Saudi King to take 506 tons of luggage including 2 Limos to Indonesia

March 1, 2017

Riyadh, Mar 1: Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud is heading to Indonesia this week for a nine-day visit. It will be the first time in 46 years that a Saudi king has visited the world's largest Muslim nation, and it comes at a time of heightened attention on the economic links between the two nations.

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But Salman has come prepared. According to reports in the Indonesian press, the Saudi royal is expected to bring 459 metric tonnes (506 U.S. tons) of cargo with him on his trip - including two Mercedes-Benz s600 limousines and two electric elevators.

Adji Gunawan of the airfreight company PT Jasa Angkasa Semesta (JAS) told the Antara news agency that his company had been appointed to handle the cargo, which had already arrived in the country. Adji said that his company was employing a total of 572 workers to deal with the Saudi King's luggage.

Saudi Royals are often known for traveling in grandiose style. Salman booked out the entire Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown when he visited Washington in 2015. The hotel, one of the most luxurious in the area, has 222 rooms.

That same year, the king was criticized by some locals after his 1,000-person entourage forced the closure of a beach on the French Riviera for three days due to privacy and security concerns. The local mayor also complained to the French president that the Saudi group had poured concrete directly onto the sand in an unauthorized attempt to install an elevator.

A similarly large entourage is expected this week in Indonesia. The Jakarta Post reports that the Saudi group will total about 1,500 people, including 10 ministers, 25 princes and at least 100 security personnel.

While the Saudi king's colossal cargo hold may seem large, it is not necessarily out of scale with other world leaders. When President Barack Obama visited sub-Saharan Africa in 2013, he was accompanied by 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines, and hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents tasked with helping secure locations in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

Even when Obama traveled less exotic locales, there were reports of a similarly high level of organization: A 2014 visit to Brussels included a 900-person entourage and 45 vehicles, according to the Guardian. Though the White House later disputed that figure, it said it could not provide a more accurate one due to security concerns.

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shaji
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Thursday, 2 Mar 2017

If almighty God decides something to be happened none can stop or postpone it. May God protect all of us from Evil.

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News Network
July 2,2020

Naypyitaw, Jul 2: A landslide at a jade mine in northern Myanmar has killed at least 113 people, officials say, warning the death toll is likely to rise further.

The incident took place early on Thursday in the jade-rich Hpakant area of Kachin state after a bout of heavy rainfall, the Myanmar Fire Services Department said on Facebook.

"The jade miners were smothered by a wave of mud," the statement said. "A total of 113 bodies have been found so far," it added, raising the death toll from at least 50.

Photos posted on the Facebook page showed a search and rescue team wading through a valley apparently flooded by the mudslide.

'No one could help them'

Maung Khaing, a 38-year-old miner from the area, said he saw a towering pile of waste that looked on the verge of collapse and was about to take a picture when people began shouting "run, run!"

"Within a minute, all the people at the bottom [of the hill] just disappeared," he told Reuters news agency by phone.

"I feel empty in my heart. I still have goosebumps ... There were people stuck in the mud shouting for help, but no one could help them."

Tar Lin Maung, a local official with the information ministry, said authorities had recovered more than 100 bodies.

"Other bodies are in the mud. The numbers are going to rise," he told Reuters.

Fatal landslides are common in the poorly regulated mines of Hpakant, the victims often from impoverished communities who risk their lives hunting the translucent green gemstone.

The government of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi pledged to clean up the industry when it took power in 2016, but activists say little has changed.

Official sales of jade in Myanmar were worth $750.4m in 2016-2017, according to data published by the government as part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

But experts believe the true value of the industry, which mainly exports to China, is much larger.

Northern Myanmar's abundant natural resources - including jade, timber, gold and amber - have also helped finance both sides of a decades-long conflict between ethnic Kachin and the military.

The fight to control the mines and the revenues they bring frequently traps local civilians in the middle.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

Washington, Jun 24: Twitter has once again flagged a tweet from US President Donald Trump which promoted violence by saying if protesters tried to set up an "autonomous zone" in Washington, DC they would be met with "serious force".

This is the fourth time Twitter has red flagged Trump's tweet for glorifying violence or violating its policies.

Trump has been critical of the "autonomous zone" in Seattle, an area occupied by protestors for much of this month.

"We've placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behaviour, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group," Twitter's safety team tweeted late Tuesday.

Trump had tweeted: "There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!"

Twitter earlier labeled a video tweeted by him which mocked CNN as manipulated media.

According to Twitter, "this Tweet has been labeled per our synthetic and manipulated media policy to give people more context".

In May, Twitter labeled two Trump tweets that made false claims about mail-in ballots in California.

Twitter later labeled another Trump tweet glorifying violence in which he said, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Facebook also removed a Trump campaign ad featuring a symbol used by Nazis for political dissenters, saying the ad violated its policies.

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News Network
June 4,2020

London, Jun 4: Meghan, Britain's Duchess of Sussex, has spoken about events following the death of George Floyd saying she was sorry that children had to grow up in a world where racism still existed and that current events in the United States were "devastating".

"I know you know that black lives matter," Meghan said in a video she recorded for students graduating from her old high school in Los Angeles which was aired on Wednesday.

The death of Floyd has become the latest flashpoint for long-simmering rage over police brutality against African Americans and led to nationwide protests, some violent, with curfews imposed in some cities to quell the disorder.

"For the past couple of weeks I've been planning on saying a few words to you for your graduation and as we've all seen over the last week what is happening in our country, and in our state and in our home town of LA is absolutely devastating," said Meghan, whose mother is African American and father is white.

"First thing I want to say to you is that I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that you have to grow up in a world where this is still present," she said in her message to the girls at the Immaculate Heart High School.

The duchess, a former US actress and wife of Queen Elizabeth's grandson Prince Harry, said she wanted to say "the right thing" and was nervous her words would be "picked apart".

"The only wrong thing to say is to say nothing. Because George Floyd's life mattered, and Breonna Taylor's life mattered, and Philando Castile's life mattered and Tamir Rice's life mattered and so did so many other people whose names we know, and whose names we do not know," she said.

Britain's royal family by tradition does not comment on political issues. However, Meghan and Harry stepped down from their official royal roles at the end of March and are now living in Los Angeles with their baby son Archie.

In her message, the 38-year-old reflected on her own memories of the 1992 LA riots.

"Those memories don't go away and I can't imagine that at 17 or 18 years old, which is how old you are now, that you would have to have a different version of that same type of experience," she said.

"That's something you should have an understanding of, but an understanding of as a history lesson not as your reality. So I'm sorry that in a way we have not gotten the world to the place you deserve it to be."

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