Tehran has applied to Interpol for an international arrest warrant for U.S. President Donald Trump in connection with the murder of the Iranian top general Qassem Soleimani a year ago.

Iran’s justice spokesman Gholam Hossein Ismaili disclosed this on Iranian state television on Tuesday

“In this regard, we have filed a ‘red notice’ at Interpol against 48 people, including Trump, U.S. commanders, and Pentagon representatives as well as U.S. troops in the region,” Ismaili said.

There is constructive cooperation with neighbouring Iraq on the issue, the spokesman added.

Interpol, founded in 1923, coordinates policing operations for its 194 member states.

A country can use the “red notice” to request other countries to track down and arrest a person.

On Jan. 3, 2020, on Trump’s instructions, the U.S. Army killed Soleimani, who was on a visit to Iraq with a rocket attack near Baghdad airport.

The influential Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, the deputy head of Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi militia, was also killed.

Soleimani was the commander of the elite Quds Force, part of an elite unit of the Iranian armed forces.

He coordinated the activities of militias loyal to Iran in Iraq and other countries.

President Hassan Rowhani called Soleimani a national hero and he has become a legend in the region after his assassination by the U.S.

Tehran will avenge his murder “in due course” and at the same time take legal action against Trump and the Pentagon, Rowhani said. (dpa/NAN)

A Milan-based appeals court on Tuesday ordered Facebook to pay 3.83 million Euros ($4.70 million) in damages to an Italian software development company for copying an app, a court document seen by Reuters showed.

The judges said the U.S. group copied their ‘Nearby’ feature from Italy’s Business Competence’s app ‘Faround’, which allows users to identify shops, clubs, restaurants in their surrounding area through geolocalisation.

The court’s decision upheld a 2019 ruling but increased the amount of damages that Facebook will have to pay, initially set at 350,000 Euros.

“We have received the court’s decision and are examining it carefully,” a Facebook spokesman told Reuters. (Reuters/NAN)

Russia has vaccinated over one million people against COVID-19, the institute that developed the country’s vaccine said on Tuesday.

Alexander Gintsburg, Head, Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, said about 100,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine were administered daily.

The Gamaleya institute developed the first vaccine worldwide to earn approval. Russia began its vaccination campaign in early December.

President Vladimir Putin has put pressure on health authorities to speed up vaccinations.

By November, 70 per cent of Russia’s 146 million population were expected to be vaccinated, according to earlier reports.

Russia plans to produce half a billion vaccine doses this year, especially for export.

Two jabs of Sputnik V are needed for immunity, which is said to form within 42 days.

The number of new coronavirus infections has recently declined in Russia, with 24,200 new cases reported on Tuesday, compared with a recent high of 28,000 daily infections.

Over 3.2 million people have been infected since the beginning of the pandemic, and 59,500 have died in connection to the virus. (dpa/NAN)

No fewer than 602 journalists in 59 countries died of the novel coronavirus in 2020, the Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), said on Tuesday.

“More than 600 journalists died of COVID-19 pandemic in 59 countries in 10 months in 2020, that is to say 60 per month, or two per day on the average,” the NGO said in a statement.

According to the statistics, Peru recorded the largest number of such deaths – 93.

The next on the list are: Brazil (55), India (53), Mexico (45), Ecuador (42), Bangladesh (41), Italy (37), the U.S. (31), Pakistan (22), Turkey (17) and the United Kingdom (13).

In Russia, eight journalists had died from COVID-19 pandemic.

The NGO noted that the actual number of victims in the global journalistic community is “certainly higher,” as the cause of deaths is sometimes not revealed publicly. (Sputnik/NAN)

Scientists at the University of Birmingham said on Tuesday that they had developed a new COVID-19 test capable of delivering results in less than five minutes.

The new test simplifies the testing method to a single step and uses an alternative amplification method called Exponential Amplification Reaction (EXPAR), said the university.

The new test can reduce testing time from 30 minutes to less than five and deliver accurate results, local media reported.

It can be performed using standard laboratory equipment, compared to Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests, which require higher temperatures to separate out strands of DNA as part of the amplification process, according to the university.

It came as England enters a national lockdown from Tuesday, the third of its kind since the coronavirus pandemic began in Britain.

Scotland also enters a new lockdown from midnight on Monday, as well as a shutdown of schools until Feb. 1, 2021.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the U.S. have been racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines. (Xinhua/NAN)

By Ifeanyi Nwoko

The Federal Government says it has opened talks with the Peoples Republic of China to have access to COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr  Geoffery Onyeama, made the disclosure  on Tuesday in Abuja while briefing newsmen shortly after a bilateral meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.

Yi  is in Nigeria on a working visit.

Onyeama recalled that China was of immense assistance to Nigeria at the advent of the pandemic, noting that the donation of protective equipment greatly affected the nation in the fight against COVID-19.

The minister said that at this point when countries were discovering vaccines and China being one of them, Nigeria was engaging  the country in the area of access to the vaccine.

“We have received a lot of support from China in the area of personal protective equipment that they were very quick to provide us with and of course, with the vaccine discoveries now,

“China is also one of those countries that have been able to discover vaccines for COVID-19, so we are also engaging with China to also help with regards to access to vaccines for our people,” he said.

According to Onyeama, the relationship between both countries has dated 50 years, adding that both countries have many areas of cooperation to celebrate.

“We also realised that in 2021, we would be celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and the Peoples Republic of China,” he said.

Giving insights into some of the deliberations during the closed door meeting, Onyeama said that he and his counterpart looked at the trade relations between the two countries and areas that could be improved.

He said that they also discussed health issues and the global pandemic.

“In the area of fostering relations, both countries are now considering having a direct flight from Nigeria to China.

“We want to establish direct air link with China. We hope that very soon, a Nigerian carrier would be carrying out scheduled flights to China in the not too distant future,” he said. (NAN)

A court in Vietnam, on Tuesday, sentenced three freelance journalists, known for their criticism of the government, to between 11 and 15 years in prison.

The sentencing came after the court found them guilty of spreading anti-state propaganda.

Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan were convicted of “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the state’’ at a one-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City, the Ministry of Public Security said.

Dung established the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam in 2014, which the Police said had sought regime change.

Despite sweeping economic reform and increasing openness to social change, Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party retains tight media censorship and tolerates little criticism.

The party, under the leadership of 76-year-old Nguyen Phu Trong, has intensified a crackdown on dissent ahead of its five-yearly congress due to be held later this month.

Dung was jailed for 15 years and Thuy and Tuan 11 years each.

Reuters could not immediately reach their lawyers for comment.

“They wrote stories to distort and defame the people’s administration, infringe the interests of the Communist Party of Vietnam and state,’’ the ministry said in a statement.

“These are especially dangerous activities that, if not stopped, could hurt national security.’’

Amnesty International said the verdict underscored the government’s contempt for free media, particularly ahead of the congress.

“Even by its own deeply repressive standards, the severity of the sentences show the depths being reached by Vietnam’s censors,’’ said its Deputy Regional Director, Emerlynne Gil.

Ahead of the trial, Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, called the charges “bogus”.

“If the ruling party is so assured in its leadership, it should demonstrate its confidence by respecting civil and political rights.

“It must also end its tight control of the press and allowing independent journalists to freely voice their opinions instead of silencing them with arrest and long prison sentences,’’ Robertson said. (Reuters/NAN)

Faustin-Archange Touadera, outgoing president of the Central African Republic (CAR), has won the absolute majority in the first round of the presidential election, according to provisional results announced on Monday.

The National Elections Authority (ANE), the electoral body of the CAR, which announced the results, said Touadera garnered 346,687 votes, or 53.92 per cent of all votes cast.

The voter turnout was 76.31 per cent.

The Constitutional Court is expected to  proclaim the final results on Jan. 19.

Touadera’s main competitor, former Prime Minister Anicet-Georges Dologuele, came in second with 21.01 per cent of all votes cast, according to the ANE.

On Dec. 29, the Democratic Opposition Coalition 2020 (COD-2020), a platform of opposition parties of the CAR, called for the cancellation and rerun of presidential and legislative elections.

The opposition cited low voter turnout in provinces under threat from armed rebels and electoral irregularities linked to insecurity as the reasons that prompted it to call for a “concertation of the active stakeholders of the nation before holding the new elections.”

Since mid-December, major armed groups of the CAR have mobilised to launch an offensive against the government.

The new alliance, known as the Coalition of Patriots for Change, multiplied the attacks and vowed to “march on Bangui”, the capital.

The CAR government accused Francois Bozize, a former head of state whose presidential candidature was invalidated, of having organised the attacks with the rebels for “an attempted coup.”

On Monday afternoon, before the provisional results were announced by the ANE, the Bangui prosecutor’s office declared that it had opened a judicial investigation against Bozize on his support for the rebellion.

The polls on Dec. 27 took place in relative calm with the presence of the United Nations (UN) force (MINUSCA) across the country, but the rebel offensive continued.

On Sunday, the rebels invaded the town of Bangassou.

A day earlier, the rebels had attacked Damara before they were repelled by government forces and UN peacekeepers.

Touadera has a house and a farm in Damara, located about 70 kilometers north of Bangui.

In a statement released on Sunday, MINUSCA said it held armed groups and Bozize “responsible” for the attacks over the weekend, which took place “in a context of electoral disruption.” (Xinhua/NAN)

The Libyan navy said on Monday that it rescued 82 illegal immigrants off the coast of Khoms city, some 120 km east of the capital Tripoli.

The Libyan navy disclosed82 illegal immigrants rescued off Libyan coast – Navy this in a statement.

“A rubber boat was successfully rescued with 82 migrants on board off the coast of Khoms city after a distress call was received by the Libyan Search and Rescue team,” the navy said.

The rescued migrants, including eight women and 39 children, were taken to Tripoli’s naval base, provided with humanitarian and medical assistance, and handed over to the anti-illegal immigration department, the statement noted.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), however, has repeatedly said Libya is not a safe port for disembarkation of rescued migrants.

Libya has been mired in chaos since the ouster and killing of its former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, making the North African country a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants who intend to cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe.

Thousands of illegal immigrants, who were either rescued at sea or arrested by the authorities, remain detained in overcrowded detention centers in Libya, despite repeated international calls to close them. (Xinhua/NAN)

More than 200 Google employees in the U.S. have formed a workers’ union, the elected leaders of the union wrote in a New York Times opinion piece on Monday.

The “Alphabet Workers Union” aims to ensure that employees work at a fair wage, without fear of abuse, retaliation or discrimination, the union heads wrote.

Google has been under fire from the U.S. labour regulator, which has accused the company of unlawfully questioning several workers who were then terminated for protesting against company policies and trying to organise a union.

Google has said it was confident it acted legally.

“We’re building on years of organising efforts at Google to create a formal structure for workers,” the union leaders wrote, adding that so far 226 employees had signed union cards with the Communications Workers of America.

“Our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we’ve always done, we’ll continue engaging directly with all our employees,” Kara Silverstein, director of people operations at Google, said on Monday. (Reuters/NAN)