News in Brief

Date: 18 June 2022 - 21:29

News ID: ۱۰۳۸۰۵

ST LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - The Biden administration’s plan to sell four large, armable drones to Ukraine has been paused on the fear its sophisticated surveillance equipment might fall into enemy hands, according to two people familiar with the matter. The technical objection to the sale was raised during a deeper review by the Pentagon’s Defense Technology Security Administration charged with keeping high value technology safe from enemy hands. Previously the plan, which has been circulating since March, had been approved by the White House, three people said. The plan to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia was first reported by Reuters earlier in June.

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BERLIN (AP) — The German Green party, which is part of the country’s governing coalition, says its IT system was hit by a cyberattack last month that affected email accounts belonging to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck. The party confirmed a report Saturday by German weekly Der Spiegel, but said the two hadn’t actively used their party accounts since January.

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BHUBANESHWAR/LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Protesters in India’s eastern state of Bihar damaged public property and ransacked offices in a railway station on Saturday, expressing outrage at a new military recruitment plan and demanding the government reverse course. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has introduced a scheme called Agnipath or “path of fire” designed to bring more people into the military on four-year contracts to lower the average age of India’s 1.38 million-strong armed forces

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LONDON (The Guardian) - Canadian police said they arrested a 92-year-old retired priest for a sexual assault more than 50 years ago at one of Canada’s residential schools for Indigenous children. Sgt Paul Manaigre of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Friday that police arrested retired Father Arthur Masse for the assault. Manaigre said the victim was 10 years old at the time and it happened between 1968 and 1970 at Ford Alexander residential school in Manitoba.

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QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Militants attacked a road construction labor camp in southwestern Baluchistan province overnight killing three workers and wounding five others, officials said Saturday. The assailants late Friday opened fire on the camp, burned vehicles and destroyed machinery in a mountainous part of the district of Harnai, said Farah Azeem Shah, spokesperson for the Baluchistan provincial government. She said the camp was part of a local company working on a road construction project.