IRAN
Journalist’s death ordered
A journalist whose online work helped inspire nationwide economic protests in 2017 was yesterday sentenced to death. Ruhollah Zam had run a Web site called AmadNews that posted embarrassing videos and information about Iranian officials. “The court has considered 13 counts of charges together as instances of ‘corruption on earth’ and therefore passed the death sentence,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the arrest of Zam in October last year, describing him as a “counter-revolutionary” who was “directed by France’s intelligence service.” “Corruption on earth” is one of the most serious offenses under Iranian law.
GERMANY
Pedophile ring may be huge
Authorities on Monday said that they have evidence that tens of thousands of people might have been involved with an online child sex abuse network uncovered last year. Allegations against members of the pedophile ring include possession and distribution of child sex abuse images, and serious abuse, said Peter Biesenbach, minister of justice of North Rhine-Westphalia state. “I didn’t expect, not in the slightest, the extent of child abuse on the net,” Biesenbach told reporters, adding that specialist investigators have so far counted “more than — and I hope you’re sitting down — 30,000 unknown suspected perpetrators.” Officials later added that members of the network might have used several pseudonyms, reducing the actual number of suspects. Seventy-two suspects from across Germany have been identified. Ten people have been arrested and eight people have been indicted.
FRANCE
Ex-PM and wife sentenced
Former prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife, Penelope Fillon, were on Monday found guilty of embezzling more than 1 million euros (US$1.12 million) in a scandal over a fake advisory job that left his ambitions of becoming president in tatters. Francois Fillon was given a five-year jail term, of which three are suspended. His wife got a three-year suspended prison sentence. Francois Fillon “contributed to erosion of the trust that citizens place in those they elect,” presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said. Investigators have said that Penelope Fillon never set foot in the National Assembly despite being paid as a full-time aide. She had no timetable, no work computer, mobile phone or e-mail address linked to the job, but her salary averaged US$140,000 a year for a time.
UNITED KINGDOM
Leicester in lockdown
A stringent lockdown has been imposed on the city of Leicester after a local flare-up of COVID-19 just as Prime Minister Boris Johnson attempts to nudge the country back to normality. The UK has been one of the world’s worst-hit areas, with more than 54,000 suspected deaths, although infections have been waning in the past few weeks. However, in Leicester, in the eastern Midlands of England, the seven-day infection rate was 135 cases per 100,000 people, three times higher than the next highest city. Leicester accounted for 10 percent of all positive cases in England in the past week, the government said. “We will be bringing forward a legal change very shortly, in the next couple of days, because some of the measures that we’ve unfortunately had to take in Leicester will require a legal underpinning,” British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock told Sky.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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