Onuroic

Montenegro clashes as Serbian Orthodox Church leader installed a new leader  Police used tear gas against protesters who threw rocks and bottles in the city of Cetinje. Montenegro split with Serbia in 2006 but its church remains under the Serbian Orthodox church. Some, including Montenegro's president, see it as a symbol of Serb influence. President Milo Djukanovic had urged protesters to disrupt the inauguration of Joanikije II to the top clerical position, known as the Metropolitan of Montenegro and Archbishop of Cetinje. On Saturday, hundreds of protesters set up barricades to block access to Cetinje and the demonstrations spilled into Sunday when the ceremony took place. Police arrested more than a dozen people, including an advisor to the president. At least 20 people were injured, AFP reported. "We're on the barricades because we're fed up with Belgrade denying our nation, and telling us what are our religious rights," protestor Andjela Ivanovic tol...

The woman, named in local media as Banu Negar, was killed at the family home in front of relatives in Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province.   The killing comes amid increasing reports of escalating repression of women in Afghanistan.The local Taliban promised to investigate, the family says. Details of the incident are still sketchy as many in Firozkoh fear retribution if they speak out. Relatives supplied graphic images showing blood spattered on a wall in the corner of a room and a body, the face heavily disfigured. The family say Negar, who worked at the local prison, was eight months pregnant. Three gunmen arrived at the house on Saturday and searched it before tying members of the family up and shooting her in front of them. The intruders were heard speaking Arabic, a witness said. Since taking power on 13 August, the Taliban has sought to portray itself as more tolerant than its reputation, but incidents of brutality and repression are still being report...

 Facebook on Friday said it disabled its topic recommendation feature after it mistook Black men for "primates" in video at the social network.     A Facebook spokesperson called it a "clearly unacceptable error" and said the recommendation software involve was taken offline. "We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations," Facebook said in response to an AFP inquiry. "We disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as we realized this was happening so we could investigate the cause and prevent this from happening again." Facial recognition software has been blasted by civil rights advocates who point out problems with accuracy, particularly it comes to people who are not white. Facebook users in recent days who watched a British tabloid video featuring Black men were show an auto-generated prompt asking if they would like to "keep seeing videos about Primates," according to the New York ...

North Korea has cast doubt over the efficacy of Chinese made Covid-19 vaccines A spokesperson said the country had asked that the shots be relocated to harder hit nations in view of global vaccine shortages. Chinese-made Sinovac shots were offered under the Covax programme which aims to help poorer nations obtain vaccines. As of 19 August, North Korea had recorded no cases of Covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Some 37,291 people - including health care workers and those with flu-like illnesses - had been tested and all were found to be negative, the WHO said in its weekly situation report. The secretive nation imposed strict anti-virus measures from the beginning of the pandemic. It was one of the first countries to close its borders in January last year. This isn't the first time the country has rejected vaccines. In July, it rejected shipments of around two million doses of the AstraZeneca jab, citing concerns over potential side effects, a South-Korean think-tan...

  Kim's statement indicates he'll likely push to strengthen his nuclear arsenal and increase pressure on Washington to give up what North Korea considers a hostile U.S. policy, though he'll also prepare for talks to resume, some experts say. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his government to be prepared for both dialogue and confrontation with the Biden administration but more for confrontation, state media reported Friday, days after the United States and others urged the North to abandon its nuclear programme and return to talks. Kim's statement indicates he'll likely push to strengthen his nuclear arsenal and increase pressure on Washington to give up what North Korea considers a hostile U.S. policy, though he'll also prepare for talks to resume, some experts say. During an ongoing ruling party meeting Thursday, Kim analysed in detail the policy tendencies of the U.S. under President Joe Biden and clarified unspecified steps to be taken in relations wi...

 CIA director holds secret meeting with Taliban leader with a 31. August deadline. Chaos has enveloped Kabul after Afghanistan's government's collapsed and the Taliban seized control, all but ending America's 20-year campaign as it began: under Taliban rule. The U.S. has evacuated approximately 37,000 people since the effort began on Aug. 14, Pentagon officials said Monday, while reiterating their focus remains on maintaining the airport perimeter and increasing the number of evacuees out of Kabul ahead of the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline. President Joe Biden in an interview at the White House last week, and his first interview since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden addressed the nation again on evacuation efforts on Sunday. CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with the Taliban’s de facto leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday. The meeting, first reported by The Washington Post, is thought to be the highest face-to-face encounter between a...

  We cannot wait, passively, for the possible impact," Greece's Citizens' Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis said on a visit to the region of Evros on Friday. In a telephone conversation with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a sharp increase in people leaving Afghanistan could pose "a serious challenge for everyone". "A new wave of migration is inevitable if the necessary measures are not taken in Afghanistan and in Iran," Mr Erdogan said. The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, an Islamist militant group, has left some fearing for their lives and seeking to escape the country, often by any means necessary. Mr Chrisochoidis said the crisis had created new "possibilities for migrant flows" into Europe. Greece, which was on the frontline of the migrant crisis in 2015 when more than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East crossed from Turkey into the E...

  It said the militants have been going door-to-door to find targets and threatening their family members. The hard-line Islamist group has tried to reassure Afghans since seizing power, promising there would be "no revenge". But there are fears the Taliban have changed little since the brutal 1990s. The warning the group were targeting "collaborators" came in a confidential document by the RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, which provides intelligence to the UN. "There are a high number of individuals that are currently being targeted by the Taliban and the threat is crystal clear," Christian Nellemann, who heads the group behind the report.  "It is in writing that, unless they give themselves in, the Taliban will arrest and prosecute, interrogate and punish family members on behalf of those individuals." He warned that anyone on the Taliban's blacklist was in severe danger, and that there could be mass executions. The Tal...

The US nuclear report also included Russia, North Korea and Iran as potential threats    China has accused the United States of having a "Cold War mentality" after the latter announced its plans to diversify its nuclear arsenal by developing smaller bombs. On Sunday, the Chinese foreign ministry said that the US should focus instead on promoting regional stability, and condemned a US government report that listed Beijing as a potential nuclear enemy. "The country that owns the world's largest nuclear arsenal should take the initiative to follow the trend instead of going against it," the ministry said. The US has 7,000 warheads compared with China's 300. The US report, titled the National Posture Review (NPR), was released on Friday and claims that developing smaller nuclear weapons would bolster its deterrent. It also included Russia, North Korea and Iran as potential threats. Both Iran and Russia have also criticised the ...

Iran accused the US on Sunday of threatening Russia with new atomic weapons, after the Trump  administration published a document outlining plans to expand its nuclear capabilities in order to deter others. Greg Weaver, deputy director of strategic capabilities for the military’s joint staff, told reporters on Friday the “US and Nato require a wider range of credible low-yield nuclear options” to deter Russia from using its own smaller nuclear weapons. Russia saw the US document as confrontational, and governments around the world raised fears that it could increase the risk of miscalculation between the two world powers. In a televised speech on Sunday, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said: “The Americans are shamelessly threatening Russia with a new atomic weapon.” Rouhani, who opened the way to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers including the US, added: “The same people who supposedly believe that using weapons of mass destruction is a crime again...

Mexico on Thursday dismissed a claim by U.S. President Donald Trump that it was the most dangerous country in the world and reiterated it would not fund the construction of a wall along the U.S. southern border. In a series of Twitter posts touching on NAFTA trade negotiations and security, Trump described Mexico as “the number one most dangerous country in the world,” an assertion that was quickly rebuffed by Mexico’s foreign ministry. “Even though Mexico has a significant problem with violence, it is plainly false that Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world,” the ministry said in a statement. In the year through November, a total of 23,101 murder investigations were opened in Mexico, giving the highest annual figure since records began in 1997. That was a murder rate of 18.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, well below levels in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador, according to U.N. figures used in the World ...