Author: Chris Kodo

An Iranian-born Canadian resident has escaped from Iran after being imprisoned there for 11 years and returned to Canada.

Saeed Malekpour was sentenced to life in prison over a programme he created for uploading photos to the web that Iranian authorities said was used on Persian-language pornographic websites.

His sister posted a video online showing his return to Canada on Friday.

He fled while on short-term release from prison.

Mr Malekpour’s imprisonment was one of several prominent cases involving Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency.

In comments shared by the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency Mizan Online, spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said Mr Malekpour was was on a “three-day prison leave” and “barred from leaving the country”.

“Apparently he has used illegal ways to leave the country,” Mr Esmaili added.

Payam Akhavan, an international law professor who has been involved in the case, told Canadian media: “He was temporarily released from prison in Iran following pressure from United Nations human rights bodies, and he was to report to the prison authorities again.

“But instead he left the country and came to Canada through a third country.”

Mr Malekpour’s sister posted a video of him arriving in Canada on social media.

“The nightmare is finally over. He is back home and reunited with his sister. Thank you Canada for your leadership,” she wrote.

She did not provide details of the circumstances surrounding his return.

The web programmer was arrested in October 2008 while visiting his father, who was in poor health, in Iran.

He argued that the programme he created was open source and that it was used by other websites without his knowledge.

He was initially sentenced to death for “spreading corruption on earth”. This was later commuted to life imprisonment, reportedly after he “repented”.

During his imprisonment, Mr Malekpour was physically and psychologically tortured and spent more than a year in solitary confinement, according to Amnesty International.

Source: BBC.com

Hong Kong police have fired tear gas in confrontations with black-clad activists in a popular tourist district, as the Chinese-controlled territory was again rocked by anti-government protests.

Officers with gas masks and shields on Saturday charged at hundreds of protesters who had surrounded a police station in the busy shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui. 

Masked demonstrators smashed the windows of cars in the police parking lot and daubed nearby walls with graffiti. One team of protesters created a large slingshot – held up by two members – to launch bricks at the building.

Police fired volleys of tear gas followed by repeated baton charges. They made multiple arrests.

But standoffs continued into the evening with small groups of hardcore protesters trying to hold their ground behind makeshift shields.

Hong Kong’s civil servants join pro-democracy rally

Police said they used tear gas to disperse the crowd after protesters lit fires outside the Tsim Sha Tsui police station and “damaged multiple vehicles inside the station”.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from Nathan Road at the protest site, said protesters were “very angry with the police”. 

“There is no doubt the protesters’ tactics do involve, what they would say, low-level violence – not violence against people – only against property very closely associated with the police or the government,” he said.

‘Only choice’

Hong Kong has witnessed two months of huge rallies triggered by a proposed bill allowing people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China. The protests have grown increasingly violent since June, with police accused of excessive force and failing to protect protesters from suspected gang attacks.

While the government led by Chief Executive Carrie Lam has since suspended the legislation, protesters have pressed on with five major demands – Lam’s resignation, an independent inquiry into police tactics, an amnesty for those arrested, a permanent withdrawal of the bill, and the right to elect their own leaders.

“On Monday, they’re calling for a general strike,” Thomas said, adding that protesters believed the only way they could achieve their aims was to “shut down the city by causing traffic jams, hence disabling traffic lights”.

“They say they’ve tried everything else and this is their only choice.”

Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of protesters marched through the crowded Mong Kok district, with many then dispersing to different parts of the Kowloon Peninsula, where they set up barriers across busy streets to block traffic. 

Many of the demonstrators wore yellow or white hard hats, and the crowds chanted “age of revolution!” and “Hong Kongers, add oil!” – a popular exhortation in Cantonese.

“The more the government suppresses us, the more we will come out until the government responds to our demands,” protester Ah Kit, 36, told AFP news agency. 

Organisers said 120,000 people joined the rally. Police said 42,000 people had joined the march at its peak.

Under Chinese rule, Hong Kong has been allowed to retain extensive freedoms, such as an independent judiciary, but many residents see the extradition bill as the latest step in a relentless march towards mainland control.

The protests against the bill have become the most serious political crisis in Hong Kong since it returned to China 22 years ago after being governed by Britain.

They also pose the greatest popular challenge to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012 and come as Xi grapples with an escalating trade war with the United States and a slowing economy in a politically sensitive year.

Police supporters

Authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing this week signalled a hardening stance, including with the arrests of dozens of protesters, and the Chinese military saying it was ready to quell the “intolerable” unrest if requested.

Thousands of pro-government supporters also held a rally in a separate park on Saturday, many waving Chinese flags and chanting slogans in support of the police – who have refuted allegations of using excessive force.

Pro-Beijing politician Junius Ho was greeted with strong applause.

“We are the real Hong Kong people who are not the same as those black-shirted thugs. We don’t need a so-called ‘HK revolution’, we only need to do our best, which is enough,” he told the crowd.

Sylvia Lam, 61, who described herself as a housewife, said she had turned up at the pro-police rally to oppose violence.

“I feel extremely uncomfortable when every time I watch TV, the scenes are so radical,” she said. “Young people should stop and think, don’t become someone’s political tools, be rational please.”

Beijing has increasingly pitched the anti-government protests as funded by the West.

China has provided little evidence beyond supportive statements from some Western politicians and critics say Beijing’s accusations of foreign meddling ignore Hong Kongers’ legitimate grievances.

Source: aljazeera.com

At least eleven people have died and three others were missing after three ferry boats capsized in rough seas off the central Philippines, according to local officials.

Sixty-three survivors were plucked from the water on Saturday after huge waves swamped the boats in the Guimaras Strait, regional police chief Rene Pamuspusan told reporters.

All three vessels plied the short 20-minute hop between the port city of Iloilo and the island of Guimaras, with two of the accidents happening at almost the same time, forcing the coast guard to temporarily shut down ferry services.

Services resumed in the afternoon, which was when the third boat capsized, the coast guard said.

“The winds and the waves suddenly became strong,” coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo told reporters, adding that one of the ferry-boats, M/B Chichi, was carrying at least 42 passengers.

Ten of the fatalities were aboard the M/B Chi Chi, which capsized after being battered by strong winds and huge waves.

Another boat, M/B Keizha, reportedly had four crewmen on board, while the third ferry, M/B Jenny, carried around 30 passengers on board, according to local media reports.

One victim died in the sinking of the M/B Jenny. 

Philippine Red Cross posted pictures of two of the vessels on social media, showing one turned upside down as rescuers swam nearby, while the other was almost completely sunk with just the bow above water.

Video from ABS CBN TV network showed a rescuer carrying a child from a motorboat to an ambulance in an Iloilo pier, where frantic relatives waited.

ILOILO-GUIMARAS STRAIT TRAGEDY UPDATE 

Iloilo City Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO) head Donna Magno confirmed that 11 are confirmed dead in the two separate incidents of capsizing of three pump boats in Iloilo-Guimaras strait on August 3, 2019.

Forecasters have warned of heavy monsoon rains and thunderstorms amid a brewing storm about 875 kilometers off the country’s eastern coast.

Classes and work have been suspended in the Philippines’ capital, Manila, amid heavy rains and flooding, which caused heavy traffic jams on Friday in low-lying areas of the city.

About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippines each year, making the archipelago that lies on the Pacific typhoon and earthquake belt one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.

The weather bureau said the disturbance was expected to strengthen into a tropical depression in the next 24 to 35 hours and bring more rains.

Source: aljazeera,com

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday that he was “very confident” the United States would be able to build a maritime coalition in the Gulf, despite a lukewarm response from European and Asian allies.

Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper were speaking alongside their Australian counterparts in Sydney.

Source: reuters.com

There aren’t many pop shows like the one Christine + The Queens is putting on at festivals around Europe this summer.

Sparse and theatrical, it sees the French singer tangle and tussle with her dance troupe, as she brings to life songs of non-conformity and sexual awakening.

Amidst the spartan lighting and plumes of smoke, the muscular, gender-fluid performers occasionally resemble a Caravaggio painting – which, it transpires, is the whole point.

“I wanted to work the show like a painting,” says Chris. “The fireworks create smoke, so it’s almost like painting by explosion.”

“When I first suggested it, my tech guys wanted to kill me, but maybe it’s the fireworks that will kill me in the end,” she adds, laughing. “That would be a fantastic gig: She died! She combusted into spontaneous fire!”

She’s joking, of course, but Chris’s shows generate enough heat to power a small village. At one point, a dancer even starts smoking – not with a cigarette pressed to their lips, but with literal smoke billowing from beneath their clothes.

There are moments of intense sadness, too. On What’s Her Face, a song about how Letissier still carries the loneliness of the school playground everywhere she goes, she removes her shirt and turns her back to the audience, isolated and vulnerable amongst a crowd of adoring fans.

But the star emerges liberated and unapologetic, comfortable in her skin, shrugging off expectations.

“This is a safe space, free of all judgement,” she announced as she headlined Glastonbury’s Other Stage in June. “Because if there’s no judgment, then anything can happen”.

BBC News caught up with the singer, whose real name is Heloise Letissier, before the show to discuss her “brutally honest” lyrics, and why she “stopped apologising” for making music on her own terms.

It’s eight hours until you headline this stage. How will you fill the time?

It’s a good question, because the odd part of being a performer is that you spend the whole day waiting for night to happen.

I wish I was someone cool who could just enjoy the other gigs and wander around and have a good time; but I’ll just be in my dressing room, sitting, listening to music and concentrating on the show.

And afterwards?

After the show, actually, I’ve given everything so I’m just, like, having a herbal tea. I have to be honest with you, the performance is so important that before and after doesn’t really matter.

You go to some dark places. Are drained by the end?

Yes, but it’s also cathartic. When I was younger, I was always trying to hide the fact that I was very sensitive or fragile, and it was exhausting to hide it. But now that I’m embracing it, it really feels empowering.
A song like Don’t Matter tackles subjects like anorexia and self-loathing that are atypical for pop music. What led you down that path?

Since I started to write my first song, it’s been non-negotiable: I’m going to be brutally honest.

Christine and the Queens was born out of a crazy desire to finally accept everything and own everything about myself including the dark thoughts, including sadness, including the impossibility of fitting in. And I wouldn’t shy away from that… which creates a weird balance.

And honestly, you know, Christine and the Queens was also borne out of something that happened between me and drag queens [she was nursed out of depression by a troupe of drag artists after a catastrophic break-up in her early 20s]. Christine is a drag character – it’s really generous and fun and entertaining, but it’s borne out of wounds.

Drag queens always have stories of their sadness – but they turn it into something that can be shared, and I think that’s something that can be really powerful.

You’ve been called a spokesperson for the LGBT community. Is that a label you’re comfortable with?

I think it’s healthier not to see yourself as a spokesperson for anything. As an artist, I do believe in visibility, in speaking out. I believe in that very much. But it’s good not to think of yourself as a role model, because it can become so solemn; and a bit pretentious also.

And restrictive, I guess?

I think so. It’s the end of that brutal honesty we were talking about.

I recently did Primavera and that festival was 50/50. It was really an important moment when the line-up came out and we realised. It seems like the more we move forward, the easier it becomes to look back and see how we were lacking equality before.

It’s not natural yet. It’s not reflex yet. We have to talk about it, think of it, be careful of it; and I think we’re getting towards the right direction. The pop landscape now is filled with different representations of femininity, which I appreciate. You have Solange, you have Billie Eilish, you have Beyoncé. Many different ways to be a woman in the industry, and I think that’s really cool.

You’ve named three female headliners right there.

Absolutely. Beyoncé headlined Glastonbury already, didn’t she?

Yes, and Billie Eilish is playing just before you today.

She represents something more rough around the edges, less polite. It’s a form of femininity I actually do like.

The next step, would be to get more women in technical jobs – like female sound engineers, female producers.

It’s just natural. When I write a song, I always start with the production – building a beat, an aesthetic. I don’t have a demo with some piano chords and a melody, it’s a fully-shaped song already. So then I just have to finish the production as it is.

Actually, at one point, because I was made to feel self-conscious about it, I was like, “OK, I’m going to try producing with other people,” but it wasn’t working. I kept losing the essence of the track because it was already produced with a clear vision. At some point I decided to stop apologising for that. I like producing. I like to think about sounds and textures.

Talk me through the making of 5 Dollars. How did you achieve such a unique sound?

I had an obsession with Bruce Springsteen when I was writing the second album. I was like, “Oh, he knows how to write such tender, catchy melodies” and when I wrote 5 Dollars, I was searching for that type of melody that could be uplifting and sad at the same time.

And then for the production, I was actually thinking a lot about Arthur Russell – whose music is really sparse and fragile, but also really fierce. So it was like Bruce Springsteen and Arthur Russell. No biggie.

You’ve been sampling Janet Jackson’s Nasty during your show. Was that Minneapolis sound a big influence, too?

I actually watched her Glastonbury set on BBC iPlayer while I was drinking my coffee this morning! But you’re right, on my second record, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s production on Control and The Velvet Rope – were very inspiring for me.

I don’t think a lot of people realise how trailblazing The Velvet Rope was – Janet was talking about gender fluidity and LGBT rights, long before it became an accepted part of pop music.

That album is a masterpiece. Like you say, it’s about gender fluidity but also depression, empowerment. You get to meet a whole woman in every facet she has, and it’s not an easy listen because it doesn’t give an easy answer.

At one point she’s empowered and at another she’s getting abused by a partner – but it’s the same woman, trying to make a path in life.

It’s a hugely feminist album and the production is amazing, so I was really inspired by that. I wanted to make an album that could be complex, also. I didn’t want to give any easy answers about who I was, because I don’t have any.

And that’s the key, isn’t it? No-one is the same person from one day to the next.

No. Exactly. And I mean, I like cheesy pop. I like pop that’s just [sings] “Be the best person you can be!” But I want to use the pop vessel to tell stories that could be deeply relatable. Sometimes those stories aren’t clear or easy – but life’s like that.

Christine and the Queens is playing festivals throughout Europe this summer, and currently appears with Charli XCX on the single Gone.

Source: BBC.com

The little girl who fled from war-torn Latvia spent more than 50 years in exile – but soon after returning she became president.

Not only that, Vaira Vike-Freiberga became the first female head of a former Soviet bloc state.

“My parents never let me forget that I am Latvian,” she told the BBC.

The Baltic state was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War Two.

The Germans swept into Latvia in July 1941 and took many Soviet prisoners
She has vivid memories of that chaotic time, especially 1944, when Russian troops – the communist Red Army – marched back into Latvia.

“I was impressed by the ones with the red flags and the fists. So at one point, as one of them marched by, I raised my fist in the air and shouted ‘hurrah!’,” she says.

“At that point I saw my mother lean against the lamppost, absolutely stricken, with tears streaming down her cheeks, saying ‘Please, child, don’t do that. This is a very sad day for Latvia’.”

Cruel lessons

The family’s odyssey westward took Vaira, aged seven, first to devastated Germany. Then they moved to French-ruled Morocco, then to Canada.

She did not return to Latvia until 1998, aged 60, and became president within eight months.

Vaira remembers her father listening to the BBC World Service in 1944, desperately trying to fathom where the war was heading.

Later that year her parents made the agonising decision to leave Latvia.

“We took the ship on New Year’s night of 1945. It was a transport ship with troops and with armaments and of course if it gets torpedoed it’s going to blow it up. But they have taken a certain number of civilians with them, who also want to flee from communism at any price. Latvians gathered on the deck and sang the Latvian anthem.”

The family reached the refugee camps being set up across Germany. The conditions were very harsh and her baby sister fell ill with pneumonia and died, just 10 months old.

Within a year Vaira’s mother gave birth again, to a baby boy. But for Vaira the event was overshadowed by another cruel life lesson.

“A young girl of 18 was lying in the same room with my mother. She had given birth to a little girl and didn’t want her. She didn’t want to name her child and she didn’t want to have anything to do with it, because the child was the result of a group rape from Russian soldiers,” she says.

“Each time the nurses brought that poor child to the mother, she would turn her face to the wall and cry and refuse to talk to her. The nurses gave a name to the girl – Mara, which was my sister’s name.

“And I thought that was really too much, because here was a Mara who was born, who was surviving and who was absolutely not wanted in this world. And our Mara, whom we had wanted so much, was taken from us. I realised that life was really very strange and certainly very unfair.”

Child marriage scare

At the age of 11, Vaira had to move again, to Casablanca in French Morocco.

“We were thrown out, as it were, from a truck in the middle of the night in what turned out to be a small, temporary village. It was a world in miniature,” she says.

“There were French people there, there were all sorts of foreigners, Spaniards from the time of the Civil War, Italians and old Russian émigrés from the European quarter in Shanghai.”

One of her father’s Arab co-workers said she was ready to be married off, though she was just a child.

“Dad would come home and he’s saying, ‘He’s giving me 15,000 francs dowry. And he offered me first two donkeys and cattle and then later he kept upping the price and I said, but she’s just a child and she has to go to school.’ He said, ‘That’s all right, we’re willing to let her finish school’.”

Her parents laughed at that, but Vaira was alarmed.

Sexist professor

Soon however the family moved to Canada.

Vaira got a job at a bank, aged 16, and went to night school. She eventually made it to the University of Toronto. And while there, she met the man she would marry, Imants Freibergs, another Latvian exile.

She studied psychology and was eventually awarded a PhD, in 1965. But she says her choice of subject was simply “the fickle finger of fate”.

“The registrar had a list of subjects and I looked at it upside down and I saw something, a long word starting with P and ending in Y, and I put my finger on it and said, ‘Sir, this is the one I want to take’.”

She learned quickly though that women were tolerated, rather than welcomed.

“Our dear professor at one point in a seminar said, ‘Yes, well, we actually have three married women here in this PhD programme, it’s such a waste, because they’re going to get married and they’re going to have children, and they’re actually taking up a place that a boy could have taken who will become a real scientist.’

“And all of us girls in that seminar, we remembered that for the rest of our lives.”

She says they resolved to show that sexist professor “that we women can succeed even better than his favourite boys”.

In 1998, aged 60, she was elected professor emeritus and decided to retire.

But one evening her phone rang. It was the prime minister of Latvia. And Vaira got the offer to head a new Latvian Institute.

She was told they wanted “somebody actually from the diaspora who is multilingual, understands Western mentality, but also with good understanding of Latvian culture”.

But almost immediately she found herself caught up in Latvia’s presidential race.

She gave up her Canadian passport to run for election and, just eight months after returning, she became Latvia’s first female president.

At one point her approval ratings soared to 85%.

“I was somebody who was not interested in making money or anything like that, but simply in doing a job.

“And there was great enthusiasm amongst certain newspapers to find things to criticise, for instance, that I was a great spendthrift, having lived a life of luxury in the West. Complete fabrications,” she says.

“I discovered that if you couldn’t trust the media, you have to go directly and speak to the people.”

She was instrumental in Latvia joining both Nato and the European Union in 2004.

“Being a woman was an advantage. I remember at the Istanbul Nato summit, President [George W] Bush took me by the elbow, because I had high heels and it was a gravel path, and we walked slowly along.

“I did all I could to tell him how important it was to enlarge Nato and to make sure that Latvia was included and how much progress we had made and how full of goodwill we were.

“We were walking slowly and enjoying ourselves and I was doing my best to pour as much Latvian propaganda into his ear as I could. I didn’t think it hurt at all,” she says.

Vaira’s second term ended in 2007, a few months before her 70th birthday. She co-founded the Club de Madrid – an organisation of former leaders, with a mandate to promote democratic leadership and governance.

She also has a particular focus on women’s empowerment. Still haunted by that professor in Canada, she knows the battle is far from won.

Source: BBC.com

Twenty people have been killed and 26 injured in a mass shooting in the Texas city of El Paso.

Governor Greg Abbott described it as “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas”.

The massacre happened at a Walmart store near the Cielo Vista Mall, a few miles from the US-Mexican border.

A 21-year-old man is in custody. Police said the suspect was a resident of the Dallas-area city of Allen, about 650 miles (1,046km) east of El Paso.

He has been named by US media as Patrick Crusius.

CCTV images said to be of the gunman and broadcast on US media show a man in a dark T-shirt wearing ear protectors and brandishing an assault-style rifle.

US President Donald Trump described the attack as “an act of cowardice”.

“I know that I stand with everyone in this country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people”, he wrote on Twitter.

The victims of the attack have not yet been named. However, Mexico’s President Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among those killed, Reuters news agency reports.

The attack came less than a week after a teenage gunman killed three people at a California food festival. The Texas shooting has been dubbed the eighth deadliest in modern US history.

“We as a state unite in support of these victims and their family members,” Mr Abbott said.

“We must do one thing today, one thing tomorrow and each and every day after this – we must unite.”

The police and FBI are investigating whether an anonymous white nationalist “manifesto”, shared on an online forum, was written by the gunman. The document says the attack was targeted at the local Hispanic community.

What happened?

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said reports of an active shooter were received at 10:39 local time (16:39 GMT), and law enforcement officers were on the scene within six minutes.

The Walmart was full of shoppers buying back-to-school supplies at the time of the attack.

The 21-year-old is the only suspect in custody over the attack, and police say no officers fired their weapons while arresting him.

Mr Allen said the ages of victims were “numerous” as he described the situation as “horrific”.

El Paso Police Department had earlier tweeted that blood donations were “needed urgently”.

Kianna Long said she was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire.

“People were panicking and running, saying that there was a shooter,” Ms Long told Reuters news agency. “They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor.”

Ms Long said she and her husband ran through a stock room before taking cover with other customers.

Another witness, Glendon Oakly, told CNN that he was in a sporting goods store inside the nearby shopping mall when a child ran inside “telling us there’s an active shooter at Walmart”.

Mr Oakly said no-one took the child’s claim seriously, but just minutes later he heard two gunshots.

“I just thought about getting the kids out of the way,” he said.

What has been the wider reaction?

The latest mass shooting in the United States has led to an outpouring of sympathy, but also led to fresh calls for gun control.

Walmart tweeted that it was “in shock over the tragic events” and was “working closely with law enforcement”.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke has abandoned a campaign event in Las Vegas to return to his home town.

Earlier, he spoke at a labour forum, telling the crowd the shooting shattered any illusion that gun reform will “come of its own accord” in the US.

“We know that there’s a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now,” he said.

Other Democratic presidential candidates also responded to the shooting with calls for gun control.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker was among them, saying the US seems to be “accepting the idea that these [shootings] are going to be a regular occurrence”.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, however, said gun control would probably not have stopped the attack.

He added that if a “crazy” gunman launched such an attack, there was no way that law enforcement officers could be there to stop it.

“The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself,” he told CBS News.

Source: BBC.com

United States immigration officials have added Venezuelan government minister Tareck El Aissami, a suspected drug smuggler, to their list of most wanted fugitives, they said Wednesday.

“Have you seen this #mostwanted #fugitive?,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posted on its Twitter account, alongside a picture of the industry minister and former deputy to President Nicolas Maduro.

“He’s wanted for international narcotics trafficking.”

US federal authorities in March charged El Aissami with drug trafficking and dodging sanctions imposed by Washington.

If he is arrested and extradited El Aissami could face up to 30 years in prison.

The US designated El Aissami in February 2017 as having played “a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.”

“In his previous positions, he oversaw or partially owned narcotics shipments of more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) from Venezuela on multiple occasions, including those with the final destinations of Mexico and the United States,” ICE said on its website.

Venezuela is struggling with a political and economic crisis that the United Nations says has left a quarter of its 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

In January, National Assembly Speaker Juan Guaido declared himself acting president, branding Maduro an “usurper” over his re-election last year in a poll widely believed to have been rigged.

But despite the support of some 50 countries including the US, Guaido has been unable to dislodge him from power.

Source: bbc.com

Hamza Bin Laden, the son of al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden, died in an air strike, US media outlets reported citing intelligence officials.

The place or date of death were unclear. The Pentagon did not comment.

Bin Laden, thought to be aged about 30, had released audio and video messages calling for attacks on the US and other countries.

As recently as February, the US government offered $1m (£825,000) for information leading to his capture.

His death was widely reported by US media outlets including NBC News, the New York Times and CNN, citing unnamed US intelligence officials.

There was no confirmation from al-Qaeda.

The reports said Bin Laden was killed in a military operation in the last two years and the US government was involved, but the exact date and time were unclear.

President Donald Trump declined to comment when questioned by reporters on Wednesday, as did the White House national security adviser John Bolton.

Bin Laden had urged jihadists to avenge his father’s killing by US special forces in Pakistan in May 2011.

In 2018, in his last known public statement, he called on the people of the Arabian Peninsula to revolt. Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship in March.

He was believed to have been under house arrest in Iran but other reports suggest he also may have resided in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.

The US state department said documents seized in the 2011 raid on his father’s house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, suggested Bin Laden was being groomed to take over the leadership of al-Qaeda.

US forces also reportedly found a video of his wedding to the daughter of another senior al-Qaeda leader which was thought to have taken place in Iran. His new father-in-law was Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah or Abu Muhammad al-Masri, who was indicted for his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Al-Qaeda was the group behind the devastating 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States, but its status has been undermined during the past decade as the Islamic State group rose to prominence.

Source: bbc.com

The body of a tribal chief allegedly murdered deep inside the Amazon in northern Brazil will be exhumed for an autopsy, officials said Wednesday, following international outcry over his death.

Members of the Waiapi tribe gave the attorney general’s office in Amapa state permission to examine the remains of Emyra Waiapi, whose body was found in a river on July 23 a day after his death.

Police were deployed to the remote region controlled by the Waiapi on Saturday to investigate the death and claims that heavily armed miners had overrun a village in the same area.

The decision to exhume the body was announced after attorney general Rodolfo Lopes met with members of the Waiapi in the capital Macapa on Wednesday.

The body will be flown by helicopter to Macapa for an autopsy on Friday.

Lopes had told reporters on Monday that it was too early to say if Emyra’s death was a homicide.

A preliminary search of the village reportedly overrun by miners also had found no trace of the invaders, Lopes said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned “the tragic and reprehensible” murder and linked the indigenous leader’s death to the pro-mining policies of President Jair Bolsonaro.

Rich in gold, manganese, iron and copper, the Waiapi’s territory has faced growing pressure from miners, ranchers and loggers under far-right Bolsonaro, who came to power in January promising to open up the Amazon to development.

On Saturday, as news of the tribal chief’s death emerged, Bolsonaro called for the “first world” to help exploit the “absurd quantity of minerals” in the rainforest.

The Waiapi’s territory is one of hundreds Brazil’s government has demarcated since the 1980s for the exclusive use of its 800,000 indigenous inhabitants. Access by outsiders is strictly regulated.

Bolsonaro has been accused of harming the Amazon and indigenous tribes in order to benefit his supporters in the logging, mining and farming industries.

On Monday, he said small-scale mining, or garimpo, should be legalized and indigenous people allowed to mine their own land, instead of being “jailed like a zoo animal.”

Source: France24

Kelly Craft won Senate confirmation Wednesday to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, overcoming Democratic resistance after President Donald Trump tapped her for the high-profile post.

Craft has been serving as US ambassador to Canada, where she was involved in negotiations over a revised North American free trade pact.

She is married to a wealthy coal magnate, and Democrats have expressed concern that her family ties to the industry may influence policy at a time when they want the US economy to be turning towards new sources of power like renewable energy.

Last month during her confirmation hearings, she pledged to lawmakers that she would recuse herself from climate change talks involving coal at the global body, even as she stood by Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the UN-backed Paris climate accord.

But her declaration that she believed “both sides” of climate science raised eyebrows and indicated that she may be out of sync on the issue with the rest of the UN.

Democrats also voiced concern about her lack of relevant international and technical experience for such an important and demanding position.

In a recently released minority report, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote that Craft “has neither the experience nor the skillset to represent US interests or challenge the world’s most seasoned diplomats on the global stage.”

Craft, 57, has been a major Republican donor, and her husband Joe Craft donated $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inauguration fund, according to political funding tracker Open Secrets.

She replaces Trump’s first UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who left at the end of last year as her star power was growing within the Republican Party.

Trump chose State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor, to succeed her, but the nomination was never formally submitted and Nauert withdrew from consideration.

Source: France24

A court in Sudan has postponed deposed President Omar al-Bashir’s corruption case, BBC Arabic reports.

The reasons are still unclear. Earlier, Sudan’s privately owned Baj News reported that the detained ex-president’s lawyers had asked for the case to be suspended because of his “aggravated psychological well-being” following his mother’s death two days ago.

The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news site reports that the case has been postponed to 15 August.

He was charged in June. The charges are related to laws on “suspected illicit wealth and emergency orders”, the public prosecutor’s office said at the time.

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has given an emotional address to parliament in Ghana on the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in America.

Ms Pelosi appeared tearful as she recalled the horrors of the slave trade.

She paid tribute to the contribution African Americans had made to the United States and said that Ghana’s struggle for independence had been an inspiration for the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King and others.

Source: bbc.com

About 15 people have been arrested in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, for defying a government order not to take to the streets to protest against former international football star and President George Weah.

The group insisted on breaking through police lines to assemble, despite the fact that no permit had been issued to stage a protest, police added.

The group apparently did not know that organisers had temporarily halted plans to stage a protest against the rising cost of living and alleged corruption in government.

Source: bbc.com

A roadside bomb tore through a bus in western Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 32 people, including women and children, a provincial official said.

Mohibullah Mohib, spokesman for the police chief in Farah province, said 15 other people were wounded, with most in critical condition.

The bus was traveling on a main highway between the western city of Herat and the southern city of Kandahar.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but Taliban insurgents operate in the region and frequently use roadside bombs to target government officials and security forces. The Taliban have kept up a steady tempo of attacks even as they have held several rounds of peace talks with the United States aimed at ending the 18-year war.

The attack came a day after the U.N. mission in Afghanistan released a report saying that most civilian deaths in the first half of the year were caused by Afghan forces and their international allies. The report apparently referred to civilians killed during Afghan and U.S. military operations against insurgents.

The U.N. report said 403 civilians were killed by Afghan forces in the first six months of the year and another 314 by international forces, a total of 717. That’s compared to 531 killed by the Taliban, an Islamic State affiliate and other militants during the same period. It said 300 of those killed by militants were directly targeted.

The U.N. said the leading cause of civilian deaths and injuries was “ground engagements,” which caused one in three casualties. Roadside bombs were a close second, accounting for 28%. Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world a legacy of decades of war.

The Taliban, who effectively control half the country, have been meeting with U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad since late last year. They appear to be closing in on an agreement whereby American forces would withdraw from Afghanistan in return for guarantees that it would not be used as a launch-pad for international terror attacks.

Source: France24

The Lion King has become the fourth Disney film this year to make $1bn (£821m) in worldwide box office sales.

The Disney remake of the 1995 classic has achieved the feat less than three weeks after being released in cinemas.

The movie, which features the voices of Beyonce and Donald Glover, joins Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Aladdin in Disney’s $1b class of 2019.

As reported by Variety, director Jon Favreau’s version is already the fifth-biggest global release of of the year.

In North America, it has racked up sales of around $361m (£267m) and $638m (£324m) overseas, with cinema-goers in China and Brazil leading the way.

Music was always a big part of The Lion King’s success, with Sir Elton John bagging an Oscar for his performance on Can You Feel the Love Tonight on the 1994 original.

He actually fended off competition from himself, twice – The Circle of Life and Hakuna Mata – to take the prize for best original song.

Now a hat-trick of Lion King-related albums feature in the top 10 of the US Soundtracks Chart, which is headed by Beyonce’s star-studded project, The Gift.

The album of collaborations shifted 54,000 equivalent album units in the week ending 25 July, according to Nielsen Music, and also sits in second place in the US Billboard 200.

The film’s new official soundtrack is the second most popular record in that genre, having sold 22,000 units, while the original soundtrack by Sir Elton, Tim Rice and Hans Zimmer completes its circle of chart life by returning to the US Billboard top 200, 25 years after its first release.

Source: bbc.com

Shin Ok-ju, who founded the Grace Road Church, convinced 400 people to move to Fiji in 2014, claiming they would be safe from imminent natural disaster

Once there, their passports were taken away and many of them reported being beaten to “drive out evil spirits”.

Shin was arrested last July.

On Monday, a South Korean court found Shin guilty on several criminal charges including violence, child abuse and fraud.

“The victims suffered helplessly from collective beatings and experienced not only physical torture but also severe fear and considerable mental shock,” said a sub-court of the Suwon District Court.

“Heavy punishment is inevitable against illegal acts carried out in the name of religion,” it said.

Five other church officials were also sentenced. There has been no comment from the church.

A Fijian business empire
Grace Road Church has been described as heretical by mainstream South Korean Christian groups.

Shin preached that a global famine was imminent but that she and her followers would be safe in Fiji.

The church had leased land near the capital, Suva, and built a large business empire, with labour provided by Shin’s followers.

It won several construction contracts from the Fijian government and a business excellence award from the prime minister.

Reports say several million people in South Korea belong to groups that promote fringe beliefs and interest in these groups is growing.

Source: bbc.com

In a move that will likely embolden President Donald Trump’s claims that social media companies are biased against him and his supporters, Twitter suspended an account Tuesday evening that the President had retweeted just hours earlier.

Trump retweeted a post from an account operating under the name “Lynn Thomas” that accused Democrats of being “the true enemies of America.” The account, which created in September 2018, described itself as a “Fierce Trump supporter” and declared: “I’m not a bot.”

Just a few hours later, Twitter had suspended the account, confirming to CNN it had broken the platform’s rules. The company did not say what rules the account had broken.

The Daily Beast first reported the suspension.

In an interview with C-SPAN set to air Tuesday night, Trump said he has “not much” regret when it comes to the tens of thousands of tweets he has sent, but he also acknowledged that it can be an issue when he retweets other accounts.

“The bigger problem are the retweets. You’ll retweet something that sounds good, but it turned out to be from a player that’s not the best player in the world, that sort of causes a problem,” he said.

Explaining his use of Twitter, Trump called it an “incredible way of communicating,” as well as a way to combat negative coverage.

Earlier this month, Trump invited a cadre of rightwing internet personalities to the White House for a “social media summit.” There the President bemoaned Silicon Valley’s purported bias against him and his supporters.

He claimed that Twitter was making it difficult for people to follow him on the platform, saying at the time,”People come up to me: ‘Sir, we want to follow you; they don’t let us on.” He added later: “I have millions of people, so many people I wouldn’t believe it, but I know that we’ve been blocked. People come up to me and they say, ‘Sir, I can’t get you. I can’t follow you.’”

There is no evidence, as CNN has previously reported, that Twitter or other social media companies have made it difficult for people to follow Trump. And when Trump recently used racist language to attack four progressive Democratic congresswomen of color, a Twitter spokesperson told CNN that the President’s tweets were not against its rules — a conclusion apparently contradicted by Twitter’s written policies.

Source: cnn.com

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will on Wednesday meet leaders in Northern Ireland, the key battleground in Britain’s fight to leave the European Union and the focus of increasingly tense rhetoric on both sides of the Irish Sea.

He arrived in Belfast on Tuesday night amid warnings from Irish leaders that his vow to leave the EU, with or without a deal, risks breaking up the United Kingdom.

Johnson will hold talks with Northern Ireland’s main political parties to discuss the restoration of the British province’s power-sharing government, which collapsed in January 2017.

But Brexit will be the issue hanging over the visit.

Ireland has a land border with the province that both sides want to keep free-flowing after Brexit, both for economic reasons and, more importantly, to maintain the delicate peace deal that brought an end to decades of violence between Irish nationalists and British loyalists.

The removal of checks on the border with Ireland was considered a key factor in reducing tensions. But after Brexit, that border will become part of the EU’s external frontier and would legally require policing.

The agreement struck by Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May proposed the so-called “backstop” solution, a mechanism designed to preserve the EU’s single market and prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But many eurosceptic MPs believe it gives the EU too much control over Britain and rejected the deal three times.

Johnson told Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, on Tuesday that the “backstop” plan was unacceptable, putting him at odds with both Dublin and Brussels, which insists the deal is not open for renegotiation.

“If they really can’t do it then clearly we have to get ready for a no-deal exit,” Johnson said on a trip to Wales, adding: “It’s up to the EU, this is their call.”

Varadkar has said that Johnson’s plan to renegotiate the deal by a deadline of October 31 was “totally not in the real world”.

– United Ireland threat –

Leaving without a deal would throw the border status into confusion and threaten economic catastrophe for Ireland, cutting it off from its main trading partner.

Johnson pledged to Varadkar on Tuesday there would be no physical checks on the border, whatever happened.

Brexit supporters believe electronic checks can take place away from the frontier, but no viable plan is close to being agreed.

Varadkar said on Friday that a no-deal Brexit would make the unification of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland more likely.

“People who you might describe as moderate nationalists or moderate Catholics who were more or less happy with the status quo will look more towards a united Ireland.

“And increasingly you see liberal Protestants, liberal unionists starting to ask the questions as to where they feel more at home,” Varadkar said.

Northern Ireland is not the only country whose status as a member of the United Kingdom after Brexit is under the spotlight.

Johnson visited Scotland on Monday, responding to independence calls from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon by saying that the United Kingdom represented a “global brand”.

Sturgeon said last week that Scotland, where a majority of voters opted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, needed an “alternative option” to Johnson’s Brexit strategy.

He also visited Wales on Tuesday as part of the whistlestop tour of the United Kingdom, designed to signal his commitment to keeping the union whole after Brexit.

Source:channelnewsasia.com

European aerospace giant Airbus Wednesday reported profits more than doubled in the first half of the year, a strong result it attributed mainly to increased production of its A320 family of aircraft.

It said net profits reached 1.197 billion euros ($1.34 billion), up from 496 million euros in the same six-month period last year.

“The half-year financial performance mainly reflects the ramp-up in production of A320 Family aircraft and transition to the more efficient NEO version, as well as further progress on the A350 financial performance,” Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury was quoted as saying in a statement.

“We continue to see good demand for our competitive product portfolio, including the new A321XLR, as shown by the strong market endorsement at June’s Le Bourget airshow.”

However, he said that the second half of the year “in terms of deliveries and in particular free cash flow continues to be challenging”.

The group delivered a total of 389 commercial aircraft during the six months, up from 303 in the same period in 2018, including 21 A220s, 294 aircraft of the A320 family, 234 of which were the NEO version, 17 A330w, 53 A350s and four A380s.

It aims to make between 880 and 890 deliveries during the whole of 2019.

The world’s biggest smartphone and memory chip maker Samsung Electronics saw net profits slump by more than half in the second quarter, it said Wednesday, in the face of a weakening chip market and a trade row building between Seoul and Tokyo.

Net profits in the three months to June were 5.18 trillion won ($4.38 billion), down 53 percent year-on-year.

The flagship subsidiary of the sprawling Samsung Group has enjoyed record profits in recent years despite a series of setbacks, but is now struggling, with chip prices falling as global supply increases while demand weakens.

“The weakness and price declines in the memory chip market persisted… despite a limited recovery in demand,” it said in a statement.

In mobile phones, it achieved “stronger shipments on new mass-market models but was overall weighed down by slower sales of flagship models and increased marketing expenses”, it said.

Samsung launched its top-end S10 5G smartphone earlier this year, after South Korea won the global race to commercially launch the world’s first nationwide 5G network.

But in April it was embarrassingly forced to delay the release of its new Galaxy Fold phones after reviewers provided with early devices reported screen problems within days of use.

A simmering dispute between South Korea and Japan, which has seen Tokyo impose restrictions on chemical exports crucial to the South’s world-leading chip and smartphone companies — is also expected to affect Samsung Electronics’ key products.

Operating profits plunged 56 percent to 6.6 trillion won in the second quarter, the firm said, while sales fell four percent to 56.13 trillion won.

Source: France24

Coco Gauff, the American teen who electrified Wimbledon with a last-16 run, and US top seed Sloane Stephens crashed out Tuesday in round one of the WTA Washington Open.

Eighth-ranked Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion, lost to Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson 6-2, 7-5 while 15-year-old qualifier Gauff fell to Kazakhstan’s 84th-ranked Zarina Diyas 6-4, 6-2.

“Every loss is something I learn from,” Gauff said. “Overall it was a good experience.”

The US Open women’s hardcourt tuneup event lost its only top-10 entrant in Stephens and its star attraction in 146th-ranked Gauff, whose loss came in her first main-draw match since she fell to eventual champion Simona Halep at Wimbledon.

“I’m looking forward to the US Open and hope I can make a good result there,” Gauff said. “I’m going to work on being more aggressive and trusting myself a little more on the court.”

Gauff has been shocked at the whirlwind speed at which her life has changed and that crowds still pack every seat to watch her.

“I’m happy for all the support,” said Gauff. “I thought it would settle back after a couple weeks but I guess people are still excited.

“All this has changed so quickly so it’s hard sometimes but having the experience is definitely going to help me for the US Open.”

Stephens, whose first WTA title came at Washington in 2015, exited with one win or less for the eighth time in 10 non-Grand Slam starts this year.

“I could have played better,” said Stephens. “It was hot. Tough conditions. But you know from here only thing you can do is improve.”

Stephens, 26, split with coach Kamau Murray in late 2018 after four years together and has been guided by Sven Groeneveld for the past two months.

“I’ve tried to have a good attitude and let the chips fall where they may going forward,” Stephens said.

“We’re starting fresh. We’ve done pretty well. I need to have fun and enjoy what I’m doing.”

Peterson collected her first victory in nine tries against a top-10 rival.

“Fought for every point that was out there,” Peterson said. “I stayed in the moment.”

Diyas dispatched the crowd favorite before a packed second stadium.

“I knew there was going to be a big crowd and they were going to support her so I was ready for it. I was more aggressive. I served better.

“She’s so young but she’s really good. She’s so strong and she has a big serve. She’s moving well. I think she’s going to be very big in the future.”

– ‘Sky is the limit’ –

Gauff, who can’t yet drive, has impressed foes and friends alike.

“She’s cool. She’s locked in and ready to go,” said 40th-ranked ATP pal Frances Tiafoe. “She will have a hell of a career. The sky is the limit if she stays focused.”

US second seed Madison Keys was impressed at Gauff’s poise in Wimbledon’s intense atmosphere.

“How she has handled it and how mature she is — she’s so wise beyond her years,” Keys said. “I was just really impressed with how well she handled herself on court. I’m not sure that many of us could have done so well.

“Everyone knew she was a great player and that she could do a lot. The fact she did it right off the bat was pretty impressive.”

Gauff is already a role model, Keys saying: “It has been fun watching her and reminding myself I used to be that excited to play.”

Source: France24