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Belarus Police Fire Live Rounds at Protesters, Arrest Over 1,000

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French Privacy Watchdog Opens Preliminary Investigation Into TikTok

PARIS—France’s data privacy watchdog CNIL said on Tuesday that it has opened a preliminary investigation into Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok after it received a complaint. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, is already under investigation over privacy concerns by U.S., European Union and Dutch authorities. “A complaint about TikTok was received in May. This complaint is now under investigation,” a CNIL spokesman said, confirming a Bloomberg report. He declined to elaborate on the nature of the complaint or the identity of the plaintiff. In the United States, officials have said that TikTok poses a national security risk because of the personal data it handles. President Donald Trump has threatened to ban TikTok and has given ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft. In June, the…

Belarus Police Fire Live Rounds at Protesters, Arrest Over 1,000

MINSK—Belarus said on Wednesday that police had fired live rounds at protesters in the city of Brest and arrested more than 1,000 people nationwide, intensifying a crackdown that has prompted the European Union to weigh new sanctions on Minsk.

Security forces have clashed with protesters for three consecutive nights after strongman President Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide re-election victory in a vote on Sunday that his opponents say was rigged.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets again on Wednesday. Women dressed in white formed a human chain outside a covered food market in the capital Minsk, while a crowd also gathered outside a prison where protesters were being kept.

Lukashenko has sought better ties with the West amid strained relations with traditional ally Russia. Brussels lifted sanctions, imposed over Lukashenko’s human rights record, in 2016 but will consider new measures this week.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, the 65-year-old Lukashenko has ruled Belarus for more than a quarter of a century but faces anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a sluggish economy and human rights.

“I have to come today to support those who go out at night,” said Elena, a protester speaking outside the covered market. “It’s not only my vote that was stolen from me, but 20 years of my life. The authorities must go.”

Belarus Police Fire Live Rounds at Protesters, Arrest Over 1,000 A woman fights with a police officer as the other police officers detain an opposition supporter protesting the election results as protesters encounter aggressive police tactics in the capital of Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 11, 2020. (AP Photo)
Belarus Police Fire Live Rounds at Protesters, Arrest Over 1,000 Police detain an opposition supporter protesting the election results as protesters encounter aggressive police tactics in the capital of Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 11, 2020. (AP Photo)

Clashes

The Belarusian interior ministry said 51 protesters and 14 police officers had been injured in clashes on Tuesday night.

In Brest, a city in southwestern Belarus on the Polish border, police fired live rounds after some protesters it said were armed with metal bars ignored warning shots fired in the air, the ministry said. One person was injured.

Lukashenko has accused the protesters of being in cahoots with foreign backers from Russia and elsewhere.

Belarusian state media this week broadcast footage of a van in Minsk with Russian number plates saying it was packed with ammunition and tents.

Tracked down by Reuters, Valdemar Grubov, the van’s owner, said he was a film producer and that the vehicle contained only his own personal effects.

He said he had been unable to retrieve the van due to COVID-19 restrictions and was not involved in any foreign plot.

Lukashenko’s rival in Sunday’s vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher, has fled to neighboring Lithuania to join her children there. She urged her compatriots not to oppose the police and to avoid putting their lives in danger.

By Andrei Makhovsky

Focus News: Belarus Police Fire Live Rounds at Protesters, Arrest Over 1,000

Kodak Shares Drop After Loan Paused Amid Insider Trading Allegations

The agency had signed a letter of interest with Eastman Kodak on July 28 to provide the company with a $765 million loan. President Donald Trump announced the deal on the same day. The federal loan was intended to launch Kodak Pharmaceuticals to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients for generic drugs, to help reduce the United States’s reliance on other countries. The deal marked Trump’s 33rd use of the Defense Production Act. Kodak shares skyrocketed more than 1,100 percent just two days after the deal’s July 28 announcement. It reached a high of $60 a share on July 29. Kodak shares closed at $14.88 on Friday, and at $10.73 by Monday. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter on Aug. 3 asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent U.S. government agency that regulates…