Category Archives: Legislation

Facebook Internal Documents Show Stasi Operations Including Murder

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What about Apple and Tim Cook?

  • Apple threatened to remove Facebook from its App Store after a report about an online slave market.
  • The BBC in 2019 reported that human traffickers were using Facebook’s services to sell domestic workers.

    Apple threatened to kick Facebook off its App Store after a 2019 BBC report detailed how human traffickers were using Facebook to sell victims, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    The paper viewed company documents that show a Facebook investigation team was tracking down a human trafficking market in the Middle East whose organizers were using Facebook’s services. What appeared to be employment agencies were advertising domestic workers that they could supply against their will, per the Journal.

    The BBC published a sweeping undercover investigation of the practice, prompting Apple to threaten to remove Facebook from its store, the paper said.

    An internal memo found that Facebook was aware of the practice even before then: A Facebook researcher wrote in a report dated 2019, “was this issue known to Facebook before BBC inquiry and Apple escalation?,” per the Journal.

    Underneath the question reads, “Yes. Throughout 2018 and H1 2019 we conducted the global Understanding Exercise in order to fully understand how domestic servitude manifests no our platform across its entire life cycle: recruitment, facilitation, and exploitation.”

    Apple and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Wall Street Journal on Thursday also reported how Facebook’s AI content moderators cannot detect most languages used on the platform, a needed skill if the company is going to monitor content in foreign markets where it has expanded. source

Source: The dozens of internal Facebook documents obtained by the outlet showed how employees have expressed concerns about how the social media giant is being used in countries across the globe and how Facebook has failed to properly respond to these issues.

Some of the documents reportedly showed that Facebook employees raised concerns about human trafficking organizations in the Middle East that used Facebook to attract women. Other documents showed Facebook employees alerting their higher-ups of groups involved in organ selling and pornography.

The news outlet reported that while some of the groups and pages flagged by employees have been taken down, dozens of others remain active on the social media site.

Mexican cartels that are feeding America's drug habit ... source

Another document detailed a Facebook employee’s investigation into a Mexican drug cartel that was active on the social media site. The employee, who was a former police officer, was able to identify the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s network of accounts on both Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

The employee wrote in the report that his team had found Facebook messages between cartel recruiters and potential recruits “about being seriously beaten or killed by the cartel if they try to leave the training camp.”

México: Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación lanzó un video ... source

The documents reportedly showed that the cartel was open about its criminal activity, with several pages on the social media site showing “gold-plated guns and bloody crime scenes.”The Wall Street Journal reported that even after the employee recommended Facebook increase its enforcement on the groups, documents showed that Facebook didn’t completely remove the cartel from its site and instead said that it removed content tied to the group. Just nine days after the report from the employee, his team found a new Instagram account tied to the cartel, which included several violent posts.

Many of the documents apparently showed employees raising concerns about how the social media giant was being used in developing countries, such as militant groups in Ethiopia using Facebook to promote violence against minority groups.

Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president, told the Wall Street Journal that the social media site sees these issues in developing countries as “simply the cost of doing business.”

“There is very rarely a significant, concerted effort to invest in fixing those areas,” Boland said.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, a Facebook spokesperson said: “In countries at risk for conflict and violence, we have a comprehensive strategy, including relying on global teams with native speakers covering over 50 languages, educational resources, and partnerships with local experts and third-party fact-checkers to keep people safe.”

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone wrote, “As the Wall Street Journal itself makes clear, we have a team of experts who help us uncover patterns of harmful behavior so we can disrupt it. We’ve got arguably more experts and resources dedicated to this work than any other consumer technology company in the world.”

Less than a Dozen Countries Accepting Afghan Refugees

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Primer:

Treaties and other international agreements are written agreements between sovereign states (or between states and international organizations) governed by international law.  The United States enters into more than 200 treaties and other international agreements each year.

The subjects of treaties span the whole spectrum of international relations: peace, trade, defense, territorial boundaries, human rights, law enforcement, environmental matters, and many others. As times change, so do treaties. In 1796, the United States entered into the Treaty with Tripoli to protect American citizens from kidnapping and ransom by pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2001, the United States agreed to a treaty on cybercrime.

Read more about what specific bureaus are doing to support this policy issue:

Office of Treaty Affairs (L/T): The Office of the Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs, within the Office of the Legal Adviser, provides guidance on all aspects of U.S. and international treaty law and practice. It manages the process under which the Department of State approves the negotiation and conclusion of all international agreements to which the U.S. will become a party. It also coordinates with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on issues involving the Senate’s advice and consent to ratification of treaties. Read more about the Office of Treaty Affairs

***

To date, the U.S. State Department has no secured refugee agreements with a permanent status as a result of the Afghanistan refugee crisis. Some countries are cooperating only on a temporary basis while conditions and vetting has been satisfied. This now forces the United States to essentially accept the high majority of the refugees which could exceed perhaps as many as 1.0 million. Today, several of our military bases across the globe and those inside the United States have become refugee camps with no end in sight.

Anyone remember the Syrian refugees and the continuing crisis throughout Europe? Even Germany is deporting Syrian refugees.

***

As of August 31, 2021 via Newsweek

U.S.

Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort can be eligible for special immigrant visas, but those who don’t qualify can look to resettle in the U.S. in other ways.

Earlier this summer, the Biden administration expanded its Afghan refugee program and created a new category for those who worked with U.S.-based news outlets or nongovernmental organizations.

As many as 50,000 Afghans could also arrive in the country on “humanitarian parole,” an immigration tool that allows people to enter the country without visas for urgent humanitarian reasons.

The Biden administration has not announced exactly how many Afghan refugees will be taken in by the U.S., but has committed to resettling up to 125,000 refuges in the 2022 fiscal year.

U.K.

Earlier this month, the U.K. government announced plans to welcome 5,000 Afghan refugees this year and resettle a total of 20,000 Afghans in the coming years.

The Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme would prioritize women and girls as well as religious and other minorities who are at most risk from the Taliban, the government said.

 

Afghan refugees in Manchester
People believed to have recently arrived from Afghanistan stand in the courtyard of a hotel near Manchester Airport on August 25, 2021 in Manchester, England.CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES

Canada

Canada has said that it will take in 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, focusing on those in danger from the Taliban, including government workers and women leaders.

The country’s Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino has said Canada would consider taking in additional refugees on behalf of the U.S. or other allies, if asked.

Mexico

Mexico welcomed a group of 124 Afghan media workers and their families on Wednesday.

The country had accepted its first group of refugees from Afghanistan on Tuesday, when five women and one man arrived in Mexico City, according to the Associated Press.

Mexico’s interior secretary, Olga Sánchez Cordero, said Wednesday that Mexico would grant asylum “to those Afghan citizens who require it.”

Germany

Germany has indicated that some Afghan refugees will be accepted, but numbers have not been specified.

Chancellor Angela Merkel faced criticism after Germany opened its borders to over a million migrants, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, six years ago.

After the Taliban takeover, Merkel said her government was focused on ensuring Afghan refugees “have a secure stay in countries neighbouring Afghanistan.”

France

In a televised address after the Taliban takeover, President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must protect itself from a wave of Afghan migrants.

He said France would “protect those who are in the most danger” but added that Europe “cannot take on the consequences from the current situation alone.”

Pakistan

Most Afghan refugees cross over the border into neighboring Pakistan.

In June, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan told The New York Times that the country would seal its border if the Taliban took control as it did not want another wave of refugees from Afghanistan.

The country was already struggling to cope with the estimated three million Afghan refugees already in Pakistan, he said.

Tajikistan

In July, Tajikistan said it was preparing to accept up to 100,000 refugees from its neighboring country.

Uganda

Uganda said it had agreed to a request from the U.S. to temporarily take in 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan. The African nation currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees.

Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo

Albania and North Macedonia have also accepted a U.S. request to temporarily take in Afghan refugees, accepting 300 and 450 refugees respectively. Kosovo has also agreed to temporarily host refugees headed for the U.S., but numbers have not been specified.

Switzerland

The Swiss government has said it will not accept large groups of refugees arriving directly from Afghanistan.

Austria

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has ruled out taking in any more Afghan refugees. In a recent interview, Kurz said Austria had accepted 40,000 Afghans in the past few years, which he described as a “disproportionately large contribution.”

Afghan people climb atop plane
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Turkey

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees out of any country in the world, but has been ramping up construction of a border wall to keep further influxes of migrants out.

There are 182,000 registered Afghan migrants in Turkey and up to an estimated 120,000 unregistered ones, according to Reuters.

But the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged other European countries to take responsibility for those fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, saying Turkey had no intention of becoming “Europe’s migrant storage unit.”

Iran

Iran already hosts 780,000 Afghans refugees, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Emergency tents for refugees were set up in three Iranian provinces which border Afghanistan.

However, Hossein Ghassemi, the country’s interior ministry border affairs chief, has said that any Afghans who have crossed into Iran would be repatriated once conditions improve.

Russia

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will not accept Afghan refugees because he does not want militants entering the country disguised as refugees.

“We don’t want militants under the disguise of refugees to appear here [in Russia] again,” he said Sunday, according to the TASS news agency.

“We will do everything, in particular in contact with our Western partners, to ensure stability in Afghanistan as well. But we do not want a repeat of the situation of the 1990s and early 2000s.”

Australia

Australia has pledged to take in 3,000 Afghan refugees within an existing annual allocation of its humanitarian visa program. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated the number could be increased, referring to it as “a floor, not a ceiling.”

Meanwhile, the country has also begun a campaign to deter Afghan refuges from trying to reach Australia by boat.

“Australia’s strong border protection policies have not and will not change,” Karen Andrews, Australia’s minister for home affairs, said in a video posted on YouTube Monday.

“No one who arrives in Australia illegally by boat will ever settle here. Do not attempt an illegal boat journey to Australia. You have zero chance of success.”

6500 Felons Go Free, DA’s Refuse to Prosecute

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Primer:

The White House on Thursday proposed removing certain penalties associated with trafficking of fentanyl-related substances (FRS), prompting criticism that it would weaken illicit drug enforcement.

President Biden and former President Trump temporarily placed FRS under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Thursday’s proposal would make that change permanent while removing certain quantity-based mandatory minimums.

In a letter to Senate leaders reviewed by Fox News, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) described the plan as the result of collaboration with the Justice Department (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“We are pleased to present to Congress a long-term, consensus approach that advances efforts to reduce the supply and availability of illicitly manufactured FRS, while protecting civil rights, and reducing barriers to scientific research for all schedule I substances,” said ONDCP acting Director Regina LaBelle.

Fentanyl deaths in the US spiked 1,000 percent over 6 ...

CRUZ, ROY SLAM BIDEN ADMIN OVER ‘MAN-MADE’ BORDER CRISIS AS FENTANYL DEATHS SKYROCKET

LaBelle added that “the proposal would exclude those FRS that are scheduled by class from certain quantity-based mandatory minimum penalties normally associated with domestic trafficking, and import and export offenses of CSA schedule I compounds.”

“It would further ensure that a federal court can vacate or reduce the sentence of an individual convicted of an offense involving an individual FRS that is subsequently removed or rescheduled from schedule I.”

The letter came amid a spike in fentanyl deaths, which some Republicans have blamed on the administration’s border enforcement.

April of this year alone saw a 233% increase in fentanyl seizures at the southern border, according to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Fentanyl, a dangerous opioid, is significantly stronger than heroin and the related opioid carfentanyl is even stronger than fentanyl.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., slammed the Biden administration’s proposal for being soft on criminals who are pushing fentanyl and killing Americans.

“Fentanyl analogues kill thousands of Americans each year. To protect our communities from the dealers pushing this poison, President Biden needs to keep them off the streets, not let them off the hook,” said Cotton in a statement to Fox News.

BORDER CRISIS: 233% INCREASE IN FENTANYL SEIZURES AT SOUTHERN BORDER

A Senate aide also told Fox News the proposal wasn’t serious and would encourage illicit drug labs. “This is not a serious proposal. It’s nothing more than a compromise between mainstream Democrats and pro-crime Democrats, and would only encourage illicit Chinese drug labs to get creative again with new fentanyl variants,” the aide said.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Thursday’s proposal raises questions about how the Biden administration will continue the previous president’s fight against an opioid epidemic that has ravaged communities across the U.S.

In May, Biden extended a rule from Trump’s DOJ by signing the Extending Temporary Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act, which lasts until Oct. 22.

LaBelle added that Congress should approve $41 billion in spending for national drug program agencies, as well as continue working on legislation designed to counter overdoses.

“Expanding the nation’s public health approach to substance use disorders and strengthening our public safety efforts to reduce the drug supply are essential parts of our strategy to bringing down the rates of overdose death,” said LaBelle.

“Acting to permanently schedule FRS, combined with historic investments in the addiction infrastructure, as well as efforts to tackle illicit finance and disrupt drug trafficking, will stand as the most comprehensive effort to address substance use and its consequences in our nation’s history. In all these efforts, we look forward to working with Congress to support safe and healthy communities. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

6,500 accused NYC felons go scot-free as DAs decline to prosecute

District attorneys across the Big Apple last year declined to prosecute accused felons at nearly twice the rate of 2019 — letting more than 6,500 suspects off the hook, The Post has learned.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in 16.9 percent of the 38,635 felony cases that were closed in New York City during 2020, according to data compiled by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The year before, that rate was just 8.7 percent and the average for 2016 to 2019 was an even lower 8 percent, the statistics show.

Even though far fewer cases were disposed of last year, the 6,522 defendants whose charges were dropped exceeded the 5,985 who weren’t prosecuted in 2019.

The total number of cases closed in 2020 plunged by a massive 44.1 percent last year amid court closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — down from 69,119 the year before.

A law enforcement source said there were “a lot of layers to the problem,” including veteran prosecutors retiring or leaving for other jobs and “inexperienced [prosecutors] and cops making it harder to do trials,” as well as the political nature of DAs’ jobs.

“The DAs are worried about getting re-elected,” the source said.

“Plus, you throw in a bucket of ‘woke’ and no one is getting prosecuted.”

The source also pointed to controversial, recently enacted laws governing the disclosure of evidence to the defense, known as “discovery.”

“Now, if someone takes a plea, you still have to provide the discovery information even though the case is closed,” the source said.

“Before, you didn’t have to. If you DP [decline to prosecute] a case, there is no discovery.”

The borough with the highest number of felony cases that weren’t prosecuted last year was the Bronx, where DA Darcel Clark dumped 2,408, or 28.5 percent.

Another 2,365 cases, or 28 percent, were dismissed by judges, helping push the rate at which defendants were convicted and sentenced in the Bronx to a dismal 27.4 percent, down from 44.2 percent in 2019.

But that number was even lower in Brooklyn, where it dropped to just 21.1 percent last year from 41.5 percent in 2019.

DA Eric Gonzalez declined to prosecute 2,206 cases, or 17.8 percent, and judges dismissed more than twice as many: 5,335 or 42.9 percent.

In Manhattan, outgoing DA Cyrus Vance Jr. declined to prosecute 11.7 percent of the cases disposed of last year, up from 7.6 percent in 2019.

Only two boroughs saw district attorneys decline to prosecute cases last year at rates that didn’t reach double digits.

In Queens, under DA Melinda Katz, the number was 9.9 percent, up from 5 percent in 2019, and on Staten Island, under DA Michael McMahon, it was 8.2 percent, up from 4.8 percent.

Last year’s increase in the proportion of cases abandoned by prosecutors was also accompanied by steep decreases in the number of convictions and sentences of incarceration, the statistics show.

Just 7.4 percent of defendants 18 and older were convicted of felonies and 10.5 percent were convicted of misdemeanors, compared to 12.1 percent and 17.1 percent, respectively, in 2019.

And only 3.8 percent of cases that began as felonies resulted in judges sending criminals to prison for a year or more or to jail for shorter terms during 2020.

In 2019, prison sentences were handed down in 7 percent of cases and jail sentences in 7.2 percent of cases.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and adjunct professor at the city’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was outraged by the situation, saying, “There’s so many people that will lose their lives because of that.”

“Eventually, it’s all going to backfire,” he said.

“It’s going to take its course, like everything else. The pendulum will swing back the other way, and they’ll stop electing people who are pretending to be a district attorney in name only.”

A Bronx DA spokeswoman said, “We prosecute cases when there is legally sufficient evidence. We decline to prosecute or defer prosecution in cases where police may need to gather more evidence or secure the cooperation of witnesses so that the case can move forward.”

“It is our duty as prosecutors to ethically assess each arrest as it comes in and determine if it is legally sufficient to proceed,” spokeswoman Denisse Moreno added.

A Gonzalez spokesperson said his office “led the way” at the height of the pandemic last year “by announcing that we would decline to prosecute low-level and non-violent cases in response to the public health emergency.”

“We have since resumed our pre-pandemic practice, which includes robust diversion programs wherein we decline prosecution if individuals successfully complete their requirements,” the spokesperson said.

“The fact that homicides and shootings in Brooklyn have decreased by over 20 percent compared to last year and major crime is down 5 percent proves that our approach has been successful and kept the public safe.”

A McMahon spokeswoman declined to comment and none of the spokespersons for the other DAs’ offices immediately returned requests for comment.

A spokesman for the Office of Court Administration declined to comment on behalf of the city’s judiciary.

1000’s of Migrant Children Missing in the U.S.

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This actually is not a new phenomenon as it goes back to the Obama administration. But read on and the fear and failure continues when government is paid to get it right once it was determined the condition was wrong.

Axios Exclusive:

The U.S. government has lost contact with thousands of migrant children released from its custody, according to data obtained by Axios through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Why it matters: Roughly one-in-three calls made to released migrant kids or their sponsors between January and May went unanswered, raising questions about the government’s ability to protect minors after they’re released to family members or others in the U.S.

  • “This is very dismaying,” said Mark Greenberg, who oversaw the unaccompanied minors program during the Obama administration and was briefed on Axios’ findings. “If large numbers of children and sponsors aren’t being reached, that’s a very big gap in efforts to help them.”
  • “While we make every effort to voluntarily check on children after we unite them with parents or sponsors and offer certain post-unification services, we no longer have legal oversight once they leave our custody,” an HHS spokesperson told Axios, adding that many sponsors do not return phone calls or don’t want to be reached out to.

By the numbers: During the first five months of the year, care providers made 14,600 required calls to check in with migrant minors released from shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services. These minors typically were taken in by relatives or other vetted sponsors.

  • In 4,890 of those instances, workers were unable to reach either the migrant or the sponsor.
  • The percentage of unsuccessful calls grew, from 26% in January to 37% in May, the data provided to Axios showed.

 

The big picture: More than 65,000 unaccompanied kids crossed the border illegally during those months, and July set yet another all-time record for young border crossers. That suggests the problem of losing track of released children could be compounded in the months to come.

  • The data also indicates calls aren’t happening with the frequency they should. Between President Biden’s inauguration and the end of May, HHS discharged 32,000 children and teens — but the government placed fewer than 15,000 follow-up calls, according to the FOIA response.
  • In both March and April, the number of kids discharged was twice as high as the number of check-in calls the following month — indicating that half of the released kids might not have gotten a 30-day call, according to public agency data.

Flashback: In 2018, the Trump administration was criticized for being unable to account for the whereabouts of around 1,500 children released from HHS shelters during a three-month period.

  • There were around 4,500 such minors as of the end of May who had been released under the Biden administration.

Between the lines: The government is already investigating whether dozens of migrant children were released to labor traffickers, as Bloomberg Law recently reported.

  • This happened in 2014 as well, when migrant teens were released to traffickers and forced to work on an egg farm.
  • Although these horrific situations have been rare, some members of Congress and former agency officials have called for better oversight to ensure kids are safe after leaving the government’s care.
  • The Trump administration and Republicans have used these instances to advocate for more stringent vetting for sponsors.

HHS’s Administration for Children and Families oversees the care and custody of migrant minors.

  • In guidance on the agency’s website, the 30-day calls are described as opportunities “to determine whether the child is still residing with the sponsor, is enrolled in or attending school, is aware of upcoming court dates and is safe.”
  • Axios made the FOIA request in May after the agency declined to share information about whether it had been conducting the 30-day calls.

***.Modern day slavery: BigAg corporations repeatedly violate ...

Reuters reported in 2014 just one case example:

Suyen has a quick smile and looks like a typical American teenager in her sandals and fashionably-torn blue jeans. But she recounts a harrowing journey, saying she left home to escape a father who was beating her, and that along the way she was raped by a “coyote” or migrant smuggler. She endured 24 hours with no food as she sat atop a slow-moving freight train through Mexico and made an overnight trek by foot.

When she struggled to pull herself over a wall at the Mexico-U.S. border, Suyen said, “I thought I was going to die” after being shoved over by a coyote, plunging down the other side and landing atop a man below.

Unlike most kids, she entered the United States undetected, only to end up in a stranger’s house in Houston. There, she said she was forced to work without pay for a month before being transferred to a vineyard, where she cooked meals, also without pay, for 300 migrant workers. Reuters has not verified the details of her journey but Suyen told a similar story in a sworn deposition to an immigration court.

 

More related reading: Report: Obama Administration Handed Child Migrants Over to Human Traffickers

The United States government placed an unknown number of Central American migrant children into the custody of human traffickers after neglecting to run the most basic checks on these so-called “caregivers,” according to a Senate report released on Thursday. (2016)

In the fall of 2013, tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors traveled to the U.S. southern border, in flight from poverty and gang violence in Central America. At least six of those children were eventually resettled on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio, where their sponsors forced them to work 12 hours a day under threats of death. Local law enforcement uncovered the operation last year, prompting the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to open an inquiry into the federal government’s handling of migrants.

 

 

“It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,” Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the subcommittee, told the New York Times. “But what makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.”

 

As detention centers became incapable of housing the massive influx of migrants, the Department of Health and Human Services started placing children into the care of sponsors who would oversee the minors until their bids for refugee status could be reviewed. But in many cases, officials failed to confirm whether the adults volunteering for this task were actually relatives or good Samaritans — and not unscrupulous egg farmers or child molesters. The department performed check-in visits at caretakers’ homes in only 5 percent of cases between 2013 and 2015, according to the report.

 

The Senate’s investigation built on an Associated Press report that found more than two dozen unaccompanied children were placed in homes where they were sexually abused, starved, or forced into slave labor. HHS claimed that it lacked the funds and authorities that a more rigorous screening process would have required. However, the investigation also found that HHS did not spend all of the money allocated to it for handling the crisis.

 

The agency placed 90,000 migrant children into sponsor care between 2013 and 2015. Exactly how many of those fell prey to traffickers is unknown, because the agency does not keep track.

 

 

Yandex, a Russian tech company is on 250 US University Campuses

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It is no wonder they are hacking America to death…

Do we really know what is inside these machines?

Forbes:

Yandex, a Russian tech company working on self-driving systems, is partnering with GrubHub to deploy a fleet of delivery robots on selected college campuses in the United States later this year.

Yandex NV Tests Autonomous Delivery Robots on Russian Streets

© 2020 Bloomberg Finance LP

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Yandex often compares itself to Google. It offers arange of services, including a search engine, ride-hailing and food delivery. The company began operating food delivery robots, called Rovers, in 2019 in Moscow, Tel Aviv and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“We chose to partner with GrubHub for campus delivery because of GrubHub’s unparalleled reach into college campuses across the United States, as well as the flexibility and strength of their ordering platform,” said Dmitry Polishchuk, CEO of Yandex Self-Driving Group. “We are delighted to deploy dozens of our rovers, taking the next step in actively commercializing our self-driving technology in different markets across the globe.’’

The partnership plans to launch the Rovers on 250 campuses.

“While college campuses are notoriously difficult for cars to navigate, specifically as it relates to food delivery, Yandex robots easily access parts of campuses that vehicles cannot,” Brian Madigan, GrubHub vice president of corporate and campus partners, said in a statement.

Yandex robot fleets have logged seven million autonomous miles since the team was founded in 2017, second only to Alphabet’s Waymo. That’s up from two million miles in February 2020.

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Yandex employs about 400 engineers, plus operational and support staff.

Artem Fokin, Yandex’s head of business development, told Forbes.com that the company has spent only $100 million dollars on development in the four years since inception. That’s relatively frugal compared to Silicon Valley teams, which have raised billions toward the same goal.

The company’s Rovers deliver take-out meals, groceries, and retail consumer goods. Yandex has increased the dimensions and carrying capacity of the Rovers over time, to accommodate larger loads.

“We’ve worked to make the cost of Rover delivery extremely economical,” spokesman Yulia Shveyko, told Forbes.com contributor David Silver in May. “In Russia, human delivery is very price-competitive, and we have to be even more affordable than that.”

Unlike public roads, where vehicles travel in lanes and their travel patterns are predictable, Yandex vehicles must navigate sidewalks and other pedestrian paths where people’s movements are less orderly.

They can operate in broad daylight and in the dark of night, in moderate snowfall and rain, as well as in controlled and uncontrolled pedestrian crossing scenarios. But they can only travel at speeds up to 5 miles per hour.

Yandex owns 73% of its Self-Driving Group, while Uber owns 19% and a group of Yandex employees own the remaining 8%.