Sweden arrests man for 'terrorist crime' after truck attack

April 8, 2017

Stockholm, Apr 8: Sweden early today arrested a man for a "terrorist crime" hours after a beer truck ploughed into a crowd outside a busy department store in central Stockholm, killing four and injuring 15. The man was arrested "on suspicion of a terrorist crime through murder," Karin Rosander, a communications director at the Swedish Prosecution Authority said.

Sweden1 2Police said earlier on Friday after the attack that they had detained the man who "matched the description" of a photo released of a suspect wearing a dark hoodie and military green jacket. But they did not confirm if he drove the truck. According to the Aftonbladet newspaper, the same man is a 39-year-old of Uzbek origin and a supporter of the Islamic State (IS) group.

If confirmed as a terror attack, it would be Sweden's first such deadly assault. The 15 injured included children and nine people were "seriously" wounded, health authorities said. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said he had strengthened the country's border controls. "Terrorists want us to be afraid, want us to change our behaviour, want us to not live our lives normally, but that is what we're going to do. So terrorists can never defeat Sweden, never," he said.

The attack occurred just before 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) when the stolen truck slammed into the corner of the bustling Ahlens store and the popular pedestrian street Drottninggatan, above ground from Stockholm's central subway station. Pictures taken at the scene showed a large blue beer truck with a mangled undercarriage smashed into the Ahlens department store. Witnesses described scenes of terror and panic. "A massive truck starts driving ... and mangles everything and just drives over exactly everything," eyewitness Rikard Gauffin said.

"It was so terrible and there were bodies lying everywhere... it was really terrifying," he added. The truck was towed away in the early hours of today. Police cars and ambulances rapidly flooded the scene after the attack, as central streets and squares were blocked off amid fears that another attack could be imminent.

Helicopters hovered overhead across the city, sirens wailed, and police vans criss-crossed the streets using loudspeakers to urge people to head straight home and avoid crowded places.

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News Network
January 27,2020

Kabul, Jan 27: A passenger plane crashed on Monday in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan's Ghazni province, local officials said.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, which is held by the Taliban. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash.

The number of people on board and their fate was not immediately known, nor was the cause of the crash.

Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national carrier, dismissed the claim that one of their planes had crashed in a statement on their website, saying all their aircraft were operational and safe.

The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.

The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.

The war however has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. One of the most spectacular occurred in 2013 when an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base north of Kabul en route to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All seven crew member were killed.

Afghanistan's aviation industry suffered desperately during the rule of the Taliban when its only airline Ariana was subject to punishing sanctions and allowed to fly only to Saudi Arabia for Hajj flights.

Since the overthrow of the religious regime smaller private airlines have emerged but the industry is still a nascent one.

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Agencies
August 4,2020

Washington, Aug 4: US President Donald Trump gave popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok six weeks to sell its US operations to an American company, saying Monday it would be "out of business" otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.

"It's got to be an American company... it's got to be owned here," Trump said. "We don't want to have any problem with security."

Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.

But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share millions of Americans' personal data with Chinese intelligence.

Trump gave the company's Chinese parent ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.

"I set a date of around September 15, at which point it's going to be out of business in the United States," he said.

Whatever the price is, he said, "the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we're making it possible."

Trump compared the demand for a piece of the pie to a landlord demanding under-the-table "key money" from a new tenant, a practice widely illegal including in New York, where the billionaire president built his real estate empire.

"TikTok is a big success, but a big portion of it is in the country," he said. "I think it's very fair."

But Trump also threw a surprise new condition in any deal, saying the sale of TikTok's US business would have to result in a significant payout to the US Treasury for initiating it.

"A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States, because we're making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump told reporters.

"They don't have any rights unless we give it to them," he said.

Sell or shut down

The pressure for a sale of TikTok's US and international business, based in Los Angeles, left the company and ByteDance facing tough decisions.

Trump has made TikTok the latest front in the ongoing political and trade battles between Washington and Beijing.

The app has been under formal investigation on US national security grounds because it collects large amounts of personal data on all its users and is legally bound to share that with authorities in Beijing if they demand it.

Both its huge user base and its algorithm for collecting data make it hugely valuable.

But being forced by the US government to sell at least its US business or be shut down -- and to then split the sale price with the US Treasury as Trump is demanding -- was an almost unheard-of tactic.

Shutting down could force users to switch to competitors, and many content creators are already encouraging followers to follow them on other social media platforms.

"The most obvious beneficiaries are Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter, with Snapchat likely being the biggest beneficiary," said investment analysts at Lightshed Partners.

Earlier Monday, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming acknowledged the hefty pressure and said in a letter to staff, reported by Chinese media, that they were working around-the-clock "for the best outcome."

"We have always been committed to ensuring user data security, as well as the platform neutrality and transparency," Zhang said.

However, he said, the company faces "mounting complexities across the geopolitical landscape and significant external pressure."

He said the company must confront the challenge from the United States, though "without giving up exploring any possibilities."

According to Britain's The Sun newspaper Monday, as a possible consequence of the pressure, ByteDance is planning to relocate TikTok's global operations to Britain.

Pushing back

China's foreign ministry pushed back Monday, calling Washington hypocritical for demanding TikTok be sold.

"The US is using an abused concept of national security and, without providing any evidence, is making presumptions of guilt and issuing threats to relevant companies," said spokesman Wang Wenbin.

"This goes against the principle of market economy and exposes the hypocrisy and typical double standards of the US in upholding so-called fairness and freedom," he added.

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News Network
June 25,2020

London, Jun 25: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called on India and China to engage in dialogue to sort out their border issues as he described the escalation in eastern Ladakh as "a very serious and worrying situation" which the UK is closely monitoring.

The first official statement of Mr Johnson came during his weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Responding to Conservative Party MP Flick Drummond on the implications for British interests of a dispute between a "Commonwealth member and the world's largest democracy on the one side, and a state that challenges our notion of democracy on the other," he described the escalation in eastern Ladakh as "a very serious and worrying situation", which the UK is "monitoring closely".

"Perhaps the best thing I can say... is that we are encouraging both parties to engage in dialogue on the issues on the border and sort it out between them," the Prime Minister said.

In a statement in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India and China have agreed that expeditious implementation of the previously agreed understanding on disengagement of troops from standoff points in eastern Ladakh would help ensure peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

During the diplomatic talks between India and China, the situation in the region was discussed in detail and the Indian side conveyed its concerns over the violent face-off in Galwan Valley on June 15. Twenty Indian Army personnel were killed in the clash. There were reports of several casualties for the Chinese army too, but China hasn't declared any official number yet.

The talks were held in the midst of escalating tension between the two countries following the violent clashes in Galwan Valley on June 15.

The Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in the standoff in Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh. A sizable number of Chinese Army personnel even transgressed into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in several areas including Pangong Tso.

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