 Hello and welcome to a daily debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch. I am Shriya and today we talk about the Ukraine war as reports emerge of a missile landing in Poland. Meanwhile, Israel is angry that the FBI has opened an investigation into the Shireen Abu Akhlei killing. And finally we take a look at why the internet giant Google has agreed to pay a $390 million settlement on privacy issues. In the early hours of November 16, a missile hit a Polish village about 6 km from the Ukrainian border and killed two people. Initial findings reported by the Associated Press suggest the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile. We joined by Abdul from People's Dispatch on this issue. Welcome to the show, Abdul. So a lot of confusion on what has happened and who is responsible for it. Can you tell us what information do we have so far? Well, as per the latest reports, there are no confusion now. The various reports including the US President Joe Biden and the Turkish President Erdogan, they have stated categorically that the missile which landed in Poland was basically Ukrainian missile. It was a part of the S-300 anti-missile defense system which basically was fired on the Russian missiles but it basically landed in Poland. That part is quite clear now. The confusion was created primarily because the Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed that the missile which landed in Poland was basically fired by Russians and it is part of the Russian attacks aggression on different parts of Ukraine which is already ongoing. Despite the fact that Russians issued an earlier statement claiming that the missile has nothing to do with the Russians, the overall propaganda machinery which is working in the war in particular, we have seen it, the use of social media in particular has basically contributed to the overall confusion claiming that this is an attack on a NATO member, Poland being the NATO member and hence there is a possibility of the escalation of the war in which the NATO will directly be involved. But thankfully the statements made by Russians have been verified and as per now there is no threat for further escalation. Also Abdul, Poland is a NATO member and there has been a lot of alarm regarding that. So how do we see the West responding to this event? As I said before, thankfully the US, Turkey, these are the NATO members of course. They have by a large agreed that the missile which landed in Poland was not launched by Russia and it was basically an accident. The Ukrainian missile landed in Poland. Though the basic question is what is the intention behind Zelensky and the pro-Ukrainian media in particular claiming and trying to emphasize the fact that this is a Russian aggression against a NATO member. If we see in the absence of the wider negotiations or talks which is required to basically end the war and create a kind of peaceful situation in the reason, there has been a deliberate attempt made by various leaders including the Ukrainian president in the past of dragging the NATO directly into the war. NATO is already there in the war providing armaments to Ukrainians. Indirectly it is a proxy war between the NATO and the Russians but Zelensky in particular and some other leaders have tried to make it a direct war between NATO and Russia. If you remember Zelensky had talked about no-fly zones over Ukraine in the initial days of the war then also the US refused claiming that this may lead to direct confrontation with Russian forces and there had been claims made on various occasions about Russia's involvement in human rights violations, large-scale human rights violations in different parts of the territory. Then there has been claims of involvement of foreign mercenaries in the war from the Russian side. So this is all part of a constant attempt by the Ukrainian establishment to establish that the war is acquiring a global nature and hence there is a need of direct intervention from NATO. It is dangerous, it can lead to unforeseen events and thankfully the leaders involved in the entire process have not fell for those provocations. If we summarize all of this, this event in particular shows the possibilities of an accident misused and kind of leading to an escalation which no one wants and hence this is a high time that all the parties should sit together and negotiate. Thank you so much Abdul, we will come back to you for our next story. In our next story FBI has opened investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shreen Abu Akhle. The US Justice Department informed its Israeli counterparts on Monday. 51-year-old Akhle was fatally shot by Israeli forces while covering a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May. Israel has responded angrily calling it an interference in its internal affairs. Abdul is back for latest updates. So Abdul, yes, why is the investigation happening now? Is there a reason for this choice of timing? We do not know frankly speaking. There can be many speculations. Primarily, if we see the reason behind this delayed attempt to start a reinvestigation should be attributed to the midterm elections which were due in US and the elections in Israel. So now that both of them are over, the Biden administration felt that now it is time to respond to the repeated appeals and demands made by not only Shreen Abu Akhle's family members because she was a US citizen, also by various human rights organizations who have claimed that what Israel has done in this case is yet another example of the historical impunity which Israel enjoys in the occupied Palestinian territories and it violates the human rights, it kills the Palestinians, it kills journalists and international human rights activists in the past and nothing has happened against it. So it is right time that given the fact that Shreen was a US citizen, you should basically investigate and take an action. Given the, we need to emphasize the fact that US and Israel because of their ties, it is always difficult for any US administration to basically take a stand and start such kind of, such kind of move against Israelis and therefore it was delayed, we can guess and now that the elections are over, a new administration is yet to take over, there is a gap in between, the US administration can kind of think of kind of starting an investigation now. But although there have been similar probes that have taken place in the past, what have those been like and what do you think this new probe can bring out possibly? Frankly speaking, there is hardly any hope. At Max, the investigations earlier have already established in a very conclusive manner that Shreena Bouakle was killed by an Israeli soldier and all the claims made by Israel that Shreena was killed in an accident during a crossfire between Palestinians with Palestinian armed groups and so on and so forth have been refuted, not only by Palestinian investigations but also by investigations conducted by international independent media groups and human rights organizations based in different parts of the world. So there is no doubt when it comes to who is responsible for killing it. So US investigation, what will it achieve? We don't know. We have evidence that and it is already in public domain that US had basically endorsed the earlier Israeli version of it being an accident. When in July, it basically issued a statement saying that Shreena's assassination was, Shreena's death was basically a result of an accident. This is exactly what Israeli quote-unquote investigation in September said. So there is an identical statement issued by Israel and US in the past and in that context, this investigation, whether it will refute the earlier instances taken by the US or it will go beyond it and as Shreena Abu Akhles family is claiming that the investigation should be independent, credible and so on and so forth, whether it will be that, we have to see. But given the record, historical record, given what we know about Israel and US relations, it is highly unlikely that there will be any action taken against the Israelis at this moment. Thank you so much Abdul for that update. Google has agreed to pay more than $390 million to settle with 40 states in the United States over charges of misleading the company's users about the collection of personal location data. The investigation was sparked by a 2018 report from the Associated Press that revealed Google was continuing to track users' location undermining the privacy controls. Anish from People's Dispatch joins us with more details. Hi Anish, so can you tell us what was in the AP report initially and what is the controversy now? Well, in 2018 when Associated Press released the report based on a couple of Princeton University researchers' way of collecting or their study of how Google collects data and which includes your location, geographic location and apart from that a whole host of other things that Google does collect on a very regular basis and they found that even when, so this is a very simple thing to say, like when we talk into say Google Maps and they ask for our location or our live location and it's not just Google Maps but also a whole host of other apps that we use including Chrome and other search applications that Google operates. There is always this question of allowing Google access to your location and even when we press Snow the 2018 report found that Google still continues to track your location, not only track it but also completely store that data which you may not be aware of. Now the thing is that we can still access the data, eventually found out about it in your accounts and you can delete those data as well but the problem is that your data is still being stored without your consent. Now this is a very fundamental question about privacy that is firstly unregulated in most cases not just in the United States. The United States still has laws that deal with privacy and digital privacy. There are many countries around the world that do not have any sort of laws or protections for citizens especially when you're talking about the fact that Google is a foreign company for most of us and they're collecting our data is always a dangerous thing. But secondly the issue is that there is very little infrastructure to monitor how such data collection happens. So definitely finding that out, Google argues right now that its data collection policies have changed obviously and that the probe that happened against it by the court has also changed and is based on outdated policy measures which we still do not have ways to verify whether or not that is true in most places. Your privacy protection can also change with the kind of device that we use and the kind of device that allow so our devices may just allow Google access to our it's not just location history it's also a whole host of other things our search history even the incognito tab that many people use for various reasons will still collect a large set of data that we may not want not just Google but other people to have access to it's not the first time that Google is being pulled up for collecting data without people's consent. Yeah and like you just said so this is not the first time that Google has faced a lawsuit it has recently and many have come up in recent past. So is there a pushback of sorts that we are seeing? There is definitely a pushback in the sense that because many governments are being quite aware and also not just aware but very of Google's pervasiveness in most of our lives it is obviously the most widely used search engine it also likewise is the biggest repository of personal information of people billions of people around the world and so its capabilities are still something that most governments do not have either the infrastructure or the legal judicial mechanisms to regulate and monitor and so obviously we do have issues coming up all the time but lawsuits like these and not just the one that we're talking about where they find there is another lawsuit in the United States where they are settling for something like 85 million dollars in Arizona there are four other states including Washington DC where Google is facing similar kind of lawsuits for of collecting personal data and location history previously we saw the Australian Commission Australian regulatory commission finding Google millions of dollars for doing pretty much the same thing which is of collecting location histories without people's consent so obviously Google now has statements about changing its policy so that your data or the data that it collects to put it more precisely is more accessible to user and accessibility comes the option of deleting them in the future but the collection will still continue we do not know how much of that is still consensual on our part because there is as I said there is very little infrastructure to actually monitor these aspects unless the studies like what Associated Press did or published in 2018 are conducted on a very routine basis by a whole host of researchers who understand the system itself so this is definitely but that also shows that there is wider concerns about privacy in the current digital age where multi-million multi-billion but in some in some cases trillion dollar companies control pretty much everything that we have access to on the internet and it definitely requires a pushback that it is seeing right now thank you so much Anish for joining us today and that's all for today for more such stories and updates from around the world please keep following www.people'sdispatch.org and also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter