15/08/2025

FRIDAY | AUG 15, 2025

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WhatsApp calls out blocking attempt by Russia MOSCOW: WhatsApp said Russia was trying to block its services because the social media messaging app owned by Meta Platforms offered people’s right to secure communication, and vowed to continue trying to make encrypted services available in Russia. Russia has started restricting some Telegram and WhatsApp calls, accusing the platforms of failing to share information with enforcement agencies in fraud and terrorism cases. “WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted, and defies government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people,”WhatsApp said in a statement. “We will keep doing all we can to make end-to-end encrypted communication available to people everywhere, including in Russia.” Telegram said its moderators were using AI tools to monitor public parts of the platform to remove millions of malicious messages every day. “Telegram actively combats harmful use of its platform, including calls for sabotage or violence and fraud,”Telegram said in a statement. Russia has clashed with tech platforms for several years over content and data storage in a simmering dispute that intensified after Moscow sent its army into Ukraine in February 2022, with critics saying that Russia is trying to expand control over internet space. – Reuters BOLSONARO LAWYERS CALL FOR ACQUITTAL RIO DE JANEIRO: Defence lawyers for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro asked the country’s Supreme Court for an acquittal during Wednesday’s closing arguments, in a trial in which he is accused of attempting a coup. The lawyers argued the former head of state is “innocent of all charges” and that an “absolute lack” of evidence was presented during the trial, which began in May. Bolsonaro and seven collaborators are accused of attempting to hold power despite his 2022 electoral defeat to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, who led the country from 2019 to 2022, has maintained his innocence, calling any coup “abhorrent”. He faces up to 40 years in prison if found guilty. – AFP HOT AIR BALLOON CRASHES, ONE DEAD AMSTERDAM: One person has died and five others were injured after a hot air balloon crash landed on Wednesday in a meadow in Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands. The balloon was carrying 34 passengers. “The hot air balloon came down quickly at night and hit the ground hard,” Friesland authorities said, adding that police had launched an investigation into the incident. A spokesperson for the Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Association said in local media reports that a sudden gust of wind had caused the balloon to strike the ground forcefully, making the basket bounce and leading to five people falling out. – Reuters

Medics and health personnel welcoming Palestinian

children from Gaza and their families, after an Italian military plane landed yesterday at

Ciampino Airport in Rome. – AFPPIC

Israel steps up Gaza bombardment o Egypt pushes for resumption of truce talks

City, which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing, is probably weeks away, officials say. In an effort to avert the planned military escalation, Egypt has been trying to revive a push for a ceasefire in Gaza, hosting a Hamas delegation led by the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya. He told mediators in Cairo on Wednesday that Hamas was ready to resume ceasefire talks to achieve a temporary truce, and was open to discussing a comprehensive agreement that would end the war, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said. The latest round of indirect talks in Qatar ended in deadlock late last month with Israel and Hamas trading blame over the lack of progress on a US proposal for a 60-day truce and hostage release deal.

the sounds of explosions get louder and closer. We hope Egypt can secure a ceasefire deal before we are all dead,” he told Reuters via a chat app. More than 22 months into Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, residents have also been grappling with a worsening hunger crisis. Four more people died of starvation and malnutrition in the territory in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said yesterday. That took the total to 239, including 106 children, since the war began, it said. Israel disputes malnutrition and hunger figures reported by the Health Ministry in Gaza. Israel’s planned seizure of Gaza

CAIRO: Israeli forces demolished houses in eastern areas of Gaza City, killing at least 11 people in aerial and tank fire, local health authorities said, as Hamas told mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks. Residents and medics said eight people were killed when Israeli tank shelling hit a house in Zeitoun neighbourhood, while a man was killed in an airstrike on a building in the nearby Shejaia suburb. Two other people were killed in tank shelling in BOGOTA: buried murdered presidential candidate Miguel Uribe on Wednesday, with his widow tearfully warning that the country must shake its dark and long history of political violence. The 39-year-old conservative senator was shot in June while campaigning in the capital Bogota, and died this week of his injuries. “Our country is going through the darkest, saddest and most painful days,” Maria Claudia Tarazona told a packed cathedral. Police have blamed Uribe’s murder on left-wing guerillas who shunned 2016 peace accords. Six people have been arrested in connection with the alleged plot. For most Colombians, the assassination represented a shocking spasm of political violence after years of relative peace. Four presidential candidates were assassinated during the 1980s and 1990s. Colombia

Tuffah, a third Gaza City suburb. Local health authorities said they had received desperate calls from families trapped in the Zeitoun area, including from people saying they were wounded, and that ambulance vehicles could not reach them.

BR I E F S

“The explosions are almost non-stop in eastern Gaza areas, mainly Zeitoun and Shejaia. (Israel) is erasing homes, as we hear from some friends who live nearby,” said Ismail, 40, from Gaza City. “At night, we pray for our safety as Colombia buries assassinated presidential candidate Gaps between the sides appear to remain wide on key issues, including the extent of any Israeli withdrawal and demands for Hamas to disarm. Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians. – Reuters

Uribe’s own mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a botched 1991 police operation to free her from a cartel. On Wednesday Uribe’s father, Miguel Uribe Londono, remembered the day 34 years ago when she was killed. “With all the pain in my soul, I had to tell a little boy barely four years old the horrendous news of his mother’s murder,” he said. “In this same holy cathedral, I carried Miguel in one arm and the coffin of his mother in the other.” “Today, 34 years later, this senseless violence also takes from me that same little boy,” he said. As Colombia reels from the assassination, lawmaker Julio Cesar Triana, a vocal critic of the government, escaped unharmed after his vehicle came under fire in the southern Huila region where dissident members of the defunct FARC guerilla group are operating.

Tarazona (right) consoling her daughters at the funeral. – REUTERSPIC

of my life until my time comes to meet you in Heaven,” she said. “I promise to give Alejandro and the girls a life full of love and happiness, without hatred and without resentment.” – AFP

Uribe’s wife vowed at the funeral that his death would not be in vain, and that his young son and stepdaughters would live a life filled with love. “Miguel, I will love you every day