Category World News

At a news conference in Dublin on Friday, Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill stated, “We are all heartbroken as we witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the recent comments of the US president about the widespread expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza. I cannot ignore that,” O’Neill said.

The White House has not been taken lightly when it made the decision to not visit, but it is aware of the obligation that each of us as individuals has to protest injustice.

Mary Lou McDonald, the head of the Sinn Fein party, also made a statement at the press conference, stating that she was unable to travel to Washington “as the threat of mass expulsion hung over the Palestinian people” was on the horizon.

Political leaders from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland typically travel to the US for the March 17th annual celebration of Ireland’s national day.

Trump earlier this month proposed that the US would retake control of the Gaza Strip and permanently relocate its Palestinian residents, sparking outrage worldwide.

Sinn Fein’s decision to stay is put pressure on Prime Minister Micheal Martin, who has not yet been formally invited but is expected to meet Trump at the White House.

One of the most steadfast supporters of the Palestinian cause in the European Union has been Ireland, who has publicly criticised Israel’s actions during the Gaza conflict.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the president of the National Rally (RN) party claimed he was not present when Bannon, one of the organizers behind US President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, allegedly made an apparent fascist gesture.

One of the speakers made an offensive gesture that made allusion to Nazi ideology by making the comment while I was not present in the room yesterday. Therefore, I made the decision to reschedule my speech for this afternoon, according to Bardella in a statement released on Friday.

As his CPAC speech came to an end, Bannon slammed briefly as he urged the audience to “fight, fight, fight” as he suggested Trump could run for a third term under the terms of the Constitution.

Bannon denied making a fascist salute on Friday and said it was a “wave to the crowd” in a French journalist interview.

Bannon claimed that Bardella was a “wimp” if he canceled his appearance because of the gesture in a Le Point interview.

“If he’s that worried about it … then he is unworthy and will never lead France”, Bannon said.

Bannon’s gesture, which was widely criticized as a Nazi salute, resembled one made by tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk last month.

The former Trump strategist and right-wing media executive&nbsp, served a four-month sentence last year for defying a Congressional subpoena to testify about the January 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol.

Bardella, 29, became RN leader in 2022 taking over from Marine Le Pen, and leads the Patriots group in the European Parliament.

Le Pen has remained party leader in parliament. In the previous two presidential elections in France, she finished second, and she is expected to run for president in 2027.

Since taking over from him in 2011, Le Pen has worked hard to make the party her father Jean-Marie co-founded more appealing to voters. In order to expand its voter base, the organization removed members who had been accused of anti-Semitism and appointed the telegenic Bardella.

After President Emmanuel Macron disbanded the lower chamber after Le Pen’s party won the majority in European elections, the RN won a record number of seats in the chamber in snap elections last year.

At a European far-right meeting in Madrid earlier this month, Le Pen adopted the slogan “Make Europe Great Again”, in a nod to Trump’s rallying cry “Make America Great Again”, and hailed Trump’s “tornado” in the US as showing the way forward for the European Union.

After the government reportedly requested that Apple provide backdoor access to any data that users have stored in the cloud, it has announced that it will no longer offer British users advanced data security options.

The iPhone maker announced on Friday that the Advanced Data Protection encryption feature would eventually be disabled for existing users in the United Kingdom.

Advanced Data Protection, which Apple started rolling out at the end of 2022, is an opt-in feature that protects iCloud files, photos, notes and other data with end-to-end encryption when they’re stored in the cloud.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month about the request by British security officials to grant a secret order to the US tech giant to grant them access to fully encrypted material, citing anonymous sources.

Apple “can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection” in the UK, the company said in a statement.

Given the ongoing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy, Apple said, without making any reference to the government demand. “We are gravely disappointed that ADP’s protections will not be available to our customers in the UK.”

According to a report from the Washington Post, the British government gave Apple access under a broad law known as the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, or “snoopers’ charter,” known as a “technical capability notice.”

British spies are legally permitted to hack into devices and access a large volume of online data, much of it coming from abroad. It makes it illegal to reveal that the government has made such demands while also making it a criminal offence to compel businesses to remove encryption to make it possible for electronic eavesdropping.

“We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices”, the UK. Home Office said in a brief statement.

“Reduced security”

Apple did not disclose how many people have used Advanced Data Protection in the UK. Users in the rest of the world would still be able to use the feature, according to the statement.

Some types of data will still be end-to-end encrypted in the UK by default, Apple said, including passwords on the iCloud Keychain, information on the Health app, and communications on services including iMessage and FaceTime.

End-to-end encryption allows only the sender and recipient to see encrypted messages because they have been encrypted at all levels. All they will see is a garble that can’t be unscrambled without the key if someone else intercepts the message.

According to Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, the episode highlights “one of the fundamental flaws in government efforts to undermine encryption.” Companies like Apple typically completely remove security features, according to Chapple, a former computer scientist at the National Security Agency, because they have to make a decision between complying with government regulations and security.

Jenni Hermoso’s attorney said her lawyer will file an appeal against the ruling in the case involving former Spain football team boss Luis Rubiales, who was found guilty of forcing her to kiss the woman’s world-winning player.

“It is her intention” to appeal, lawyer Angel Chavarria said on Friday.

In a case that shocked Spain, the prosecution sought a two-and-a-half year sentence for Rubiales for sexual assault and 18 months for coercion because they allegedly put pressure on the player to downplay the incident afterward.

A judge at Spain’s High Court on Thursday found Rubiales guilty of sexual assault over the kiss and fined him 10, 800 euros ($11, 300), but spared him a prison sentence.

Additionally, he was prohibited from communicating with Hermoso for a year and from traveling within a radius of 200 meters (656 feet).

For allegedly trying to persuade Hermoso to make a public declaration that the kiss was consensual, Rubiales was cleared of coercion.

Rubiales, 47, said after the verdict that he will appeal.

In his ruling, the judge argued that Rubiales had violated Hermoso’s “sexual freedom” without her permission and that kissing a woman on the mouth “is not the normal way of greeting people with whom one has no sentimental relationship.”

At the 2023 Women’s World Cup medal ceremony in Sydney, former Spanish federation chief Rubiales kissed Hermoso on the lips before letting her go with two slaps on the back during the scandal that rocked Spanish football.

Hermoso gave evidence to the court that he was “totally certain” that the kiss would occur as she rose to receive her winner’s medal, which was broadcast live around the world, and that no pressure would be placed on her following the incident.

Rubiales was forced to resign in disgrace as a result of the outcry, which also raised awareness of the prevalence of sexism and macho culture in sport.

Spanish Justice Minister Felix Bolanos hailed Hermoso’s “courage” after the verdict.

“We must all be grateful to Jenni, because she took an initiative, in a very difficult moment, to defend the rights and freedom of women and to emphasise that this society, our Spanish society, no longer allows any type of abuse, no longer admits any type of sexual assault”, he said.

“One thing is clear: a non-consensual kiss is sexual assault, period”, he added.

Rubiales’ appeal against his suspension from football was dismissed on Friday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport claiming that his actions “constituted numerous and serious violations of the FIFA Disciplinary Code.”

The highest court in global sport added, “it saw no reason to consider the sanction to be disproportionate”.

In response to the kiss on Hermoso, FIFA, the world’s governing body, had banned Rubiales from all football-related activities for three years in October 2023.