PARIS: Russian-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov has founded wildly popular social networks as well as a cryptocurrency, amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune and locked horns with authorities not just in Russia but around the world.
Still a few months shy of his 40th birthday, the man once dubbed the “Russian Zuckerberg” after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg now finds himself under arrest in France after being sensationally detained at a Paris airport this weekend.
While still in his 20s, the Saint Petersburg native shot to fame in Russia after founding the VKontakte (VK) social network which catered to the needs of Russian-language users and outgunned Facebook throughout the former USSR.
After disputes with the Russian authorities and ownership battles, he sold out of VKontakte and founded a new messaging service called Telegram which rapidly gained traction but has also proved controversial with critics condemning an alleged lack of control on extreme content.
As these dramas raged, Durov remained a mercurial and at times mysterious figure, rarely giving interviews and restricting himself to sometimes enigmatic declarations made on Telegram.
A self-avowed libertarian, Durov has championed confidentiality on the Internet and encryption in messaging.
He has defiantly refused to allow the moderation of messages on Telegram, which allows users to post video, pictures and comments on “channels” that can be followed by anyone.
Durov, 39, was targeted in France by a warrant over offenses alleged to have been conducted on Telegram, ranging from fraud to drug trafficking, cyberbullying and organized crime, including promoting terrorism and fraud.
Investigations have been entrusted to the cyber unit of the French gendarmerie and the national anti-fraud office. He was still in police custody on Sunday, according to two sources close to the case.
In 2006, having just graduated from the University of Saint Petersburg, Durov launched VKontakte (VK), attracting users even while its founder remained a shadowy figure.
In a stunt typical of his unpredictable behavior, Durov in 2012 showered high-denomination notes on pedestrians from VK’s headquarters on top of a historic bookstore on Saint Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt.
But after running into trouble with the Kremlin for refusing to hand over the personal data of users to the Russian security services (FSB), he sold out of the company and left Russia in 2014.
Durov resigned from VK with a typical flourish, posting a picture of dolphins and the slogan “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,” a title in the famous “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” science fiction series.
He developed the Telegram messaging service with his brother Nikolai while traveling from country to country and launched the service in 2013.
He settled in Dubai and obtained citizenship of the Caribbean island archipelago of Saint Kitts and Nevis, then, in August 2021, won French nationality following a low-profile procedure about which Paris remains highly discreet.
Meanwhile, Telegram enjoyed stratospheric success, presenting itself as a champion of individual freedoms, refusing “censorship” and protecting the confidentiality of its users.
This rankled with authorities, especially in his home country and in 2018, a Moscow court ordered the blocking of the application. But the imposition of the measure was shambolic and three days later, protesters ironically bombarded the FSB headquarters with paper planes, the symbol of Telegram.
Since then, Russia has abandoned its efforts to block Telegram and the messaging service is used by both the Russian government and the opposition, with some channels boasting several hundred thousand subscribers.
Telegram also plays a key role in Russia’s war against Ukraine, documented by bloggers from both sides who post their analyzes and videos of the fighting.
Pro-Moscow channels run by so-called “Z-bloggers” who back the war have proved hugely influential and are sometimes critical of Russian military strategy.
Durov eschews traditional media interviews but in April sat down with ultra-conservative US journalist Tucker Carlson for an extensive discussion.
People “love the independence. They also love the privacy, the freedom, (there are) a lot of reasons why somebody would switch to Telegram,” Durov told Carlson.
He is also not shy of posting messages on his own Telegram channel, claiming to lead a solitary life, abstaining from meat, alcohol and even coffee. Always dressed in black, he cultivates a resemblance to the actor Keanu Reeves in the film “Matrix.”
In July, he boasted of being the biological father of more than 100 children thanks to his sperm donations in a dozen countries, describing this as a “civic duty” in an attitude to parenting that echoes that of a fellow tech mogul, the X and Tesla chief Elon Musk.
According to Forbes magazine’s latest estimate, Durov’s fortune is $15.5 billion. But toncoin, the cryptocurrency he created, has plummeted by more than 15 percent since the announcement of his arrest.
Telegram has long been in the sights of European judicial authorities over allegations it spreads conspiracy theories, shared calls for murder and hosts drug sales platforms. Durov, however, insists that he responds to every request to remove content calling for violence or murder.
Durov: Mysterious and controversial Telegram founder
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Durov: Mysterious and controversial Telegram founder
- Self-avowed libertarian, 39-year-old Telegram CEO has championed confidentiality on the Internet and encryption in messaging
- Durov faces charges ranging from use of Telegram for fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying and organized crime
President Donald Trump appeals his New York hush money conviction
- Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction
- Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings
NEW YORK: President Donald Trump has appealed his hush money conviction, seeking to erase the verdict that made him the first person with a criminal record to win the office.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case, involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign, was the only one of his criminal cases to go to trial.
A notice of appeal starts the appeals process in New York. Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond in court papers. A message seeking comment was left with the office Wednesday.
Trump hired a new legal team from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP to handle the appeal, spearheaded by the firm’s co-chair Robert J. Giuffra Jr.
Giuffra and four other lawyers from his firm stepped in after the president tabbed his two main defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, for top positions in his administration’s Justice Department.
“President Donald J. Trump’s appeal is important for the rule of law, New York’s reputation as a global business, financial and legal center, as well as for the presidency and all public officials,” Giuffra said in a statement provided by a Trump spokesperson.
Norwegian mass murderer Breivik loses prison condition case
- “The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified,” the three judges said in their ruling
- They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison
OSLO: A Norwegian court on Wednesday rejected an appeal brought by right-wing extremist and mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who claims his prison conditions are a violation of human rights.
Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011, has regularly complained about his prison conditions, despite them including three private cells, two Guinea pigs, a flat-screen television and a video game console.
Claiming that he has been “treated like an animal,” Breivik has sued the Norwegian state on several occasions in a bid to get improvements to compensate for his relative isolation.
He has argued that this isolation constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
His case was struck down by a district court in February, after which he appealed.
“The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified by the risk of violence that persists,” the three judges said in their ruling Wednesday.
They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison.
The court also dismissed Breivik’s appeal for an easing of the filtering of his mail, for which he also invoked the ECHR on the right to correspondence.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before gunning down 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour Party youth wing summer camp on the island of Utoya.
He said he had killed his victims because they embraced multiculturalism.
He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat.
More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows
- More than 37% respondents in pre-budget survey said they expect overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over next year
- Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister
NEW DELHI: More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget.
More than 37 percent of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014.
C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey. Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years.
Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life.
Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class.
Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two-thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed.
Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages.
In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programs have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on.
German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X
- “It has no repercussions,” said the spokesperson
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s sharp criticism of Elon Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the European Union does not influence how the German government uses his social media platform X, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“It has no repercussions. Our statement still holds that we are looking at and weighing up what is happening there case by case,” said the spokesperson in a press conference, adding there was no pre-defined “red line.”
Scholz on Tuesday described Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the EU as “really disgusting,” saying it was hindering democracy in the bloc.
UN refugee agency taking ‘precautionary measures’ amid US aid freeze
- The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency
- The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues“
GENEVA: The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that it was taking a string of temporary measures as it faces “funding uncertainty” following a US decision to freeze virtually all foreign aid.
“We have taken note of the decision by the new US administration to pause allocation of funds to foreign assistance programs,” a UNHCR spokesperson told AFP in an email.
“While we are still assessing the impact of the new US administration’s decision, including possible exceptions, we are implementing a series of temporary precautionary measures to mitigate the impact of this funding uncertainty.”
President Donald Trump on returning TO office last week ordered a 90-day pause to review assistance by the United States, the world’s largest foreign aid donor in dollar terms.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up by freezing virtually all funding, though he specified exemptions for emergency food, as well as military assistance to Israel and Egypt.
In a follow-up memo on Tuesday after an outcry from aid groups, Rubio clarified that other “humanitarian assistance” besides food would also be exempt during the review period.
The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency, which has long counted the United States as by far its biggest donor.
In 2024, the United States contributed $2.05 billion to the UNHCR’s total budget of over $10.6 billion.
The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues.”
The UNHCR noted that it had “worked closely with the United States for decades.”
“We are looking forward to engaging actively and constructively with the US government as a trusted partner,” the spokesperson said.
“Our focus is to maximize the impact, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency of our operations around the globe, with the aim of saving lives, protecting families fleeing war and persecution, fostering stability in unstable places, advancing self-reliance, and reducing dependency on humanitarian aid.”
UNHCR is not the only UN agency feeling the burn.
The World Health Organization said last week that it was reviewing its priorities after Trump ordered the full withdrawal of the United States, traditionally the agency’s largest donor.
WHO was “freezing recruitment, except in the most critical areas” and was dramatically cutting back on travel expenditures, the organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a letter sent to staff on Thursday.
Tedros said the UN health agency hoped the new administration would reconsider its decision, noting that it was open to dialogue on preserving the relationship.
