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For many homeless people, finding shelter sometimes isn’t nearly as important as finding a meal. Providing food is the main mission of Manna House, a charity organization, where homeless and underprivileged people get breakfast and other services for free. Nilofar Mughal is giving a view from the inside of Manna House located in Baltimore in the state of Maryland.
From: MeNeedIt
Tens of thousands of people from across Senegal converged on the capital Dakar on Friday for the inauguration of a huge mosque, claimed to be the largest in West Africa.
Muslim faithful arrived by bus, car or on foot in the poor district of Bopp, home to the new Massalikul Jinaan mosque, capable of hosting 30,000 worshippers.
The mosque has been built by the Mouride Brotherhood — part of the Sufi strand of Islam that predominates in Senegal, a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance.
Huge traffic jams several kilometers (miles) long built up on highways leading to the site, where some people had starting camping out two days before the long-awaited ceremonies.
Work on the mosque began a decade ago on a swampy six-hectare (14-acre) area of land donated by the government of the 90-percent Muslim nation, and the inauguration has been preceded by an outpouring of national and religious fervour.
The mosque’s name of Massalikul Jinaan (“The Paths to Paradise”) comes from the title of a poem by Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, the 19th-century founder of the Brotherhood, who is revered by followers as a saint.
With a Carrara marble exterior and boasting five minarets — the tallest 78 meter (255 feet) high — the mosque has a capacity of 15,000 worshippers inside, and another 15,000 on an outside esplanade.
The lavish interiors include a gold-leaf dome, giant chandeliers and decorations hand drawn by Moroccan workmen. An Islamic institute, residence and museum are scheduled to be added in the future.
The builders say the mosque is the biggest in West Africa, although the edifice is dwarfed by mosques in the Arab world. In Morocco, the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca can accommodate 105,000 worshippers and has a minaret spiraling 210 meters.
The cost of more than 30 million euros ($33 million) came from private donations, while the government contributed lighting, sanitation and roadworks worth 10.5 million euros as well as the land — a sign of the Brotherhood’s clout.
The group’s leader, Mountakha Mbacke, received a stream of religious, traditional and political leaders in the runup to the inauguration, and the ceremonies were to be attended by President Macky Sall.
The Mourides are one of four important Sufi brotherhoods followed by Senegal’s Muslims, who overwhelmingly practice a moderate version of Islam while following the teachings of local spiritual guides.
From: MeNeedIt
The United States offered to remove all sanctions on Iran in exchange for talks, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday upon returning to Tehran from the United Nations General Assembly in New York, according to his official website.
“The German chancellor, the prime minister of England (Britain) and the president of France were in New York and all insisted that this meeting take place. And America says that I will lift the sanctions,” Rouhani said. “It was up for debate what sanctions will be lifted and they had said clearly that we will lift all sanctions.”
He added: “But this action wasn’t in a manner that was acceptable, meaning that in the atmosphere of sanctions and the existence of sanctions and the toxic atmosphere of maximum pressure, even if we want to negotiate with the Americans in the 5+1 framework, no one can predict what the end and result of this negotiation will be.”
From: MeNeedIt
Egyptian security forces completely sealed off Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the so-called Arab Spring uprising in 2011, to prevent possible protests on Friday against the country’s president.
The closures come amid a harsh security clampdown following rare demonstrations in several cities last weekend, all of which were broken up by police. Lawyers say over 2,000 people have been arrested since then. Egypt’s general prosecutor claims his office has questioned no more than 1,000 people over the latest protests
Street demonstrations have been almost completely silenced the past years by draconian measures imposed under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, a former general.
The demonstrations erupted over corruption allegations earlier this month against the military and el-Sissi by an Egyptian businessman living in self-imposed exile. El-Sissi warned Friday against “deceitful” attempts to discredit his rule.
Riot police had barricaded streets and bridges leading into Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands had gathered in 2011 to demand the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. Several nearby subway stations were closed for alleged maintenance.
The government effectively banned all public protests in 2013, shortly after el-Sissi led the military’s overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president.
Earlier this month, Mohamed Ali, the self-exiled contractor who said he had worked with the military for 15 years, posted inflammatory videos accusing the president and some military commanders of misuse of public funds to build presidential palaces and a tomb for the president’s mother. Ali has renewed his call for Egyptians to take to the streets Friday, the first day of the weekend.
El-Sissi arrived Friday morning to Cairo from New York, where he had been attending the U.N. General Assembly at the time the protests broke out. “It is all based on lies, distortion and fabrication. You should be aware of that,” el-Sissi said upon his arrival at Cairo airport. Hundreds of his supporters rallied to greet him, raising his picture and waving Egyptian flags.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that Egypt’s authorities should respect the right of peaceful assembly by allowing protests, and should release all those arrested.
“The nationwide crackdown on protests suggests that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi is terrified of Egyptians’ criticisms,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director.
From: MeNeedIt
Dengue fever is spreading rapidly across Central America, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday.
“The size of this outbreak is unprecedented across Central America,” said Dr. Maria Frana Tallarico, head of health of IFRC’s regional office for the Americas.
Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica are reporting “massive increases in dengue cases compared to previous years,” the IFRC said.
More than 71,200 people in Honduras have been affected by the mosquito-borne viral disease.
Seasonal rains and high temperatures have created stagnant pools that are “perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” according to IFRC.
What is alarming about the disease in Honduras, however, is that 65 percent of the 128 deaths thus far are children under 15 years-old.
“This is due to a lack of immunity in young people to to the deadliest of the four strains of dengue currently circulating in the region,” says Tallarico.
IFRC says it is “scaling up” emergency assistance to help countries contain the disease, including teams of IFRC volunteers who are going door-to-door to raise awareness about the disease and how to prevent its spread.
From: MeNeedIt
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged the United States on Thursday to “cease this policy of maximum pressure” in favor of “dialogue, and logic and reason.”
Rouhani’s comments came one day after he accused Washington of engaging in “international piracy” against Iran by re-imposing economic sanctions after the U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Since then, Iran’s economy has been buckling under the weight of the sanctions. On Wednesday, the U.S. imposed more — this time targeting Iran’s ability to sell its oil by imposing penalties on six Chinese companies and their chief executives for continuing to transport Iranian crude.
Tensions in the Middle East have risen as the nuclear deal has unravels and Iran has turned back to expanding its nuclear enrichment program, despite previous compliance with it for up to a year after Trump’s withdrawal from the accord.
Rouhani also again denied that Iran has anything to do with drone and missile strikes against key oil facilities in Saudi Arabia earlier this month that rattled the global oil markets.
“Those who make the allegations must provide the needed proof to back up those allegations,” Rouhani said.
Saudi Arabia has invited U.N. investigators to assess where the strikes were launched from, and says Iranian weapons were used. The U.S., France, Germany and Britain also have said they believe Iran is behind the strikes.
From: MeNeedIt
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says California is falling short on preventing water pollution, largely because of its problem with homelessness in big cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler outlined the complaints Thursday in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Wheeler is demanding a detailed plan for fixing the problems within 30 days.
The letter says “piles of human feces on sidewalks and streets” could cause water contamination. It criticizes San Francisco for routinely discharging inadequately treated sewage into the Pacific Ocean.
Wheeler says if the state doesn’t meet its responsibilities, EPA will have to take action.
The letter escalates a feud between the Trump administration and California, a predominantly Democratic state that has fought the administration’s efforts to weaken environmental regulations.
From: MeNeedIt
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands urged financial regulators on Wednesday not to let fears over technology stall efforts to ensure everyone in the world has access to a bank account and credit to save money and build businesses.
Maxima said progress had been made since she was appointed the United Nations special advocate for financial inclusion 10 years ago, with about 70 percent of the world now having access to banking, insurance and credit compared with 51 percent in 2011.
But she said 1.7 billion adults globally still did not have an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider, with women in developing economies about 9 percentage points less likely than men to have a bank account.
“Financial inclusion is not the end but the means to increase family income, improve nutrition, increase access to health care … education, and empower — especially women,” Maxima told a side event at the United Nations General Assembly.
Ending poverty, inequality
The Dutch queen said it is critical if the world is to achieve the United Nations’ goals to end poverty and inequality by 2030 that people were included in financial systems.
She said mobile money and fintech had opened opportunities to connect people — particularly those sidelined like women in developing countries, farmers and the poor — and cautioned fears over cyberattacks and data privacy should not stop this.
“Technology today presents our best chance to reach these people,” Maxima told an event marking her 10 years as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA).
“The challenges are that this new technology brings risks … but get together the innovators with the regulators. If we are serious about this issue, we need to innovate and go beyond business as usual,” she said.
Argentine-born Maxima, 48, said she intended to continue in her role traveling around the world to encourage regulators and governments to treat financial inclusion as a priority.
Gates: Money is power
Melinda Gates, who co-founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband Bill Gates, backed Maxima, saying digital financial services had to reach women, marginalized people and the poor to create an equitable world.
“Money is power. If we want to empower people you have to make sure that they have the means for saving … and bring them into the digital financial services,” Gates said.
From: MeNeedIt
The gilded coffin of a high-ranking ancient Egyptian priest, which had been buried, looted and illegally sold before going on public display at a New York museum, was returned Wednesday to Egyptian authorities.
The coffin of Nedjemankh, which dates to the first century B.C., came to New York two years ago by way of a global art underground network before being sold to an unwitting Metropolitan Museum of Art for $4 million, authorities said.
“Thus far our investigation has determined that this coffin is just one of hundreds of antiquities stolen by the same multinational trafficking ring,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said at a repatriation ceremony.
“So, you may well see a few more significant seizures,” he added.
Vance credited his office’s two-year-old Antiquities Trafficking Unit with untangling a web of forged documents to track down the coffin’s true origin.
The unit focuses on the high-powered New York art world, with its museums, galleries and auction houses, much the same as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team does on a national scale.
The highly ornamented coffin had been buried in Egypt for 2,000 years before it was stolen from the country’s Minya region after the political upheaval of October 2011, authorities said.
From there, it went on an underworld odyssey through the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France and New York, they said.
After it had been on display for six months, agents for the district attorney’s office presented the Metropolitan Museum of Art with evidence early this year that its ownership history documents, including one that suggested the coffin had been exported from Egypt in 1971, were forgeries.
The museum announced last February that it had been defrauded when it bought the coffin and was cooperating with the district attorney’s investigation.
The coffin, which is inscribed with the name Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef of Herakleopolis, will now go back to Egypt, where it will be put on display next year, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Hassan Shoukry said.
“This is not only for Egyptians but this is for our common human heritage and our sense that we all share in the values and we all are one of the same international family,” Shoukry said at the repatriation ceremony.
From: MeNeedIt
A recent wave of abductions in Nigeria is raising fear across the country. Unlike kidnappings involving oil militants in the south or Boko Haram in the north, which often take on political dimensions, this crime wave spans through every region, and is driven largely by economic hardship, experts say. The government is trying to address the problem by setting up an kidnapping response team. Timothy Obiezu has this report from Abuja
From: MeNeedIt
A strong earthquake rattled eastern Pakistan Tuesday afternoon forcing residents into the streets in several cities, with witnesses claiming a building collapsed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The shallow 5.8-magnitude hit 22.3 kilometers (13.8 miles) north of the city of Jhelum along the boundary separating the agricultural heartland of Punjab province and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The quake was 10 kilometers deep and was felt in most of Punjab province, some parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The worst hit was Mirpur, Azad Kashmir,” Pakistan’s chief meteorologist Muhammad Riaz told AFP.
Witnesses, Sajjad Jarral and Qazi Tahir, told AFP at least 50 people were injured by the quake that caused a building to collapse in Pakistani Kashmir’s Mirpur and inflicted heavy damage at least one road.
Tremors were felt as far as New Delhi, while the Press Trust of India reported that people rushed out of their homes and offices in panic in several places, including in Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana.
Pakistan straddles part of the boundary where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, making the country susceptible to earthquakes.
In October 2015, a 7.5-magnitude quake in Pakistan and Afghanistan killed almost 400 people, flattening buildings in rugged terrain that impeded relief efforts.
The country was also hit by a 7.6-magnitude quake on October 8, 2005, that killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
From: MeNeedIt
Google won a major case in the European Union on Tuesday, when the bloc’s top court ruled that the U.S. internet giant doesn’t have to extend the EU’s “right to be forgotten” rules to its search engines outside the region.
The case stems from a 2014 ruling that said people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online. They can ask Google, for example, to remove a link. The French privacy regulator then wanted that rule applied to all of Google’s domains, even outside the EU, and asked the EU’s top court for advice.
The European Court of Justice said Tuesday that there “is no obligation under EU law for a search engine operator” to extend the rule beyond the EU states.
It said, however, that a search engine operator must put measures in place to discourage internet users from going outside the EU to find that information.
The decision, which matches a preliminary opinion in January from the court’s adviser, highlights the need to balance data privacy and protection concerns against the public’s right to information. It also raises questions about how to enforce differing jurisdictions when it comes to the borderless internet.
In a reaction to the ruling, Google’s Senior Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer said “it’s good to see that the Court agreed with our arguments” and added that Google had worked hard “to strike a sensible balance between people’s rights of access to information and privacy.”
The European Commission noted that the court again confirmed that the “right to be forgotten” exists in the EU.
The 2014 ruling that people in the EU have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online forced Google to delete links to outdated or embarrassing personal information that popped up in searches within the 28-nation bloc.
One year later, the French privacy watchdog wanted Google to remove results on all its search engines on request, and not just European country sites like www.google.fr . Google refused and in the resulting court case, French legal authorities asked the EU’s highest court for advice.
On Tuesday, the EU court said it was illegal to apply an EU rule to business operations in countries outside the EU.
The ruling is final and becomes the benchmark on which courts in the 28-nation bloc must base their decisions relating to such cases.
Those who wanted to see such an extension argue that on the internet it is easy to switch from the national versions of the web site to ones outside the EU – by switching from google.fr to google.com for example – to find the information that must be removed within the EU.
Since Google started handling “right to be forgotten” requests in May 2014, the U.S. tech giant has removed about 1.3 million web links from its search results, or 45% of total requests processed, according to the company’s transparency report .
Online takedown requests filed by European residents are reviewed by Google staff based mainly in Ireland, who assess them on criteria including whether the webpage’s information is “inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant, or excessive.”
Google says it may reject a delisting request if the page contains information that’s “strongly in the public interest” with material that relates to the requester’s professional life, past crime, political office, position in public life, or whether the content consists of government documents or “journalistic in nature.”
From: MeNeedIt