World

Iran is expected to block the popular messaging app Telegram, following similar measures taken by Russia, after the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced he was leaving the service to safeguard the national interest.

Telegram has proved a massive success in Iran, dwarfing the number of people using its global rival WhatsApp, and surpassing Facebook and Twitter, which have both been blocked for a long time in the country.

About 40 million Iranians – almost half of the country’s population – are estimated to be on Telegram, which has also appealed to older generations previously unfamiliar with the use of such social media platforms. In addition to one-to-one or group messaging, it allows users to broadcast posts to large audiences with its channel function.

Khamenei’s office announced on Wednesday that it was shutting down the ayatollah’s Telegram channel in order to safeguard national interests and end what it said was Telegram’s monopoly on the country’s social media.

The announcement also signalled that a nationwide ban on the app was imminent. “This move comes ahead of plans by the authorities to block Telegram and is aimed at supporting domestic social media apps,” read the brief message.

Iran’s vice-president, Eshaq Jahangiri, also announced that he was quitting Telegram. Officials also sent a directive to all civil servants and government departments telling them to stop using Telegram.

Iran has been mulling a ban on Telegram ever since protests over economic grievances at the end of last year took on a political dimension before spreading to up to 80 cities in January. Officials blamed Telegram for providing a platform for protesters to organise rallies.

The country’s technology minister personally reached out to Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, at the time, asking him to block channels that he alleged were spreading violence, prompting one such channel – that had been spreading misinformation – to be blocked.

Iranians have shown huge resilience when it comes to the state blocking their access to online services, sites and social platforms. They have mastered anti-filtering software to bypass state restrictions and often migrate in their millions to a new platform when one is blocked. The success of Telegram is partly thanks to Iranians rapidly switching to the messaging service when Viber was blocked.

The news in Iran comes after Russia’s internet watchdog blocked an estimated 16m IP addresses in a massive operation against the banned Telegram messaging app four days after a court ordered the service to be blocked over alleged terrorism concerns.

Source : The Guardian

Myanmar says it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, despite a UN warning that it is not safe to return.

Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled across the border to escape a brutal military campaign that began last August.

The UN has accused Myanmar of "ethnic cleansing" - a charge it denies.

Myanmar says five members of a family arrived at a "repatriation camp" on Saturday, and were provided with supplies and ID cards.

If confirmed, this would be the first group of Rohingya repatriated to Myanmar since the crisis began.

The Myanmar government says it has been engaged in a justified campaign against Rohingya militants in Rakhine state.

Earlier this month, it sentenced seven soldiers to prison terms for involvement in the killing of 10 Rohingya men.

Refugees fleeing the country into neighbouring Bangladesh, however, said that such acts were widespread - describing indiscriminate killings, rape, and the burning of villages.

Source : BBC

Turkey will hold snap presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 June, brought forward by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from November 2019.

He has run Turkey since 2002 and will seek five more years with beefed up powers approved in a referendum last year.

The idea of an early poll was initially proposed by nationalist allies.

Erdogan said in a televised speech the country needed the new election to rid it of "the diseases of the old system".

"Developments in Syria and elsewhere have made it urgent to switch to the new executive system in order to take steps for our country's future in a stronger way," the president said in a live broadcast.

Erdogan said he had made the decision after speaking to the head of the nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, who is expected to form an alliance with Erdogan's ruling AK Party in the parliamentary polls.

Source : BBC

Russia on Saturday called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council as Moscow said it would consider supplying S-300 missile systems to Syria following U.S.-led strikes.

"Russia convenes an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss aggressive actions of the U.S. and its allies," President Vladimir Putin said in a statement published on the Kremlin website.

"The current escalation of the situation around Syria has a devastating impact on the whole system of international relations," he added.

U.S., British and French forces pounded Syria with more than 100 missiles early on Saturday in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week, in the biggest intervention by Western powers against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Putin said the U.S. actions in Syria made the humanitarian catastrophe worse and caused pain for civilians.

"Russia in the most serious way condemns the attack on Syria where Russian military servicemen help the legitimate government to fight terrorism," Putin said.

Missiles for Syria

Moscow may consider supplying S-300 surface to-air missile systems to Syria and "other countries", Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi told a televised briefing on Saturday.

Russia had "refused" supplying those missiles to Syria a few years ago, he added, "taking into account the pressing request of some of our Western partners".

Following the U.S.-led strikes, however, "we consider it possible to return to examination of this issue not only in regard to Syria but to other countries as well," Rudskoi said.

Syria's air defense system, which mostly consists of systems made in the Soviet Union, has intercepted 71 of the missiles fired on Saturday by the U.S., British and French forces, he added.

"In the past year and a half Russia has fully restored Syria's air defense system and continues to further upgrade it," Rudskoi said.

Source : CNBC

The former US first lady Barbara Bush has died at the age of 92, a family spokesman has said.Bush had been in failing health in recent days – she reportedly had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. A family spokesman, Jim McGrath, said in a 15 April statement: “Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs Bush has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care.”

Born in New York in 1925, Barbara Pierce married George HW Bush on 6 January 1945. They had six children including the former president George W Bush and the former Florida governor Jeb Bush. She is also survived by her sons Neil and Marvin and her daughter Doro Bush Koch. Her daughter Robin died at the age of three in 1953.

 As first lady from 1989 to 1993, Bush was an advocate for literacy and started the Barbara Bush Foundation to promote this goal. She drew attention while at the White House for seeking to eschew politics, particularly controversial issues such as abortion.

A storm has damaged two minarets located at different entry gates of the iconic Taj Mahal in the northern Indian city of Agra.

Officials said that winds blowing at 130kmh (80mph) caused the 12ft (4m) pillars to collapse.

The four longer minarets that surround the main structure remain intact.

The 17th Century mausoleum attracts about 12,000 visitors a day and is one of the world's most popular tourist attractions. One of the destroyed minarets was located at the royal gate where tourists often get their first glimpse of the monument.

The other was located at the southern gate. Authorities said that work had begun to restore the damaged structures.

The Maldives rejected a demand by a U.N. human rights watchdog on Monday that former president Mohamed Nasheed be allowed to stand for office, including in a presidential election later this year.

 The U.N. Human Rights Committee, a panel of independent experts overseeing states’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, said Nasheed’s conviction on terrorism charges was based on vague laws, contained serious flaws and violated his right to a fair trial.

“Political rights can be suspended or restricted only in exceptional circumstances and under certain conditions. And judicial proceedings that violate the right to fair trial can render the resulting restriction of political rights arbitrary,” committee member Sarah Cleveland said in a statement.

Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in jail but went into exile during a medical trip to Britain. He was disqualified from running in presidential elections for 16 years.

The committee said it wanted information from the Maldives within 180 days about measures taken to take its views into account, and said those measures should be disseminated broadly in the official languages of the Maldives.

But the government swiftly rejected the Committee’s report.

“The Government of the Maldives... wholeheartedly refutes that any of these rights have been violated in the case of the former President Nasheed. The Government accepts the conviction of Nasheed as lawful and final,” it said in a statement.

It described Nasheed as a fugitive and said the U.N. committee had not given enough consideration to information submitted by the government.

“Having attempted to subvert the course of justice and dismantle the judicial branch of the State, both while in Office and since leaving it, former President Nasheed was charged for having ordered the abduction of a sitting judge,” it said.

The Maldives, home to 400,000 people and best known as a tropical paradise for tourists, has experienced political unrest since Nasheed, the island’s first democratically-elected leader, was forced to quit amid a mutiny by police in 2012.

The current president Abdulla Yameen imposed a state of emergency in February to annul a Supreme Court ruling that quashed the convictions of nine opposition leaders, including Nasheed.

During the 45-day emergency, Yameen’s administration arrested former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the chief justice, another Supreme Court judge and a Supreme Court administrator on charges of trying to overthrow the government.

All four have been charged under terrorism laws. They have all rejected the charges.

The Supreme court, now reduced to three bench judges after the arrests, went on to reverse its decision to quash the convictions of the opposition leaders.

Source : Reuters

Pakistan’s Supreme Court dashed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s hopes of returning to power on Friday, ruling that the disqualification handed to him last year in the Panama Papers Case was for life.

A report said the disqualification under Article 62 (1)(f) of Pakistan’s constitution is for life. Article 62(1)(f), which sets the precondition for a member of Pakistan’s parliament to be ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ (honest and righteous), was the one under which Sharif was disqualified as PM last year.

Sharif, a three-time prime minister, was ousted by the judiciary in July 2017 over corruption charges which he is currently facing in Pakistani courts.

Friday's ruling addressed an ambiguity over Sharif's disqualification and whether he was barred from office for life or a specific period.

Sharif has denied any wrongdoing and has blamed "hidden hands" for his dismissal.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Jahangir Tareen was among the other lawmakers also disqualified under the article.

A prominent US lawyer has died after setting himself on fire in a New York park in a protest against climate change.

The remains of David Buckel, 60, were found in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

In a suicide note found nearby, Mr Buckel wrote that he had immolated himself using fossil fuel to symbolise what he said was the damage human beings were doing to the Earth.

He said most people now breathed bad air and many died prematurely.

Buckel was well known for his legal work on behalf of gay, lesbian and transgender people and later worked with several environmental groups.

Source : BBC

Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon said any U.S. missiles fired at Syria would be shot down and the launch sites targeted, a step that could trigger a major escalation in the Syrian war.

Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin (L) stands with the head of Lebanon's Higher Relief Council (HRC) Ibrahim Bashir upon the arrival of a Russian aeroplane carrying humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, at Beirut international airport April 3, 2013. REUTERS/Sharif Karim.

Russian Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin, in comments broadcast on Tuesday evening, said he was referring to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian armed forces chief of staff.

The Russian military said on March 13 that it would respond to any U.S. strike on Syria, targeting any missiles and launchers involved in such an attack. Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally.

The United States and its allies are considering whether to hit Syria over a suspected poison gas attack that medical relief organizations say killed dozens of people in the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus on Saturday.

“If there is a strike by the Americans, then...the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired,” Zasypkin told Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV, speaking in Arabic. He also said a clash “should be ruled out and therefore we are ready to hold negotiations”.

Russia and the United States blocked attempts by each other in the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to set up international investigations into chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday canceled a planned trip to Latin America later this week to focus instead on responding to the Syria incident, the White House said. Trump had on Monday warned of a quick, forceful response once responsibility for the Syria attack was established.

(Reuters)

Thousands of Indians have taken to the streets to join nationwide protests against continuing sexual assaults of women and girls, including that of an eight-year-old girl who was gang-raped and brutally murdered inside a temple in Jammu area of Indian-administered Kashmir.

"Punish the guilty" was the rallying cry on Sunday in New Delhi, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore and other cities, according to India's NDTV.

"Small little girls are being raped every day and the way this time it has happened, that people actually came and supported these rapists, this is (new) heights and this is the time that we should take it as an alarm," Ved Amrita, a protester in New Delhi, told Associated Press news agency.

Asifa Bano, from the Bakerwal Muslim community, was gang-raped and murdered in Kathua district near Jammu, her case causing public outrage after lawyers tried to prevent state police from filing a charge sheet last week.

The girl was heavily sedated, kept in a Hindu temple, and gang-raped by at least three men over the course of four days in mid-January, the police said in the charge sheet made public on Tuesday.

She was later strangled, and her body was found in the forest near the temple. One of the three suspected rapists was a policeman.

Leaders from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including two ministers from the Jammu and Kashmir government, organised rallies in defence of the accused. The ministers were forced to resign on Saturday amid widespread public anger.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised justice for both rape victims, but critics said it was "too little, too late". Modi's BJP party controls the government both in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.

The body of another girl who had been raped was found in Surat, Gujarat state, on April 9. Police said on Sunday that they had not yet been able to establish the identity of the young girl, whose body with "86 injury marks" was found in the city's suburbs.

Many protesters expressed particular anger at India's ruling Hindu nationalist party for initially siding with the accused in the Kashmir case. The young victim was Muslim while the accused are Hindu.

Source : Al Jazeera

Facebook is displaying advertisements on group pages operated by overseas wildlife traffickers illegally selling the body parts of threatened animals.

This screen grab from a Facebook group and photographed on a computer screen in Washington, Monday, April 9, 2018, shows what appears to be a bucket of tiger teeth offered for sale on a Facebook page. In a complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, wildlife preservation advocates allege that Facebook's failure to stop illicit traders utilizing its platform for illegal activity violates the social network's responsibilities as a publicly traded company. (AP Photo)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook is displaying advertisements for well-known American corporations on group pages operated by overseas wildlife traffickers illegally selling the body parts of threatened animals, including elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger teeth.

In a secret complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, wildlife preservation advocates allege that Facebook's failure to stop illicit traders using its service for illegal activity violates the social network's responsibilities as a publicly traded company.

Facebook didn't respond to requests for comment. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was expected to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about other issues.

The complaint, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press, was initially filed in August on behalf of an undercover informant represented by the National Whistleblower Center, a non-profit legal advocacy group. The identity of the informant, who recorded video of face-to-face meetings with wildlife traffickers set up over Facebook, has been kept confidential out of safety concerns.

The SEC declined to comment Monday on whether the whistleblower complaint triggered an investigation of the company.

"Facebook is not an innocent bystander to these crimes," said Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center. "Facebook sold advertisements on the very pages the illegal ivory was being marketed."

A Facebook page engaged in selling items made out of ivory.

 Facebook is one of 20 technology companies that last month joined the Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, which was organized by Google and the World Wildlife Fund. Weeks after the March 7 announcement, an AP reporter was able to see scores of internationally banned wildlife products for sale in public and private Facebook groups, most based in Southeast Asia.

Among the items available were belts made from what appeared to be the fur of Bengal tigers, a critically endangered species with only about 2,500 still living in the wild. Also advertised were horns from black rhinos, a species heavily targeted by poachers with little more than 5,000 still roaming Africa.

Negotiations over price and delivery are often initiated by Facebook Messenger. Instagram and WhatsApp, two social media platforms also owned by Facebook, are also sometimes used by traffickers.

The allegations tying Facebook to the illegal trafficking of wildlife are surfacing while the company is already scrambling to recover from a privacy scandal that has wiped out $79 billion in shareholder wealth during the past three weeks.

 The crisis stems from revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm connected to President Donald Trump's successful 2016 campaign, had exploited weaknesses in Facebook's privacy controls to collect personal information about 87 million people without their consent.

Zuckerberg will try to reverse the backlash against the company when he opens two days of testimony in Congress. His appearance will give lawmakers the opportunity to grill him about the Cambridge Analytica episode, as well as evidence that Russian agents manipulated Facebook's network to spread false information that may have swayed the 2016 election.

The SEC complaint may trigger other lines of inquiry about how much of Facebook's annual revenue of $41 billion has been generated by ads running on pages featuring illegal activity, such as the sale of elephant ivory and tiger teeth.

Facebook hasn't disclosed that some of its revenue may be tied to illegal trafficking in wildlife in regulatory filings that are supposed to outline various risks and other threats that could crimp its profits or stock price.

Trafficking investigators say they have seen no drop off in the illegal products offered for sale on Facebook after prior public pledges by the company to crack down. They are calling on federal security regulators to force Facebook to immediately freeze accounts being used by illegal traffickers and cooperate with international law enforcement to identify the individuals involved for prosecution.

"The amount of ivory being traded on Facebook is horrifying," said Gretchen Peters, executive director of the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime, which has analyzed online groups where wildlife goods are being marketed. "I have looked at thousands of posts containing ivory, and I am convinced that Facebook is literally facilitating the extinction of the elephant species."