Washington, Apr 13: The US military today dropped what is considered to be the largest non-nuclear bomb on a suspected Islamic State complex in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb hit a "tunnel complex" in Achin district in Nangarhar province, US Forces Afghanistan said in a statement.
The strike occurred at about 7:32 pm local time (1502 GMT). Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said it was the first combat use of the weapon.
Washington, Mar 1: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a fine of over $200 million for all major US mobile carriers for selling the location data of customers to some agencies.
The Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for apparently selling access to their customers' location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorised access to that information. As a result, T-Mobile faces a proposed fine of more than $91 million, AT&T faces a proposed fine of more than $57 million, Verizon faces a proposed fine of more than $48 million, and Sprint faces a proposed fine of more than $12 million, the FCC said in a statement on Friday.
The Enforcement Bureau of FCC opened this investigation after reports surfaced that a Missouri Sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used a "location-finding service" operated by Securus, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, to access the location information of the wireless carriers' customers without their consent between 2014 and 2017.
"American consumers take their wireless phones with them wherever they go. And information about a wireless customer's location is highly personal and sensitive. The FCC has long had clear rules on the books requiring all phone companies to protect their customers' personal information. And since 2007, these companies have been on notice that they must take reasonable precautions to safeguard this data and that the FCC will take strong enforcement action if they don't. Today, we do just that," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.
"This FCC will not tolerate phone companies putting Americans' privacy at risk."
The FCC also admonished these carriers for apparently disclosing their customers' location information, without their authorisation, to a third party
The four major US carriers mentioned sold access to their customers' location information to "aggregators," who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers (like Securus).
Although their exact practices varied, each carrier relied heavily on contract-based assurances that the location-based services providers (acting on the carriers' behalf) would obtain consent from the wireless carrier's customer before accessing that customer's location information.
Washington, May 29: Reiterating his offer to mediate on the border dispute between India and China, US President Donald Trump has said that he spoke with Narendra Modi about the "big conflict" and asserted that the Indian Prime Minister is not in a "good mood" over the latest flare-ups between the two countries.
Speaking with the reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday, Trump said a "big conflict" was going on between India and China.
"I like your prime minister a lot. He is a great gentleman," the president said.
"Have a big conflict …India and China. Two countries with 1.4 billion people (each). Two countries with very powerful militaries. India is not happy and probably China is not happy," he said when asked if he was worried about the border situation between India and China.
"I can tell you; I did speak to Prime Minister Modi. He is not in a good mood about what is going on with China," Trump said.
A day earlier, the president offered to mediate between India and China.
Trump on Wednesday said in a tweet that he was "ready, willing and able to mediate" between the two countries.
Responding to a question on his tweet, Trump reiterated his offer, saying if called for help, "I would do that (mediate). If they thought it would help" about "mediate or arbitrate, I would do that," he said.
India on Wednesday said it was engaged with China to peacefully resolve the border row, in a carefully crafted reaction to Trump's offer to arbitrate between the two Asian giants to settle their decades-old dispute.
"We are engaged with the Chinese side to peacefully resolve it," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, replying to a volley of questions at an online media briefing.
While the Chinese Foreign Ministry is yet to react to Trump's tweet which appears to have caught Beijing by surprise, an op-ed in the state-run Global Times said both countries did not need such a help from the US President.
"The latest dispute can be solved bilaterally by China and India. The two countries should keep alert on the US, which exploits every chance to create waves that jeopardise regional peace and order," it said.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that both China and India have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through dialogue and consultations.
Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, a proposal which was rejected by New Delhi.
The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on the evening of May 5 which spilled over to the next day before the two sides agreed to "disengage" following a meeting at the level of local commanders.
Over 100 Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in the violence.
The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.
Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.
Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.
When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.
"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.
The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".
The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.
The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.
After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.
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