Pakistan summons its envoy in India for consultations over 'harassment': FO

Agencies
March 15, 2018

Islamabad, Mar 15: Upping the ante, Pakistan today said it has decided to call back its High Commissioner in India Sohail Mahmood for consultations after repeated incidences of "harassment" of its diplomatic staff in New Delhi.

Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Faisal said that the Indian government failed to take notice of the increasing incidents of intimidation of Pakistani diplomats, their families and staffers by its intelligence agencies.

"Our High Commissioner in New Delhi has been asked to come to Islamabad for consultations," he said.

On Tuesday, the Foreign Office had summoned India's Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh over the alleged harassment of its officials and their families in New Delhi.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry claimed that the staff and their families have been facing "harassment, intimidation and outright violence" from Indian state agencies in recent weeks.

Faisal on Thursday alleged that this deliberate continuing bullying was not confined to a single isolated event and "continues unabated despite repeated official protests lodged with the Indian High Commission here, and also with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at the highest (level)."

He said the Pakistan High Commission shared with the External Affairs Ministry photographs identifying the individuals, who forcibly halted and took pictures of the officers but regrettably no positive action was taken by the Indian side so far.

"The total apathy and failure of the Indian Government to put a halt to these despicable incidents, sparing not even young children, indicates both a lack of capacity to protect foreign diplomats posted in India or a more reprehensible, complicit unwillingness to do so," he said.

He said that under the Vienna Convention, the safety and the security of Pakistani diplomats and their families is the responsibility of the Indian Government.

He claimed that in the latest incident, Indian officials stopped the car of the deputy high commissioner for 40 minutes and harassed the occupants of the vehicle.

"Pakistan will go to any limit to ensure the safety of the staff of (its) high commission in India," he said.

He said India should not drag Pakistan in its electoral politics.

Faisal said that Pakistan wants peace in the region and was against an arms race.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
July 18,2020

Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.

In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.

"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.

This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.

"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.

The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.

"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.

In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.

"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".

The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.

The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
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."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
February 20,2020

Tokyo, Feb 20: One more Indian on board the cruise ship Diamond Princess quarantined off the coast of Japan was tested positive for novel coronavirus, the Indian Embassy in Tokyo said on Wednesday, adding that all seven Indian nationals infected with the virus have been shifted to hospitals in Japan for treatment.

"1 Indian crew who tested positive for #COVID19 among 88 new cases yesterday on #DiamondPrincess taken to hospital for treatment. Indians receiving treatment responding well. From today, the disembarkation of passengers only started, likely to continue till 21 Feb," the embassy tweeted.

"As of 2100 JST, altogether 7 Indian nationals (crew members on board #DiamondPrincess) are receiving treatment in hospitals in Japan, after testing positive for #COVID19 over last few days. Their health conditions are improving. 
@MEAIndia," the following tweet read.

A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people on board the luxury cruise ship which was quarantine off Japan on February 5 after it emerged that a former passenger had tested positive for the virus.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.