Human Rights

Srinagar, Apr 12 (PTI) PDP president Mehbooba Mufti Friday accused BJP chief Amit Shah of shaking the country's foundations with his recent controversial statements, and asked him to apologise to the people.

She was reportedly referring to Shah's speech at Raiganj in West Bengal on Thursday.

Calling illegal migrants from Bangladesh "termites", the BJP president had said that his party would throw them out after coming to power at the Centre for a second consecutive term

GAZA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian boy on Friday and wounded dozens during clashes with hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators in eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israeli, according to medics.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, told reporters that Maysara Abu Shaloof, 15 years old from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, immediately died of an Israeli gunshot in his abdomen.

Al-Qedra added that 66 demonstrators were injured, including 15 children and two paramedics.

Washington, Apr 12 (AFP) US President Donald Trump's controversial ban on transgender Americans in the military comes into force on Friday following a protracted legal battle.

Trump's administration has insisted that there is "too great a risk to military effectiveness and lethality" to allow transgender people to serve -- reversing a policy enacted under his predecessor Barack Obama.

QUITO, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Ecuador on Thursday announced it revoked the citizenship status given to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in December 2017, citing "irregularities" in the naturalization process.

There are "innumerable irregularities in the concession of that nationality," Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Valencia said.

"For that reason, the ministry decided to formally nullify it," Valencia added.

JERUSALEM, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Official results of Israel's elections were published on Thursday night, showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party has beaten the main rival, the Blue and White party.

The results were released by the Central Election Committee after two days of counting ballots and delays caused by computer malfunctions, according to the committee chairman, Judge Hanan Melcer.

Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party won 36 seats while the centrist Blue and White, led by an ex-army chief, gained 35 seats, the results showed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Georgetown University undergraduates have voted in favor of a referendum seeking the establishment of a fund benefiting the descendants of enslaved people sold to pay off the school’s debts.

The $27.20-per-semester fee would create one of the first reparations funds at a major U.S. institution. In an early Friday statement, university administrator Todd Olson didn’t commit to the fund’s establishment, but said Thursday’s non-binding vote provided “valuable insight into student perspectives.”

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Between 10 and 20 people, many of them children, die each day in Syria’s Al-Hawl refugee camp on the US-controlled territory, the head of the Russian reconciliation center in Syria, Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin, said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. The non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) believes that the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sets a dangerous precedent for journalists, RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire said on Twitter on Thursday.

"Targeting Assange because of Wikileaks’ provision of information to journalists that was in the public interest would be a punitive measure and would set a dangerous precedent for journalists or their sources that the US may wish to pursue in future," the tweet reads.

STOCKHOLM, April 11. /TASS/. There is a significant risk of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being extradited to the United States, Assange’s Swedish Defense Attorney Per Samuelsson told the SVT TV channel.

"Naturally, I believe this is totally inadmissible," he said. "We see clear signs indicating that the Americans want to convict him or have convicted him. Let’s see whether or not his concern was justified or exaggerated."

11 Apr 2019; DW: The Wikileaks founder has been arrested in central London, the Metropolitan Police wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

He was apprehended outside the Embassy of Ecuador, where he had been evading an extradition request from Sweden since June 2012. Assange was wanted by Stockholm over claims he sexually assaulted two women in 2010. The Swedish case against him lapsed in 2017, but he is still wanted in the UK for skipping bail.