News Archives - Page 19 of 81

9Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

France, Europe, News

Suspected Paris Attacks Deny Casualties

The only suspect alive in the bloody attacks in Paris in November 2015, Salah Abdeslam, testified at his trial that he had not killed or injured anyone at all. The 32-year-old Frenchman has been given the floor for the first time in the trial that started in September. He stressed that he supported the Islamic State terrorist group but denied his alleged role as a terrorist. Instead, he said in this affair "to be vilified continuously". A group of terrorists carried out several attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis on November 13, 2015. 130 people were killed, including in the Bataclan concert hall. Abdeslam lived in Belgium, where he was arrested in March 2016 after a shooting in Forest. Belgium extradited him to France that same year. The prosecutors believe that Abdeslam participa...

Putin Says Kremlin has Nothing to Do With Mali Mercenaries

8Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Russia, News

Putin Says Kremlin has Nothing to Do With Mali Mercenaries

President Vladimir Putin has stressed that his government has nothing to do with the Russian mercenary company Private Military Group, better known as the Wagner Group. These mercenaries are mainly active in Africa, where they protect companies or extraction areas for minerals and participate in the struggle, such as in Mali, Libya, and the Central African Republic. After a conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Moscow, Putin said that countries themselves approach mercenaries, conclude contracts, and Wagner pursues commercial goals. "Those countries can decide for themselves who takes care of their security, isn't that also NATO's logic?" Putin wondered aloud. European countries have recently complained about Wagner's activities in Mali, where France, in pa...

London Police Arrest Seven Men Who Live-Stream Castrations from Their Basement for A Fee

7Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

UK, News

London Police Arrest Seven Men Who Live-Stream Castrations from Their Basement for A Fee

Police in London in December arrested seven men suspected of having filmed and broadcast live how they were castrated and how genitals were surgically removed. To see that, viewers had to pay. British media report that. "Between Tuesday 7 and Friday 10 December 2021, officers searched a home in Finsbury Park (in north London)," said a London police spokesman, "as part of an investigation into alleged serious mutilation of bodies." The officers found seven people in the apartment. In the basement of the apartment building, they have filmed castrations and surgical removals of genitals and broadcast them live for payment via an account on Twitter. The practices are said to be linked to a subculture in which people have their genitals removed to no longer fit into a gender box. The...

Danish Judge: Iran Opposition Group Guilty of Espionage

4Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Denmark, Iran, News

Danish Judge: Iran Opposition Group Guilty of Espionage

A court in Denmark finds three members of an Iranian-Arab separatist movement guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia and supporting and financing terrorism in Iran. The Arab Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA) trio was arrested two years ago. The penalty will be determined next month. The suspects face up to 12 years in prison. The three are on trial for spying for the intelligence service of Saudi Arabia, a major rival of Iran. In addition, the court has collected information about individuals and organizations inside and outside Denmark and about Iranian military affairs. That information was passed on to Saudi Arabia. The judge further ruled that the three activities supported the extremist Jaish al-Adl. That movement is active in Iran and is on the US list of terrorist g...

3Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Technology, Business, News

Facebook is No Longer Growing

Social platform users are in decline for the first time in recent history. The share price has also fallen sharply. What is going on? On the stock exchange in New York, the share of Facebook parent Meta Platforms fell by 23 percent in the so-called after-hours trading. It is about the first time since the IPO ten years ago that the share has not increased in value every year, with one exception. So that immediately drops 23% is unprecedented. As a result, the company was (temporarily) worth about $ 200 billion less in one fell swoop. The fall in prices follows troubling messages for shareholders during the presentation of the quarterly figures of Meta. For example, it is the first time that the number of monthly users of Facebook has dropped. That number has fallen from 1.930 bil...

Israel Fears New Oil Spill in Mediterranean Sea

2Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Israel, News

Israel Fears New Oil Spill in Mediterranean Sea

Israel fears another environmental disaster in the Mediterranean after a suspected oil carpet has been discovered off the coast. This was announced by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection on Wednesday. It may be major contamination. Following a warning from the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), several suspicious spots were found 20 to 40 kilometres off the coast. The suspected oil carpet in the sea will be analyzed on Wednesday using ships and aircraft. Several private vessels are on standby to contain the pollution and extract the oil if necessary. In February of last year, Israel was also hit by a huge oil spill off the coast. The leakage of the substance then caused serious damage to the beaches and mainly affected the fauna. Neighboring Lebanon was also af...

Three Years After Crash: Ethiopian Airlines Takes Boeing 737 MAX Back into Service

1Feb

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Ethiopia, News

Three Years After Crash: Ethiopian Airlines Takes Boeing 737 MAX Back into Service

Ethiopian Airlines will resume a passenger flight on Tuesday with a Boeing 737 MAX, the first since the March 2019 crash that killed 157 people. That accident also led to a worldwide flight ban for the aircraft type for months. Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, bound for Kenya, crashed into a field near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in March 2019, six minutes after takeoff. The crash led to the worst crisis in the history of the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. A few months earlier, a 737 MAX had crashed in Indonesia, operated by Lion Air. 189 were killed as a result. After the second accident, the 737 MAX was grounded worldwide. The two crashes turned out to be caused by a failing safety system that pushed the noses of the planes down. Boeing worked out a solution via a s...

Group Conversations Facebook Messenger Now (Optional) Encrypted

31Jan

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

Technology, News

Group Conversations Facebook Messenger Now (Optional) Encrypted

Facebook Messenger now allows group conversations, both written and spoken, to be encrypted. You will also receive notifications if someone takes a screenshot of a disappearing conversation. Encryption in Messenger has been around since 2016, but it took Facebook years to expand that function to include group conversations. From now on, this is possible, although it is an optional function. At the same time, the option to send disappearing chat messages is expanded with screenshot notifications. If the other party takes a screenshot of your disappearing text, you will be warned. Facebook, meanwhile renamed Meta, has been planning to encrypt more communications for years, but that is going very slowly. In 2016, it started with one-on-one Messenger conversations. But only since la...

London Police Ask Report on Party Gate to Limit

28Jan

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

UK, News

London Police Ask Report on Party Gate to Limit

London police have asked top public servant Sue Gray's team investigating illegal parties at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's residence to report as little as possible about meetings the force itself is investigating. This should guarantee that police investigator can do their work without prejudice. The publication of Gray's report, which has been eagerly awaited for days, should not be delayed if it is up to the police. It is possible that passages in it are deleted or not released at the request of the police. It is unclear when the investigation, which could cause serious harm to Johnson, will be made public. It may be Monday. According to the BBC, Gray wants to send the government a report that can be published in full. British politics has long been under the spell of partie...

North Korea Fires Projectile for Sixth Time This Month

27Jan

By Alan LorenzNo Comments

North Korea, News

North Korea Fires Projectile for Sixth Time This Month

On Thursday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, North Korea fired two projectiles into the sea east of the country. This month, it would be the sixth time that the country has fired a projectile. The South Korean military says it is likely that two ballistic missiles are involved. North Korea's firing of these missiles violates UN Security Council resolutions. On January 14 and 17, the country is believed to have also fired ballistic missiles. On January 5 and 11, hypersonic missiles were fired. Last Tuesday, the country fired a cruise missile. Unlike ballistic missile testing, cruise missile testing is not covered by United Nations sanctions on North Korea. Since 2019, the country has not carried out that many rockets launch in a short period of time. As a result, negot...