Author: Prima News

Google has been fined 11.4 million rubles ($145,000) in Russia for failing to block access to certain prohibited content. The lawsuit against Google was heard in the capital, Moscow on Tuesday; the court ruled that the company had violated the law by failing to block access to certain banned content. Google had previously been fined for failing to remove banned content, not localizing the personal data of users in Russia, and for other violations. Most recently, on February 27, the company was fined 16 billion rubles for failing to pay previous fines.

The U.S. and Israel traded air strikes with Iran across ​the Middle East on Wednesday as the besieged Tehran government warned its state security forces were ready with “fingers on the trigger” to confront any anti-government protests. Following an exchange of ‌some of the heaviest bombardments in the region yet on Tuesday, the combatants renewed their attacks on opposing targets in Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf as the war stretched into its 12th day. The conflict has effectively blocked vital shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, halting the flow of one-fifth of the world’s fossil energy supplies from the…

British police said they had banned a pro-Iranian march due to take place in London on Sunday, citing the possibility of “extreme tensions” with ​counter-protesters and the risk posed by Tehran during the conflict in the ‌Middle East. The Al Quds march in central London is organised annually by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which the police said was supportive of the Iranian regime. The threshold to ban a protest ​is high in Britain, with the police saying this was the first ​time the power had been invoked in 14 years, but the ⁠risks of public disorder were “so severe”…

Australian police helped two more members of the Iranian women’s soccer delegation slip their minders to claim asylum, ‌but one has changed her mind and decided to go back to Iran, the country’s interior minister said on Wednesday. Concerns about the players’ safety upon their return home grew after Iranian state television labelled the team “wartime traitors” for refusing to sing the national anthem during a women’s Asian Cup match in Australia earlier this month. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced in parliament that ​21-year-old striker Mohaddeseh Zolfi and support staffer Zahra Soltan Moshkehkar had accepted the government’s open offer…

A Sri Lankan court has ordered that the bodies of 84 sailors killed in an attack on an Iranian warship off the ​island nation’s coast last week be handed over to the embassy ‌of Iran, local media reported on Wednesday. The warship, IRIS Dena, was hit by a torpedo from a U.S. submarine while it was returning from a naval exercise organised by India, amid ​the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that has wreaked havoc on global markets, sent ​oil prices soaring, and disrupted trade and travel. The court order was ⁠issued on Wednesday following a request from the Galle Harbour…

Australia has closed its embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv as well ​as its consulate in Dubai, the ‌foreign minister said on Wednesday, amid fears the conflict in the Middle East could intensify. Foreign Minister Penny ​Wong said at least nine cities where ​Australian embassies and consulates are located have ⁠experienced missile and drone attacks. “Iran’s reprisal attacks ​continue at scale and at a depth that ​we have not seen before,” she told parliament. The conflict was “likely to intensify and continue in the near term”, ​she said. “Our missions in Abu Dhabi, Dubai ​and Tel Aviv have all…

 Denis Sassou Nguesso, the 82-year-old president of Republic of Congo, is seeking another five-year term in an election on March 15, aiming to extend his more than four decades in office in ​the oil-rich Central African nation. A former paratrooper, Sassou seized power in 1979 and has ‌governed almost continuously since, except for a five-year hiatus in the 1990s. He faces six opposition candidates in a race he is widely expected to win. The opposition remains fragmented, with established parties boycotting the vote and some prominent potential ​candidates either in prison or in exile. Following are details on his challengers:…

Andrew Veitch left South Africa after being held up at gunpoint in his car. But now he feels there are greater threats in the United States, he said, citing mass shootings in public ​places as well as violence by U.S. immigration officers. “People are being shot in broad daylight. American citizens are being shot and killed,” said the 53-year-old, who moved to California in ‌2003. “I don’t want to live in a place like this.” President Donald Trump’s officials have said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were justified in firing the shots that killed two U.S. citizens in January, although…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forced through the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, seeing him as a more pliant version of his father who would back their hardline policies, bludgeoning aside the concerns of pragmatists, senior Iranian sources said. Already very powerful, the Guards have gained ​yet greater sway since the war began and quickly overcame the misgivings of senior political and clerical figures whose opposition to the choice delayed the announcement by hours, the sources said. Adding ‌to the concerns of those who opposed Khamenei’s installation as supreme leader, he had still issued no statement by Tuesday evening, nearly 48 hours…

At least ​six people died and three were injured in a bus fire in western Switzerland in what police said may have ‌been a deliberate act with one media outlet reporting that a person set fire to themself. Police said the bus became engulfed in flames on Tuesday evening on a road in Kerzers, a town in the canton of Fribourg, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Swiss capital Bern. “At this stage, we have elements suggesting a ​deliberate act by a person who was inside the bus,” said Frederic Papaux, a spokesperson for Fribourg police. Investigators were looking…