Month: September 2022

Among those reported killed is a 16-year-old boy, shot dead when security forces opened fire on protesters.

The unrest has spread to more than 20 major cities, including the capital Tehran.

Videos posted online from Wednesday’s unrest showed women waving their headscarves in the air or burning them.

“No to the headscarf, no to the turban, yes to freedom and equality!” protesters were heard chanting at a demonstration in Tehran.

In an address to the UN General Assembly, US President Joe Biden said Americans stood with “the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights”.

He spoke after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi rejected calls from Western powers to respect women’s rights.

The hard-line Shia Muslim cleric accused them of “double standards”, citing the discovery of unmarked graves of indigenous children in Canada and the treatment of the Palestinian people.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the north-western city of Saqez, died in hospital on Friday, after spending three days in a coma.

She was visiting the capital Tehran with her family when she was arrested by morality police, who accused her of violating the law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab and their arms and legs with loose clothing. She collapsed after being taken to a detention centre to be “educated”.

There are reports that officers beat Ms Amini’s head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles.

The police have denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered “sudden heart failure”. But her family has said she was fit and healthy.

Acting UN human rights chief Nada al-Nashif called on Tuesday for prompt, independent and impartial investigation into Ms Amini’s death.

She noted that her office had received “numerous, and verified, videos of violent treatment of women” by morality police, who have stepped up their enforcement of hijab rules in recent months.

Ms Nashif also expressed alarm at “the reported unnecessary or disproportionate use of force” against the thousands of people who have taken in part in protests since Mahsa Amini died.

The death toll comes from Kurdish rights groups, who blamed security forces.

There has been no confirmation of the deaths from the authorities, but a prosecutor told the Tasnim news agency that two people were killed by “anti-revolutionary elements” on Tuesday.

The state-run Irna news agency said a police assistant died of injuries he sustained in violent clashes with protesters in Shiraz on Tuesday.

Internet-monitoring group NetBlocks meanwhile reported that access to Instagram, one of the last available social media platforms in Iran and one used by people to circulate pictures and footage of the protests, had been restricted. The internet service has already been disrupted in Kurdistan province, Tehran and other parts of the country for several days.

All lanes were closed after the semi-trailer carrying the beer crashed into trucks parked on the side of the road.

Photos taken at the scene by the Florida Highway Patrol show so many spilled beer boxes and cans, the road can barely be seen.

Only minor injuries were reported, state troopers said.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, two semi-trailers crashed on the busy highway on Wednesday morning and pulled over.

Two more semi-trailers pulled over to help, as well as a pickup truck.

A fifth semi-trailer – the one carrying the beer – failed to stop in time and crashed into the parked vehicles.

As well as the beer, concrete being transported by one of the lorries also spilled all over the road.

The highway was eventually reopened some hours later.

It alleges that they lied “by billions” about the value of real estate in order to get loans and pay less tax.

Prosecutors say the Trump Organization committed numerous acts of fraud between 2011-21.

Mr Trump has dismissed the lawsuit as “another witch hunt”.

The former president’s eldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump, were also named as defendants alongside two executives at the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney.

The lawsuit has been brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is the state’s most senior lawyer, after a three-year civil investigation.

Her office does not have the power to file criminal charges, but is referring allegations of criminal wrongdoing to federal prosecutors and to the Internal Revenue Service.

“With the help of his children and senior executives at the Trump Organization, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and cheat the system,” Ms James said in a statement.

She said Mr Trump’s own apartment in Trump Tower, which was valued at $327m (£288m), was among the properties whose values were allegedly misrepresented.

“No apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount,” Ms James added.

Here’s a look at what the 222-page document alleges:

“White collar financial crime is not a victimless crime,” the attorney general said.

“When the well-connected break the law to take in more money than they are entitled to, it reduces resources available to working people, to regular people, to small businesses and to all tax payers.”

Ms James is asking a court to bar the former president and his children from serving as officers or directors in any New York business.

She also wants the Trump Organization banned from engaging in real estate transactions there for five years.

The announcement comes after Ms James – a Democrat who is running for re-election in November – rejected at least one offer to settle the long-running civil investigation into the company’s business practices.

Blasting the lawsuit on his Truth Social site, Mr Trump branded Ms James, who is black, a racist.

“Another Witch Hunt by a racist Attorney General, Letitia James, who failed in her run for Governor, getting almost zero support from the public,” he wrote.

The Trumps have previously accused Ms James of pursuing a political vendetta, citing remarks she made before being elected as attorney general in 2018 in which she vowed to sue Mr Trump and branded him an “illegitimate president”.

On Twitter, Donald Trump Jr accused Ms James of “weaponising her office to go after her political opponents”.

While Mr Trump is not on the ballot in November’s midterm elections, he remains the dominant force in the Republican Party – and is stoking speculation about another run for the White House in 2024.

In August Mr Trump declined to answer questions during an interview at the attorney general’s office connected to this civil investigation. Ms James said he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not self-incriminate, confirming only his name.

Ms James said that Eric Trump did the same more than 500 times in a 2020 deposition.

Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former prosecutor who worked on a separate case against Trump University, told the BBC that the lawsuit could take a year to go to trial.

But the potential of such a trial could severely restrict Mr Trump’s ability to do business in New York and profit from his marquee real estate holdings in New York City. It could trigger a series of financial consequences that would make it harder for him to raise capital and maintain credit, Snell said.

“It definitely could be ruinous for him,” Snell said.

The lawsuit lists some of the most well-known Trump properties:

Prosecutors allege that the value of an apartment Trump had in Trump Tower in New York was listed at $327m after its “wildly overstated” size was tripled and given an “unreasonable” price per square foot. The record sale in the entire tower was $16.5m.

The Mar-a-Lago club in Florida was valued as high as $739m by the Trump Organization. The attorney general’s office alleges the real value was closer to $75m and that it generated less than $25m per year.

Ms James’s announcement that she would pass the findings of her investigation to other law enforcement agencies was “an ominous signal” for Mr Trump, according to Miriam Baer, vice-dean at Brooklyn Law School.

“The New York attorney general went one step further today,” she told the BBC. “It announced that in addition to filing this civil complaint, it was also making a referral to federal law enforcement authorities for a criminal investigation.”

The lawsuit is one of a number of legal issues the former president is facing.

On 8 August, the FBI conducted a search warrant at his home in Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into his handling of classified records. He is also being investigated in Georgia in relation to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

He has also denied any wrongdoing in those investigations.

In a separate legal setback for Mr Trump, a federal appeals court ruled that the justice department can resume reviewing classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago last month.

Federal investigators had been ordered by another judge to freeze their probe while a court-appointed official decides if any of the records should be private.

But Wednesday’s decision reactivates the FBI inquiry into whether Mr Trump withheld US national secrets after leaving office.

Mr Putin called the mobilisation a necessary step to protect Russia’s territorial integrity.

No 10 condemned Russia’s “reprehensible actions” and said the UK would continue to support Ukraine.

Prime Minister Liz Truss vowed to stand up for freedom in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.

On her first foreign trip as prime minister, Ms Truss argued that democratic nations should prioritise economic growth and security in a new era of strategic competition.

She also used her speech on Thursday to rally support for Ukraine and highlight the threat from authoritarian states such as Russia and China.

Ms Truss said: “The Ukrainians aren’t just defending their own country, they’re defending our values and the security of the whole world. That’s why we must act.”

The prime minister also pledged to “sustain or increase” the military support to Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, telling the assembled UN delegates that “we will not rest until Ukraine prevails”.

“The time to act is now. This is a decisive moment in our history, in the history of this organisation and the history of freedom.”

Earlier this week, the government said it would match or exceed the £2.3bn support given to Ukraine’s “inspirational” troops since Mr Putin’s forces invaded the country in February.

On Wednesday, a No 10 spokeswoman said: “Putin’s speech and his move to mobilise the Russian population are a clear admission that his invasion is failing.

“The UK alongside our international partners stand united in condemning the Russian government’s reprehensible actions.”

Downing Street said US President Joe Biden and Ms Truss both “condemned Putin’s recent belligerent statements on Ukraine” when they held their first one-on-one meeting at the UN summit.

“They agreed his actions highlight the need for allies to continue their economic and military support to Ukraine,” a read-out of the meeting said.

Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska and prime minister Denys Shmyal were among the foreign leaders Ms Truss has already met in New York.

Ms Truss’s pledge to support Ukraine in the long term echoes a key policy plank of the previous UK government led by her predecessor, Boris Johnson.

In a previous speech, when Ms Truss was foreign secretary, the prime minister said Russian forces must be pushed out of “the whole of Ukraine”.

On Tuesday, Ms Truss said “we are facing incredibly tough economic times” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic “pushed up energy prices”, but she said higher fuel bills were “a price worth paying” for the UK’s long-term security.

In her UN speech, Ms Truss called on democracies “to harness the power of co-operation seen since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to constrain authoritarianism”.

In a meeting ahead of her speech, Ms Truss and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen agreed that Mr Putin’s mobilisation of reservists was a “statement of weakness”.

As the motorcades of innumerable world leaders clog the streets of Manhattan, in the corridors of the United Nations the war in Ukraine shapes every conversation.

This international crisis has profound and obvious domestic implications that have forced the government to act to help businesses as well as households.

Ms Truss’s address to the UN here and what amounts to a Budget in all but formal title on Friday offers the clearest picture yet of her new government’s worldview and strategy – and it is shaped by the war.

The prime minister said the “free world”, as she put it, must prioritise economic growth so it is “no longer strategically dependent on those who seek to weaponise the global economy”.

Hence, a desire to boost defence spending, and a commitment to turbocharge the economy, with tax cuts the preferred fuel.

Mr Putin accused the West of wanting to destroy Russia and stressed he would use “all available means” to protect its territory.

“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can also turn in their direction,” President Putin added.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild media group, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he did not think Mr Putin would resort to nuclear weapons.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the call-up as “an act of desperation” in a “criminal war” he said Russia could not win.

The chief of the Nato alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, lambasted Mr Putin’s “dangerous and reckless” rhetoric but said his words were not new or surprising.

“He knows very well that a nuclear war should never be fought and cannot be won, and it will have unprecedented consequences for Russia,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

But a former adviser to President Putin, political scientist Sergei Markov, accused Western leaders such as Ms Truss of being aggressors, not Russia.

When asked if President Putin could use nuclear weapons against Western nations such as the UK, Mr Markov told the BBC the situation could arise if the “Prime Minister of Great Britain Liz Truss still has plans to destroy Russia”.

Mr Putin’s escalation followed a sweeping counter-offensive by Ukraine in the country’s north-east in the past weeks, with its forces retaking hundreds of towns and villages that had been controlled by Russia for months.

A British defence intelligence update suggested Mr Putin was being forced to undermine his own public position that the war in Ukraine was a “special military operation” rather than a full-scale conflict.

“These new measures have highly likely been brought forwards due to public criticism and mark a further development in Russia’s strategy,” the Ministry of Defence said.

Meanwhile, Western nations have condemned Moscow’s plans to hold so-called referendums in parts of Ukraine that are currently under Russian control.