http://www.newsbharati.com/ Russia in Syria- Airstrikes on rebel Oil Tankers & Positions in Idlib.
Rights Group Says Russia May Have ‘Directly Attacked Civilians’ in Syria A new human rights report said at least 200 civilians have been killed by Russian airstrikes in Syria over a two-month period, and it suggested Moscow had in some cases specifically targeted noncombatants. The report, issued Wednesday by Amnesty International after a review of 25 attacks in Syria from September to November, also said the group found evidence that Russia had used cluster munitions, which could be a violation of international law. “In some attacks, the Russian armed forces appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military objective and even medical facilities,” the report said. A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry called the Amnesty report “totally deceitful.” “It is all assumptions and no evidence,” the ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said in remarks reported by the Interfax news agency. Continue reading the main story President Bashar al-Assad of Syria with his wife, Asma, ata Christmas choral presentation at a church in Damascus on Friday.News Analysis: Syrian Peace Plan Offers Some Hope, but Has Plenty of PitfallsDEC. 19, 2015 Medics treated victims in a field hospital last weekend after what activists said were air and missile strikes in Damascus, Syria.After Years of War in Syria, U.N. Passes Resolution on TalksDEC. 18, 2015 Open Source: Syrian Families Look Through Photos of the Dead for Relatives Lost in Government CustodyDEC. 16, 2015 Vladimir V. Putin, right, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, left, and Secretary of State John Kerry met Tuesday night in Moscow.News Analysis: Putin Gambit Over Syria Proves to Be Dual-Edged SwordDEC. 15, 2015 Russia began airstrikes in coordination with Syrian government forces on Sept. 30, saying it was targeting militants with the State and other terrorists — though there is still no agreement among countries participating in strikes in Syria, including Russia and the United States, on which groups should carry that designation. The United States has said most Russian airstrikes have hit groups other than the State. The report highlighted six airstrikes in northwestern Syria in October and November, conducting telephone and Internet interviews with witnesses, human rights and medical groups, and analyzing video and photos from the ground. Five of the attacks reviewed hit residential areas and one struck “in the immediate vicinity” of a hospital, according to the report. The attacks took place in the areas of Homs, Idlib and Aleppo. To develop the list of suspected Russian airstrikes, the authors of the Amnesty report cross-referenced information from interviews and video footage from Syria with statements from the Russian government about targets it said it had struck. The Syrian government and coalition forces led by the United States are also conducting airstrikes in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that tracks the conflict through contacts in Syria, says 260 civilians have been killed in coalition strikes. The White House has said that coalition forces are trying to avoid harming civilians while conducting strikes against militants. A Human Rights Watch report released this week also found evidence that the use of cluster munitions in Syria had increased since the start of the Russian air campaign. Neither Russia nor the United States are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. General Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said Amnesty International could not know whether or not there were military targets in a given area in Syria because its staff members were not present there. Few international groups operate in Syria for fear their staff members could be injured, killed or kidnapped. “They could not know it, nor could they verify it,” he said, according to Interfax. “What is known is that jihadists operate in Syria as highly mobile forces which use the infamous Toyota pickup trucks with mounted large-caliber weapons.” Toyota pickup trucks feature prominently in several State propaganda videos from Iraq, Syria and Libya. In October, ABC News reported that American counterterrorism officials had asked the Toyota company to look into how so many of its pickups appeared to have fallen into the hands of militants. The automaker said it was cooperating with the inquiry but could not track each vehicle after it was sold.
Everything About Kim Dotcom of Megaupload After bitter three years U.S. Justice Dept might get its man. Its man, in this case, is the notorious owner of online storage locker Megaupload, Kim Dotcom. On Tuesday, a New Zealand judge said that Dotcom could be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for a series of criminal charges including copyright infringement, racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. Dotcom has been in New Zealand fighting his extradition for three years since U.S. agents and New Zealand police officers burst into his New Zealand mansion in 2012 and cut through locks to get to Dotcom, who was in his secured panic room. The arrest included dozens of agents and two police helicopters. The agents seized 18 luxury vehicles, 150 terabytes of data, NZ$11 million in cash while arresting Dotcom and three other men. At that time, Megaupload was one of the largest online storage lockers, and according to Ars Technica, consumed more bandwidth on corporate networks than Box or even Dropbox. Yet, the company also appeared to follow many of the regular industry practices related to taking down infringing content when publishers requested it through what are known as takedown notices. However, in the indictment, the U.S. government accused Megaupload of having a “veneer of legality” that hid the fact that the company knew that its customers shared pirated files. The authorities even found emails from Megaupload employees that indicated they too searched for pirated content on the site. The government accused the company of generating more than $175 million through illegal activities. The world reacted to the raid with surprise. For one, it felt like overkill to send helicopters after Dotcom, but two, the world of file sharing and pirating content was changing rapidly. Thanks to streaming services like Spotify, Rdio and others on the music side, going legit was often easier than wading through torrents or surfing the dark web. Meanwhile for movies and TV shows, people could sign up for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon’s Prime TV, or pay to watch individual videos through iTunes. There’s also options that let people stream content where they wanted and when they wanted. Borrowing a password to your parent’s cable network was a lot easier than trying to find last night’s Breaking Bad episode on Megaupload or BitTorrent. Yet, industry trade groups like the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, both of which have also sued Dotcom in civil court, were still fighting copyright infringement as the Internet continued to threaten their business models. They also were behind the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) which worried tech industry and privacy advocates. The raid on Dotcom’s house came one day after several large sites on the web went dark to protest the possible passage of these laws. They didn’t pass. In the month leading up to the Megaupload shut down, the recording industry was doubly incensed because of a video Dotcom uploaded to the Internet that suggested that his company received 4% of overall web traffic daily. It featured cameos from Kanye West, Will.i.am, Serena Williams and Jamie Foxx. Thus in terms of the timing and even in terms of the legal arguments, the U.S. government’s attack on the website felt like it was acting as an arm of the recording industry and Hollywood. Why else go so heavy and so hard against Megaupload, with a case that to some experts seemed overblown. The U.S. has lost a few skirmishes since the case began, such as having its raid declared illegal. Authorities had to give back the hard drives it seized as well as some of the property, including some of the luxury cars. It also has been forced to watch as Dotcom started another file sharing service in 2013, this one called Mega, which now also offers encrypted chat. Meanwhile, the Internet moves on, and arguably the biggest threat to the music industry isn’t piracy anymore. Rather it is figuring out how to make money in a world where selling single songs are the business model instead of selling entire albums. As for movies, piracy is still an issue. But a bigger challenge is creating films that get people into theaters.
Delhi/ Moscow- Red-carpet reception to Narendra Modi at Vnukovo airport Moscow, PM Narendra Modi directly met President Putin over private dinner. PM Modi is in capital Moscow as a part of his two-day official visit which is part of bilateral annual Russian-India summit. It will experience signing of mammoth defense deals, strengthening economic ties and terrorism.
PM Modi after meeting Putin tweeted, "I Met Mr Putin and talked about India-Russia bilateral ties. It was fruitful meeting."
Variety of pacts in defense as well as nuclear energy are expected to chalked out. Russia was India's biggest arms supplier, though India started purchasing more arms and military hardware from Americans over last 10 years.
