U.S. President Donald Trump told his supporters “to go home now” hours after they stormed the U.S. Capitol.

“I know your pain, I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us,” Trump said in a one-minute video posted on social media.

“But you have to go home now, we have to have peace, we have to have law and order,” he added.

Trump had come under increasing pressure to call on the protesters to leave the grounds of the Capitol and denounce the action.

He repeated his baseless allegations that the election was “fraudulent,” claims with which he riled up crowds earlier in the day.

“We love you, you’re very special,” he said in the clip, addressing his supporters in the nation’s capital, which included a melange of right-wing groups such as QAnon supporters and militia members. (DPA/NAN)

 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday joined other leaders in condemning the scenes of violence in the United States (U.S.)

“Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress.

“The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” he wrote on Twitter.

Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, called the events “utterly horrifying.”

Masses of angry pro-Trump protesters clashed with police and stormed the U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers were due to certify president-elect Joe Biden’s win in the November election. (dpa/NAN)

A mass demonstration in support of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. escalated into clashes with the police, resulting in the arrest of six people, U.S. media reported on Wednesday.

U.S. Congress is due to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election later in the day.

Trump supporters have been flocking to Washington from all across the country since the weekend to attend the rally and demand that pro-Biden electoral votes in swing states not be accounted for due to violations in the electoral process.

As reported by Fox News, a rally on Tuesday night began peacefully but escalated into clashes with people opposed to Trump and police officers, who fired tear spray repeatedly.

Local broadcaster WUSA 9 reported that six people were arrested on charges including illegal possession of guns and munitions, illegal possession of fireworks, and assault on a police officer.

Abundant video footage from the scene shows police officers lined up next to protesters.

A video caught a white woman punched in the face to blood by a black woman, who she said she believes was a Black Lives Matter activist.

The victim complained on camera about the police officers standing by and doing nothing to contain the attacker.

The main rally is yet ahead, however.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to deliver an address at 11 a.m. ET (16:00 GMT) as Congress will be counting the electoral votes. (Sputnik/NAN)

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)