Shorts (left)
Latino to give keynote speech at Democratic Convention
Julian Castro, the Democratic mayor of San Antonio, will deliver the keynote speech at his party’s national convention in September, taking the role that vaulted Barack Obama to national prominence eight years ago.
Castro will become the first Hispanic American chosen for the high-profile speaking slot at a time when Obama is counting on Latinos to help him win a second term in the White House.
The selection was announced by Castro himself in a video posted by convention organizers and reported first by Univision.
“I know I’ve got some big shoes to fill,” Castro says in the three-minute video. “We’ve come so far over the past three and a half years under Obama’s leadership. And I know he’s not done yet. We got a lot more work to do.”
A co-chairman of Obama’s re-election campaign, Castro is a rising star in the Democratic Party who, at 37, has been elected and re-elected to the top job in San Antonio.
—Michael D. Shear, The New York Times
S. Korea demands that China respond to torture accusation
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea reiterated Tuesday its demand that China investigate accusations by a South Korean activist that he was tortured by Chinese security officers.
Following the assertions of the activist, Kim Young-hwan, the Foreign Ministry also said it would interview all of an estimated 620 South Koreans known to have been held in China to see if any of them were tortured.
Kim, 49, a campaigner for democracy in North Korea, and three other activists from South Korea were arrested in northeastern China on March 29. They were held for 114 days on charges of endangering national security until they were expelled on July 20. During their three-month detention, South Korean officials said China did not provide Kim with proper access to consular services.
The case has snowballed since Kim’s release. Last week, Kim called a news conference at which he said he was tortured while in China and said the Chinese authorities had tried to make him sign a statement denying any maltreatment as a condition of his release, something he refused to do. He has since provided South Korean news media with details of his alleged torture, which he said included beating. On Monday, Kim offered similar details during an interview with officials from the South Korean government’s National Human Rights Commission.
—Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times
Twitter gets backlash over reporter’s suspension
Twitter has become the default for people when they have a complaint. Even when that complaint is about Twitter.
The company found itself at the center of a Twitter firestorm when it suspended on Sunday the account of Guy Adams, a British newspaper reporter for The Independent, after he had posted complaints about NBC’s tape-delayed Olympics coverage. The posts included the email address of Gary Zenkel, the head of NBC Sports.
On Tuesday, both Twitter and NBC backpedaled. While Twitter officials stress that the company generally does not monitor content, Alex Macgillivray, Twitter’s general counsel, admitted in a statement on Tuesday that Twitter “did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter rules and encouraged them” — NBC — “to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation.”
Chloe Sladden, vice president for media at Twitter, personally apologized on her Twitter feed for the mistake. NBC also issued a statement apologizing for having the reporter’s account suspended. Twitter then reactivated the reporter’s account.
—Christine Haughney, The New York Times