The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was given a rougher ride on his second day of congressional testimony on Wednesday as he faced sharp questions about the tech giant’s ability to track its users’ movements, shopping habits and browsing histories and was at one stage compared to J Edgar Hoover.

During five hours of testimony, the billionaire entrepreneur revealed that his own personal information was among that handed over to the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The Democratic congresswoman Anna Eshoo, reading questions from her constituents at a hearing of the House energy and commerce committee, asked Zuckerberg whether his data was “included in the data sold to the malicious third parties”. After a brief hesitation, the Facebook CEO replied: “Yes.”(theguardian)…[+]

The international chemical weapons watchdog has backed the UK’s findings on the identity of the chemical used to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. The findings by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will be a major relief to the UK, which has said novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia, was used in the attack.

The executive summary released by the OPCW does not mention novichok by name, but states: “The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirms the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people.” The OPCW, which does identify the chemical by its complex formula in a classified report that has not been made public, also notes in its summary that the chemical had an “almost complete absence” of impurities.(theguardian)…[+]

LA SOUFRIÈRE, St. Vincent and the Grenadines – The University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center (UWI-SRC), in collaboration with the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO), recently launched a project to prepare communities to manage potential impacts of La Soufrière Volcano and related hazards.

The “Volcano-Ready Communities in St. Vincent and the Grenadines” project targets 12 towns and villages in the high-risk zones of La Soufrière. It specifically seeks to improve early warning and alert systems; train early response and risk assessment teams; develop a “Volcano-Ready” framework and toolkit for communities; and create public education and awareness materials to be shared with schools, businesses, and residents. “We want to ensure that people here can live safely and resiliently and enjoy their lives, so that when bad things happen because of the environment that [they] won’t be knocked back as badly,” said Dr. Richard Robertson, Director of UWI-SRC.

He further explained, “When we speak about ‘Volcano-Ready communities’ we’re speaking about it in the context of a volcanic environment. Yes, the volcano erupts from time to time, but the very nature of the volcanic landscape is such that it poses certain hazards. For example, all of the loose material around is great for crops and farming, but it means that when rain comes, it strips off the materials and creates flash floods. When you have a storm, because the land falls away so quickly, storm surge comes in and damages the coastline. So, you’re really in a multi-hazard environment.” Following successful completion of the project, St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be the first country in the Region to hold a “Volcano-Ready” designation.(CDB)…[+]