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Twitter bans account linked to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei
Twitter permanently banned an account believed to be linked to Iran's supreme leader Friday after it posted a threatening image that included former President Donald Trump, NPR reported.
According to The Associated Press, the account, @khamenei_site, was linked to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's website and the same account had previously posted portions of Khamenei's speeches and official content.
However, a Twitter spokesperson told the AP that the account was fake, without elaborating on how it determined that.
The image that resulted in the ban, Trump playing golf in the shadow of what appears to be an aircraft, is captioned "Revenge is certain," written in Farsi.
The same image can be found on Khamenei's English website. Below the picture is a quote from Khamenei from last month: "Soleimani's murderers and those who ordered his murder must face revenge. ... Both the murderers and those who ordered it should know that revenge may come at any time."
Trump and other administration officials have said the US targeted Qassem Soleimani — a powerful Iranian general and a key strategist against the U.S. — who was killed in an airstrike last year.
Trump's social media presence was all but silenced after he was accused of inciting violence at the US Capitol on January 6. As a result, both Twitter and Facebook moved to ban him permanently from their platforms.
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," a Twitter statement said.
Trump was also banned from the @POTUS account for the last days of his term and from his reelection campaign account.
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Saudi Arabia executed 101 people, including three Afghans this year
The European-Saudi Human Rights Organization in Berlin condemned the executions and said this was three times higher then last year
Saudi Arabia has executed 101 foreign nationals this year, including three Afghan citizens.
AFP reported that 21 Pakistanis, 20 Yemenis, 14 Syrians, 10 Nigerians, nine Egyptians, eight Jordanians, seven Ethiopians, three Sudanese, three Indians, three Afghans and one Sri Lankan, one Eritrean and one Filipino.
The European-Saudi Human Rights Organization in Berlin condemned the executions and said this was three times higher then last year.
The organization’s legal director stated: “This is the largest number of foreign nationals executed in a single year. Saudi Arabia has never executed 100 foreign nationals in one year before.”
Amnesty International meanwhile stated that Saudi Arabia was the third highest country for the number of executions in 2023, after China and Iran.
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Canada sent 19 failed asylum seekers back to Afghanistan last year
Canada's border guards sent 19 rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to the country last year despite Otawa’s Temporary Suspension of Removals (TSR) that has been in place for Afghan nationals since 1994.
CBC reported that none of the 19 Afghans had their cases rejected on the basis of safety or security risks. The border service did not however reveal further details.
The border agency said a TSR is meant to "halt removals to a country or place when general conditions, such as armed conflict or an environmental disaster, pose a risk to the entire civilian population."
It also said individuals who were found inadmissible "on grounds of criminality, serious criminality, international or human rights violations, organized crime, or security" can be removed despite a TSR, CBC reported.
The CBSA said the 19 who failed their refugee claims left Canada "voluntarily," and that the Afghans were "aware that they benefit from a stay of removal due to the Temporary Suspension of Removal on Afghanistan but requested to have their removal order enforced despite the legislative stay.
"In other words, the individual was advised that they can remain in Canada until the TSR is lifted and they opted to return to Afghanistan."
Canada has welcomed some 54,000 Afghans since August 2021, surpassing a commitment it made to bring in 40,000 in 2021.
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Trump team compiling list of military officers responsible for US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Trump has on a number of occasions condemned the withdrawal as a “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”
Citing a US official and a person familiar with the plan, NBC stated a commission would then gather information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason.
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