Suspected Serial Killer Arrested In Rape, Murder Of 7-Year-Old Pakistan Girl

Agencies
January 24, 2018

Lahore, Jan 24:  Police in Pakistan said on Tuesday they had arrested a man suspected to be a serial killer responsible for the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl, a case that ignited nationwide protests over allegations of government inaction.

Police found Zainab Ansari's body in a garbage dumpster in Kasur district near the eastern city of Lahore last week, four days after she was reported missing. Residents of the area have said the murder was the 12th such incident in a year, setting off fears of a serial rapist killer on the loose.

Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab province, where Kasur is located, said the arrested man had confessed to Zainab's murder and his DNA matched samples found on her body.

Mr Sharif, addressing the media, identified Imran Ali, 24, of Kasur, as the killer of Zainab.

 Regional police officer Zulfiqar Hameed told Reuters the suspect was one of Zainab's neighbours. CCTV footage of the day she was abducted showed her walking off calmly with a man identified as her kidnapper.

A police official who asked not to be named said the accused had confessed to multiple murders and that he was suspected of raping and killing at least seven girls.

He added that Ali was arrested on Wednesday but police waited to match DNA evidence before making an announcement.

Mr Sharif said in his statement that 1,150 DNA samples were collected and matched with samples taken from Zainab's body.

Two people were killed in Kasur the day after Zainab's body was recovered when police fired at hundreds of angry protesters, who said negligence on the part of the authorities was behind the repeated killings.

A number of police officials have been transferred out of Punjab for failing to investigate complaints of missing children since 2015, when authorities uncovered what they said was a paedophile ring linked to a prominent local family.

At least two people have been convicted in connection with that case, in which authorities say hundreds of children in the district were abused.

A total of 1,764 cases of child abuse were reported across Pakistan in the first six months of 2017, according to Sahil, an organisation that works on child protection.

In 2016, the total number of reported child abuse cases was 4,139, or around 11 new cases reported per day.

Zainab's case has emotions running high in Pakistan and the normally taboo subject of child abuse being discussed widely on local television.

"I want Imran Ali to be hanged publicly ... I will request the political parties to support my wish," Mr Sharif said.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Moscow, May 19: Russia confirmed 9,263 new coronavirus infections Tuesday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 299,941.

On Sunday, the head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said the growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia is stabilizing.

Russia is the second most-affected country in terms of infections.

A record 115 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 2,837 — a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic.

Russia began easing nation-wide lockdown restrictions last week and announced the national football league would restart in late June.

Critics have cast doubt on Russia's low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting in order to play down the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova over the weekend denied manipulation of numbers, saying hospitals had a financial interest in identifying infections because they are allocated more money to treat coronavirus patients.

Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.

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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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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".

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