Month: فروری 2020

‘If I opened the door, he would've killed us’: 15yo says she helped 20+ kids survive India hostage horror by hiding in basement A teen, who together with two dozen other children, was held hostage by an Indian man in an 9-hour long standoff with police, said that her quick thinking helped to dodge certain death in the hands of a convicted killer. The 15-year-old girl was the eldest of some 25 kids that were taken captive by convicted murderer Subhash Batham, in a village in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. The horrific case that sent shockwaves across India ended with the man being shot dead by police and his wife, allegedly an accomplice in the grim enterprise, stoned to death by an angry crowd. The children, some as young as 6 months of age, were lured ...

Indian court AGAIN postpones hanging for 4 men convicted in 2012 gang rape & murder case that inspired Netflix series The execution of four Indians convicted in the heinous 2012 ‘Nirbhaya’ gang rape case has been delayed yet again at the last minute – this time indefinitely – after a court agreed to entertain another mercy plea. Though the date of the men's hanging had been set for February 1 after a previous appeal, the day was pushed back once again following a fresh plea, filed on Friday by convict Vinay Sharma – just one day after the hangman arrived at the Tihar prison in Delhi in preparation for the execution. Even if rejected, the appeal buys the convicted men another two weeks, after which the process could be repeated with further appea...

One puff to blow it all? Canadian Navy sacks two ship commanders after 2nd officer disables smoke alarm to light up A Canadian Navy officer’s career may have just gone up in smoke after he disabled a fire alarm aboard a frigate in order to have a puff, with the sailor removed from his post just months before his ship’s next foreign deployment. The sudden reshuffling on the HMCS Calgary took place as its crew prepares to set sail to the Asia-Pacific in April, seeing both its commander, Jonathan Kouwenberg, and Lieutenant Commander John Forbes dropped from the ship’s roster in the space of a week. In Forbes’ case, the ship’s executive officer was sacked after he switched off a smoke detector in the Calgary’s wardroom, smoking tobacco and encouraging s...

‘This could be a disaster’: Ken Livingstone downbeat on ‘pretty grim’ prospect of Johnson’s EU trade talks Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has said he believes there’s a “very real chance” of the UK crashing out of the EU without any trade deal in place as Boris Johnson has just 11 months to lock down an agreement. Speaking to RT UK as Britain officially withdrew from the bloc on Friday, the politician and former Labour MP put the dissatisfaction that led Britons’ to vote to leave the EU down to wider economic problems created by decades of bad British governments, rather than issues with the EU itself. Livingston believes many people voted ‘Leave’ out of anger, saying: “We’ve lost so many good jobs, you can’t get decent housing any more, and...

Object-lesson in ruling class privilege? Democrats ditch donor threshold for primary debates so Bloomberg can participate The Democratic National Committee is loosening its debate qualifying criteria, opening the door to billionaire establishment darling Michael Bloomberg and angering candidates that had been excluded from prior events. The same DNC that has held fast to its rules while one candidate after another complained about the seemingly arbitrary means of deciding which polls would count toward a qualifying threshold has opted to discard its individual donor requirement starting with the February debate. The rule had prevented former New York Mayor and billionaire media mogul Bloomberg from joining the previous forums. The polling threshold ...

US declares public health emergency over coronavirus, limits flights from China to 7 cities The US has declared an ongoing coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency, limiting points of entry to incoming Chinese flights and banning from entry some foreign nationals who traveled to China in the last two weeks. “I have today declared that coronavirus presents a public health emergency in the United States,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, announcing the measure on Friday. He stressed that the move was to “complement the work of China and the World Health Organization” that declared a global health crisis on Thursday. The death toll from the novel virus, which originated in China, has leaped to 249, as it spread to over 20 count...