US refugee ban: Trump decried for 'stomping on' American values
Donald Trump is facing strong criticism from world leaders and aid organisations after ending his first week as president with a ban on all Syrian refugees entering the US and a halt on arrivals from a string of predominantly Muslim countries.
The president signed an executive order to stop all refugee arrivals for four months – and Syrian arrivals indefinitely – on Friday, hours after meeting the British prime minister, Theresa May, and reportedly reaffirming his commitment to Nato.
The move, which he described as “extreme vetting” intended to “keep terrorists out”, was more severe than expected. It will amount to a de facto ban on Muslims traveling to the US from parts of the Middle East and north Africa by prioritising refugee claims “on the basis of religious-based persecution”.China military official says war with US under Donald Trump 'becoming practical reality'
Sino-US relations are becoming more tense under America's new administration
War with the US under Donald Trump is “not just a slogan” and becoming a “practical reality”, a senior Chinese military official has said.
The remarks were published on the People’s Liberation Army website, apparently in response to the aggressive rhetoric towards China from America's new administration.
They communicated a view from inside the Central Military Commission, which has overall authority of China’s armed forces.
Outcry on Egyptian social media after football star Aboutrika accused of terrorism
There’s been a huge outcry among Egyptian fans of the retired footballer Mohamed Aboutrika, after a Cairo court added the sports star’s name to a list of people considered to be terrorists. Outraged fans have been taking to social media in defence of their hero in hopes of pressuring authorities to drop his name from the list.
Mohamed Aboutrika is accused of having financed the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been classified as a terrorist group by the Egyptian government since 2013.
Aboutrika, the former star of the popular Al-Ahly club, has a long history of publicly supporting this Islamist organisation. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Aboutrika announced his support for Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate. Aboutrika also denounced the July 2013 coup by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which ended up unseating Morsi.
Missing Pakistani activists make contact with family
Salman Haider and Ahmed Raza Naseer say they are safe as fate of three others, missing for weeks, remains unclear.
Asad Hashim
Islamabad, Pakistan - Two out of five disappeared Pakistani activists have made contact with their families assuring them that they are safe, family members told Al Jazeera, three weeks after the men first went missing.
Salman Haider and Ahmed Raza Naseer made contact via telephone call on Saturday, the family members said, without offering comment on their relatives' current whereabouts.
The disappearances prompted a series of protests by rights groups across the country, calling for the government to locate the men, or for them to be produced in a court to face formal charges if they had been detained by the state's intelligence agencies.
Brazil's prison violence may be short-lived, but the system is flawed
Brazil's prisons are regulated as much by gangs as by guards, and the recent wave of murders will likely subside as the latest dispute between rival groups dies down.
The legitimacy of the Brazilian prison system has come in for deep scrutiny following a series of violent encounters between rival gangs in the north of the country. It started on Jan. 1 when 56 inmates affiliated to the country’s largest criminal gang, São Paulo’s First Command of the Capital (PCC), were murdered at the Anísio Jobim complex in Manaus. More than 130 inmates have lost their lives this year in conflicts across a number of prisons over who controls those spaces.
The mass killings followed a number of smaller, yet equally violent, encounters between the PCC and its northern rivals in October 2016, when another 21 prisoners died.
North Korea appears to have restarted plutonium reactor: think tank
By David Brunnstrom,Reuters
New commercial satellite imagery indicates North Korea has resumed operation of a reactor at its main nuclear site used to produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.
Washington's 38 North North Korea monitoring project said previous analysis from Jan. 18 showed signs that North Korea was preparing to restart the reactor at Yongbyon, having unloaded spent fuel rods for reprocessing to produce additional plutonium for its nuclear weapons stockpile.
"Imagery from January 22 shows a water plume (most probably warm) originating from the cooling water outlet of the reactor, an indication that the reactor is very likely operating," it said in a report.
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