Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande has cancelled his visit to the G20 summit in Turkey following a wave of attacks in Paris, his office said.
He will be represented by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Finance Minister Michel Sapin.
If confirmed, Ret. US Army Gen. Lloyd Austin would be the first Black defense secretary for the United States.
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) -Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said on Friday that he had been "unjustly" detained at the Central American nation's Toncontin international airport for carrying $18,000 in cash, which he said was not his. Zelaya, who led Honduras from 2006 to 2009 and was an ally of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was deposed by the military in a June 2009 coup as he was preparing to hold a referendum on presidential re-election, which his opponents said was a ploy to stay in power.
The Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have rounded up hundreds of suspected street gang members as part of a U.S.-backed effort known as “Operation Regional Shield.” The attorney general’s office in El Salvador has taken the lead, reporting that it obtained arrest warrants for 1,152 suspects, of whom 572 had been arrested by Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice noted that authorities in El Salvador and Honduras arrested three dozen suspected immigrant traffickers.
The Government is preparing for a 100 per cent increase in the number of Hong Kong citizens coming to Britain after Boris Johnson offered up to three million residents sanctuary. The Prime Minister said in July that Hong Kong's freedoms were being violated by a new security law and those affected would be offered the chance to settle in the UK and ultimately apply for citizenship. The Foreign Office estimated that 200,000 people would move from Hong Kong to the UK, but a leaked internal briefing paper warned of a "rapid rise in the issue of British National (Overseas) passports since June". BN(O) passport holders in Hong Kong were granted special status in the 1980s but currently have restricted rights and are only entitled to visa-free access to the UK for six months. Under the Government's plans, all BN(O)s and their dependents will be given the right to remain in the UK, including the right to work and study, for five years. They will be able to apply for settled status and, after a further year, seek citizenship.
Pair arguing about killing of top Iranian nuclear scientist
Democrats once dominated Koochiching County in the blue-collar Iron Range of northern Minnesota. “We’ve got to see if we can get the Democratic Party to moderate and accept the fact that rural Minnesota is not getting more conservative,” said Bakk, who announced last week that he would become an independent after serving 25 years as a Democrat. The party lost House seats in the Midwest, and Democratic challengers in Iowa, Kansas, Montana and North Carolina Senate races, all once viewed as serious threats to Republican incumbents, fell, some of them hard.
Economic and domestic turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic could wipe out 25 years of increasing gender equality, new United Nations data suggests. Lockdowns, job losses, school closures and dwindling income from the coronavirus have seen women take on significantly greater shares of housework and childcare. Employment and education opportunities are likely to be lost and women may suffer from poorer mental and physical health. "Everything we worked for, that has taken 25 years, could be lost in a year," the UN Women deputy executive director Anita Bhatia told the BBC. Women's new burden of care posed a "real risk of reverting to 1950s gender stereotypes", she said.
Men plead innocence following arrest in 2017 as State Department demands release
Monday seemed like the end of President Donald Trump's relentless challenges to the election, after the federal government acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden was the “apparent winner” and Trump cleared the way for cooperation on a transition of power. On Thursday, after a Thanksgiving evening conversation from the White House with troops stationed overseas, Trump abruptly pivoted to angrily alleging — still without any evidence — that “massive fraud” was behind his defeat. Speaking to news crews gathered to watch the traditional holiday conversation with the military, Trump denounced officials in battleground states he'd lost as “communists” and “enemies of the state.”
An Iranian diplomat refused to appear at the first day of his trial in Belgium on Friday, where he and three others face charges of plotting to bomb an Iranian exile opposition meeting in France that was attended by five British MPs. Antwerp prosecutors accuse Vienna-based diplomat Assadolah Assadi and three co-defendants of conspiring to attack a 2018 rally of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Labour's Roger Godsiff and Conservative MPs Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, Sir David Amess and Theresa Villiers, attended the event in Villepinte near Paris, where US President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave the keynote speech. “Had the plot remain undiscovered, it would have been Iran’s biggest ever state-sponsored terrorist act,” claimed Mr Blackman, who is one of 25 civil parties to the case. “It is time to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its repression and home and now in Europe,” he told The Telegraph. The trial is the first time a European Union state has prosecuted an Iranian official for terrorism. "I think the words 'brave little Belgium' are entirely appropriate today," said Rik Vanreusel, a lawyer representing participants at the rally. "We are one of the only countries that has dared to put such rather politically sensitive matters in a proper perspective." Mr Assadi, 48, denies the charges and did not cooperate with investigators. Lawyer Dimitri De Beco said his client claimed diplomatic immunity. He was arrested while on holiday in Germany, where prosecutors say immunity did not apply. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that diplomatic immunity cannot be used to evade prosecution where the charges are terror related, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. According to a police report obtained by Reuters, Mr Assadi warned authorities in March that unidentified groups could carry out retaliatory attacks if he was found guilty. Tehran dismisses the charges against him as a “false flag” plot by the NCRI, which it calls a terrorist organisation. But French officials say Mr Assadi, who was the third counsellor at Iran’s Austrian embassy, was directed from Tehran to carry out the attack. France says Iran’s intelligence ministry was responsible for the plot and subsequently expelled an Iranian diplomat. Belgian authorities say he gave a Belgian couple of Iranian origin half a kilogram of explosives and a detonator, which they believe he brought to Vienna from Tehran aboard a commercial flight. The explosives were found in the car of the couple, Nassimeh Naami, 36, and Amir Saadouni, 40, when they were arrested in Brussels in a joint operation involving Belgian, French and German security services. They are charged alongside another alleged co-conspirator Mehrdad Arefani, 57. Their lawyers deny they planned to kill anyone at the rally, which was attended by an estimated 25,000 people, including a delegation of 35 Britons, according to the NCRI. The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mojahedin of Iran, otherwise known as the MEK, which supports the overthrow of the Iranian government. The group carried out a series of attacks against the government in the 1980s. The MEK was removed from EU and US terrorism blacklists in 2009 and 2012 respectively after renouncing violence and following an intensive lobbying effort. The trial, which may deliver a verdict as early as the end of the month, could strain relations between Iran and the EU. The 2015 nuclear deal promised to improve relations between Iran and the West but European countries have subsequently accused Tehran of several attacks against opponents abroad. These included two killers in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017 and a failed assassination in Denmark, all of which Tehran denied involvement in.
The World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Friday it would be "highly speculative" for the WHO to say the coronavirus did not emerge in China, where it was first identified in a food market in December last year. China is pushing a narrative via state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in the central city of Wuhan, citing the presence of coronavirus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe last year. "I think it's highly speculative for us to say that the disease did not emerge in China," Mike Ryan said at a virtual briefing in Geneva after being asked if COVID-19 could have first emerged outside China.
Tony Hsieh, the retired CEO of Las Vegas-based online shoe retailer Zappos.com who spent years working to transform the city's downtown area, has died. Hsieh was with family when he died Friday, according to a statement from DTP Companies, which he founded. Downtown Partnership spokesperson Megan Fazio said Hsieh passed away in Connecticut, KLAS-TV reported.
‘Whistleblowers must be protected’, says Democrat lawmaker
French people who discriminate against compatriots due to their accent face a maximum three-year prison term under a new bill seen as a victory for the country’s maligned provincial twangs over well-educated Parisian speech. The law, which was passed after its first reading on Thursday night, places discrimination due to accent on a par with race, gender or handicap. Those who flout it also face a €45,000 fine. Tabled by MPs in President Emmanuel Macron's centrist political party, the law notably seeks to counter prejudice in the workplace against regional and lower-class accents. The issues of “accent discrimination” came to a head in recent months after the appointment in July of Jean Castex, the new prime minister, who is a rarity among senior politicians in having retained his thick southwestern accent. Christophe Euzet, MP for the Mediterranean port of Sète and lead sponsor of the bill, said he had been appalled at the way Mr Castex, a former top civil servant and mayor of Pyrenean town Prades, had been mocked for his accent after taking the top government job. Northern French often equate southern accents with sun, aperitifs and idleness. Mr Euzet, a native of Perpignan with similar southwestern tones to Mr Castex, said it was time to end stereotypes in which a southerner is seen as "a fun guy ... not there to talk about serious things.” “Accents have no right of place in radio and television channels, in the world of politics and the helm of high office, administrations and French public businesses,” he added. Unlike in Britain, French media, in particular, has made no visible effort to employ newscasters and other prominent personalities with provincial twangs. During debates, MPs complained that TV personalities with southwestern accents were “relegated to the rugby column or the weather”. Patricia Mirallès, a Macron MP, whose parents were French from North Africa, recounted “painful” memories of being mocked for her pied-noir accent. Maina Sage, an MP from French Polynesia, denounced what she called “a form of racism” every time she opened her mouth in parliament. “Our nation, which often prides itself on the great diversity of its regions, paradoxically disappoints through the toned-down uniformity of public speech,” said Mr Euzet. The dominance of the Parisian accent is often equated with France notoriously centralised and urban administration whose failure to take into account the provincial mindset fuelled the “yellow vest” revolt two years ago.
Robert O'Brien's airplane crew was also not allowed to enter Vietnam and had to spend the night in Thailand, Bloomberg reported.
The 21 travellers were bound for the UAE - which has already stopped issuing visas to Kenyans.
French authorities have suspended police officers accused of assaulting and racially abusing a Black man in Paris, after CCTV footage of the incident was released and caused an outcry. The music producer, who has identified himself as Michel, was beaten at the entrance to his studio. French President Emmanuel Macron was quoted by France's BFM TV as being "very shocked" by the CCTV and mobile phone images, which were obtained by the LoopSider news outlet and made headline news on French channels. The officers involved were suspended pending investigation at the interior minister's request. Michel told reporters he'd been walking in the street without a face mask, against French COVID-19 rules. When he saw a police car he went into his studio to avoid getting a fine. But the police followed him inside and arrested him, violently. The video purports to show them kicking and beating him, and he says they hurled racial abuse at him too. They then leave, and throw a tear gas canister into the studio. As anger grew, French soccer stars added to the chorus of condemnation. Kylian Mbappe tweeted that the video was "intolerable" and his fellow Les Bleus striker, Antoine Griezmann wrote: "My France is hurting." The alleged attack on Michel risks inflaming racial tension, and fuelling criticism of a draft law that would limit journalists' ability to show images of French police officers at work. The prime minister's office said on Thursday (November 26) it would set up an independent commission to propose a new draft of the legislation. Some "BlackLivesMatter" protests broke out in Paris in June, a month after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in the United States. The movement resonates in France, in particular in deprived city suburbs, where rights groups say accusations of police brutality, often against people with immigrant backgrounds, remain largely unaddressed. And Paris police were already under fire this week after social media photos and videos showed officers hitting protesters as they cleared out an illegal migrants campsite in a central Paris square.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and President Donald Trump late Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling suspending service changes and requiring aggressive steps to ensure ballot deliveries ahead of the November presidential election, the Justice Department said. The government said it was appealing U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's preliminary injunction orders issued in late September in a pair of legal challenges.
‘This defendant terrorised an entire family by threatening to kill African American parents and their four children’
Six people in China, four of whom are doctors, have been sentenced to prison for illegally harvesting organs from patients, often car accident victims or those with severe brain damage. A court in Anhui province has handed down terms of 10 to 28 months to the group of six, declaring them guilty of harvesting organs from 11 deceased patients, according to Chinese state media. The detailed judgment, issued in July but made public only now, described a network of doctors from different hospitals who worked together on the organ harvesting scheme. After identifying potential candidates, the doctors would then approach patients’ families and ask them to sign fraudulent consent forms agreeing to organ donation on behalf of their deceased relatives. Families, however, believed they were signing legitimate papers. Operations to remove the organs were performed by the doctors in delivery vans disguised as an ambulance, according to state media. China has long struggled to manage voluntary organ donation and experts have said that there isn’t enough to meet demand. Human rights experts have long drawn attention to the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners, including political dissidents who have been put behind bars, in order to supply a lucrative organ trade. Last year, an independent tribunal in the UK led by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, concluded that China was a “criminal state,” which “beyond reasonable doubt” had committed crimes of humanity, acts of torture, and found that enemies of the state were medically tested and killed for their organs. The China Tribunal heard evidence over six months, and in a judgement that took one-and-a-half hours to read, concluded that followers of Falun Gong, a religious spiritual practice, were among those used as a source for forced organ harvesting. The finding also said there was a risk Uighurs, an ethnic Muslim minority persecuted by the Chinese state, have suffered similar treatment. Last year, a study published in BMC Medical Ethics journal found “highly compelling evidence” that China was falsifying organ donation numbers, potentially masking the source and fueling further concern that transplants were still coming from prisoners. In 2005, former health minister Huang Jiefu publicly acknowledged that China had indeed harvested organs for transplant from executed prisoners. Beijing, however, has long denied doing so.
