talks in Istanbul would be to try to host a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv needed to see the Russian proposals in advance for the talks to be "substantive and meaningful," without spelling out what Kyiv would do if it did not receive the Russian document or a deadline for receiving it. "We want to end this war this year, and we are interested in establishing a truce, whether it is for 30 days, or for 50 days, or for 100 days," he said.
Straits Times
a day ago
- Straits Times
Google makes case for keeping Chrome browser
A judge is determining the future of Google's Chrome search engine after the tech titan was deemed in 2024 to be maintaining an illegal monopoly in online search. PHOTO: REUTERS WASHINGTON - Google on May 30 urged a US judge to reject the notion of making it spin off its Chrome browser to weaken its dominance in online search. Rival attorneys made their final arguments before US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering 'remedies' to impose after making a landmark decision in 2024 that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in search. US government attorneys have called on Judge Mehta to order Google divest itself of the Chrome browser, contending that artificial intelligence is poised to ramp up the tech giant's dominance as the go-to window into the internet. They also want Google barred from agreements with partners such as Apple and Samsung to distribute its search tools, which was the focus of the suit against the Silicon Valley internet giant. Three weeks of testimony ended early in May, with May 30 devoted to rival sides arguing points of law and making their arguments before Judge Mehta at a courtroom in Washington. Mr John Schmidtlein, an attorney for Google, told Judge Mehta that there was no evidence presented showing people would have opted for a different search engine if no exclusivity deals had been in place. Mr Schmidtlein noted that Verizon installed Chrome on smartphones even though the US telecom titan owned the Yahoo! search engine and was not bound by a contract with Google. Of the 100 or so witnesses heard at trial, not one said 'if I had more flexibility, I would have installed Bing', an internet search browser from Microsoft, the Google attorney told the judge. Department of Justice attorney David Dahlquist countered that Apple, which was paid billions of dollars to make Chrome the default browser on iPhones, 'repeatedly asked for more flexibility' but was denied by Google. Google contends that the US has gone way beyond the scope of the suit by recommending a spinoff of Chrome, and holding open the option to force a sale of its Android mobile operating system. The potential of Chrome being hobbled or spun off comes as rivals such as Microsoft, ChatGPT and Perplexity put generative artificial intelligence to work fetching information from the internet in response to user queries. The online search antitrust suit was filed against Google some five years ago, before ChatGPT made its debut, triggering AI fervour. Google is among the tech companies investing heavily to be among the leader in AI, and is weaving the technology into search and other online offerings. AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
CNA
2 days ago
- CNA
Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows
One of Microsoft Corp's subsidiaries in Russia plans to file for bankruptcy, according to a note published on the official Fedresurs registry on Friday. Microsoft did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. President Vladimir Putin said this week that foreign service providers like Microsoft and Zoom should be "throttled" in Russia to make way for domestic software solutions. Microsoft continued providing key services in Russia after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but in June 2022 it said it was significantly scaling down its operations due to changes to the economic outlook and the impact on its business there. The U.S. tech giant had already removed Russian state-owned media outlet RT's mobile apps from the Windows App store and banned advertisements on Russian state-sponsored media in the days after the invasion. The note posted on Fedresurs on Friday said that Microsoft Rus LLC was intending to declare bankruptcy. The TASS news agency reported that Microsoft has three other Russian units - Microsoft Development Centre Rus, Microsoft Mobile Rus and Microsoft Payments Rus. It was not immediately clear how those units might be affected. Alphabet-owned Google's Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 2022, saying that the seizure of its bank account by Russian authorities had made it untenable for its Russian office to function, including paying Russia-based employees, suppliers and vendors.
