Israel’s attorney general has ordered an investigation into police surveillance tactics amid reports that law enforcement improperly used a disputed hacking tool. A report by the Calcalist financial daily describing misuse by police of the Pegasus spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group — a company now on a US government blacklist — has already spurred parliament to seek an explanation from police officials. In a letter to the police commissioner made public, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said an initial examination into the matter did not turn up evidence of systemic misuse of surveillance technologies. He said it was a challenge, however, to…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
LONDON: British police said on Thursday they have arrested two people in connection with a hostage-taking at a synagogue in Texas. Counter Terrorism Police North West said one man was arrested on Thursday in Birmingham, central England, and another in the northern English city of Manchester. They are being held for questioning and have not yet been charged. The force said it was continuing to support US authorities with their investigation into Saturday’s hostage incident. Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue in a 10-hour standoff that ended in his death. All four hostages…
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he withdrew his troops from Afghanistan because it’s not possible to unify the war-torn country under one single government. At a White House news conference, Mr Biden also said that the United States was “spending a billion dollars a week in Afghanistan for 20 years” and could not afford to do so indefinitely. The Biden administration started pulling out troops from Afghanistan in August last year, leaving behind a vacuum, filled by the Taliban. Taliban troops entered Kabul on Aug 15 and replaced the US-backed government with their own. Since then…
MUNICH: Former pope Benedict XVI knowingly failed to take action to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in Munich in the 1980s, according to a damning independent report published on Thursday that risks shattering the ex-pontiff’s reputation. Benedict — who was the archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982 — has “strictly” denied any responsibility, said lawyer Martin Pusch of Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), which was commissioned by the church to carry out the probe. But the experts do not consider this credible, Pusch said. Benedict, 94 — whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger — in…
BERLIN: The United States and its allies on Thursday warned Moscow of grave consequences if “any” of the tens of thousands of troops massed on the border were to cross the border into Ukraine. Following talks with Germany, France and Britain, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken underlined that Russia “cannot match” Western power’s resoluteness. In a show of that unity, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, speaking alongside Blinken, said the West would not shy away from taking action even if that included measures that “could have economic consequences for ourselves”. Separately in London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said…
BERLIN: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and European allies insisted it was still possible to revive the Iran nuclear deal but said “time is running out”, after talks in Berlin on Thursday. Blinken told reporters that negotiators working in Vienna to salvage the 2015 accord with Tehran had seen “modest progress in the last couple weeks” but were taking nothing for granted. “My own assessment, talking to all of our colleagues, is that returning to mutual compliance, it remains possible,” Blinken said. Speaking at a joint news conference, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said “urgent progress” was needed in…
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday dismissed new allegations that his aides had tried to “blackmail” and threaten Conservative rebels, in a potentially criminal twist to Downing Street’s “partygate” scandal. Senior Tory William Wragg disclosed the alleged intimidation campaign as Downing Street battles to shore up Johnson against calls from within the party for his resignation. “The intimidation of a member of parliament is a serious matter. Reports of which I am aware would seem to constitute blackmail,” said Wragg, one of seven Tory MPs who have publicly called for a party confidence vote. Addressing MPs, Wragg said…
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has urged the United Nations to brace itself for the revival of major-powers rivalry, new and old conflicts and a new arms race. Pakistan underlined these issues at the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) first meeting of the new year where the assembly’s president Abdulla Shahid briefed delegates on his priorities for the resumed part of the 76th session. Mr Shahid urged the global community to recommit to vaccine equity to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic, calling for faster production and distribution of these medicines, and the removal of barriers to roll them out. The UNGA president’s campaign for…
Yemen lost its connection to the internet nationwide early on Friday after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a site in the contested city of Hodeida, an advocacy group said, plunging the war-torn nation offline. NetBlocks said the disruption began around 1am local time and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned monopoly that controls internet access in the country. TeleYemen is now run by the Houthi rebels who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since late 2014. Yemen was “in the midst of a nation-scale internet blackout following airstrike on (a) telecom building,” NetBlocks said, without immediately elaborating. The San Diego-based Centre for Applied Internet Data…
A Taliban delegation is expected to hold talks with Norwegian officials and Afghan civil society representatives in Oslo next week, the Norwegian foreign ministry said on Friday. The visit is scheduled from Sunday to Tuesday, and “the Taliban will meet representatives of the Norwegian authorities and officials from a number of allied countries” for talks on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and human rights, the ministry said. The ministry did not specify which allies would attend, but Norwegian newspaper VG said they would include Britain, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy and the US. “We are extremely concerned about the grave situation in…
