Pakistan said it had lifted a ban on YouTube yesterday after the Web site removed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, adding that an earlier worldwide outage sparked by its actions was unintentional.
Telecommunications officials said that the popular Web site was up and running again in the conservative Muslim nation after YouTube removed "highly profane and sacrilegious footage" that was offensive to Islam.
"We have issued instructions to all Internet service providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific content has been removed by the Web site," Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) spokesman Khurram Mehran told reporters.
YouTube was not immediately available to confirm whether it had removed the material, which the PTA said was controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that were republished by Danish newspapers earlier this month.
Authorities ordered the blocking of the Web site at the weekend in protest at what it said was blasphemous material but the move prompted worldwide problems with access for a few hours.
YouTube said on Monday that an Internet service provider complying with Pakistan's ban on the Web site routed many worldwide users to nowhere for a couple of hours over the weekend.
"This was not intentional and might have happened when an international company, which is routing Internet traffic to Pakistan, tried to block the specific [Web address]," a senior PTA official said.
The ban was only partially effective, with industry officials saying that some Pakistani users were able to access YouTube through at least one major service provider that relies on a foreign-based router.
YouTube earlier said it was working to ensure there could be no repeat of the worldwide problems sparked by Pakistan's actions.
"For about two hours [Sunday], traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous Internet Protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site," YouTube said in a written reply to an AFP inquiry. "We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again."
Internet user Sajid Ali said the ban was unnecessary because Muslims in Pakistan would not want to access blasphemous material anyway.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS