News in Brief

Date: 02 October 2021 - 22:20

News ID: ۹۵۰۸۹

MANILA (AFP) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Saturday he will not run for vice president in 2022 and will retire from politics, potentially paving the way for his daughter to contest the country’s highest office. Duterte, who polls show remains almost as popular as when he was swept to victory in 2016 on a promise to rid the country of drugs, is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term as leader. “The overwhelming... sentiment of the Filipinos is that I am not qualified and it would be a violation of the constitution to circumvent the law, the spirit of the constitution” to run for the vice presidency, Duterte, 76, said. “Today I announce my retirement from politics.” The firebrand declared in August he would contest the country’s second-highest office in the May election.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers have fired a barrage of criticism at a top Facebook executive on how its Instagram photo-sharing platform impacts teens’ mental health, but Facebook has instead offered assurances that the sites are safe. “This research is a bombshell. It is powerful, gripping, riveting evidence that Facebook knows of the harmful effects of its site on children, and that it has concealed those facts and findings,” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. Davis testified to the U.S. Senate Committee that a Wall Street Journal series — based on internal research leaked by a whistleblower at Facebook — had selectively chosen parts of its studies to give an inaccurately dark vision of the company’s work. She reportedly defended Instagram’s efforts to protect young people, and presented a survey to lawmakers that indicated Instagram as being generally helpful to teens suffering from serious issues like anxiety, sadness and eating disorders. The lawmakers accused Facebook of concealing the findings which reported evidence that the company is aware of the platform’s negative impact on mental health. A Facebook whistleblower is set to testify before senators on Tuesday.

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TBILISI (AP) – Georgians voted in municipal elections across the country on Saturday that are seen as a test for the strength of the ruling party and which opposition parties hope could lead to an early national election. The vote came a day after the arrest of exiled former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who had returned to the country to try to bolster opposition support despite facing prison on convictions for abuse of power that were declared after he left Georgia. Opinion polls showed more than half the electorate in the former Soviet republic were undecided ahead of the election in which the ruling Georgian Dream party and the United National Movement founded by Saakashvili are the main contenders. A strong performance by the opposition could raise tensions if Georgians expect that to bring an early national election.

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TRIPOLI (AP) – A major crackdown in western Libya has resulted in the detention of 4,000 migrants, including hundreds of women and children, according to officials. The raids took place on Friday in the western town of Gargaresh as part of what authorities described as a security campaign against undocumented migration and drug trafficking. The interior ministry, which led the crackdown, made no mention of any traffickers or smugglers being arrested. Officials said that 500 undocumented migrants had been detained but on Saturday reported that number had reached 4,000. Gargaresh, a known hub for migrants and refugees, is about 12km (7.5 miles) west of the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The town has seen several waves of raids on migrants over the years, but the latest one was described by activists as the fiercest so far. “We are hearing that more than 500 migrants including women and children have been rounded up, arbitrarily detained and are at risk of abuse and ill-treatment,” said Dax Roque, Libya’s director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, in a statement. “Migrants and refugees in Libya, particularly those without legal residency in the country, are often at risk of arbitrary detention. Torture, sexual violence, and extortion [are] rampant in Libyan detention centres,” the statement added. Pictures posted by the interior ministry showed dozens of migrants sitting with hands cuffed behind them or being taken away in vehicles.

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TUNIS (MEMO) – Speaker of Tunisian Parliament Rached Ghannouchi has declared the resumption of parliamentary sessions, urging lawmakers to resume work, news agencies reported on Friday. Ghannouchi defied President Kais Saied’s suspension of Parliament and called in a statement for the resumption of Parliament’s work. “The office of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People is in permanent session,” Ghannouchi announced in a tweet. The Parliament speaker said he rejected the “unconstitutional activation of Article 80” by Saied and considered all his decisions related to the suspension of Parliament and its committees “null”. According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, he asserted that: “Decision 117, through which Saied suspended the Tunisian Constitution, was a theft of the power of Parliament and bringing all authorities in that hands of only one man,” stressing that this goes against democratic values. He called for Saied to “backtrack” from his decrees, stop the suspension of Parliament and launch a national dialogue to look for an exit from the current: “Dangerous crisis that threatens the stability of the state and unity of people.”