Armoured & Luxury
Chauffeur Driven Cars

Samsung is warning customers about discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Such TV sets “listen” to some of what is said in front of them and may share details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.

The policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands or queries are issued via the remote. It goes on to say: “If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

Read More

Chinese authorities have executed powerful Sichuan-based mining tycoon Liu Han, state media say.

The former chairman of Hanlong Group was sentenced to death in May for “leading mafia-style crime and murder”.

Liu’s younger brother, Liu Wei and three other associates were also executed, Xinhua said, after China’s top court signed off on the move.

Liu is believed to have had links to former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is currently being investigated.

The Hanlong Group is a major private conglomerate based in Sichuan province, involved in multiple industries including mining, telecommunications and chemicals.

As head of the company, Liu Han was both rich and very influential.

Read More

Ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang, the most senior Chinese official to be investigated for corruption, has been arrested and expelled from the Communist Party, state media report.

The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, China’s top prosecuting body, said it had opened a formal probe against him.

Before he retired two years ago, Mr Zhou was the head of China’s vast internal security apparatus.

Many of his former associates and relatives also face corruption probes.

Since coming to power, Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a high-profile campaign to weed out corruption among party and government officials.

Mr Zhou was accused of several crimes, including “serious violations of party discipline”, “accepting large sums of bribes”, “disclosing party and state secrets” and “committing adultery with several women” as part of corrupt transactions, Xinhua news agency reported (in Chinese).

Mr Zhou’s arrest was announced in a statement by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, released late on Friday night.

Read More

A drone strike in Afghanistan has killed a militant commander who recently swore allegiance to Islamic State (IS), officials say.

The police chief of Helmand said that former Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Rauf had died in the Nato strike.

It emerged last month that Rauf had sworn allegiance to IS after falling out with the Taliban.

Tribal elders in northern Helmand say a car carrying up to six people was destroyed while crossing the desert.

The car was loaded with ammunition and exploded, reports said.

Analysts are divided over whether those flying black flags in Afghanistan are opportunists or are directed by the IS leadership in Syria and Iraq.

The commander killed in Helmand, Mullah Abdul Rauf, was appointed deputy commander in the region some weeks after he first declared his allegiance when he split from the Taliban.

The air strike that killed him was one of the first reported under Nato’s new mandate.

Read More

Ukraine’s crisis has been caused by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin says, as he considers Franco-German proposals to end fighting between the government and pro-Russia rebels.

Western countries had broken pledges not to expand Nato and forced countries to choose between them and Russia, Mr Putin told an Egyptian newspaper.

The comments come amid new hopes of a peace deal this Wednesday.

Russia denies accusations of sending troops and supplying the rebels.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 5,300 lives and driven 1.5 million people from their homes.

At least nine Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the past 24 hours, officials say.

Fighting is said to be intense around the town of Debaltseve, near the rebel-held city of Donetsk.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande flew to Moscow on Friday to discuss proposals to end the fighting.

The detailed proposals have not been released but the plan is thought to include a demilitarised zone of 50-70km (31-44 miles) around the current front line.

Read More