World

PARIS (AP) — Several world leaders and tech bosses are meeting in Paris to find ways to stop acts of violent extremism from being shown online.

They're working all day Wednesday on the "Christchurch Appeal," named after the New Zealand city where 51 people were killed in a March attack on mosques. The attacker streamed the killing live on Facebook.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called the meeting a significant "starting point" for changes in government and tech industry policy. Ardern will run the Christchurch Call event together with French President Emmanuel Macron – who is already “leading” work on this matter.

Officials at Facebook said they support the idea of the appeal, but that details need to be worked out that are acceptable for all parties.

Twitter, Google, Microsoft and several other companies are also taking part, along with the leaders of Britain, France, Canada, Ireland, Senegal, Indonesia, Jordan and the European Union.

Britain's security forces are on the hunt for so-called "crocodile cells or sleeper cells" of Islamic State (ISIS) operatives plotting terrorist attacks in the UK and Europe, according to a UK media report.

The country's police chiefs are urging churches and mosques in Britain to have counter-terrorism training because of fears of further attacks in the wake of the Sri Lanka terrorist strikes, which claimed hundreds of lives over Easter.

"Now that ISIS has been defeated in Syria and Iraq, it will become more violent outside (this area). As its core weakens, its peripheries will become more dangerous," Charlie Winter, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London, told 'The Sunday Times'.

"It's a grim outlook, but we are likely to see more attempts at attacks, more regularly, for the foreseeable future. Sri Lanka was not a one-off. If anything, it was a test run," he said.

The UK's intelligence services continue to investigate links between one of the Sri Lankan suicide bombers, Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, and the UK-based extremists since it emerged he had studied in Britain.

Mohamed is considered by Western intelligence agencies to be one of the plot's ringleaders. He is believed to have secretly travelled to Syria to prepare for the attack.

Once there, he was reportedly "mentored" by a group of notorious British ISIS fighters and recruiters, including the killer known as Jihadi John.

"Mohamed appears to have been sent back to Sri Lanka after receiving his terrorist training under an ISIS strategy utilising 'crocodile cells' or sleepers waiting to pounce," The Sunday Times reported.

"We've seen intelligence which connects him (Mohamed) to a number of British terrorists who were in Syria, as well as to Jihadi John and Junaid Hussain, around the time that ISIS set up its caliphate," an intelligence source told the newspaper.

"The British jihadists seemed to be mentoring him through communication online and also when he travelled to Syria," the source added.

Mohamed is likely to have spent only a matter of months in the Syrian war zone, and it remains unclear when he returned to Sri Lanka to become part of an ISIS sleeper cell.

Another theory is that Mohamed may have fallen under the influence of terror outfit Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT) while living in London and studying at Kingston University in the mid-2000s.

The group, which calls for the foundation of an Islamic caliphate, had a strong presence on the Kingston campus at the time Lathief was in the UK to study aeronautical engineering, according to 'The Sunday Telegraph'.

However, a spokesperson for HuT Britain said the group had no record of Lathief Mohamed being a member.

"To be absolutely clear, we abhor the senseless killing of citizens in any country by any person, group or military. The Islamic Shari'ah does not give justification for such acts as in Sri Lanka last week," the spokesperson said.

HuT is banned in more than a dozen countries, but not the UK. Former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron both tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

(PTI)

Six people were killed Sunday during mass at a Catholic church in central Burkina Faso, according to state media.

Gunmen on motorcycles stormed the church in Dablo on Sunday morning, killing six men, including the priest, before setting fire to the church and buildings in the area, the Burkina Information Agency reported.

In February, CNN reported that the US was considering sending additional military advisers as well as intelligence and surveillance assets such as drones to Burkina Faso to help combat a growing terrorist threat.

The landlocked country in northwest Africa has been beset by extremist violence in recent months as Islamist terror groups expand their reach.

The number of violent incidents in the country linked to the local affiliates of al Qaeda and ISIS rose from 24 in 2017 to 136 in 2018, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

The Trump administration last year announced plans to cut the number of US troops in Africa by around 10%. One defense official told CNN that the planned reductions would eventually lower the number of US counterterrorism troops and their enablers who support operations by approximately 20%.

NEW DELHI — Zahran Hashim, a radical Tamil-speaking cleric who is believed to have masterminded the Sri Lanka blasts which left over 350 people dead and around 500 injured on Easter Sunday, was in "direct and regular" touch with some Islamic State sympathizers in Southern India for over three years and was instrumental in forming a "pro-IS module,” sources said.

An official of a counter-terror agency told IANS that Hashim had developed relations with Islamic State sympathizers in Kerala and Tamil Nadu through illegal trade and social media sites like Youtube and Facebook.

The official said some of the Islamic State sympathizers are in National Investigation Agency custody and many of them have been named in its chargesheet filed on February 26. Most of them have visited Sri Lanka before having allegiance to Islamic State. They belong to Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Arrested IS sympathizers include Mohammed Ashiq, Ismail, Samsudeen, Jafar Sadik Ali and Shahul Hameed. Some of them were in touch with Hashim while others were in contact with men in Hashim's network of operatives trying to establish a pro-IS module in Southern India. All of them are in judicial custody on charges of hatching conspiracy to target Hindu leaders at Coimbatore with intention to furthering the objectives of the Islamic State. They belong to different areas in Tamil Nadu.

Hashim, another intelligence official said, was also instrumental in radicalizing youths in Sri Lanka in the garb of conducting Quran classes and was known there as a "Molvi" (cleric).

The central intelligence agencies in India, however, are not sure if Hashim died in the Sri Lankan attack before which he was a virtual unknown in the island state. It is believed that he went to an Islamic college in Sri Lanka. However, he was not known to be popular in his community.

The Sri Lankan government has pointed a finger at Hashim indirectly as the prime suspect in the Easter Sunday blasts and accused him of leading a little-known Islamist group, the National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ), affiliated to the Islamic State. Sri Lankan intelligence officials and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe believe that Hashim may have masterminded the attacks.

The Islamic State April 23 claimed responsibility for the attacks without providing evidence of its involvement. A video released by the terrorist outfit shows a person, purported to be Hashim, swearing allegiance to Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

Another official also confirmed that an intelligence input regarding the Easter Sunday attack was shared with Sri Lankan intelligence officials late on Saturday and that it took the Indian officials engaged almost whole day considering its importance.

According to the official, the warning was specific about threat to some churches, hotels and the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

Three churches and four hotels were hit by suicide bombers, sending shock-waves through the island nation that has been relatively peaceful since the civil war ended a decade ago.

Another similar intelligence input, the official said, was shared with Sri Lankan intelligence agents on April 4 and April 20.

So far, over 50 people have been arrested in Sri Lanka in connection with the attack, said the official.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, who was out of the country during the attacks, has said he was not informed about this advisory and asked for the resignation of the country's defense secretary and police chief.

(IANS)

Runaway Islamic State bride Shamima Begum could face the death penalty if she is sent to Bangladesh, the country’s foreign minister has said. The teenager would face death by hanging for her involvement in terrorism, according to Abdul Momen.

Bangladesh has said it wants nothing to do with Shamima who cannot return to the UK after Home Secretary Sajid Javid stripped her of her British nationality. She is currently in a refugee camp in Syria after the collapse of the caliphate earlier this year.

The 19-year-old has said she was ‘brainwashed’ by extremists and ran away to join the death cult as a schoolgirl. She fled her home in east London in 2015 with two friends and quickly married Dutch jihadi Yago Riedijk. The couple’s three children all died.
All three of Shamima Begum’s children have died while she lived in Syria (Picture: ITV)

Under international law it is illegal to revoke someone’s citizenship if it leaves them stateless. It was thought Begum had a claim to Bangladeshi citizenship through her family, but Bangladeshi officials have denied this.

Speaking to ITV News, Momen said: ‘We have nothing to do with Shamima Begum. She is not a Bangladeshi citizen. ‘She never applied for Bangladeshi citizenship. She was born in England and her mother is British. ‘If anyone is found to be involved with terrorism, we have a simple rule: there will be capital punishment. And nothing else. ‘She would be put in prison and immediately the rule is she should be hanged.’
Shamima fled her east London home to join the death cult and its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria (Picture: Reuters)

The issue of Shamima’s citizenship emerged after she declared she wanted to return to the UK. She claimed to have been brainwashed by Isis although reports have emerged that she was a member of the feared ‘morality police’

Spy chiefs allegedly believe she was witnessed sewing vests onto suicide bombers so devices couldn’t be removed without detonation. Shamima resurfaced in February this year heavily pregnant at the al-Hawl refugee camp. She gave birth to son Jarrah but he died in March aged just three weeks old.

The UK government faced criticism in the wake of the child’s death, who was a British citizen regardless of his mother’s status. But Mr Javid defended his decision to remove Shamima’s citizenship and said the Government could not assist British nationals in Syria as there is no consular presence there.

Around 900 male and female extremists went from the UK to fight for Isis. Of those, around 200 are believed to have been killed while another 360 have already returned home. Anti-terror police say as many as 200 jihadists who are alive would pose a significant threat to security if they were ever to return.

The UK Government said it would not comment on the individual case of Shamima. But it added that decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on ‘all available evidence’ and are ‘not taken lightly’.


(Metro-UK)

South Korea's ban on abortion has been ruled unconstitutional in a historic court decision. The country's constitutional court ordered that the law must be revised by the end of 2020.

Under the 1953 ban, women who procured abortions could be fined and imprisoned, except in cases of rape, incest or risk to their health. South Korea is one of the few developed countries where abortion is criminalised.

In 2017, an opinion poll found just over 51.9% favoured ending the ban. The law was reviewed after a challenge from a female doctor, who said the ban endangered women and limited their rights.

The BBC's Seoul Correspondent Laura Bicker says the push for change comes from a burgeoning movement fighting for women's rights in South Korea.

Campaigners seeking an end to the law say it is part of a broader bias against women in the country.

South Korea is home to a large number of evangelical Christians, however - and some want abortion to remain illegal because they say it forces women to think deeply about the decision.

How did activists react?

Hundreds of protesters from both sides of the debate gathered outside the court ahead of the ruling, separated by police.

While pro-choice activists celebrated the announcement, anti-abortion campaigners were left in tears.

How widespread is abortion in South Korea?

Despite the restrictive law, abortions are widely accessible in South Korea and can be carried out safely. A survey last year found that one in five women who had been pregnant had had an abortion, and just 1% fell under the country's legal exemptions.

An estimated 50,000 abortions were carried out in South Korea in 2017, compared with government estimates of about 169,000 cases in 2010.

This fall is largely attributed to improvements to contraceptive services and products, which are now widely available, and a better understanding of birth control. 

(BBC)

As India seeks to address the terrorism challenge in Jammu and Kashmir, jihadist forces are quietly gaining ground in far-flung states, especially West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The situation in Assam is also fraught with danger. 

India can ignore this spreading threat at its own peril.

The ISIS, for example, has reportedly named a new ‘Bengal emir’. The Sri Lanka bombings, meanwhile, have helped highlight the growing cross-strait role of Islamist forces in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Such forces are affiliated with larger extremist networks or provide succour to radical groups elsewhere.

Terrible Sunday: Links have been found between Islamist forces in Tamil Nadu and the horrific bombings in Sri Lanka. (Source: Reuters)

The main group blamed for the Sri Lanka bombings — the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) — is an ideological offspring of the rapidly growing Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamaath (TNTJ). The Saudi-funded TNTJ, wedded to fanatical Wahhabism, is working to snuff out pluralistic strands of Islam. Such Arabisation of Islam is increasingly apparent in Muslim communities extending from Bangladesh and West Bengal to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. 

More broadly, the collapse of the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq has only intensified the terrorism challenge. Battle-hardened terrorist fighters returning home from Syria and Iraq have become a major counterterrorism concern in South and Southeast Asia, given their operational training, skills and experience to stage savage attacks. 

The presence of such returnees in Sri Lanka explains how an obscure local group carried out near-simultaneous strikes on three iconic churches and three luxury hotels, with the bombers detonating military-grade high explosives through suicide vests. Similar returnees are present in a number of other Asian countries.

The Sri Lanka attacks indeed underscore the potential of such returnees to wage terror campaigns in the same way that the activities of the Afghan war veterans, like Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, came to haunt the security of Asia, the Middle East and the West. 

The jihadist threat, however, is posed not only by the returnees from Syria and Iraq. Such a threat also arises from those elements who never left their countries but see violence as a sanctified tool of religion and a path to redemption. Such local forces extolling terror are gaining clout. 

The TNTJ in India, for example, helped to establish the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamaath, from which the bomber outfit NTJ emerged as a splinter. In the current national elections in India, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and some other local political parties have openly courted the TNTJ.

Just as Bangladesh blamed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for instigating the 2016 brutal Dhaka café attack through a Bangladeshi outfit, Sri Lanka’s NTJ has ties with the ISI’s front organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The ISI and the LeT, through their joint Sri Lanka operations, have sought to establish cross-strait contacts with TNTJ activists in India. 

NTJ leader Zahran Hashim, who reportedly died in one of the Easter Sunday suicide bombings, was inspired by fugitive Indian Islamist preacher Zakir Naik’s jihad-extolling sermons. Hashim also reportedly received funds from jihadists in south India. 

Islamic extremist Zahran Hashim is believed to have been the mastermind of the Sri Lanka bombings on Easter Sunday. (Source: Facebook)

India, despite providing detailed intelligence warnings to Sri Lanka about the bombing plot, has been slow in developing a credible strategy to counter the growing jihadist influence within its own borders. For example, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government initiated action against Zakir Naik only after the Dhaka café attack prompted Bangladesh to demand action against him. The prime minister, however, is right in saying that Naik enjoyed the patronage of the predecessor Manmohan Singh-led government — which, according to Modi, once invited Naik to address police personnel on the issue of terrorism!

Today, Naik is ensconced in Malaysia, which has granted him permanent residency. Yet, India has imposed no costs on Malaysia, such as cutting palm-oil imports from there, for sheltering a leading fugitive from Indian law. 

Like al-Qaeda at one time, ISIS seeks to show its continuing relevance by claiming responsibility for terror strikes that have occurred in places far from the areas where it has had presence. Rather than ISIS being directly involved in the Sri Lanka bombings, it is more likely that the ideology ISIS subscribes to — Wahhabi fanaticism — inspired those attacks. 

It takes months, not weeks, to motivate, train and equip a suicide bomber. So, the speculative comment that the Sri Lanka bombings were a reprisal to the March 15 Christchurch, New Zealand massacre made little sense, especially as it came from the Sri Lankan junior defence minister.

Fortunately, the Sri Lankan prime minister later walked back that speculation. 

Detaining a terrorist attacker’s family members for questioning has become a de facto international anti-terrorist practice. Sri Lanka quickly rounded up the bombers’ family members, including parents, for questioning once the suicide killers were identified. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation also detains a terrorist attacker’s family members for questioning — but not India.

For example, the Pulwama bomber’s family members not only remained free but also gave media interviews rationalising the February 14 suicide attack. 

Publicity is the oxygen of terrorism.

Terrorists rely on media publicity to provoke fear and demonstrate power.  

Unfortunately, in the absence of US-style media peer guidelines in India on terrorism-related coverage, Indian journalists supplied the oxygen of publicity by reporting allegations of the Pulwama bomber’s family members — including their claim that he was once roughed up by army or paramilitary soldiers. What the family members did not reveal was that the bomber had previously been detained on four separate occasions by J&K police, on suspicion of providing logistical assistance to the LeT, but that each time he was freed without the investigators getting to the bottom of his activities. 

Make no mistake: Islamist terror is closely connected with the spread of Wahhabism, the obscurantist and intolerant version of Islam bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and other oil sheikhdoms. Wahhabi fanaticism is terrorism’s ideological mother, whose offspring include ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, LeT and Boko Haram. 

Wahhabi fanaticism is terrorism's ideological mother — its offspring include ISIS, LeT and Boko Haram. (Source: Reuters)
The jihadist threat in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam — like in Sri Lanka — is linked with the growing spread of Wahhabism. If left unaddressed, this scourge of Islamist extremism could become a major internal security crisis in India.

India’s counterterrorism focus on Jammu and Kashmir has allowed jihadists to gain influence in other states far from J&K. India needs to wake up to this spreading threat.

It must crack down on the preachers of hatred and violence. It also must rein in the increasing inflow of Saudi and other Gulf money so as to close the wellspring that feeds terrorism — Wahhabi fanaticism.

(Brahma Chellaney)

Canada has imposed a landmark carbon tax on four provinces which had defied Ottawa’s push to combat climate change, prompting unhappy premiers to say they would challenge the measure. The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, citing international commitments to fight global warming, had made clear for two years he would slap the tax on any of the 10 provinces that did not come up with their own plans by 1 April.

The measure is opposed by Ontario, the most populous province, where Trudeau’s Liberals need to do well to stand a chance of retaining power in a federal election this October.

Carbon pollution will initially cost C$20 ($15) a tonne, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022. It also applies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.

“As of today, it’s no longer free to pollute anywhere in Canada,” the environment minister, Catherine McKenna, said on Twitter.
“Climate change is real ... some politicians may not care much, but our kids and our grandkids do.“

Official data regularly show Canada has little chance of meeting its climate change goals of reducing emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030.

Although Ottawa says the money collected will be returned to taxpayers in the form of rebates, right-leaning parties portray it as a cash grab.
The Conservatives, who polls show could win the October election as a scandal over alleged political interference dogs Trudeau, promise to scrap the measure.

Ontario premier Doug Ford vowed to oppose what he called “the worst tax ever” in court.

“We’re going to keep fighting this carbon tax with every single tool at our disposal,” he said in a filmed statement.

Scott Moe, the premier of Saskatchewan, which has already launched a challenge, said he hoped the tax was an April Fool’s joke.

“We now have four provinces representing half the population in this nation that say this is a flawed policy,” Moe told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Trudeau’s other efforts to combat climate change are also proving a challenge.

Last year the government unveiled legislation to overhaul environmental assessments of energy projects, paying more attention to greenhouse gas emissions. Critics say this will deter future investment at a time when existing projects are already in trouble.

Canada bought Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd’s Trans Mountain crude pipeline for $4.5bn last year after the company expressed doubts it could proceed with plans to more than double the existing capacity.

(The Guardian)

Days after a spate of suicide attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people, the Islamic State affiliate group has issued a direct threat to carry out attacks in India and Bangladesh. According to a report by The Times of India, the ISIS has appointed Abu Muhammed al-Bengali as a new 'emir' (chief) in Bangladesh.

“If you think you have silenced the soldiers of the Khilafa in Bengal and Hind and you are certain about that then listen we men are never to be silenced.. And are thirst for revenge is never to be faded away (sic),” the TOI report quoted the ISIS poster as saying.

The new security threat comes a day after the ISIS carried out minor explosion near a cinema hall theatre in Dhaka. The explosion didnot result in any casualties but a few policemen sustained injuries in the blast.

The militant group released the poster just a day after its media outlet published a video message of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who claimed that the recent Easter bombings in Sri Lanka were a response to the losses faced by the terror group in its last territorial stronghold of Baghouz in Syria.In the video titled "In the Hospitality of the Emir of the Believers,

" Baghdadi was seen sitting alongside three other ISIS members whose faces are blurred, next to a rifle and ammunition belt. He praised the recent terror attacks in Sri Lanka and called it "revenge" for Baghouz — the small Syrian village where Isis made its last stand.

The increase in circulation of IS-related material in different languages have alerted agencies. The Indian intelligence is closely inspecting the developments in Bangladesh and they fear that the attacks could take place either in West Bengal or Bangladesh.

According to a development reported by the TOI, pro-IS Telegram channels had circulated a poster on 25th April in Bengali saying "Coming soon" which had logo of a group called 'al Mursalat'.

Once relegated to the world’s most repressive dictatorships, internet filtering has taken off as a tool for an increasing number of governments around the world to censor access to content deemed inappropriate by government authorities. New Zealand was the latest to join this growing trend, when several major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) blocked access to selected websites believed to host copies of the attack video or other details about the attack. While there may be broad agreement regarding the removal of a terror video, the use of ISPs to enforce nation-wide content bans raises questions about whether such practices will expand across the world to include other content governments wish to restrict.

In the aftermath of the New Zealand attack, several major Internet Service Providers across New Zealand blocked access nation-wide to an opaque list of websites believed to be either hosting copies of the attack video or sensitive details of the attack. The secret nature of the blacklist and opaque manner in which the companies decided which websites to add to the list or how to appeal an incorrect listing, echoed similar systems deployed around the world in countries like China.

China’s famed Great Firewall operates very similarly, with the government blocking websites across the country in a similarly opaque fashion and with little recourse for appeal. Much like the New Zealand model, blocking occurs through a public-private partnership of the government listing content it wishes blocked and ISPs instituting blocks to prevent their customers from consuming it.

Like New Zealand’s recent blocking efforts, China’s system officially exists for the same reason: to block access to disturbing content and content that would disrupt social order. In the Chinese case, however, the system has famously morphed to envelope all content that might threaten the government’s official narratives or call into question its actions.

In New Zealand’s case, website censorship was limited to a small set of sites allegedly hosting sensitive content relating to the attack. Yet, the government’s apparent comfort with instituting such a nation-wide ban so swiftly and without debate reminds us of how Chinese-style censorship begins.

Few would likely argue that the general public needs to be able to consume the graphic details of a terror attack. Yet, once governments normalize the infrastructure and practice of blocking access to content, there is little to stop them from declaring other kinds of violent content off-limits and then eventually move towards blocking any kind of societally troubling content.

One could easily imagine governments around the world using a similar argument to institute automatic bans on any video that depicts violence and using that process to block the posting of citizen video of police use of force. Suddenly all of those cellphone videos capturing security forces around the world using force to silence government critics would be banned under the auspices of preventing access to violent material.

Imagine if such tools had been in place half a century ago to allow the US Government to block all publication of images of the Kent State shooting. Written descriptions of that day’s events alone would likely not have been able to galvanize public opinion like the graphic imagery of its aftermath. Moreover, the government could easily have dismissed such written statements as hyperbole or “fake news.”

Similarly, written descriptions of prisoner abuse and torture by the US at Abu Ghraib could easily have been dismissed as overwrought falsehoods in a way that the stark graphic images that spread virally could not.

We understand atrocities through their historical records. One of the most common tools of Holocaust denial is to claim that all of the photographic evidence of the time was staged or fabricated. Imagine if, with the flip of a switch, a government could simply block all access to all information about the Holocaust out of concern that it would affect the public? In our increasingly digital world, if all traces of the Holocaust are deleted or blocked, suddenly it ceases to exist as a public topic of conversation and most importantly, warning. As we forget our history we are doomed to repeat it.

Today Tiananmen Square exists in our public memory because China is able to block access to all mention of those events only within its own borders, while the rest of the world is free to condemn it. What might happen if our globalized social media companies permitted governments like China to ban all mention of a violent event from their country from access anywhere in the world? Our planet’s worst atrocities could simply be swept away.

Indeed, the Burmese government would likely be first in line to exercise such powers to eliminate global discussion of the events within its borders.

Citizen video shot on cellphones has become a particularly powerful way of holding governments accountable. Yet, here again, if governments can flip a switch to block all access to content they deem sensitive, it would not be hard to foresee a rush by governments everywhere to block all footage of encounters with security services. Venezuela would suddenly be a rich utopia where there is no suffering or conflict, if it was able to block all access to imagery and video worldwide depicting otherwise.

Most importantly, as we’ve seen in a growing number of nations, such censorship efforts naturally progress towards any content viewed as troublesome by the government. In a world in which even democratically elected governments increasingly attack the press and look to restrict their ability to hold elected officials accountable, it is not hard to imagine governments exercising such powers to simply take any news outlet offline that dares to venture from the party line.

Indeed, Russia appears to be heading swiftly in that direction.

Historically only dictatorships closed news outlets for negative coverage, but in our digital world a government need not actually close a news outlet, they can simply flip a switch to block it from access, silencing it just as effectively and without drawing any attention to its actions.

The problem with censorship is that while there might be wide agreement that the general public need not have unrestricted access to a horrific terrorist video, such removal sets society upon a slippery slope towards governments exercising those powers to block content troublesome to itself, such as excessive use of force by police or even non-violent content like corruption allegations against senior government officials. It also raises important historical questions regarding how we’ve understood atrocities in the past versus how we will understand them in our digital future and what it means when governments have the ability to erase all traces of events.

There are no easy answers to these questions, but they are critical questions for us as societies to have. How do we prevent the perpetrators of violence from achieving notoriety or inspiring others, while ensuring society learns and takes action to ensure such events do not take place again? At the same time, how do we ensure governments do not exercise their powers to censor their own accountability, such as blacklisting coverage of corruption allegations?

Putting this all together, our digital world has granted governments unprecedented control over the informational ecosystems of their citizenry. Rather than rendering governments obsolete and ensuring unfettered information access, the web has actually not only entrenched the power of governments over information but gone further to grant them powers of control unimaginable in the print era. Where this takes us remains to be seen but is something that must be decided by societies in the open rather than by governments in the dark.

(Forbes)

Gunmen have opened fire on a church in northern Burkina Faso, killing at least six people, officials say.

The attackers reportedly arrived on seven motorbikes at the end of Sunday's service and killed the pastor, two of his sons and three other worshippers.

It is the first attack on a church since jihadist violence erupted in the West African country in 2016.

Fighters affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as the local Ansarul Islam have been active.

Sunday's attack on the Protestant church happened in the small town of Silgadji near Djibo, the capital of Soum province, at around 12:00 local time (12:00 GMT).

The number of attackers involved or their possible affiliations is not clear.

Islamist groups have been blamed for a number of attacks in the country in recent years, BBC Afrique's Simon Gongo reports.

On Friday, five teachers were killed in the east of the country in another incident attributed to jihadists, our correspondent adds.
Meanwhile, the fate of a Catholic priest kidnapped a month ago remains unclear.

(BBC)

At least 73 people have died and more than 60 are missing in flash floods in Indonesia's eastern province of Papua. Rescue workers are struggling to reach remote parts of the province, and there are fears the number of dead may rise. Roads have been blocked by landslides and fallen trees, and floodwaters have damaged two bridges and more than 100 houses.

More than 4,000 people have been forced from their homes, and some are sheltering in government offices. Local residents said torrential rain began on Saturday evening and continued into the night, triggering mudslides and flash floods.

The search for victims continues in the town of Sentani, one of the worst affected areas. At least 51 people were killed in the town, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told Reuters news agency. Another seven confirmed deaths were in the nearby provincial capital Jayapura, Mr Nugroho added.

However, a five-month-old baby was rescued in the city after being trapped under the rubble for hours, according to the military. The baby was later reunited with his family. His father survived but his mother's whereabouts is unknown. (BBC)