Srinagar, January 22: A civilian suffered minor injuries in a grenade attack in Eidgah area of Central Kashmir’s Srinagar district this evening.
In a tweet Srinagar police wrote, “One grenade was lobbed by militants in Eidgah area which caused minor splinter injury to one person namely Ajaz Ahmed Deva S/o Abdul Rasheed Deva aged 32 years R/o Sangam, Srinagar. Person has been taken to hospital & is out of danger. Operation launched to catch the culprit(s),”.(GNS)
SRINAGAR: A civilian was injured in a grenade attack in Eidgah area of central Kashmir’s Srinagar district on Sunday.
“One grenade was lobbed by militants in Eidgah area which caused minor splinter injury to one person namely Ajaz Ahmed Deva S/o Abdul Rasheed Deva aged 32 years R/o Sangam, Srinagar. Person has been taken to hospital & is out of danger. Operation launched to catch the culprit(s),” Srinagar police tweeted.
A shark attack on a dolphin has forced lifeguards to clear swimmers from the water on Sydney’s northern beaches.
The attack by multiple bull sharks off Shelly Beach near Manly occurred about 7am on Saturday, Surf Life Saving New South Wales (SLSNSW) said.
Lifeguards closed Shelly and Manly beaches for the rest of the day following the attack, which also resulted in the cancellation of the Manly Open Surf Classic surf life-saving event.
Footage captured by a drone and released by SLSNSW appeared to show at least two sharks off the beach while the dolphin struggled to swim in the shallows with injuries visible to its tail and side. The dolphin later died.
Images of the dolphin released by SLSNSW showed at least five bite marks across its body.
“Surf lifesavers and lifeguards cleared swimmers from the water and a large surf carnival has been suspended,” SLSNSW said. “A Surf Life Saving UAV [drone] has been monitoring the shark activity from the air and has spotted a number of sharks in the area.”
A witness to the attack told the Nine Network one of the sharks was about 3m long. Emily Pettersson said she heard about the injured dolphin so she swam into the shallows to try and find it.
Images of the dolphin released by SLSNSW showed at least five bite marks across its body. Photograph: Surf Life Saving NSW
“Probably about 20m out front of the beach and I see the dolphin swim past on one side and I see a shadow on the right side,” Pettersson told Nine.
“So I turned around and there’s probably about a three-metre bull shark but it wasn’t even looking at me, it was just going for the dolphin.”
Another witness told the ABC that they had been on the beach and “we saw this dolphin just swimming around in the bay, which we thought was absolutely wonderful.
“And the next thing, we walked on and saw, ‘hang on, there’s been a shark spotted, so we cannot go into the water’.
“[We] came back and then saw the dolphin was here, on the beach, which is really incredibly sad.”
Jools Farrell, the vice-president of the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA), told the Manly Observer the dolphin had died from its injuries.
She said it was unclear if an autopsy would be conducted, but it was possible the dolphin was sick before the attack.
“We’re thinking it was an unwell dolphin to start with, so that’s why it would’ve stranded on the beach,” Farrell.
“In that area there are quite a lot of sharks around, and if there is a dolphin in the area that is unwell, that would attract sharks as they can sense it.”
Fatal shark attacks on people in Sydney are rare. In February last year, a man died near Little Bay Beach in the city’s south-east, in the first fatal unprovoked shark attack in Sydney since 1963.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Israel’s culture minister is attempting to revoke state funding from two documentary films dealing with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, increasing concerns that the country’s new hard-right government will follow through on promises to crack down on dissenting voices.
The minister, Miki Zohar, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, has pledged to “revoke funding that promotes our enemy’s narrative” and withhold grants from films that “present Israeli soldiers as murderers”. He has also said he will require film-makers to sign a declaration they will not use state funds to create content that “harms the state of Israel or IDF soldiers”.
The minister says he wants the producers of two films, both currently screening in festivals and viewable on Israeli cable networks, to return government-funded grants. One, called H2: Occupation Lab, tracks the history of Israeli control over the West Bank city of Hebron. The second, Two Kids a Day, explores the arrests and interrogations of Palestinian children.
Israeli cinema, including its high-profile documentary industry, is heavily reliant on the state through grants administered by a group of government-paid film funds.
David Wachsmann, the director of Two Kids a Day, said: “These two films are in the eye of the storm, but this is an attack on freedom of expression in Israel, on culture and on every Israeli artist.”
The film explores the arrests and interrogations of four children from the Aida refugee camp who were held – in one case for four years – on accusations of stone-throwing. Human rights organisations have documented hundreds such arrests annually. Most take place in the middle of the night when the children are sleeping.
“Israel has decided to turn culture into propaganda,” said Noam Sheizaf, who directed H2: The Occupation Lab along with Idit Avrahami. Their film tracks the history of Hebron, where military rule and a far-right takeover by Jewish settlers have turned the once-bustling centre of the Palestinian city into a dystopian ghost town.
It argues that the mechanisms of control first developed in Hebron – “Jewish supremacy in its most blatant and unapologetic form”, says Sheizaf – are replicated throughout the Palestinian territories and will increasingly reach Israel.
Both films drew the ire of Shai Glick, a far-right activist known for targeting artists and cultural institutions he believes sully Israel’s reputation. His organisation, Betsalmo, launched pressure campaigns to get local authorities to cancel screenings – succeeding on one occasion when a public screening of H2 was canceled by the Israeli town of Pardes Hanna.
Glick’s efforts reached the culture minister, who has asked the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to investigate whether the government can retroactively revoke grants made to the films.
“Our film argues that not only the [Palestinian] territories, but also Israel is going through a process of ‘Hebronization’,” Sheizaf said. “What’s crazy is that the process that’s at the heart of the film happened to the film itself.”
The culture ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time an Israeli culture minister has targeted Israeli productions dealing with the occupation. Miri Regev, the firebrand politician who held the post from 2015-2020, worked to withdraw state support from critical productions. She also created the “Samaria Film Fund” for Jewish settlers to counter what she claimed was a leftwing bias in the industry. However, her bill that would have made state funding conditional on “loyalty” to the state, died in parliament.
But under the current government – the most right wing in Israel’s history – artists worry that the guardrails that existed just a few years ago are about to come down. A proposed legal overhaul would gut the independence of the judiciary and of legal advisers, who have occasionally served as a check on similar efforts. The reforms to the judiciary have been the subject of mass protests in Israeli cities in recent weeks.
At the same time, the government’s communications minister has vowed to dismantle the country’s public broadcaster, which, alongside its news operation, funds scores of television and documentary productions.
“The feeling is that this is happening in the context of a watershed moment,” Sheizaf said. “If all of these things come to pass, this will be a very different country, overnight.”
Wachsmann said that the controversy had resulted in more public discussion of Israel’s practices. “That’s the plus in all of this – there’s been a focus on Palestinian children. They’re the issue here.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Three active-service US marines, all with ties to intelligence work, were arrested this week for taking part in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, according to federal documents newly unsealed.
The men, all long-serving, were taken into custody on Wednesday on four charges, bringing to 12 the number of US military members charged in connection with the deadly insurrection by supporters of outgoing president Donald Trump as they tried to prevent the certification by Congress of his defeat by Joe Biden. The news was first reported by military.com.
The three were named as Micah Coomer, Joshua Abate and Dodge Dale Hellonen. According to the documents, unsealed on Thursday, they spent more than an hour together wandering around the Capitol rotunda, and at one point placed “a red Maga hat on one of the statues to take photos with it”, indicating Trump’s Make America Great Again election slogan.
Investigators noted social media posts by Coomer, including one where he stated he was “glad to be apart [sic] of history”, and a chat with another Instagram user in which he explained he was there because he was “waiting for the boogaloo”, a term popular with rightwing extremists and white supremacists to signify a race-related civil war.
Marine corps records provided to military.com show all three have been enlisted for more than four years, have good conduct medals, and that each works in “demanding jobs” tied to the intelligence community. At least one holds a “significant” security clearance.
In a statement to the outlet, a spokesperson said the service is “aware of an investigation and the allegations” and said it was “fully cooperating with appropriate authorities in support of the investigation”.
The men face misdemeanor charges including trespass, disruptive and disorderly conduct and obstructing government business.
According to the 13-page document compiled by FBI special agent Kelsey Randall of the agency’s joint terrorism taskforce, investigators “learned” of Coomer’s social media posts and, after obtaining a search warrant, identified the two others from images contained in them.
Security footage from the Capitol showed the three entering the building together through a door near the Senate chamber, and moving further inside as part of a mob of dozens of others, many wearing Trump’s signature Make America Great Again red caps.
Additional proof came from cell phone records showing the three were in the building, Randall wrote.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Shahbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, has stated that he is ready to resign if there is any evidence of the attack that would accuse him or the interior minister. Imran Khan’s claims were denied as baseless by Sharif. He said, “India is celebrating because the institution has been subjected to dirty and offensive attacks on social media,” according to reports.
In a dramatic addition, the prime minister says that God would protect his reputation and that he is offended by Imran Khan’s accusations.
Imran has been in turmoil for a very long period, and Pakistani politics have also been very turbulent. Imran was forced to resign as Pakistan’s prime minister a while back. Imran Khan was the target of gunfire in the interim. The injured man was Pakistan’s previous prime minister. During the Freedom Rally, Imran was the target of firing. In many different areas, there is a lot of pressure and rumour concerning who shot Imran that day. Imran Khan, however, has fueled new allegations that the Pakistani Prime Minister is responsible for the attack.
In a press conference in Lahore, Shahbaz said, ‘I request the Chief Justice of Pakistan to form a full court commission including senior and junior judges. Chief Justice (Umar Atta) Bandyal, I request you to constitute a full court commission. Will also send you a letter about this and I hope you will consider this request. If you do not respond to my request, such complaints will come again. He also said that if Imran Khan gives proof that I or the Home Minister or an army officer is involved in the conspiracy, then I will not be the Prime Minister from that moment. He said, ‘I will resign.’
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