Parkinson's drug trial offers glimmer of hope for brain cells

An experimental drug could offer hope for restoring damaged brain cells in Parkinson's patients, scientists said on Wednesday, although they cautioned that a clinical trial was not able to prove the treatment slowed or halted the neurodegenerative disease.

The trial involved delivery of a protein therapy directly into the brains of Parkinson's patients. Scientists said some brain scans revealed "extremely promising" effects on damaged neurons of those who received the treatment.

"The spatial and relative magnitude of the improvement in the brain scans is beyond anything seen previously in trials," said Alan Whone, a Parkinson's specialist at Britain's Bristol University who co-led the trial. Researchers said the therapy warranted further investigation even though it failed to demonstrate improvement of symptoms in patients who received it when compared to others given a placebo.


"The primary outcome was disappointing," Whone told reporters at a briefing in London. Parkinson's is a neurodegenerative disease that affects around one percent to two percent of people over age 65. It causes tremors, muscle stiffness and movement and balance problems. Although some medicines can improve symptoms, there is no cure or treatment that can slow progression of the disease.

This trial involved 41 patients who all underwent robot-assisted surgery to have tubes placed into their brains. That allowed doctors to infuse either the experimental treatment - called Glial Cell Line Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) - or a placebo directly to the affected brain areas. GDNF is made by privately-held Canadian biotech firm MedGenesis Therapeutix.

Half of the patients were given monthly GDNF infusions and half received monthly placebo infusions. After nine months, all participants were offered the GDNF infusions for a further nine months.


Results showed some signs of improvements, Whone said, but there was no significant difference between the treatment and placebo groups. He said this was in part due to the sizeable placebo effect in this trial. The placebo effect has been known to confound clinical trials of treatments for conditions involving the brain, boosted by patients' expectations that a potential treatment will work.

But the brain scan results suggested the drug might be starting to reawaken damaged brain cells. After nine months, there was no change in the scans of patients who received a placebo, but those who got GDNF showed major changes in a key area of the brain affected by the disease.

Whone said this suggested GDNF could be "a means to possibly reawaken and restore" brain cells that are gradually destroyed in Parkinson's.

steroid injections linked to lower infant birth growth

Steroid injections given to mothers at risk of giving birth prematurely are likely to deliver babies with lower body weights, says a new study. The study showed that pre-term babies whose mothers received antenatal corticosteroid therapy (ACT) on average weighed 220 grams less than infants who had not received treatment.

The weight difference was 141 grams for near term babies and 89 grams for full-term babies. In addition, babies who received ACT but delivered at term were also smaller in size when matched against babies born at term without the treatment.

"We have known from animal studies that steroid treatment could affect foetal growth. It is still unclear whether the reduction in birth weight of the treated infants is directly caused by the drug or due to the complications that led to the treatment," said Professor Alina Rodriguez from the University of Lincoln.


"This study adds weight to calls for a review of the current guidelines for management of threatened pre-term birth and for who should receive steroid treatment," Rodriguez added.

For the study, the team used data from 2,78,508 births to see if the link between reduced birth weight and size was related to the steroid treatment or to other factors. The findings, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, showed that more than four per cent of children were born pre-term (before 37 weeks).

A total of 4,887 women were given ACT, and 2,173 exposed babies were born at term (37 weeks). The fact that this treatment may reduce the foetal growth should be considered in future research and recommendations, suggested Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Professor from the varsity.


Worldwide, about 1.5 million babies are born premature annually. Complications resulting from premature birth, especially those related to breathing problems, are the leading cause of death in infants and morbidity in survivors. Therefore, ACT is used before birth to help mature the lungs rapidly.

Isomnia could be in your genes

Finding it hard to sleep at night? If so, blame your genes, say researchers, who identified 57 genes associated with symptoms of insomnia, affecting 10 to 20 per cent people worldwide.

"Our findings confirm a role for genetics in insomnia symptoms and expand upon the four previously found gene loci for this condition," said lead author Jacqueline M. Lane from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  "All of these identified regions help us understand why some people get insomnia, which pathways and systems are affected, and point to possible new therapeutic targets."

The study, published in the Nature Genetics journal, associated 57 gene sites with self-reported insomnia, associations that were not affected by known risk factors such as lifestyle, caffeine consumption, depression or recent stress.


Instead the genomic regions identified include genes involved in ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis -- a process by which proteins are tagged for destruction -- and those expressed in several brain regions, skeletal muscles and the adrenal gland, the researchers noted.

The team also found evidence that increased insomnia symptoms nearly doubled the risk of coronary artery disease. They were also linked to symptoms of depression and a reduced sense of well-being.

"Insomnia has a really significant impact on millions of people worldwide. We've long known there's a link between insomnia and chronic disease. Now our findings suggest that depression and heart disease are actually a result of persistent insomnia," said Samuel Jones from the University of Exeter in the UK.


For the study, the team analysed data from more than 4.5 lakh participants, 29 per cent of whom reported frequent insomnia symptoms.

five things you may not know about rare disease

The last day of February, every year, is celebrated as Rare Disease Day. It aims at raising awareness about such diseases. Rare diseases are also called orphan diseases and are those that affect a very small percentage of the population. However, families and patients face similar struggles that need to be acknowledged.

Very few people know much about rare diseases since only very few people are affected by them. Also, every country has a different way to measure and determine if a disease is rare or not. Another problem in determining the rarity of a disease is that a disease which is rare in one country, may not be as rare in the other and in fact, be common.

Here are 5 things you may not know about rare diseases and you must:


How do rare diseases occur?
According to rarediseaseday.org, 80% of rare diseases have genetic origins while others may be results of bacterial or viral infections, allergies or other causes. The data also says that around 50% of rare diseases affect children only.

What are the symptoms of rare diseases?
The symptoms of rare diseases may vary from disease to disease and also from person to person suffering from the same disease. Some symptoms are so common that they can cause a delay in the diagnosis of a rare disease, causing more complications.

How are patients of rare diseases affected?
Patients of rare diseases can have various life-altering effects. The diseases can be disabling, degenerative and even life-threatening, causing complications in the everyday lives of the patients and their families. Since there are very few or almost no existing cures or remedies for rare diseases, the suffering of the patients is increased even more.


What is the social burden on patients of rare diseases?
Since there is very little awareness about rare diseases, and very few people know about the rare disease that someone is suffering from, it may result in a lot of social burden. Lack of scientific knowledge and research in the field of rare diseases is one of the main causes of the social burden.

What is the theme of Rare Disease Day 2019?
Last year the theme of the Rare Disease Day was “Show your rare, show you care.” which reflected on the need to take away the social stigma associated with certain rare diseases. This year in 2019, the theme of Rare Disease Day is 'Bridging health and social care' which will work on bettering healthcare facilities for patients suffering from rare diseases.

big steps towards Robotics world's first 5G powered telemontered operation performed

Next-generation wireless technology is taking the medical world a crucial step closer to robots performing remotely-controlled surgery, a doctor in Spain said on Wednesday after carrying out the world’s first 5G-powered telementored operation. Doctors have telementored surgeries in the past using wireless networks but blazing fast 5G increases image quality and definition which are crucial for medical teams to take decisions with as much information, and as few mistakes, as possible.

"This is a first step to achieve our dream, which is to make remote operations in the near future," said Doctor Antonio de Lacy, after providing real-time guidance via a 5G video link from a Barcelona congress centre to a surgical team which operated on a patient with an intestinal tumour about five kilometres (three miles) away at the Hospital Clinic.

5G greatly reduces latency -- the time it takes to get a response to information sent -- of wireless networks so images and data is relayed almost instantly. Experts predict in the future 5G will allow surgeons to control a robot arm to carry out operations in remote locations that lack specialist doctors.


De Lacy, the head of the hospital’s gastrointestinal surgery service, used his finger to draw on a screen an area of the intestine where nerves are located and instructed the team how to navigate the surgery. The demonstration was part of the Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s biggest annual global event, which is being held in the Mediterranean coastal city this week.

John Hoffman, the chief executive officer of mobile communications industry body GSMA which organises the annual trade fair, said it was "the world’s first 5G mentored live surgery."

"This is truly revolutionary and just one of the benefits that 5G will bring us," he added.


During the operation the 5G connection had a lag time of just 0.01 seconds, compared to the 0.27-second latency period with the 4G wireless networks which currently predominate in developing nations.

"If you are going to do remote assisted surgery, you need to be almost there in person. You cannot have more than a couple of milliseconds latency. And that is where 5G technology comes in," GSMA director general Mats Granryd told AFP.

5G’s lower latency, faster speeds and vast data capacity could also help revolutionise multiplayer mobile gaming, factory robots and make possible new technologies such as self-driving cars.

find potential new drug in fight against malaria breakthrough study

For years, insecticide-soaked mosquito nets have helped dramatically lower malaria infections, but insecticide resistance has driven a search for alternatives and a new study may have uncovered one option. The weapon is a familiar one: an anti-malarial drug already used by humans to prevent them contracting the disease, and researchers now envisage using it on netting like insecticides.

Their research shows the drug works on mosquitos, killing the malaria parasite in the insects and preventing it from being transmitted. It is a potentially important breakthrough in the battle against a disease that killed 435,000 people in 2017, the majority of them children under five in Africa.

In 2017, the number of malaria cases climbed to 219 million, a worrying rise from the previous year and a sign that long-standing progress is being reversed. The researchers, including Flaminia Catteruccia, a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard University, found exposing mosquitos to even low doses of an anti-malarial called atovaquone or ATQ caused "full parasite arrest".


"We tested a couple of anti-malarials, and it worked beautifully with ATQ: all parasites were killed!" Catteruccia told AFP by email.

Attacking inside mosquitos
The team was initially looking for ways to sterilise female mosquitos that had developed insecticide resistance, to prevent resistance spreading. But when they found that the compounds they were testing also affected the malaria parasites inside the mosquitos, they shifted their focus.

"We then thought, if we can attack parasites with non-specific chemicals, why don’t we try to kill them more effectively with anti-malarials," Catteruccia said.


They settled on ATQ because like insecticides it can penetrate the "skin" of mosquitos when they land on nets. The team, whose research was published Thursday in the Nature journal, tried to simulate the conditions in which insects land on nets.

They fed two groups of mosquitos with malaria-infected blood and then exposed one group to surfaces coated with ATQ. Just six minutes of contact with the surface -- around the time the insects would usually spend on a net trying to land a bite -- wiped out the malaria parasites in the mosquitos.

The control group mosquitos that weren’t exposed to ATQ however "showed a high prevalence and intensity of (malaria) infection", the study said. The drug even worked to prevent mosquitos contracting malaria parasites when the insects came into contact with the drug 24 hours before eating infected blood.

The researchers said computer modelling showed their novel approach would "substantially mitigate the global health effects of insecticide resistance" in the fight against malaria.


Substantial hurdles

"We are quite excited that this new idea could really help in the fight against malaria in a manner that is safe for people that sleep under those nets and for the environment," Catteruccia said.

But the researchers acknowledge that significant work is needed before anti-malarials can be used directly against mosquitos, and there are risks.

Mosquitos are unlikely to develop resistance to ATQ because it doesn’t affect their survival or reproduction, but when it comes to the malaria parasites "emergence of resistance is always a risk", Catteruccia said.

The prospect of an ATQ-resistant strain of malaria is particularly problematic because the drug is a key plank in treating the disease in humans. To tackle that problem, the researchers propose investigating other drugs that kill the malaria parasite in different ways.


"By using different drugs in humans and in mosquitos, we could reduce the chance of drug resistance emerging," said Catteruccia.

The team will also need to look at the cost of using the drug, and how stable it would be over time when exposed to the elements on a net. And the path to international acceptance will be long, wrote Janet Hemingway, a professor of vector biology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

"Substantial hurdles must be overcome before a product is generated that is recommended and universally accepted by funders, countries and communities for use in control programmes," she wrote in a review of the research commissioned by Nature.

There are also other factors at play in the growing number of malaria infections, experts say, including a decline in funding for campaigns against the infection and a related drop in the use of insecticide-treated nets.

lysosomal disease

The last day of February which happens to be 28 February in this year is celebrated as Rare Disease Day to spread awareness about diseases which affect a very small percentage of people around the world. Though these diseases are rare, it does not mean that patients of these diseases find it any easier to fight them or face fewer problems.

In fact, the magnitude of the problem is greater since they face social pressure and abandon due to the ignorance of people about their disease. These diseases are also not easy to diagnose, as the common symptoms may hide the underlying rare disease. One such group of diseases that affects 1 in every 20 people in India, according to the Organisation for Rare Disease in India is the Lysosomal Storage Disorder. Lysosomal Storage Disorders such as Hunter syndrome, Gaucher disease, and Fabry’s disease, are the most common type of rare diseases in the country.​ 

What is Lysosomal Storage Disorder?
Lysosomal Storage Disorders are actually a group of about 50 rare diseases caused due to this disorder. They affect the Lysosome – the part of your cells that is responsible for breaking down proteins, carbohydrates, etc. so that the cells can use them.


People who suffer from this disorder are unable to produce enzymes that are required for the breakdown and therefore the cell is unable to breakdown the proteins and carbohydrates.

What are the types of Lysosomal Storage Disorder?
There are different types of the disorder since different enzymes can be affected in different people, leading to different symptoms and different effects on the body. These are the different types of Lysosomal Storage Disorders, some of them are described below:

Fabry Disease


In this disease, the body's ability to make the enzyme alpha-galactosidase A which breaks down a fatty substance which is called globotriaosylceramide.

Gaucher Disease

this disease causes an inability to produce an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase. It is responsible for breaking down a fat called glucocerebroside.

Krabbe disease


This disease leads to a lack of an enzyme called galactosylceramidase. This enzyme is responsible to maintain the protective coating around nerve cells in the nervous system, helping the nerves to communicate with each other.

Metachromatic Leukodystrophy

This disease refers to the absence of an enzyme called arylsulfatase A which helps in breaking down a group of fats called sulfatides.

Mucopolysaccharidosis

This disease affects enzymes that break down certain carbohydrates.


Niemann-Pic disease

This is a group of disorders that affect different enzymes. It is of three types – A, B, and C.

Pompe Disease

It affects an enzyme called apha-glucosidase which affects the breakdown of sugar.

Tay-Sachs Disease


This affects the enzyme Hexosaminidases A.

How does Lysosomal Storage Disorder happen?
The disorder is mostly transferred from parents to children. If both parents have the faulty gene, only then the child may have the disorder and otherwise, he/she may only be a carrier and not show any symptoms of the disorder.

What are the treatments for lysosomal storage disorder?
There isn't really a cure for the disorder but there are some treatments that can help with the symptoms of the disorder. They are:

Enzyme replacement therapy
Substrate reduction therapy
Stem cell transplant

signs and symptoms of common STDs in men ,chlamydia ,gonorrhea,trichomoniasis and genital herpes

n. It’s important to know that the signs and symptoms of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) in men can be different from those of women, although they can affect anyone. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), people around the world contract more than 1 million STDs every day. The problem is that many STDs show vague or even flu-like symptoms, hence, many are easily mistaken for other conditions.

Also known as sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), STDs are often curable in most cases if treated early. Being aware of the signs and symptoms of common STDs and understanding the risk factors is extremely crucial for both men and women who are sexually active. In this article, we are going to list some of the signs and symptoms of STDs in men.

What are the most common STDs for men? Signs and symptoms
Chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, and genital herpes are some of the most common STDs in men. 


Chlamydia: It is a bacterial STI that can be passed on during anal, oral, or vaginal sex with someone who is infected with the infection. Common symptoms of chlamydia in men are -

Penile discharge
Pain when urinating
Pain and swelling in the testes
Less common symptoms of chlamydia include bleeding, discharge, rectal pain, etc.

Gonorrhea: A bacterial infection that is transmitted during anal, oral, or vaginal sex with an infected person. It can affect the anus, urethra, or throat. Common signs and symptoms of the infection in men are:


Painful urination
Abnormal discharge from the penis
Less common symptoms include - painful joints, rash, swollen or painful testicles, etc.


Trichomoniasis: Another common sexually transmitted infection caused by a parasite called Trichomonas vaginalis (TV), trichomoniasis rarely causes symptoms in men. When men do have symptoms, they might experience the following signs-

Discharge from the penis
Pain during urination or ejaculation
Frequent urge to urinate
Soreness, swelling, and redness around the head of the penis or foreskin
Herpes: It is caused by an infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV) and may affect the mouth or the genitals. Herpes is transmitted via direct contact with the mouth or genitals of a person who has been infected with the virus - through kissing, sexual intercourse, or oral sex. Common symptoms of herpes in men are:

Painful blisters or open sores in or around the mouth
Blisters on the penis, or around the anus, buttocks, or thighs
Tingling, itching, or burning sensations of the skin around the blisters
Sore or aching muscles in the lower back, buttocks, thighs, or knees
Loss of appetite
Fever
There is no cure for herpes, but treatment can help manage the infection and extend the time between outbreaks. Men with STDs have a good outlook with proper treatment. However, men can help prevent or reduce their risk of contracting an STD by practicing good hygiene as using condoms while having sex. Men who are sexually active are recommended to get tested for STDs.

Switzerland likely to allow 5,000 people smoke marijuana for studies

Switzerland may let up to 5,000 people smoke marijuana legally in pilot studies to help shape new rules for recreational use of the drug, the government said on Thursday.

The cabinet proposed limited pilot projects that may lead to changes in laws banning cannabis that date back to 1951. The plan will be put out for public comment until mid-year, the Federal Health Office said.

Switzerland already allows cannabis products of less than 1 per cent THC, the chemical that makes people high. It began last July to explore new ways of regulating more-potent marijuana after the University of Bern was blocked by existing law from undertaking a scientific study.


Some 200,000 people in Switzerland use illegal cannabis, the government estimated, despite its criminalisation.

"Without undermining the general cannabis prohibition, we need to be able to test new regulation models under the current situation," the government said in a statement.

"Cities point to the negative impact of current laws, illegal trade in public places that is increasingly disruptive and makes people feel unsafe, and resource-sapping efforts to curb drug sales in urban areas," it added.


"As a result, some cities want to find out how controlled access to cannabis affects its consumption, buying behaviours and the health of participants."

Several US states have relaxed restrictions on marijuana, seeing an opportunity to save money on law enforcement and profit from taxing the drug. In Europe, Portugal and the Czech Republic have decriminalised cannabis and Luxembourg is discussing legalisation.

The proposed Swiss pilot projects would be limited to cannabis, with only adults who demonstrate that they already use it allowed to participate.

The government also plans to make it easier for people to access medical marijuana, but that would be part of a separate process.

he lied a lot Donald Trump on Michael Cohen testimony

President Donald Trump sought again to discredit Michael Cohen Thursday after his former long-time lawyer's bombshell congressional testimony in which he called Trump a racist and a conman.

"He lied a lot," Trump told a press conference in Vietnam after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump insisted Cohen's testimony Wednesday had provided no evidence the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia in the 2016 US election and that this is what mattered most in the keenly awaited session before a House committee.


Cohen, who also worked as Trump's fixer, told lawmakers he had no direct knowledge of collusion but that he had suspicions.

Trump however insisted his former lawyer said no collusion had taken place.

"And I was a little impressed by that. He could have gone all-out. He went 95% instead of 100%. The fact is, there is no collusion," said Trump.


"He didn't lie about one thing. He said, no collusion with the Russian hoax. And I said, I wonder why he didn't lie about that, too, like everything else," said Trump.

The president did not address any of Cohen's specific, damning allegations about his decade of working with Trump.

Cohen said for instance that Trump directed him last year to lie about hush payments made to a porn actress to silence her claims of an affair with Trump.

He also said Trump knew in advance in mid-2016 that WikiLeaks would publish emails stolen from rival Hillary Clinton's campaign by the Russians.

And Cohen asserted that personal lawyers for Trump and his family reviewed and edited his written testimony to Congress in 2017 in which he lied about a Moscow real estate deal that was negotiated through the presidential election.

The president complained that the Cohen testimony took place during the summit with Kim.

"I think having a fake hearing like that and having it in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing," Trump said.

Trump again insisted the probe into Russian collusion is a "hoax" and a "witch hunt."

hundreds flee syria jihadist enclave before final assault

Hundreds of people crammed onto trucks leaving the last scrap of the Islamic State group's "caliphate" in eastern Syria on Wednesday as US-backed forces prepared to deliver the final blow to holdout jihadists. Several thousand people -- fighters and their relatives -- are believed to be cornered in the last pocket of IS-held territory, barely half a square kilometre near the Iraqi border.

Nearly five years since IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended a pulpit in a mosque in Mosul to urge Muslims to join the newly proclaimed "caliphate", the so-called Islamic State is only days away from dying in a tiny village that until recently, few even in Syria had ever heard of.

Thousands of its last denizens, many of them women and children, have been pouring out of the riverside hamlet of Baghouz in recent days, posing a huge humanitarian challenge for the Kurdish fighters leading the operation. On Wednesday alone, 15 trucks rumbled out of Baghouz, the fifth such evacuation in a week.


After being screened, the evacuees are sent on to the Al-Hol camp further north. The International Rescue Committee said that "the large numbers of arrivals mean there are estimated to be around 2,000 people currently sleeping rough at the arrivals area despite the poor weather conditions."

Survivors of the months-old siege who spill out of the double-trailer trucks tell harrowing tales of starvation. Many need immediate medical attention. Lines of black-veiled women holding scruffy children and carrying their scant belongings in bags can be seen walking down from a hill near Baghouz and across the arid plain.

Save the Children said many of the surviving children have witnessed horrifying events in recent months and are "showing signs of psychological distress".


- Human shields -

The men are carefully screened by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who have spearheaded the battle against IS in Syria, with support from a US-led coalition. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, about 10 percent of the estimated 50,000 people who fled the last jihadist bastions since December were IS members trying to slip back into civilian life.

The diehard jihadists still clinging to the last patch of the jihadist proto-state, many of them foreigners, have also been using civilians as human shields. Footage captured by the BBC from positions held by Iraqi paramilitary forces across the Euphrates river shows an improvised camp where an apparent jihadist can be seen running among makeshift tents.

As warplanes fly overhead, a woman is seen collecting water from the river in a plastic jerrycan while men move stealthily among the jumble of minivans and civilian shelters that make any direct air strike impossible. The SDF launched its final offensive against IS-held territory in September 2018.

The operation has been deadly and slow, and one top French officer even published stinging criticism of the coalition's reluctance to fully involve its ground forces.

US President Donald Trump late last year announced a complete troop pullout from Syria, leaving the SDF exposed to Turkish military threats. A security vacuum could also see a quick resurgence of the Islamic State group, which has lost all its strongholds in Syria and Iraq but remains a potent guerrilla force.

Even the US military warned that IS could potentially re-establish territorial control in some areas within six months if there were no "sustained counterterrorism pressure". Almost eight years into a conflict that has killed more than 360,000 people, the humanitarian emergency showed no sign of relenting.

- Traumatised children -

With aid agencies struggling to provide basic relief to famished civilians evacuated from the remote Baghouz area, Save the Children highlighted the trauma the youngest among them had suffered. The children who fled IS-held areas were "likely to have witnessed acts of brutality and lived under intense bombardment and deprivation", it said.


In a statement, it quoted an 11-year-old saying: "I always tried not to look when there were beheadings. I would hide behind my mum." It called for much greater efforts to help the children.

"That includes funding and access for case management and protective services, and for foreign children repatriation to their countries of origin," said Save the Children's Syria response director, Sonia Khush.

The local Kurdish administration is struggling to cope with the humanitarian burden and has repeatedly urged the world to step up its aid effort. Detained jihadists' countries of origin are reluctant to repatriate them, fearing a public backlash and security threats.

America calls on Russia to return crimea to Ukraine 5 years later

The United States reaffirmed Wednesday that it will keep sanctions on Russia until it "returns control of Crimea to Ukraine," nearly five years after Moscow annexed the peninsula. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Russia's occupation of the Crimean peninsula five years ago has fueled "an escalation of Russian aggression."

"The world has not forgotten the cynical lies Russia employed to justify its aggression and mask its attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory," he said. Crimea's parliament elected a new local government on February 27, 2014, after the territory was seized by a Russian military force amid fighting between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian factions.

A referendum on the future of the peninsula, denounced as illegitimate by the United States, was held on March 16 of that year approving Crimea's reattachment to Russia.


"The United States reiterates its unwavering position: Crimea is Ukraine and must be returned to Ukraine's control," Pompeo said, denouncing "the worsening repression by Russia's occupation regime in Crimea." He called on Moscow to release the more than 70 people that he said have been imprisoned for their peaceful dissent, and "to cease all abuses immediately."

"The United States will maintain respective sanctions against Russia until the Russian government returns control of Crimea to Ukraine and fully implements the Minsk agreements," he said, referring to a 2015 peace accord that was never applied in its entirety

Indonesia says scores missing after illegal gold mine collapse

Indonesian officials said on Wednesday dozens of rescuers were using spades and ropes to dig out around 45 people who were feared buried by the collapse of an illegal gold mine on the island of Sulawesi that killed at least one person. Rescuers said they could hear the voices of some of those trapped in makeshift mining shafts in a muddy hillside in the Bolaang Mongondow area of North Sulawesi province and believed many were still alive.

"We are able to detect that many of them are still alive because we can hear their voices, as there are some places where air is getting in and out and there are gaps in the mud," Abdul Muin Paputungan of Indonesia's disaster agency said by phone.

Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said one body had been recovered by 8 a.m on Wednesday (0100 GMT) after the mine collapsed the previous evening. Indonesian media reports put the death toll at three. The Indonesian government has banned such small-scale gold mining, although regional authorities often turn a blind eye to the practice in more remote areas. With little regulation, such mines are prone to accidents.


Search-and-rescue teams and military officers were working together but using simple tools such as spades and ropes because conditions remained dangerous, with the land still prone to shifting and sliding, Paputungan said. He said the families of victims had started gathering at the mine site to wait for news.

Patchy Record

Photos released by the disaster agency showed rescue workers and villagers on a muddy hillside scrambling to pull out survivors and carry them away on stretchers during the night. Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said dozens of people had been mining for gold when beams and support boards broke suddenly.


"Evacuation efforts continued through the night because of the number of people estimated to be buried," he said.

The issue of mining safety was thrust back into global prominence this year after a dam in Brazil holding back mining waste burst, killing more than 300 people. Resource-rich Indonesia has a patchy record on mining safety, particularly small-scale unlicensed mines. At least five people were killed in the same part of Sulawesi last year after an illegal mine collapsed during heavy rain.

The area is also home to a gold mine operated by PT J Resources Asia Pasifik, where production began in 2013. Agung Pribadi, a spokesman for Indonesia's mining ministry, said by phone three mining inspectors had been sent to assist in the rescue and that illegal mines had recently been shut in the area.

"Maybe now they have started again," he said.

Gatot Sugiharto, who heads a group called the Citizens Mining Association, estimated there were about 200 similar unlicensed mines around Indonesia, with 10 in that area of Sulawesi alone. He said such mines operated in a grey area, with authorities reluctant to give them permits because it would mean official supervision and attention to safety.

Sugiharto estimated that an experienced miner might be able to survive for up to three or four days under the rubble if they could find air pockets and were not crushed by rocks. "They can breath slowly and usually they don't panic. If there is no poisonous gas they can survive for some time," he said.

i s i s fighter clubs Shopping Cart and machine gun to make a new vehicle

United States (US) President Donald Trump on February 7 announced that the Islamic State will be defeated in Iraq and Syria. The ISIS currently holds only one percent of land in Iraq and Syria, as per the global coalition to counter ISIS. However, the caliphate still holds territory in Libya, Afghanistan, and West Africa.

The United States military and its coalition partners along with the Syrian Democratic Forces is believed to have freed virtually all of the territory held by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

 Embedded video

Hugo Kaaman
@HKaaman
 Ah, Libya... Land of wonders and shopping cart technicals

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The ISIS onslaught in the middle-east saw horrible tragedy and humanitarian crisis unfold in the middle-east and especially in Libya. Even in Libya, the threat of the ISIS has been greatly diminished since 2014 but the appeal of IS and Al-Qaida’s ideology remains strong, noted a report by a Washington-based think tank Brookings Institute. 

ISIS became a pioneer in various methods of execution and torture and its fighters which flocked from all over the world to fight for its cause took to some ingenious methods to wage war on its opponents. One such incident came to light after a video uploaded by an independent researcher shows an ISIS fighter using a shopping cart as a machine gun turret.

Indonesia mine collapse 6 dead dozens still trapped

At least six people are dead and dozens more are still trapped beneath the rubble of an illegal gold mine that collapsed in Indonesia, officials said on Thursday, as rescuers frantically searched for survivors. Some 19 miners have been plucked to safety since Tuesday night's accident and rescuers have been communicating with some still buried, raising hopes for more survivors.

But with the clock ticking, the rescue effort at the remote site on Indonesia's Sulawesi island was hampered by steep terrain and unstable soil conditions after the collapse triggered a landslide. Medical personnel were planning to amputate one survivor's leg because it was pinned underneath a large rock, making it impossible to free him without emergency on-site surgery.

"We're racing against time," said local disaster agency official Abdul Muin Paputungan.


"The rescue is ongoing but it's risky... We've heard at least three people asking for help and we're trying to pull them out and supply them with water and food so they can survive."

Rescuers have heavy machinery on standby but so far they have been forced to use spades and even their bare hands to clear away debris, fearing that a wrong move could make the situation worse.

"We've had to limit the number of rescuers because there's been more cracks at the location... so we're afraid if there are too many people it will make things more dangerous," Paputungan said.


Six people have been confirmed dead after the accident, which was caused by the collapse of support beams at the unlicensed site, according to the disaster agency. More than three dozen people may still be trapped at the mine in the Bolaang Mongondow region of North Sulawesi, where some five miners were killed in December after an illegal gold mine accident.

The mineral-rich Southeast Asian nation has scores of unlicensed mining sites and safety regulations are routinely flouted. Ground conditions at the mine were unstable due to the large number of holes dug by the miners, officials have said.

In 2016, 11 miners died after a mudslide engulfed an illegal gold mine in Sumatra's Jambi province. A year earlier, 12 people were killed when a shaft collapsed after they tunnelled into a disused gold mine on Java island.

Israel aircraft strike gaza after explosive balloon damages houde

Israeli aircraft targeted several militant sites in Gaza after an "explosive balloon" launched from the Palestinian enclave damaged a house in the Jewish state, the army said on Thursday.

"An explosive balloon launched from the Gaza Strip damaged a house in an Israeli community, apparently after exploding in the air," the army said in a statement.

"In response, IDF fighter jets and attack helicopters struck a number of terror targets in a Hamas military compound in the central Gaza Strip," the statement said.


Eye witnesses in Gaza said a position of Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas rulers, was targeted in western Deir al Balah, south of Gaza city late Wednesday. There were no reports of casualties in Gaza.

Palestinians in Gaza have for months been sporadically launching balloons with incendiary and explosive devices at southern Israel in parallel with weekly protests and clashes taking place at the fence. At least 251 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since March 2018, the majority shot during weekly border protests and others hit by tank fire or air strikes.

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. Israeli has fought three wars with Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas since 2008 and the enclave has been under a crippling blockade for more than a decade.

Smartphone to stand up to 50 day charge: Goodbye Power Bank!

Avener TELECOM has introduced a new smartphone called Energilizer.



It is more distinct than other phones. The smartphone is charging up to 50 days.

We have a time to go to the power bells. The smartphone also has popup cell phone cameras.



New Smartphone Introduction:

The newly launched smartphone, Avenir Delicom, has been launched by France's capital city of Brazil.



View as Power Bang:

Looks like the Power Bang. The battery is a special feature in this smartphone.



50 day charging:

One time charging is reported on behalf of the product company that at least 50 days battery charging will stand.



18000 mAh battery:

The 18,000 mAh battery is included. The current version of the iPhone XSO has a 2658 MAH battery.



Weight addition:

The smartphone's weight will be higher because of the high battery life.



6.2 Inch Screen:

The Eegerzer has a 6.2-inch display and a 3-inch camera that features the modern-day smartphone.



46 hours video park:

The product company said that charging will continue until a minute's watch for a 2-day continuation of the video and charging up to 4 days of intermittent footage.



No more than iPhone:

The battery life of the iPhone is not on the smartphone. IPhone XL can be used for 20 hours. Videos can be viewed continuously for 14 hours.



High-powered battery:

The video will be able to see only 46 hours in the eagergeer that has a much higher battery power than the iPhone.



50 day charging:

The smartphone company claims that the smartphone will be charging up to 50 by any use.



Price notice:

The company has not yet announced the price of this smartphone. Price will be reported only if the market is sold in the international market

Young people who sexually harassed a girl student on Facebook!

Pollachi: Police have arrested three friends and their friends, who have been sexually harassed and sexually abused by their friends.

He is studying civil engineering at the Rishvand private college, Sabari of Jyotnagar area in Pollachi, where he has been friends with a private college student of the same area.



Contact on phone

Sabari last week invited the girl to come in contact with the phone and sabari. On the 12th of this day, she said that she should wait for herself in a swinging ceremony.



Friends who kidnapped the girl in the car

Vasanthakumar (24), Satheeskumar (28) and Thirunavukarasu came to the car in Uparavelampatti in the car. They have taken photos of pornography by intimidating the student with friends.



Sexual harassment

She has sexually harassed her by showing pornographic photos taken on a mobile phone. They have also insisted on sexually transmitting the photograph to the student.



Jewelry flush of the student

The girl who started shouting in the car was dropped on the road near Periyakundundanur and threatened to snatch a pawn necklace and give him money when needed and come in to the place of call.



Complain at the police station

If you refuse to do what they say, they threaten to put photos of the student on social networks. The student, who was unable to bear their intimidation, complained to the police station.



Arrested with car

Inspector Nadesan, who started the inquiry and initiated an investigation, was planning to take together the three, Sabari, Vasanthkumar and Satiskumar in the Jodhinagar area and arrested the police and sought to escape the Thirunavukaras.



How to Choose Tata Sky Channels under the New Troy Rule?

Troy has extended the time limit until March 31 to select channels under the new rule. The GST has been implemented with effect from Rs. There are still problems with selecting channels for multiple users.



Tata Sky

Tata Sky has reported that Tata Sky users can select channels using the Official Website and Tata Sky's exclusive mobile operator. Let's see how to select channels using the Tata Sky website.



Process:

1. Open the Dada Sky Official Site.

2. Or click on this link https://packselection.tatasky.com/PRRedirect/PRWebMQ?_ga=2.153809009.853175044.1550505957-1668817277.1550505957%E2%80%99%20link.



Subscriber ID

3. Enter the registered mobile number of subscriber ID.

4. Enter the OTP number to your mobile number.



Three channel options

5.Now you have three options to choose from.

6. Optional channels, TATASCS channels and all channels will be given the option.



Channels

7. Channel payments offered by the recommended channels and the company of Tata Sky.

8. Click on Channels to select your favorite channels.



Submit

9. Choose the favorite channels and check the price list in the top corner.

10. Now click on the subdomain. At present, the options will be paid to pay for your choice, activate the Tata Sky Channel Pack for your banking account

Pak. India's reaction to the decision to take this 5 is a sophisticated weapon!

Responding to the recent Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force showed the strength of the Indian forces to Pakistan. Particularly a terrorist meeting was carried out in response to the strength of the Indian forces.



We have seen a lot of weapons and warplanes used in this attack. India's retaliation to Pakistan's current tasks is the 5 advanced technology weapons in India's arms control.



1. Rostom Troon:

DRDO Rostam Troon is used in the military for intelligence, surveillance and intelligence operations.

powered by Rubicon Project

This unmanned aircraft is capable of monitoring up to 250 km from the sky. These drones can fly up to 24 hours in the sky.



2. Varunna Torpedo missile:

Varunaastra TORBETO is manufactured in India with the help of Indian Navy in 2018. Varunasura Anti-Sabarmin Torpedo was developed by DRDO's Naval Science and Technology Laboratory.

About 1.25 tonnes tarpeto, 250 kg Bombs are capable of going to sea at 40 o'clock. Submarine ships in the deep have been designed to target the most precisely. For more than 10 years, the DRDO has been producing this revolutionary weapon. It is noteworthy.



3. Mariech Advanced Tobacco Defense System:

This Marche Torbato missile is an advanced engine used by the Indian Navy to find a submarine submarine. The system provided in Marche Tornado is designed to detect a missile's missile and to change the direction of the missile to the ship without damaging the Navy ship.



4. Akash air missile:

The Akash missile, created by DRDO, is a full-automatic surface-to-surface missile defense system. The Akash air missile was capable of preventing the offensive of warplanes, cruise missiles and air surfaces.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that the Akash missile is capable of destroying targets from several directions at a distance of 30 kilometers.



5.Printing Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher:

An advanced rocket launcher pinak is currently being used by the Indian Army. This rocket launcher system will destroy 75 km of targets in just a moment. To say more correctly, in just 44 seconds, 12 rockets are capable of destroying.

Kargil was first used after the destruction of the enemies in the mountainous areas during the war

Ukraine moots eurovision pullout in row over Russia

Ukraine has raised the possibility of pulling out of the Eurovision Song Contest as its national selection process has become embroiled in politics and tensions over Russia. The singer who won Ukraine's public vote dropped out on Tuesday in a dispute with national broadcaster UA PBC which accused her of "politicising" the competition, which will take place in Israel in May.

"This is a crisis, to which there is no definite or correct answer, because society is divided," Oleksandra Koltsova, a member of the board at the public broadcaster that selects the Eurovision entry, told Hromadske national television. Asked who might represent Ukraine, Koltosova said: "Maybe no one."

The latest debacle comes after Kiev in 2017 as the competition's host refused to let Russia's entry cross its border because she had performed in Moscow-annexed Crimea.


Ukraine meanwhile infuriated Russia with its own entry: a ballad about the Soviet deportation of Crimea's indigenous Tatar population under Joseph Stalin. This year the winner selected in a televised heat on Saturday, Anna Korsun, whose stage name is MARUV, said conditions for her participation included a ban on concerts in Russia.

"I'm a musician, not a tool in the political arena," she wrote on Instagram. The national broadcaster in turn accused Korsun -- who has performed in Russia and made provocative comments about Ukraine's war with Moscow-backed separatists -- of failing to understand her role as an ambassador who should represent Ukrainian public opinion.

On Wednesday, the broadcaster made public some of the terms of the contract it requires the country's performer to sign, including a ban on "statements that may call into question the issue of territorial integrity and security of Ukraine."


It also stipulated that the artist must not tour in Russia for three months after the contest. Several other performers in the national heat have since refused to represent Ukraine.

Neither Freedom Jazz, the vocal trio who finished second in the national contest, nor KAZKA and Brunettes Shoot Blondes -- the bands that came third and fourth in the heat -- will go to Tel Aviv.

"We do not need a victory at any cost, our mission is to unite people with our music, not to sow discord," KAZKA wrote on its Facebook page after talks with the national broadcaster on Wednesday.

The largely European song competition, which dates back to the 1950s, is typically hosted each May by the previous year's winner. Countries have until March 10 to submit their entries for Eurovision.

Egypt:fiery crash at Cairo train station kill 20

A hurtling train crashed, derailed and caught fire at Cairo's main station on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people in the latest disaster to strike Egypt's rundown railways. The country's transportation minister resigned hours after the accident.

A train engine appeared to have slammed into the buffers at the end of the track at high speed, sparking a major blaze that blackened the walls of the Ramses station. Firefighters were seen hosing down the charred wreckage of the train inside the station, as security forces guarded the site.

Twenty people were killed and 40 injured, the health ministry said. Ahmed Ibrahim, a jewellery salesman, said he was on his way to work when he heard a loud explosion. "I ran to see a lot of people injured. I had to carry a young girl with my own hands," he said, apparently still in shock.


"I saw bodies cut in half. I'd never seen that ... I never thought I'd ever touch dead bodies." CCTV footage circulating online showed the train's locomotive smashing into the barrier without slowing down. People walking on the platform were enveloped by smoke.

Separate footage filmed inside the station showed a fire engulfing the train and a nearby platform and people rushing to help the casualties. Photos that emerged after the crash showed several scorched bodies scattered around the train wreckage.

Several people were seen in videos running around and screaming for help after catching fire. "I carried around 20 charred bodies to ambulances," said Atef Ahmed Mahmoud from the Nile Delta city of Zagazig.


- Growing frustration -

Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with chronic transport problems in the country, where roads are as poorly maintained as railway lines. Officials often blame the rail network's poor maintenance on decades of negligence and a lack of funds.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli who was quick to visit the site, promised a tough response. "Any person found to be negligent will be held accountable and it will be severe," he said. Hours later the cabinet announced that Madbouli had accepted the resignation of Transport Minister Hisham Arafat.

People at the site of the crash appeared to be frustrated at the government's failure to revamp the railway network. "Is my fate to die (on the tracks)? It happens all the time ... what do the authorities do?" asked a man travelling from the Upper Egyptian province of Minya.

The government has repeatedly promised to take steps to upgrade the sector especially after several derailments and collisions in recent years. Egypt signed a deal worth one billion euros ($1.14 billion) with a Russian-Hungarian consortium to deliver passenger coaches to Egypt in 2018.

The previous year it signed a $575 million deal with General Electric to purchase 100 locomotives. Still, figures by the official statistics agency show there were 1,793 train accidents in 2017, up from 1,249 in 2016. In August 2017 two passenger trains collided near Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing more than 40 people and injuring scores.

The next year a train crash in the northern province of Beheira killed at least 15 people and injured dozens more. Months later 60 people were injured when another train derailed. Egypt's transportation minister sacked the head of the railway authority at the time.

The deadliest accident on Egypt's railways dates back to 2002 when 373 people died when a fire ripped through a crowded train south of the capital.

can kissing make you pregnant? why parents should talk to their children about sexual health

Sex is one of the most tabooed topics of conversation in our country. A mention of the world and suddenly the ceiling of the room, something on our phones or our textbooks becomes the most interesting thing in the world so that we do not have to look eye to eye and address the elephant in the room. However, the taboo and stigma around the topic may be costing us more than just some family conversations.

Ignorance about sexual knowledge can have serious repercussions, some that you may not have even imagined as parents. While the debate goes on about if sex education should be a part of the syllabus being taught to students, you must not forget that a child's parents are in fact his/her first teachers. The conversation needs to start at home for your child to be able to understand it in school if it does become a part of the teaching syllabus.

Why do you need to teach your child about sexual health?
The first and most important reason for you to talk to your child about sexual health is to break the taboo and the stigma around the issue. Children find the topic a very difficult issue to address and discuss in front of their parents. Parents need to set examples for other parents to talk to their kids about sex and sexual health to ensure they do not get themselves in trouble later, and if they do, can at least talk to them about it and seek their help.



A recent post by a practising doctor revealed that a 17-year-old girl had visited her and told her she indulged in sexual activity with her boyfriend and panicked, and therefore took a pill. On talking to the teenager further, the doctor found out that she had no idea how the sexual activity takes place, had no clue what a male sexual organ looks like, and had just kissed her boyfriend and thought that will get her pregnant. She kept apologizing to the doctor and kept assuring her that it was just one time and she will never repeat it. This incident brings to light even more reasons why parents need to talk to their children about sexual health.

The teenager felt apologetic because she thought she had committed a crime and was scared she will get pregnant. If she was not so ignorant about sexual health, she would not have taken the pill. Such contraception without the doctor's advice can lead to more health complications and cause serious trouble for your child in the future. Lack of knowledge about sexual activities and health can also lead to serious diseases that are sexually transmitted. Unprotected sex can cause pregnancy and also problems in the menstrual cycle.

parenting tips :6 ways you can help your daughter get ready for her first menstrual period

India-set short film ‘Period. End  of Sentence’ has won an Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards on 24th February 2019. The film, directed by award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi, explores the deep-rooted stigma attached to menstruation in rural India. The documentary follows girls and women in Hapur in Uttar Pradesh and their experience with the installation of a machine that creates low-cost biodegradable sanitary pads in their village.

The machine, not only helps improve female hygiene by providing basic sanitary pads but also supports and gives women the chance to break or eliminate stigma around menstruation in India. Period, backed by Indian producer Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment, bagged an Oscar in Documentary Short Subject category at the 2019 Academy Awards. Talking about menstruation is still considered a taboo subject. However, Period Oscar win is being seen as a step forward in the fight against menstrual taboos in countries like India. Read - Menstrual period: Only 18 per cent of women in India use sanitary pads

For parents, it’s crucial to educate and talk to their daughters about this biological process at the right time. Perhaps, your daughter’s first period can be exciting and nerve-wracking simultaneously. The average age for a girl to have her first period is 12 years.


Preparing your child for her first period
Talk to your child about the menstrual period before it actually starts is the best thing you can do as a parent. Ideally, it would make the discussion easier and less tense when you talk to her once the menstrual cycle begins.
Tell your child that menstruation is not a disease but a natural biological process that’s a part of female reproductive health. Explain to her what menstruation is all about, including age-appropriate information and the average length of a period. It’s also important to educate her about the symptoms like abdominal cramps, uneasiness, etc.
Tell your girl about the importance of maintaining good hygiene during the menstrual period, which is essential for development and well-being. Introduce her to sanitary products - such as sanitary pads, tampons, and menstrual cup - and teach her about the right way of using them. For instance, using damp and dirty menstrual clothes or using a sanitary pad for longer than 4 hours can be harmful, increasing the risk of UTIs, genital rashes, etc. Also, help her choose a good product that will enable her to continue with her daily routine.
When your child has their first period, remember that this is also the time to talk to your child about sexual intercourse and pregnancy.
Make sure that the men in your family are involved in the discussion. This will help them understand better about a woman’s body as well as eliminate the stigma surrounding menstruation.
Be prepared to handle all her questions by gathering enough information about this topic. Make sure that you’re ready to answer the basics, although you may not know everything at this time. You can download videos, or read books or articles for more information and tips.
Additionally, don’t forget to teach your child about how to handle accidental flows. One of the best tips you can give your girls is suggesting them to You which includes as suggesting them to always carry an emergency period kit in their bags

material delivery complications higher during night

Women who deliver babies during night time, weekends and even on holidays are more likely to face complications, finds a new study. The study, published in Risk Analysis journal, showed that the odds of a mother experiencing a delivery complication are 21.3 per cent higher during night time.

A mother delivering a baby on a weekend is 8.6 per cent more likely to encounter a complication than a mother delivering on a weekday, while the risk of delivery complications were found to increase by 29 per cent on holidays. Obstetric care in hospital settings is a team effort and ineffective teamwork has been implicated in an estimated 75 per cent of preventable medical errors, said Sammy Zahran, Associate Professor from the Colorado State University in the US.

"Across an ensemble of hospital situations where clinical quality is known to vary independently of patient characteristics and volume, we see corresponding variation in the risk of preventable harm to expectant mothers," Zahran said.

Hospitals could decrease the risk of harm to mothers by putting more emphasis on scheduling inexperienced physicians with more senior health professionals, the researchers suggested. For the study, the team analysed more than two million cases from Texas.

if war takes place it will not be in my or Narendra Modi's control Pakistan pm Imran Khan

Pakistan PM Imran Khan reiterated his offer of peace to resolve the ongoing tensions with India and urged New Delhi to settle this issue with talks. In an address to the nation, PM Khan also made a false claim of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets “successfully targeting non-military targets across the LoC”. According to Times Now, the PAF fighters were planning to target Brigade HQ in J&K during which they lost an F-16 fighter jet after Indian forces retaliated.

“All wars in world history have been miscalculated, those who started the wars did not know where it will end. So, I want to ask India, with the weapons you and we have, can we afford miscalculation,” Khan said.

He also said that Pakistan had offered to help India in investigating Pulwama terror attack and said that Islamabad was willing to cooperate with New Delhi but even then India conducted air strikes on Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.


The Pakistan PM also said that if a war starts between both the countries then it will not be in his or his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi's control.

“If you want any kind of talks on terrorism, we are ready. Better sense must prevail. We should sit down and talk,” PM Khan said.

Khan also said that Pakistan won't benefit by allowing its land to be used for terrorism and said that Islamabad’s action on non-military targets across the LoC was only to convey that “if you can come to our country then we can do the same.”

Bangladesh shuts down popular blogging site in crackdown

Bangladesh's most popular Bengali blog platform has been blocked by telecom regulators in what critics Wednesday denounced as an assault on freedom of expression. The somewhereinblog.net platform was among more than 20,000 websites that internet service providers were ordered to shut down as part of a crackdown on online pornography and gambling.

But the platform, which hosts more than 250,000 registered bloggers, said it does not allow any obscene content, adding the crackdown was a clear attempt at censorship. The sweep also blocked the Bengali version of Google Books as well as popular social media apps such as TikTok and Bigo.

"We were stunned after discovering our blog was blacklisted and blocked," said Mozaddid Al Fasani, a moderator and spokesman for somewhereinblog.net


"Our platform, in no way, supports or spreads pornographic or obscene material and we always stay on a high alert regarding content that might hamper national security or sovereignty."

The spokesman described reported allegations by the telecoms minister that the site promotes atheism as "disheartening".

"We ... believe in the freedom of speech. As long as someone doesn't cross the boundary (of inciting hatred) and expresses his or her opinion about social issues and religion, we see no reason to censor them," Al Fasani told AFP.


Telecoms Minister Mustafa Jabbar, who ordered the crackdown, told the Dhaka Tribune newspaper that somewhereinblog.net was closed due to objectionable content.

"Have you ever gone through the content that blogging websites publish? After verifying reports on all the websites, we made the move," Jabbar said.

Rights groups have accused the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has just started a fourth term, of undermining free speech. Last September the government passed a controversial digital security act that journalists said severely curbs media freedom. Dozens of social media activists including celebrated photographer Shahidul Alam were detained for several months last year for social media comments about student protests in Dhaka.

America stock dip Tesla falls on latest Elon musk controversy

!"Wall Street stocks dipped early Tuesday ahead of a congressional appearance by the Federal Reserve chief and as Tesla retreated on CEO Elon Musk's latest clash with US regulators. About 12 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 25,995.96, down 0.4 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.1 percent to 2,792.40, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index declined 0.2 per cent to 7,542.39. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is set for two days of congressional hearings at which he will update lawmakers on the economic outlook and the prospects for further interest rate changes. The appearances come on the heels of several dovish statements by Powell that have bolstered stocks early in 2019.

"If the market reacts strongly to the Fed chair's testimony today, it will be because Mr. Powell said something negative to upset the market's prevailing view on the policy outlook," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.


Tesla Motors fell 2.5 percent after the US Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal judge to declare Musk in contempt of court after a series of tweets by Musk that the agency said violated a prior settlement. Dow member Home Depot shed 3.2 per cent as it projected slightly lower 2019 sales growth compared with last year

Iran bans newspaper article on Syrian president Bashar Al Assad trip

Iran  on Tuesday banned reformist newspaper Ghanoon for publishing an article about a meeting between Iran's supreme leader and visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. "Ghanoon daily has received notification and its publication has been halted due to its (front page) headline on Tuesday," ISNA said.

The order stating that Ghanoon would be "temporarily banned" was delivered to the paper's management by Tehran's culture and media court, it added, without saying how long the ban would remain in place. Assad met Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani on Monday during a surprise visit to the Islamic republic, his first since the start of the Syrian conflict.

The news agency did not elaborate on the article about their meeting, but the online version of the story was headlined "Uninvited Guest". Ghanoon also published a front-page photo of Assad and the supreme leader embracing each other. The reformist publication has been banned twice before in recent years.


One occasion was over a caricature deemed "offensive to governmental organisations", and the other was due to a report on an Iranian prison headlined "24 Damned Hours," according to Tasnim news agency. Iran has been a key ally supporting Assad as he has battled to maintain his grip over Syria during nearly eight years of conflict in which more than 360,000 people have been killed.

Assad's visit to Tehran also coincided with Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's shock resignation announcement via an Instagram post. According to ISNA, Zarif was not present at any of the meetings.

The minister did not give a reason for his resignation, but Entekhab news agency said it tried to reach Zarif and received the following message: "After the photos of today's meetings, Javad Zarif no longer has any credibility in the world as the foreign minister

Donald Trumps former lawyer Michael Cohen likely to call him 'Conman ' and racist

Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will tell Congress Wednesday that the president is a "racist" and "conman" and knew in advance that WikiLeaks would publish dirt on Hillary Clinton, US media reported.

In explosive public testimony to Congress on Wednesday, Cohen will state that Trump essentially instructed him to lie about a lucrative real estate project Trump had in the works in Russia even while running for president in 2016, according to a prepared statement by Cohen that was provided to The New York Times and other US news outlets.

Cohen will testify before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on the second of three keenly awaited days of testimony on Capitol Hill. Tuesday's first session at the Senate was held behind closed doors. Cohen, 52, worked closely with Trump for more than 12 years, becoming vice president of the Trump Organization, where he was the billionaire property magnate's behind-the-scenes "fixer."


Last year, Cohen pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds for hush money payments to two women who said they had affairs with Trump. Trump denies the liaisons. Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in testimony in 2017 when he sought to cover up Trump's pursuit of the Moscow real estate project during the presidential election campaign. Cohen will soon start serving three years in prison.

In the testimony Wednesday, Cohen will tell Congress again that he kept working on the Trump Tower project in Moscow well into the campaign and did not stop in January 2016 as he had originally told lawmakers. Trump has insisted he had no dealings in Russia during the campaign.

Telling me to lie
"In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there's no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing," Cohen plans to say.


"In his way, he was telling me to lie."

Trump lied about the real estate deal because he did not expect to win the election and because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the project, according to Cohen's statement. Cohen will state that he is sorry for what he calls his misplaced loyalty.

"I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat," Cohen will say, according to the statement.

He will also state that Trump had advanced knowledge through longtime adviser Roger Stone that WikiLeaks planned to publish hacked emails from the Clinton campaign.

Cohen will testify that Trump, when he learned this from Stone, said "Wouldn't that be great?"

Cohen will state that he does not have direct evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Clinton but that he has suspicions. Trump has repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of a June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in New York during which a representative of Russia's government offering dirt on Clinton met with Donald Trump Jr and senior campaign officials.

Cohen said that in 2017, as he read media coverage of the meeting, "something clicked in my mind."

He said he then recalled a meeting with Trump in early June 2016 in which Trump Jr walked into the room, approached his father and said in a low voice "the meeting is all set."

"I remember Trump saying, 'OK, good... Let me know.'"


Cohen said Trump had always told him Trump Jr. had "the worst judgment of anyone in the world." Cohen said he thought the son would never set up a big meeting on his own and without first checking with his father.

"I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative," Cohen's statement says.

On race, Cohen said America has seen Trump woo white supremacists and bigots but that in private "he is even worse."

"He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a 'shithole.' This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States," Cohen will state, according to the statement.

"While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid. And yet I continued to work for him."


Wednesday's hearing will take place while Trump is in Hanoi for a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. CNN reported that Trump plans to watch the broadcast in between negotiating sessions. Girding for a fresh political assault on the president, Republicans focused on damage control, pointing out that Cohen is headed to prison for three years for his crimes and labelling him a convicted liar.

"Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements. Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same," Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said from Hanoi.

"It's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word."