Author: aejay_wp

At least 23 people, some children, have been killed after tornadoes struck Lee County in eastern Alabama, authorities said.

Sheriff Jay Jones said the toll could rise, but rescue efforts had to stop until dawn due to the danger of searching in the dark.

“The challenge is the sheer volume of the debris where all the homes were located,” he said.

It is unknown how many are injured. Authorities have blocked off the area.

Read: Kenya helicopter crash: Americans and VIP pilot dead

The National Weather Service (NWS) classified the first tornado to strike as at least an EF-3 – meaning winds of up to 165 miles per hour (266km/h) – carving a path at least half a mile (0.8km) wide.

Who was hurt?

Authorities say they are still working to identify the victims and the injured.

Family members reportedly said one of the victims was an eight-year-old in the town of Beauregard.

“We’ve never had a mass fatality situation, that I can remember, like this in my lifetime,” Lee County Coroner Bill Harris reportedly said.

Rescuers have yet to reach some areas, he said, and coroners from other parts of the state were coming to help.

East Alabama Medical Centre said it was treating more than 40 people injured by the extreme weather and was expecting more.

What was the damage?

Sheriff Jones described the damage as “catastrophic”.

PowerOutage.US says there are about 4,000 customers without power across Alabama, with about 2,000 of those in Lee County.

Read: South Korea and US to end large-scale war games

Cold weather is forecast for the region after the tornadoes, with temperatures predicted to drop to near freezing.

Alabama meteorologist Eric Snitil tweeted that there were more deaths in Lee County in one day due to a tornado than in the entirety of the US in 2018.

Tornado watches were in effect in parts of Alabama and in neighbouring Georgia on Sunday evening.

The extreme weather initially cut off electricity for 21,000 Georgia Power customers, according to a company spokeswoman, and tore down trees and destroyed homes.

What’s been the reaction?

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey posted on Twitter to warn residents there could be more extreme weather to come.

“Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives in the storms that hit Lee County today,” she wrote.

Source: BBC 

A group of Christian church investors is planning to put pressure on companies which have no women directors or a questionable record on tax.

The Church Investors Group has pension fund members with £21bn in assets.

It says it will vote against chairmen and women of boards of big companies which have poor polices on tax transparency and climate change.

It will also vote against pay reports which do not disclose the ratio of pay between top bosses and workers.

The Church Investors Group (CIG) has 67 members including the pension funds for the Church of England and the Methodist Church.

‘Common good’

Read: Pope admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery

“Ultimately a company’s license to operate depends on the confidence of the public and its long-term contribution to the common good,” said Canon Edward Carter, chair of CIG.

“As asset owners, we will continue to press with our votes the need for companies to act responsibly and work not only for the benefit of shareholders, but also contribute to the wider common good in both the short and long term,” he said.

CIG says it has told FTSE 350 companies – the largest companies publicly traded in London – of its plans.

It will also include Russell 50 companies – an index of the biggest US companies – when it comes to tax transparency.

Large companies will soon have their annual meetings where shareholders will be called to vote on board membership, pay for top executives and to accept annual results.

‘Hard line’

The CIG says its members will vote against the chairs of FTSE 350 and Russell 50 companies with a score of zero for tax transparency in the FTSE ESG ratings, which look at environmental, social and governance matters.

Currently, that includes Exxon, Amazon and Broadcom, the Financial Times reported.

The CIG also said it wanted to “take a hard line on excessive executive remuneration” and that it “continues to have concerns about CEOs receiving pension payments that are more generous than those made to other staff”.

The Church of England has a £8.3bn investment fund, which it says it invests in an “ethical and responsible way”.

The Church holds investments in firms including pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, the bank HSBC, supermarket Tesco, as well as tech firms Microsoft and Samsung.

Read: Pope says scandals driving people from Catholic Church

However, it has been criticised for some of its investments.

In September, the Church said it was keeping its shares in Amazon – a day after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the firm was “leeching off the taxpayer”.

The archbishop had questioned Amazon’s tax record.

In 2014, the commissioners sold around £75,000 of shares in failed payday lender Wonga after the archbishop pledged to “put it out of business”.

He had admitted to being “embarrassed” and “irritated” when details of the link emerged in 2013.

Source: BBC 

A helicopter has crashed in northern Kenya, killing four American tourists and their Kenyan pilot, officials say.

The helicopter reportedly crashed in Central Island National Park on Sunday.

Police said two helicopters had landed on the island’s Labolo tented camp on Sunday evening – one flew away safely. The cause of the crash is not known.

Read: 3 dead as Ethiopian helicopter crashes at UN compound

Local media say the pilot, Mario Magonga, once worked for the country’s deputy president and had extensive training and experience.

He had previously served as a Kenya Defence Forces pilot, but had been working for a private firm, KIDL Helicopters, since March 2017.

Richard Onyonka – a relative of the pilot and the area’s MP – said Cpt Magonga had been cleared to fly several high profile guests in the past, including former US President Barack Obama.

Read: Helicopter crash: Pastor Adeboye holds Thanksgiving Service for Osinbajo

“[He] was one of the best helicopter pilots that money could buy,” Mr Onyonka told Kenya’s NTV.

The accident comes just three weeks after a separate plane crash in Kenya which killed five people including three Americans.

Last evening at about 8pm, a helicopter crashed at Central Island National Park in Lake Turkana, killing all its five occupants on board.

Security personnel dispatched to the scene confirmed that among the five were four Americans and the Kenyan Pilot. 1/3

— National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) March 4, 2019

Source: BBC 

The chief financial officer of China’s tech giant Huawei is suing Canada over her arrest at the request of the US.

Meng Wanzhou was held in December at Vancouver airport on suspicion of fraud and breaching US sanctions on Iran.

On Friday Ms Meng filed a civil claim against Canada’s government, border agency and police for “serious breaches” of her civil rights.

It came on the same day that Canada officially launched Meng Wanzhou’s extradition process to the US.

Read: Huawei plans billions in dividends for staff despite row with U.S. – sources

She will next appear in court on 6 March, when it will be confirmed that Canada has issued a legal writ over her extradition to the US and the date for an extradition hearing will be set.

China has attacked Ms Meng’s arrest and the extradition process as a “political incident”. She denies all the charges against her.

What does the lawsuit say?

The claim – filed in British Columbia’s Supreme Court on Friday – seeks damages against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the federal government for allegedly breaching her civil rights.

Read: Huawei’s full-page WSJ advert: ‘Don’t believe everything you hear’

Ms Meng says CBSA officers held, searched and questioned her at the airport under false pretences before she was arrested by the RCMP.

Officers held her to get information they “did not believe would be obtained if the Plaintiff was immediately arrested”, breaking her rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Her detention was “unlawful” and “arbitrary”, the suit says, and officers “intentionally failed to advise her of the true reasons for her detention, her right to counsel, and her right to silence”.

Source: BBC 

A military court of appeal on Sunday confirmed the five-year prison sentence against the former President of the Egyptian Anti-Corruption Authority, Hicham Geneina, for suggesting the existence of secret documents compromising state leaders.

Mr. Geneina was sentenced in April 2018 to five years in prison, two months after his arrest following an interview in Huffpost Arabi, the Arabic version of the US news website, for “disseminating information aimed at harming the army”.

According to his lawyer, Ali Taha, Mr Geneina can still appeal to the Supreme Court.

Read: Egyptian President Sisi may rule until 2034

At the time of the incident, Hicham Geneina, a leading corruption defender, was one of the main leaders of the presidential campaign of Sami Anan, former chief of staff, who was also arrested by the army after announcing his candidacy to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi for the March 2018 election.

Mr. Sissi won the presidential election with 97.08% of the votes.

In his interview, Mr. Geneina stated that the documents, which Mr. Anan reportedly had in his possession, “revolve around the political events and crises facing Egyptian society” since the January 2011 revolt that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

He added that these documents were “in a safe place” abroad and could be published if Mr. Anan was attacked.

Read: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is new AU Chairperson

In 2016, Mr Geneina, a magistrate by training, was dismissed from the Public Accounts Control Authority by Mr Sissi after having estimated the cost of public corruption at €60 billion between 2012 and 2015.

He was then accused of “spreading false information”.

The journalist who conducted the interview, Moataz Wadnan, also in detention, has not yet been tried.

Source: africanews 

Africa’s largest film festival has awarded a Kenyan actress for her depiction of a lesbian character in a film that is banned in her own country.

Fespaco film festival in Burkina Faso gave Samantha Mugatsia the best actress award for her lead role in the film Rafiki.

The Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) banned the film last year for “promoting lesbianism”.

Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya – a legacy of British colonial-era rule.

Read: Mother of UK based Ghanaian lesbian breaks silence

Gay sex is punishable by 14 years in Kenya but the country’s High Court is due to rule on whether to strike down the ban in May.

KFCB had previously warned that anyone found in possession of the film would be in breach of the law.

Rafiki, which means “friend” in Swahili, traces a coming-of-age love story between two young women who meet and fall in love.

Their romance unfolds against a backdrop of homophobia and despite their families being on opposing sides of the political divide.

The film is based on Jambula Tree, a prize-winning short story by Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko.

Read: Kenya lesbian film ban temporarily lifted

Reacting to the lead actress’s win, the film’s director Wanuri Kahiu tweeted: The oldest African film festival acknowledged a queer character… So proud! Queerness cannot be silenced!”

The best actor award went to Marc Zinga for his part in The Mercy of the Jungle, in which he plays a soldier lost in the jungle in wartime Democratic Republic of Congo.

The director of that film, Rwandan Joel Karekezi, won the top prize of the film festival, known as the golden stallion of Yennenga.

Fespaco, the acronym in French of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Source: BBC 

Algeria’s veteran President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has defied protesters by confirming he will run again – but says he will not serve a full term.

In a letter he said if he won April’s vote he would oversee a national dialogue leading to fresh elections that he would not contest.

His decision to seek a fifth term in office sparked nationwide protests.

Mr Bouteflika, 82, has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.

Sunday saw new protests as a midnight deadline loomed for candidates to register. By nightfall, young people were again marching in the capital Algiers despite the president’s offer.

Mr Bouteflika’s campaign manager submitted papers on behalf of the ailing president, who is undergoing medical treatment in Switzerland.

The electoral commission has said candidates need to submit them in person, but the Constitutional Council ruled that he did not have to be physically present.

How does the president’s idea work? The proposal came in the form of a letter to the Algerian people read out on state television.

Should he be re-elected. Mr Bouteflika said he would hold an “inclusive national conference” followed by a vote to determine the next president.

He said he would not run again and acknowledged the protests that have rocked Algeria.

“I listened and heard the heartfelt cry of protesters and in particular of the thousands of youth who asked me about the future of our country,” the letter said, read by a presenter on ENTV.

“These youth express an understandable concern about the uncertainties they face. I have the duty and will to appease the hearts and spirits of my compatriots.”

Who else is running? So far, six other candidates have formally registered, among them a retired general, Ali Ghediri, who has promised to bring “change” to Algeria.

Businessman Rachid Nekkaz, who has a sizeable Facebook following and is said to be popular among Algeria’s young, announced plans to run, but was deemed ineligible.

Instead, his cousin, a car mechanic who is also called Rachid Nekkaz has entered and the businessman says he will serve as his campaign manager.

Two opposition parties, the Labour Party, and the Islamist Movement of Society for Peace, have said they will boycott the election.

A key challenger in previous elections, Ali Benflis, also is not running.

Are these protests unusual? Yes – public shows of dissent in Algeria are rare, and the protests have been the biggest since Mr Bouteflika came to power 20 years ago.

Demonstrations broke out about 10 days ago after Mr Bouteflika announced his plans to run for office again.

On Sunday, people again took to the streets of the capital Algiers and other major cities.

Police reportedly used water cannon to disperse students rallying in Algiers.

There have also been demonstrations in France, the former colonial power, which is home to a large Algerian community.

“We aren’t opposed to the president, but he is unconscious, he doesn’t exist anymore, his generals and those close to him are doing what they will behind his back,” one demonstrator told the AFP news agency.

Who is Abdelaziz Bouteflika? Mr Bouteflika came to power in 1999 and is credited with putting an end to a civil war that is estimated to have killed more than 100,000 people.

Protests against food prices and unemployment broke out in 2011 during the Arab Spring but he responded by lifting a nearly two-decades old state of emergency, meeting a key demand of protesters.

After his stroke he won re-election in a poll denounced by the opposition and dissolved the country’s powerful spy agency, replacing it with a body loyal to him.

Critics say his ill health means that he is unable to perform his duties as president.

Despite the dissent, Mr Bouteflika is still widely tipped to win the election this year.

Algeria’s opposition is divided and Mr Bouteflika won the last presidential elections in 2014 despite doing no personal campaigning.

Source: bbc.com

The actor Johnny Depp has launched legal action against his ex-wife Amber Heard, accusing her of defamation.

In December, Ms Heard, also an actor, wrote an article for the Washington Post describing the backlash she faced due to speaking out about domestic violence.

Mr Depp’s lawsuit says he “never abused Ms Heard” and the claims are “part of an elaborate hoax” to advance his ex-wife’s career.

He is seeking $50m (£38m) in damages.

Ms Heard first accused Mr Depp of domestic violence in May 2016, the year after they were married. Mr Depp was ordered to stay away from her and the couple divorced in 2017.

In her piece for The Washington Post, Ms Heard does not name Mr Depp but describes her experience of speaking out against domestic violence, stating she “faced our culture’s wrath”.

She said she had lost a role in a film, was dropped by a major fashion brand and witnessed “how institutions protect men accused of abuse”.

Mr Depp’s defamation claim says the article worked on the “central premise that Ms Heard was a domestic abuse victim and that Mr Depp perpetrated domestic violence against her” and states that she was in fact the perpetrator.

The lawsuit claims her allegations lost him his lucrative role as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Ms Heard’s attorney Eric George told People magazine that Mr Depp’s legal action is an attempt to silence his ex-wife but “she will not be silenced”.

He said Mr Depp’s actions “prove he is unable to accept the truth of his ongoing abusive behaviour”, but that Ms Heard’s legal team would “prevail in defeating this groundless lawsuit”.

In response, Mr Depp’s attorney Adam Waldman told the magazine “we hardly intend to silence Ms Heard” but “look forward to holding the overwhelming video, photographic and eyewitness evidence we finally possess up against Amber Heard’s (so far silent) attempts to explain the inexplicable”.

Source: bbc.com

The US and South Korea have confirmed plans to end large-scale joint military exercises amid efforts to thaw relations.

Smaller-scale drills will continue, but major planned war games will now not go ahead.

A number of exercises were suspended last year after US President Donald Trump met North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

North Korea has always regarded the games as preparation for a military invasion by the two countries.

A Pentagon statement said the defence ministers from the two countries had agreed to end the Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises in a phone call on Saturday. It is unclear if the suspension is permanent.

Critics have said cancelling the drills could undermine US and South Korean military defences against the North, but others say those concerns are unjustified.

President Trump has previously complained of the cost of such exercises, although he has ruled out withdrawing US troops from the peninsula.

The country has about 30,000 US troops in South Korea.

Mr Trump’s second summit with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam this week ended abruptly without a deal.

US President Donald Trump has launched a furious attack on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and on his critics at a conservative summit.

In the longest speech of his presidency, Mr Trump railed against the inquiry into alleged collusion between his campaign and Russia.

“We’re waiting for a report by people who weren’t elected,” he told a crowd of cheering conservatives.

Mr Mueller is expected to hand in his report to the attorney general shortly.

“Unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there and all of a sudden they are trying to take you out with bullshit, okay?” the president said.

Mr Trump has frequently called the special counsel’s investigation a “witch hunt”.

The speech – clocking in at more than two hours – also included sharp attacks on former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former FBI head James Comey, the Democratic Party and those critical of his approach to North Korea.

Mr Trump’s second summit with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam ended abruptly without a deal this week.

Whom did the president attack?

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Mr Trump lashed out at his detractors in a wide-ranging speech.

“This is how I got elected, by being off script .?.?. and if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks,” he began.

The president repeatedly said that Mr Mueller had “never received a vote”, nor had Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mr Mueller to his position.

Mr Rosenstein plans to step down by March after frequent presidential attacks.

The president alleged Mr Mueller was “best friends” with former FBI head James Comey, and mocked the accent of former attorney general Mr Sessions, whom he fired in November.

He said Mr Sessions was “weak and ineffective and he doesn’t do what he should have done”.

What else did he say? The president’s attacks ranged widely.

He called the Green New Deal proposal – pitched by some Democrats as a radical bid to combat climate change – “the craziest plan”, saying “when the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric”.

After a series of remarks on immigrants who, he said, must “love our country”, Mr Trump said, “We have people in Congress that hate our country.”

“And you know that, and we can name every one of them if you want,” he said.

He also defended his summit with North Korea leader Mr Kim, telling the crowd they had made “a lot of progress” and saying the country had “an incredible, brilliant future”.

Mr Trump also pledged to protect free speech on US university campuses with an executive order.

Conservatives have said some US universities stifle right-wing opinions.

The speech came at the end of a difficult week for the president.

Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen called him a “racist”, “conman” and a “cheat” in a congressional hearing.

Source: bbc.com

African cinema is being celebrated at a top film festival in Burkina Faso with more than 160 pictures are being featured in this year’s line up.

Despite the growing market for African cinema, African filmmakers have said they still struggle to find funding.

The films run the gamut at this festival – they cover the political, social and cultural stories of the continent.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque reports from the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is back in prison after being let out to attend his grandson Arthur’s funeral.

The seven-year-old died of meningitis on Friday. Lula, as he is known, was allowed to go to the burial in São Paulo on Saturday, where supporters gathered to greet him.

Lula is serving 12 years in prison on corruption charges.

At the funeral, the former president insisted on his innocence.

Lula’s website said he announced at the funeral that when he met Arthur in heaven, he would prove his innocence after all the bullying that the boy had suffered in school due to his grandfather being in prison.

Lula, who claims his conviction was politically motivated, would also prove that the prosecutor and judge who jailed him lied, the note added.

An iconic figure for the left in Latin America, the former trade unionist led Brazil between 2003 and 2010.

But he was convicted for work done on a beachfront property. In February a court doubled Lula’s sentence after he was found guilty of benefiting from renovation work from a company implicated in a corruption scandal.

His lawyers said he would appeal against the new conviction.

Lula had asked permission to attend his brother’s funeral in January, but the Brazilian Supreme Court did not grant the request until the funeral was under way.

However, Paraná state government said Lula would be allowed to attend Arthur’s funeral in São Paulo.

The former leader is jailed in a federal prison in Curitiba, the capital of Paraná state. This is his first time out after his conviction last April.

Arrangements were made to fly Lula to São Paulo, roughly 340 kilometres (210 miles) away. He was returned to his cell nine hours later, at around 15:45 local time (18:45 GMT).

Lula’s was the most high-profile conviction from a sprawling anti-corruption investigation known as Operation Car Wash – dubbed “the largest foreign bribery case in history” by the US Department of Justice.

His supporters have insisted he is the victim of political persecution, with his left-wing Worker’s Party petitioning for his release.

President Jair Bolsonaro said he hoped Lula “rots in prison” in a video address in October.

His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a lawmaker for his father’s party, made his feelings about Lula’s temporary release clear on Twitter, labelling it “absurd” and stating that “it only allows a high-profile thug to pass himself off as a victim”.

The tweet was later deleted.

A summit between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended with no agreement after the US refused North Korean demands for sanctions relief, President Trump said.

“It was all about the the sanctions,” Mr Trump told reporters. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that.”

The pair had been expected to announce progress on denuclearisation.

“Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times,” Mr Trump said.

Speaking at a news conference after the summit, in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, Mr Trump said no plans had been made for a third summit.

The original White House programme for the day had planned for a “Joint Agreement Signing Ceremony” as well as a working lunch for the two leaders, but expectations were abruptly dashed with the cancellation of both.

What were the sticking points?
According to Mr Trump, Mr Kim made a significant offer – to dismantle all of the Yongbyon complex, the research and production facility at the heart of North Korea’s nuclear programme. But in return Mr Kim wanted all sanctions on North Korea lifted, something the US was not prepared to offer.

There was also a question over the network of facilities that extend beyond Yongbyon. Last month, Stephen Biegun, the US State Department special representative for North Korea, said that North Korea had committed in pre-summit talks to destroy all of the nation’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities, dependent on unspecified US measures in return.

Yongbyon is North Korea’s only known source of plutonium but the country is believed to have at least two other facilities where uranium is enriched.

Those unspecified US measures appear now to have been complete sanctions relief, which Mr Trump would not offer. The US president also suggested in his news conference that Mr Kim offered only the destruction of Yongbyon and not North Korea’s entire nuclear apparatus.

The president said that when he raised the issue of a second enrichment facility apart from Yongbyon, the North Korean delegation was “surprised” by what the US knew.

Is this a setback for Trump?
The first summit between the two leaders, which took place in Singapore in June 2018, was criticised for having produced little in terms of substance, leading to anticipation that Mr Trump would push at the summit in Hanoi to produce an agreement on denuclearisation.

The failure will be viewed as a setback for self-styled deal maker Mr Trump, who has talked up his historic rapprochement with Mr Kim as a significant policy achievement.

Some praised the president for walking away from the deal offered by North Korea. “This is not necessarily a failure,” Stephan Haggard, a Korea expert at the University of California, San Diego, told the Reuters news agency.

“Time was short and it is clear that the administration wanted to get more in terms of additional sites outside Yongbyon and was unwilling to partially lift sanctions without more clarity or perhaps more concessions on them,” Mr Haggard said.

The summit came as Mr Trump was facing increased scrutiny at home in the US over his business dealings and alleged ties to Russia, after his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen testified before Congress on Wednesday.

What does denuclearisation mean?
There is uncertainty around what exactly both sides mean by denuclearisation. Washington has previously said North Korea must unilaterally give up its all of its nuclear weapons and destroy all of its nuclear facilities before there could be any sanctions relief, but that condition is known to be a sticking point for the North Koreans.

Where does this leave the relationship?

The pair seemed to get along at the Hanoi summit, as they did at the previous summit in Singapore. They took a poolside stroll for the cameras, although neither appeared to say much.

And end to war?
Before the summit, there was talk of a possible political declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which finished with an armistice rather than a full peace treaty.

With the abrupt end of the talks, that peripheral goal seemed to have been kicked into the long grass.

Source: bbc.com

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote has become the 64th richest person in the world.

Dangote who is the President of Dangote Group moved up to the 64th position with an estimated worth of N6,020,820,000 ($16.6 billion),

His move to the 64th position is a significant considering he was previously ranked 103rd in the world.

Dangote who has been named the richest man in Africa for the 8th year running was the only Nigerian on the list of the top 500 billionaires, as released by Bloomberg in its yearly billionaire’s list.

The number one position is retained by Jeff Bezos with an estimated net worth of N49,327,200,000,000 ($136 billion) while Bill Gates and Warren Buffett ranked second and third respectively with N35,689,680,000,000 ($98.4 billion) and N30,104,100,000,000 ($83 billion) on the list that is dominated by North Americans.

It would be recalled that Dangote, was also recently named as the sixth most charitable man in the world by Richtopia, a digital periodical that covers business, economics, and financial news, based in the United Kingdom.

Thousands of Syrians who fled to neighbouring Lebanon when the war began are going back home.

The new minister in charge of Lebanon’s millions of refugees, Saleh Gharib, is an outspoken supporter of the Syrian government.

Gharib’s first act in the job was to visit Damascus, where he has vowed to make the return of refugees a priority.

But human rights groups say those returning face arbitrary detention and torture by the regime.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from Beirut.

Source: aljazeera.co

Negotiations between the Taliban and the United States officials in Qatar entered the fifth day in an attempt to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

The talks mark the highest level negotiations between the two sides since the US ramped up peace efforts last year.

Cofounder of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has joined the talks as the new head of the Taliban team. He met the US special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, for the first time on Monday.

Since then, the two men and their respective delegations have been working to hammer out details of a framework agreement reached in six days of negotiations in Doha in January.

“We have two core issues. The withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan is a core issue for us. And a core issue for the American side is that the soil of Afghanistan should not be used against the Americans and against its allies,” said Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen as talks entered a second day on Tuesday.

The US has also been asking for a Taliban ceasefire.

“If we do not reach a solution in this round of talks, then we will in the next round of talks, but that is our target,” Shaheen said.

In the latest round of talks, working groups are trying to find formulas that work for both sides.

One major sticking point is the US wants the Taliban to negotiate any final deal with the Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani, something the Taliban has repeatedly refused to do, calling the government a “puppet” of the West.

Ghani has expressed frustration at being excluded from the negotiations. Taliban members had met Afghan representatives, including Ghani’s political opponents in Moscow last month.

Continuing violence

Meanwhile, the Taliban continues with its offensives in Afghanistan, despite the talks.

Taliban fighters killed at least 23 Afghan security forces in an attack on Friday on Camp Shorab, a sprawling military base in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.

In northern Sari Pul province, Taliban ambushed a convoy of Afghan security forces, killing nine, said Zabihullah Amani, spokesman for the provincial governor.

The heavy fighting has been costly for Afghan security forces. While the Afghan Ministry of Defence stopped publicly releasing casualty figures, Ghani said 45,000 Afghan security forces have been killed since September 2014.

The last year was the deadliest for civilians in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations, with 3,804 civilian deaths in 2018.

The UN says at least 32,000 civilians have been killed and another 60,000 wounded in the past decade, when it began compiling the data.

The Dutch husband of Shamima Begum, who joined the Islamic State group in Syria in 2015 aged 15, has said he wants her to return to the Netherlands with him.

Yago Riedijk and Ms Begum married days after she arrived inside IS territory.

Speaking to the BBC, he admitted fighting for the group but says he now wants to return home with his wife and their newborn son.

Mr Riedijk, 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention centre in north-eastern Syria.

He faces a six-year jail term for joining a terror organisation if he returns to the Netherlands.

In an interview with the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, Mr Riedijk said he rejected IS and had tried to leave the group.

He told our correspondent that he was imprisoned in Raqqa and tortured after the extremists accused him of being a Dutch spy.

Describing life under IS control, Mr Riedijk also said he attended the stoning of a woman for “fornication”, saw piles of dead bodies in the city and lost an infant daughter to malnutrition.

Ms Begum, now aged 19, escaped with her IS fighter husband from the town of Baghouz, the group’s last territory in eastern Syria, as the caliphate crumbled.

Mr Riedijk surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters, and Ms Begum and their newborn son, Jarrah, ended up among 39,000 people in the al-Hawl refugee camp in northern Syria.

She has now reportedly gone elsewhere.

Describing how he met the schoolgirl from east London in the women’s centre in Raqqa, he said he was initially not interested because she was too young.

He said: “To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway.”

He added that she had seemed to be “in a good state of mind”.

Mr Riedijk, from Arnhem in the Netherlands, insisted: “It was her own choice. She asked to look for a partner for her, and I was invited.”

He conceded “she was very young, maybe it would have been better for her to wait a bit”, before adding: “But she didn’t, she chose to get married and I chose to marry her.”

Media captionShamima Begum: ‘I got tricked and I was hoping someone would have sympathy with me’
Ms Begum left the UK in February 2015 alongside Amira Abase, also 15 at the time, and Kadiza Sultana, who was 16. Ms Sultana is believed to have been killed in an air strike in 2016.

The UK has revoked Ms Begum’s citizenship on the grounds that she is a Bangladeshi national through her mother, who is a Bangladeshi citizen.

But Bangladesh’s ministry of foreign affairs has disputed this, saying Ms Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and that she will not be allowed into the country.

What is Shamima Begum’s legal status?

In the letter, seen by the BBC, Shamima Begum’s sister Renu said they could not “simply abandon her” and asked for assistance in bringing her newborn baby to the UK.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, said Ms Begum had a “right to return to Britain” – and called the decision to revoke her citizenship “extreme”.

Although Mr Riedijk is on a terrorism watch list, his Dutch citizenship has not been revoked.

However, our correspondent said: “The truth is Shemima Begum and Yago Riedijk lost control of their fate when they joined that extremist group, and Yago Riedijk might find its as difficult for him to return back home as it is for his wife.”

Mr Riedijk was born and raised in Dutch suburbia but abandoned his life in 2014 to join IS.

Source: bbc.com

More than 50 people are missing after a leaking oil pipeline exploded and caused a stampede in southern Nigeria, a local official said Saturday.

The blast early Friday caused massive oil spillage in the Nembe kingdom in Bayelsa state, the Nembe Chiefs Council spokesman, Chief Nengi James-Eriworio, told The Associated Press.

The Nembe trunk line is operated by the Port Harcourt-based Aiteo Group and carries crude to the Bonny export terminal. Aiteo had yet to comment on the explosion. It was not immediately clear if the pipeline had been shut down.

Read: Election officials ‘raped’ in Nigeria

Video obtained by the AP shows a large blaze from the ruptured pipeline at night as villagers look on. “If they turn off the oil well from the station, the pressure inside the pipeline would reduce, causing the flame to burn out,” one person is heard in the background explaining.

The Niger Delta is highly polluted. Nigerian oil companies usually assert that the majority of oil spills are caused by sabotage, theft and illegal refining.

Deadly accidents caused by leaking pipelines are alarmingly common. In January, an overturned oil tanker exploded in Odukpani in Cross River state while dozens of people were scooping up the leaking fuel. Police said at least 12 people were killed while some witnesses estimated up to 60 were dead.

Read: 30,000 Nigerians displaced by Boko Haram return from Cameroon

Hundreds of people have died in similar accidents in recent years in Africa’s largest oil producer as impoverished people risk their lives to collect fuel leaking from pipelines or trucks.

Source: VOA