Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Six In The Morning Tuesday 15 February 2022

 

Prince Andrew settles US civil sex assault case

Prince Andrew has settled a civil sexual assault case brought against him in the US by Virginia Giuffre, court documents show.

Ms Giuffre had been suing the Duke of York, claiming he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17, allegations he has repeatedly denied.

A document submitted to a US court on Tuesday said the duke and Ms Giuffre had reached an out-of-court settlement.

The duke's representatives said he had no comment beyond the court statement.

The court document said he would make a "substantial donation to Ms Giuffre's charity in support of victims' rights".



Fears of online censorship in Hong Kong as rights group website goes down


UK-based Hong Kong Watch says outage could be part of wider Beijing crackdown

 China affairs correspondent


The website of a UK-based advocacy group appears to have become inaccessible through some networks in Hong Kong, raising fears of mainland-style internet censorship in the Chinese territory.

The group, Hong Kong Watch, which monitors human rights, said it worried the censorship could be a part of a wider crackdown on freedom of speech under Hong Kong’s national security law, which allows the police to ask service providers to “delete” information or “provide assistance” on national security cases.

Beijing imposed the sweeping security law on Hong Kong in 2020 that punishes what authorities broadly define as subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with up to life in jail. Opponents condemn the legislation as “draconian”, but the authorities say it is a necessary step in restoring the stability of the financial hub.


Florence residents help pensioners to pay soaring utility bills after state plea

‘I am terrified of the gas bill. If it doubles, I’ll eat in the dark,’ says one 95-year-old Italian retiree

Sofia Barbarani

in Rome


Residents of Florence have donated more than 5,000 euros (£4,196) in two days after the city appealed for people to help local pensioners pay soaring utility bills, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday.

The announcement follows a plea by local authorities on Sunday to lend a helping hand to the city’s vulnerable senior citizens, many of whom live alone and subsist on a pension of less than 1,000 euros a month.

The initiative ‘adopt a bill’ was spearheaded by the municipality of Florence and local non-profit Fondazione Montedomini in a bid to ease the strain of Italy’s massive 50 percent hike in gas and electricity bills.


How states hunt critics abroad

It's not just the mafia that kidnaps people. Governments also abduct opposition figures abroad to keep them in custody and under control. Three states are especially prone to breaking international law.

The only trace left of him was his car, the doors open,the tires flat. Orhan Inandi, director of a school in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, disappeared in 2020. There were no witnesses.

An investigative team was set up, and circumstantial evidence was evaluated. Even the Kyrgyz president got involved.

Weeks later, it was clear that Inandi had been kidnapped. Not by bandits or the mafia — the Turkish secret service MİT arrested and illegally took him out of the country because he was said to have supported political opponents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Inandi is thus one of the most recent cases of state kidnapping. 


French case closed over plane attack that sparked Rwanda genocide

France's top court on Tuesday confirmed that a probe should be closed into the shooting down of a presidential plane that triggered the 1994 Rwanda genocide, ending a two-decade legal saga.

The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal by families of people killed in the missile attack on president Juvenal Habyarimana's aircraft on April 6, 1994.

They had asked judges to reverse a lower court's decision to abandon the case against people close to current President Paul Kagame.

Relations between Paris and Kigali had long been strained by the probe and its associated arrest warrants.

Ethiopia parliament votes to lift state of emergency early

Emergency measures were declared in November after rebellious Tigrayan forces threatened to march on Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia’s parliament has voted for an early end to a six-month state of emergency, declared last November when rebel Tigrayan forces were threatening to march on the capital, Addis Ababa.

The lawmakers’ decision came on Tuesday after cabinet proposals last month about cutting short the emergency measures in light of improving security conditions in the country.








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