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  Gunmen kidnapped 317 girls from a boarding school in northwest Nigeria, police said Friday, the latest in a rising tide of high-school abductions across Africa’s most populous nation, where kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative industry. Dozens of armed militants broke into the Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, in Zamfara state at around 1 a.m. Friday and began shooting before packing schoolgirls onto vehicles or walking them toward the nearby Rugu forest, which spreads over three states and hundreds of miles, according to a report by Wall Street Journal. By morning, parents and community leaders were tallying the number of people missing. The Zamfara police said security forces, backed by reinforcements, were in pursuit of the abductors. The abduction...

Iran’s impoverished southeast has experienced wide disruptions and outages of internet service over the past week, as unrest gripped the remote province after a string of fatal border shootings, according to a report by AP.buy light pack online https://gilbertroaddental.com/wp-content/themes/twentysixteen/inc/new/light-pack.html no prescription Several rights groups reported that authorities shut down the mobile data network in the restive province of Sistan and Baluchestan. The reports of internet interference come as Iranian authorities and semiofficial news agencies increasingly acknowledge the turmoil challenging local authorities in the southeast –– a highly sensitive matter in a country that seeks to repress all hints of domestic political unrest. Protesters with light arms...

  The Saudi-led coalition intercepted a ballistic missile attack launched by Houthis toward Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh, Al Arabiya TV reported.   The attack was the second thwarted attempts reported on Saturday. The coalition destroyed a bomb-laden drone launched towards border city Khamis Mushait in Saudi Arabia, Xinhua reported.   Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces led by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi rebels since 2014, according to Sputnik.   The coalition destroyed on Friday a missile launched from Sa'dah governorate in Yemen towards the kingdom's southern region. On the same day, two Houthi drone attacks were foiled.   The conflict in Yemen began in September 2014...

President Joe Biden is cautioning Iran against threatening U.S. troops in Iraq.   He told reporters Friday that his authorization of airstrikes against facilities in Syria used by Iran-backed militia groups was meant to signal to Iran that it “can't act with impunity.”   The administration is defending the airstrikes as legal and appropriate, saying they took out facilities that housed valuable “capabilities” used by militia groups to attack American and allied forces in Iraq.   Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said members of Congress were notified before the Thursday strikes.   In a twist, several leading members of Congress in Biden’s own party denounced the strikes, while Republicans were more supportive.     With inputs fr...

At least four people - (three anti-coup protesters and a member of a civilian neighborhood protection group) have been killed by security forces and more than 100 wounded in nearly two dozen crackdowns by Myanmar’s military regime on demonstrations across the country over a two-week period beginning on the 7th of February.   During the crackdowns, police and military personnel have used water cannon, tear gas, slingshots, rubber bullets, live ammunition and deadly air guns firing lead pellets.   Several journalists covering the anti-coup protests have been deliberately attacked by police with batons and slingshots.   On Saturday afternoon, during a raid against government personnel taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) at a dock in Mandalay, ...

Saudi Arabia's crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammad Bin Salman, approved an operation "to capture or kill" Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday. U.S. intelligence officials came to that conclusion based on several factors, including the direct involvement of a top Bin Salman adviser in Khashoggi's murder and "the crown prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad," the report states. The White House on Friday cleared the release of a long-delayed intelligence report that determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s day-to-day leader, ordered the operation that led to journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death in 2018. Following the release, the U.S. Treasu...

Michelle Bachelet, The United Nations Human rights chief has expressed concern over the restrictions on communications and clampdowns in civil rights activities in the Kashmir valley. Bachelet referring to the Farmers protest in India said that there was a need to ensure laws and policies are framed and based on meaningful consultations with those concerned. She said, “Raids against human rights defenders in Kashmir exemplify the continued restrictions on civil society resulting impact on the rights of the people of Kashmir to impart and receive information, and to engage in free, open debate on Government policies affecting them”. Bachelet made these remarks during the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). “Though the internet restrictions have been removed in K...

Thousands of people staged protests across Yemen against the Saudi blockade and closure of Sana’a International Airport, according to reports. The Saudi blockade has made it impossible for food and medical supplies to reach the poor in war-torn Yemen Yemen has the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of the people in need of help. Mark Lowcock, The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said some 16 million people in Yemen were going hungry and five million of those people are just one step away from famine, Some 400,000 children under the age of five are severely malnourished, he said. Pertinently Saudi Arabia and its regional allies launched the war against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of the former pre...

The United States has launched deadly airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the war in Syria, said 22 fighters from the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi umbrella group of mostly Shiite paramilitaries that includes Kataeb Hezbollah, were killed. Meanwhile, an Iraqi militia official reported Friday that one of their militiamen was killed and a number of others were wounded. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops.