At least 68 people were killed in a fire at a prison in Venezuela’s Carabobo state, according to a government official.

“The Public Prosecutor’s Office informs the public that in the face of the terrible events that took place at the General Command of Carabobo, where 68 people died in the wake of a fire, we have appointed four prosecutors to clarify these dramatic events,” Chief State Prosecutor Tarek Saab tweeted on Wednesday.

The Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation Service Corps (Cicpc) as well as the Prosecutor and the director of the Carabobo Police Jose Aldama, are investigating to identify the cause of the incident, reports Efe news.

The blaze reportedly started after prisoners set fire to mattresses in an attempt to break out on Wednesday.

Relatives surrounded the station after news of the fire broke.

The situation soon turned violent, leading the 20 state police officers who were guarding the station to launch tear gas.

Last month inmates at a different prison in Carabobo took a number of prisoners and guards hostage in another riot.

(IANS)

The family of the woman who was killed in a fatal accident with Uber’s self-driving vehicle in the US state of Arizona has reportedly reached a settlement with the ride-hailing company even as the police continued to investigate the crash.

“The attorney with the firm of Bellah Perez in Glendale, Arizona, said ‘the matter has been resolved’ between Uber and daughter and husband of Elaine Herzberg who died after being hit by an Uber self-driving SUV,” The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

However, the terms of the settlement between Herzberg’s family and Uber have not been disclosed.

Meanwhile, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey suspended the ride-hailing giant’s self-driving vehicle tests earlier this week following the fatal collision.

“As Governor, my top priority is public safety. Improving public safety has always been an emphasis of Arizona’s approach to autonomous vehicle testing and my expectation is that public safety is also the top priority for all who operate this technology in Arizona,” Ducey wrote in a letter to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Uber has already suspended its self-driving operations in other cities including Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto following the fatal accident.

A self-driving Volvo SUV from Uber travelling at 64 km per hour killed the woman in Arizona earlier this month, triggering a heated debate on whether autonomous cars are safe enough and who is to blame for the death.

According to the police, the victim was walking outside of the crosswalk when she was hit by the car, which was in autonomous mode at that time although a vehicle operator was behind the wheel.

(IANS)

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was frisked at an airport in the US as he was on a private visit to that country, a US official said here on Thursday.

“My understanding is that if the head of state chooses to travel privately without diplomatic passport, then they are travelling as a private citizen, then he would have to go through the same security screening that you and I will have to go,” Alexander McLaren, deputy spokesperson of the US Embassy here, said during a media interaction.

“Obviously, an official visit is a different story,” he said.

A video that has gone viral on social media shows a casually-dressed Abbasi being frisked at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York earlier this week.

He was seen putting on his belt after clearing security, picking up his coat and bag and walking away moments later.

According to Pakistani media reports, Abbasi travelled to the US to visit his ailing sister.

(IANS)

Pakistani education and rights activist, targeted by Taliban, arrives in capital Islamabad amid tight security.

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has arrived home in Pakistan for the first time since being shot by Taliban gunmen in an assassination attempt five years ago.

The 20-year-old, the youngest person ever to win the Nobel prize, landed in the capital Islamabad early on Thursday morning.

Television footage showed her sitting alongside her parents in an airport waiting lounge and, later, travelling in a security convoy into the city.

Yousafzai was shot in the headby Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for speaking out against their ban on girls education in her native Swat Valley, in Pakistan’s north.

READ MORE
The fight for education in Pakistan’s Swat
Two other students were wounded in that attack.

After receiving emergency medical treatment in Pakistan, she was shifted to the United Kingdom for specialised medical procedures, where she has resided ever since due to fears for her security if she returned to Pakistan.

Following the attack, the Pakistani Taliban vowed to kill her if she ever returned.

Details of Yousafzai’s itinerary are not being made public due to security concerns, the AFP news agency reported, but she is expected to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and others.

Focus on education
Since recovering from her wounds, Yousafzai has championed the cause of education across the globe, speaking out passionately at the United Nations and other fora for the right of all children, and particularly young women, to receive an education.

In 2013, she and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, a teacher and rights activist, founded the Malala Fund, which champions the right of every girl to 12 years of free and safe education. The organisation focuses on working in conflict zones, with programmes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and countries hosting Syrian refugees.

It is unclear if Yousafzai will visit her native Swat valley, where she made her name as a young rights activist, writing a series of anonymous blogs for the BBC while the valley was under Taliban rule in 2009.

Pakistan’s military fought a protracted battle to retake the scenic rural valley, eventually displacing the Taliban from Swat that year.

Attacks such as the one that targeted Yousafzai, however, continued for several years, with the Taliban exacting revenge on those who stood up to them during their reign.

In 2016, Taliban commanders attempted to extort money from local traders, sparking fears that they were attempting to launch a comeback in Swat, which was home to current Pakistani Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah.

“I really miss my friends and family. But I also miss the landscape,” Yousafzai told Pakistani publication Mangobaaz in an interview earlier this week.

“When I woke up in the hospital in the UK, I looked outside and asked the doctors where are the mountains and rivers. Swat Valley is a paradise on Earth and I don’t think I fully appreciated its beauty until it wasn’t outside my window every day.”

Yousafzai currently attends Oxford University, where she is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

ALJAZEERA

At least 55 Hamas supporters arrested in aftermath of explosion that targeted PM convoy in Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Hamas supporters and activists have been detained in the West Bank over the past two weeks following an attack on the Palestinian Authority prime minister’s convoy in Gaza on March 13.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas for being behind the attack on Rami Hamdallah’s motorcade, calling it an “assassination attempt”.

Hamas denied the allegations and said it was launching an investigation to uncover who was behind the blast.

Almost two weeks after the attack, two suspects were killed in an operation carried out by Hamas security forces. They were identified as Anas Abu Khousa and Abdul Hadi al-Ashab, unaffiliated with any Palestinian political faction.

The attack and the subsequent recriminations marked a serious deterioration in relations between Hamas and the PA.

So far, at least 55 Palestinians have been arrested as part of crackdown by the Palestinian Authority on Hamas supporters.

‘Arrests must stop’
Hasan Khreisheh, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that the arrest campaign by PA security forces is “incomprehensible and unjustified”.

“These arrests must be stopped in favour for a Palestinian united front to take a stance against the bigger issues at hand, such as US President Donald Trump’s decision to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem,” Khreisheh said.

“If the PA is serious about confronting these real issues, then they should stop the arrests,” he continued. “In light of what the Palestinian cause is going through, political detention deepens unreasonable disputes.”

The MP said the PA leadership and other factions must intervene to stop the political arrests.

Strained relations
Fatah, the ruling party within the PA, and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement in October 2017, ending a decade of division that saw two parallel governments operating in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

But the deal was never fully implemented due to differences within the two political factions, which are the largest in Palestinian politics.

Analysts said the attack on Hamdallah’s convoy was intended to put a strain on reconciliation efforts.

Abdelsattar Qassam, a Palestinian analyst and professor of political science at the an-Najah University in Nablus, accused the PA of practicing tyranny.

“Political arrests in the West Bank represents an assault on people’s freedom of expression and in the formation of public opinion,” he told Al Jazeera.

Qassem pointed out that the Palestinian reconciliation cannot take place under the Oslo agreement, which he considers the source of civil infighting and rivalry among the Palestinians.

“The reconciliation is a theatre play whose objective is to entertain and waste time,” he said.

“As Palestinians, the solution right now is to hold elections, as it is the only option capable of bringing in a new leadership that will deal with the Palestinian people in a new way.”

AL JAZEERA

A Pakistani news channel has hired the country’s first transgender TV newsreader.

Marvia Malik, a journalism graduate who has also worked as a model, told the BBC Urdu she was moved to tears when she was offered the job.

She anchored her first show on private broadcaster Kohenoor TV on Friday, after three months of training. Transgenders face discrimination in Pakistan and many struggle to find work. Some are forced into begging, dancing or prostitution to earn money.

Malik told the BBC she had to stop herself from screaming with joy when she learnt she had got the job. “The dream that I saw for myself, I was able to climb on the first stair to achieving it,” she said.

Malik said she hoped her work would help improve the lives of Pakistan’s transgender community.

“Our community should be treated equally and there must not be any gender discrimination. We should be given equal rights and be considered ordinary citizens, (not as) third gender.”

The owner of Kohenoor, Junaid Ansari, told Voice Of America that Malik was selected on merit, not on gender issues.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Senate voted to support a bill protecting the rights of transgender people and allowing them to determine their own gender identity.

(Ians)

Several US government installations near Washington, including three military sites, received suspicious packages in the mail, the FBI reported on Tuesday.

Besides the military installations at Fort McNair and the Anacostia-Bolling naval base, both in Washington, the headquarters of the CIA, Fort Belvoir and the Naval Surface Warfare Center — the latter three in Virginia — also received suspicious packages, Efe reported.

“The FBI responded to multiple government facilities today for the reports of suspicious packages,” the FBI said in a statement. “Each package was collected for further analysis by the FBI.”

The FBI also said that the packages had been determined to contain “potential destructive devices,” adding that they were apparently mailed from Seattle and announcing that one suspect has been arrested.

The man, identified as Thanh Cong Phan, 43, “was taken into custody by FBI Seattle and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office at his residence in Everett, Washington,” the bureau said.

Authorities warned, however, that it is possible that the suspect sent other package bombs that may not yet have arrived at their destinations, and so it is working with the US Postal Service to either locate such packages or rule out the possibility that they are in the mail.

Despite the fact that no official details have been released about the mailings, it is known that at least one of the objects, the one received at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, contained a black powder – which could be gunpowder – a fuse and a GPS device, although authorities rendered it harmless.

As a precaution, one of the buildings at the military installation, located in southern Washington, was evacuated, ABC News reported.

The sending of these packages comes at an especially delicate time, after Mark Anthony Conditt, 23, sowed terror for several weeks in and around Austin, Texas, by sending at least five package bombs to various locations, causing the deaths of two people and injuring five others.

Last Wednesday, as authorities were closing in to arrest him, Conditt detonated a bomb he had with him, killing himself.

(Ians)

Thousands of angry Russians took to the streets in the Siberian city of Kemerovo demanding a full investigation into a shopping mall fire that claimed the lives of 64 people — 41 of them children.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who flew to the city to offer his condolences to the victims’ families, declared three days of national mourning beginning on Wednesday. He blamed the blaze on “criminal negligence” and promised that those responsible would be held accountable, Sputnik news agency reported.

Deputy Emergencies Minister Vladlen Aksyonov said that rescue workers recovered the bodies of all 64 victims and they were handed over to Russia’s Investigative Committee.

However, relatives said as many as 85 people were still missing, most of them children, according to Interfax news agency.

The deadly blaze swept through the four-storey Winter Cherry shopping mall on Sunday, the first weekend of school holidays, trapping many families who had gathered at a children’s play area and cinema hall there.

Russian investigators said the mall’s fire exits were blocked and a fire safety technician at the complex “switched off the alarm system” after being alerted about the fire.

The cause of the fire was not yet known, but Russia’s Investigative Committee spoke of “serious violations” at the shopping mall.

It said a criminal investigation into the cause of the fire had begun, although reports suggested that it could have been started by a child misusing a cigarette lighter or malfunctioning electrical wires.

A video released by Putin’s press office showed him laying roses at a makeshift memorial scattered with candles and toys. “What is happening here?”, Putin said after laying a wreath at the scene. “This is no battle or an unexpected methane outburst in a mine.”

“People, children came to relax. We are talking about demography and are losing so many people because of what? Because of criminal negligence, sloppiness,” he said.

Putin did not meet with demonstrators in Kemerovo, who had gathered in front of the local administration office to call for a full probe into the fire. They also demanded that officials be sacked over the fire safety shortcomings.

Members of the distraught crowd cast doubt on the official death toll and demanded that the Forensic Examiner’s Office verify the number, TASS news agency reported.

Footage from the scene showed riot police standing between protesters and the municipal building. “A lot of children died. They died because of irresponsibility of management,” said one protester Svetlana Shestakova.

The main slogans were “Truth!” and “Resign!” — directed at local officials. Dozens of people vowed to stay on the square until Kemerovo’s Governor Aman Tuleyev resigns.

However, Putin said “it was not right to apportion blame right away.” He added that officials at every level will be closely investigated.

Out of 64 bodies, 25 were identified which included 13 children. An official in the emergency services said that another 68 people were injured and poisoned with combustion products. Putin also visited the injured in Kemerovo’s regional hospital.

Meanwhile, the head of the city’s fire department Sergei Yakovlev said that the blaze had spread via flammable thermal insulation that complicated the process of extinguishing the inferno.

(Ians)

The US Federal Trade commission has confirmed that it was investigating Facebook after the leak of personal and other data on some 50 million users to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

The FTC said on Monday that it “takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook”.

“Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices,” Efe news quoted Acting FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director, Tom Pahl, as saying.

Pahl emphasized that the agency is committed to using “all of its tools” to protect the privacy of consumers and that the main such tool is “enforcement action” against companies that do not fulfill their promises in the data privacy area or that violate the law.

He explained that the FTC is acting against firms that do not abide by the “Privacy Shield” agreement regulating data transfer with the European Union and against companies that undertake “unfair acts” that harm consumers or violate the FTC Act.

“The FTC is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers. Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements,” a statement said.

“Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook.”

Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy privacy chief, said in a statement last week that the social networking firm remains “strongly committed to protecting people’s information,” adding that “we appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have”.

A week ago, after the controversial leak of private information on millions of users came to light, press reports said that the FTC was investigating whether Facebook violated the terms of a 2011 consent agreement requiring user consent for sharing data by providing use data to Cambridge Analytica in 2014.

The London-based political research organization, which collaborated with the election campaign of Donald Trump in the runup to the 2016 vote, used the leaked information to develop a computer programme to predict the decisions of US voters and influence them.

In 2011, Facebook promised to ask for the consent of its users before making certain changes in their privacy preferences, as part of an agreement with the government, which accused the firm of abusing consumers by sharing with third parties more information than users had authorized.

Breaking that agreement could result in the tech firm facing a fine of $40,000 per violation, the CNBC financial network said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on March 21 admitted that it was a “breach of trust” to allow an app developed by Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan to collect data for Cambridge Analytica, and he added that the firm will “fix” the problem by, among other things, investigating all apps that could access users’ personal data before 2014 and banning any developer that “does not agree to a thorough audit”.

After Monday’s announcement, Facebook shares fell by as much as 6 per cent on Wall Street.

Last week, the firm suffered significantly in the markets as its stock price plunged, reducing the value of outstanding shares by some $50 billion.

(IANS)

Grindr, the worlds largest gay dating app, is set to change its software this week to urge millions of users to get frequent HIV tests, in an an effort to shrink the global epidemic, the media reported.

Grindr, which claims to have 3.3 million daily users from every country in the world, will send men who opt into the service a reminder every three to six months, and simultaneously point them to the nearest testing site, The New York Times reported.

It will also let clinics, gay community centres and other testing sites advertise for free.

The company is making the move to “reduce HIV transmission and support our whole community – regardless of HIV status – in living long and fulfilling lives”, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Grindr’s director for equality, said on Monday.

HIV experts greeted the announcement enthusiastically.

“Wow, that’s great! For a company of this magnitude to do this is groundbreaking,” said Jeffrey D. Klausner, a former chief of sexually transmitted disease prevention in San Francisco who has used Grindr to promote testing.

Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health and an expert in gay male behaviour, called the decision “excellent”.

Jonathan Mermin, chief of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said many men who use location-based phone apps to find other men nearby are considered at high risk of getting infected.

Therefore, “all effective efforts to increase testing are welcome”, The New York Times quoted Mermin as saying.

The Centre recommends that sexually active gay men get tested at least once a year and those at highest risk get tested every three to six months.

More than 107,000 gay and bisexual men in the US have HIV but do not know it,

according to Mermin.

(IANS)