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Saturday, April 8, 2017

MTV goes gender neutral for Movie and TV awards

MTV is scrapping male and female categories to make this year's Movie and TV Awards gender neutral.

The revamped awards will no longer be awarding prizes for best actor and best actress as is traditional, but will instead merge men and women in communal categories.

It means Emma Watson will compete with Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy for best actor in a movie at this year's awards, while Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown and Emilia Clarke from Game Of Thrones will go up against The Walking Dead's Jeffrey Dean Morgan for best actor in a show.

Earlier this week, gender non-binary actor Asia Kate Dillon, who was born a woman but does not identify as either male or female, raised the issue of division at award ceremonies.

After being nominated for an Emmy award, the actor wrote to the Television Academy about the issue, asking why it was necessary to "denote anatomy or identity".

Organisers wrote back saying "anyone can submit under either category for any reason", and asked Dillon to choose the preferred category.

The Billions star chose best supporting actor, arguing "actor" is generally seen as a non-gendered word.

The Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Emmys and Baftas all still have have separate categories for men and women, however music awards ceremony the Grammys has always had non-gendered categories.

As well as the gender-free categories, MTV has also introduced five new gongs this year: best American story; tearjerker; best host; best reality competition and best fight against the system, replacing the previous best fight award.

And for the first time, programmes shown on TV and streaming services will also be included in the awards.

Horror comedy Get Out leads the MTV nominations, with six nods in categories including movie of the year and best actor for star Daniel Kaluuya.

Beauty And The Beast and Stranger Things each earned four nominations.

Atlanta, Game Of Thrones and Hidden Figures received three nods, as did Logan, Moonlight and This Is Us.

American comedian Adam Devine will host the MTV Movie and TV Awards in LA on 7 May.

Stockholm terror attack suspect arrested after four deaths

A man has been arrested on suspicion of a "terrorist crime" following a truck attack in Sweden's capital city.

Speaking on behalf of the Swedish Prosecution Authority, Karin Rosander said the person was being questioned "on suspicion of a terrorist crime through murder".

Four people were killed and 15 others were wounded after the hijacked beer truck drove through a crowd before crashing into a department store in central Stockholm on Friday afternoon.

Local officials say eight adults and one child remain in hospital.

On Friday, a photo was a released of a man police wanted to talk to about the attack and just hours later they said a man who "matched the description" had been detained.

Police have said the suspect is "likely" to have been the driver of the hijacked truck.

Swedish media reports that the man held by police is a 39-year-old from Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, the head of Sweden's security agency, Anders Thornberg, said he could not confirm reports explosives were found in the truck.

Speaking of the attack, Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said: "These kinds of actions will never succeed. We know that our enemies are these atrocious murderers and not each other.

"Our message will always be clear: you will not defeat us, you will not govern our lives, you will never, ever win."

Security at Swedish borders has been tightened and flags are to be flown at half mast in a mark of respect to victims.

Sweden's king and queen have cut short a royal visit to Brazil and are expected to return home later on Saturday.

The brewery which owned the truck said a masked hijacker had stolen the vehicle as it made a beer delivery at a tapas restaurant. A spokesman added that the delivery driver was unharmed.

It travelled down Drottninggatan - known in English as Queen Street - where pedestrians doing their shopping were sent running for their lives.

Glen Foran, an Australian tourist, said: "I turned around and saw a big truck coming towards me. It swerved from side to side. It didn't look out of control, it was trying to hit people."

The truck eventually crashed into the pillar of the Ahlens department store, where the bonnet started burning.

Late into the night, forensic police were collecting evidence from the stolen vehicle, which remains at the crash site.

Officers have said there was no indication an attack was imminent and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Friday, April 7, 2017

US threatens more military action against Syria after cruise missile strikes

The US ambassador to the UN has said America is "prepared to do more" militarily in Syria but hopes it will not be necessary.

Speaking at a bad-tempered emergency UN Security Council meeting, Nikki Haley said Syrian President Bashar al Assad felt he could get away with using chemical weapons against his own people "because he knew Russia would have his back".

"That changed last night," she said, referring to US cruise missile strikes on a Syrian government airbase in retaliation for a poison gas attack allegedly by Assad's regime which killed 80 people, including children.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Twitter sues US over anti-Trump account

Twitter is suing the US government after it demanded it reveal the identity of an anti-Trump account.

The @ALT_USCIS profile was an anonymous profile account criticising President Trump’s immigration policy.

The account claimed it was being run by federal employees at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Twitter has requested a court block the Trump administration’s request, calling it a matter of free speech.

The challenge was filed in San Francisco, where the micro-blogging service is based.

"The rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the US Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” the company argued.

It added that the government "may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed".

The move was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We are pleased to see Twitter standing up for its users' rights, and the ACLU will soon be filing documents in court on behalf of this user," the ACLU said in an emailed statement.

"To unmask an anonymous speaker online, the government must have a strong justification. But in this case the government has given no reason at all, leading to concerns that it is simply trying to stifle dissent."
Import law

In January, when Donald Trump became President Trump, several so-called "alternative" accounts for US government services began appearing online.

Most claimed to be authored by current or former employees at those agencies, and they offered harsh criticisms of their new boss.

According to the filing, the government sought to use a power given to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - one typically used to obtain records relating to imported merchandise - to get detailed information on who was behind @ALT_USCIS.

The request asked for "all records regarding the twitter account @ALT_USCIS to conclude, User names, account login, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and I.P addresses".

It demanded Twitter hand over the information by 13 March 2017 - though the company was not actually sent the request until the 14th.

In response, Twitter has told the court that "permitting the CBP to pierce the pseudonym of the @ALT _UCCIS account would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other 'alternative agency' accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies".

The account itself tweeted on Thursday the portion of the US Constitution that protects free speech.
Alternative accounts

The accounts were motivated by the gagging of the official National Parks Service Twitter account which, on the day of President Trump's inauguration, retweeted a picture comparing his crowd size to that of President Obama's inauguration in 2009. It was briefly shut down, before reappearing with an apology for the tweet.

According to press reports at the time, President Trump himself called the head of the National Parks Service to complain.

The furore prompted an apparent "rogue" former employee at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota to commandeer the park's Twitter account to published a variety of statistics and facts relating to climate change.

The tweets were quickly removed and the former worker's access revoked - but not before a flurry of new accounts claiming to be from within agencies appeared.

The veracity of the accounts was hard to verify given the authors insisted on keeping their identities secret in order to protect their jobs.

Duterte orders troops to occupy South China Sea reefs

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered troops to occupy and fortify all Philippine-held islands in the disputed South China Sea to assert its claims amid what he says is a race to control territory.

Duterte made the announcement on Thursday during a televised visit to a military camp on the western island of Palawan, near the disputed Spratly group of islands.


"It looks like everybody is making a grab for the islands there, so we better live on those that are still vacant," he said, adding his country was claiming "nine or 10" Spratly islands, reefs and cays.

"At least, let us get what is ours now and make a strong point there that it is ours."

China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea - despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours - and has rapidly built reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military aircraft.

Duterte also said "bunkers or houses and provisions for habitation" were to be built, but it was unclear how his order can be executed.

Some of the tiny reefs and outcrops would need expensive and logistically difficult reclamation work before structures could be built on them.

The defence department later said nine outcrops "are already in our possession" and occupied by marines, including Thitu island where the Philippine military maintains an air strip.

"The president wants facilities built such as barracks for the men, water [desalination] and sewage disposal systems, power generators, lighthouses, and shelters for fishermen," the department said in a statement.

Duterte has previously sought to improve his nation's relations with China by adopting a non-confrontational approach over their competing claims in the strategically vital waters.

An impeachment complaint has been filed against Duterte that cites, among other things, his alleged failure to protest China's territorial expansion in the South China Sea.

An official at the Chinese embassy in Manila seemed surprised when asked by AFP news agency to comment on Duterte's declaration, but referred questions on the matter to the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing.

The two neighbours are scheduled to hold talks in China in May to tackle issues related to the sea row.

Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have also sparred with Beijing over territory in the disputed waterway.

US President Donald Trump's administration has so far taken a tough stance on China's claims in the South China Sea, insisting it will defend international interests there.

Islamic State says U.S. 'being run by an idiot'

Islamic State said on Tuesday the United States was drowning and "being run by an idiot".

In the first official remarks by the group referring to President Donald Trump since he took office, spokesman Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said:

"America you have drowned and there is no savior, and you have become prey for the soldiers of the caliphate in every part of the earth, you are bankrupt and the signs of your demise are evident to every eye."

"... There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is," he said in a recording released on Tuesday on messaging network Telegram.

Trump has made defeating Islamic State a priority of his presidency.

U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake Islamic State's two biggest cities - Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

"Die of spite America, die of spite, a nation where both young and old are racing to die in the name of God will not be defeated," al-Muhajer said.

Trump is examining ways to accelerate the U.S.-led coalition campaign that U.S. and Iraqi officials say has so far been largely successful in uprooting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The loss of Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, would deal a major defeat to Islamic State.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are preparing for smaller battles after the city is recaptured and expect the group to go underground to fight as a traditional insurgency.

US launches cruise missiles on Syrian air base

The United States has fired dozens of cruise missile strikes at a government-controlled airbase in Syria, in retaliation for what the administration of President Donald Trump charges was a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians.

The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk missiles hit at 3:45am on Friday morning Shayrat airfield in Homs province, from where they believe the Syrian jets that dropped the chemicals on a rebel-held town in Idlib province had taken off.

Donald Trump changing view on Syria's Assad

Syrian state TV also reported a US missile attack on a number of military targets, calling it an "act of aggression."

The strikes, launched from two warships in the Mediterranean Sea, targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.

It was the first direct military action the US has taken against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the six-year war.

READ MORE: Survivors of the Idlib attack share their stories

Syria's opposition National Coalition hailed the US strike, saying it puts an end to an age of "impunity" and should be just the beginning.

The US said initial indications were that the missiles had severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at the airfield.


shayrat map [Al Jazeera]

At least 86 people, including 27 children, were killed after a suspected poison gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province on Tuesday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The attack drew widespread international condemnation and public revulsion, prompting the United Nations to pledge it would investigate it as a possible war crime.

READ MORE: Syria's civil war explained

The Syrian govenment denied carrying out the raid. Russia, a key military ally of the Assad government, has blamed the opposition, saying a government shell hit a building where rebels were producing chemical weapons. The rebels deny this.

"There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council," Trump said.





The Pentagon said that Russia, which has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria since 2015, had been notified ahead of the operation - but US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington had "sought no approval from Moscow".


Earlier on Thursday, Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations warned of "negative consequences" if the US took military action against Syria.

"All responsibility, if military action occurred, will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise," Vladimir Soronkov told reporters in response to questions about possible US strikes.

Turkey said samples from victims of the attack indicate they were exposed to sarin , a highly toxic nerve agent.

"I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity and he [President Bashar al-Assad] is there, and I guess he's running things, so something should happen," Trump had told reporters earlier on Thursday.

Christopher Swift, professor of national security studies at Georgetown University, said the most important question was whether the Trump administration's vision in launching the strikes was "an impulsive one or a strategic one".

How to bring Bashar al-Assad to account? – Inside Story

"It's not clear to me, yet, whether this administration has thought through the implications of the actions they took this evening," he told Al Jazeera.

"If the president has a plan, then it will be interesting to see how that plan comes through. But if he doesn't, he may have done more harm than good."

At the time of the US raid, Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is holding two days of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump said the strike on Syria was in the "vital national security interest" of the US.

Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting Palm Beach, said: "This may be a one-off operation, but it will be quite difficult from now for Trump to get himself out of the argument over the future of Syria, the political future of Assad, the UN talks process in Geneva - the Trump administration is now at the centre of it all."

Syria maintains it did not use chemical weapons, blaming opposition fighters for stockpiling the chemicals.

"I stress, once again, that the Syrian Arab Army did not and will not use such weapons even against the terrorists who are targeting our people," Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters in Damascus on Thursday.