haha777 app ios Gunfire erupted on Thursday evening in the capital Juba, sparking concerns about the stability of the world's youngest country that is already plagued by power struggles, ethnic infighting and a deep economic malaise. The shooting around the home of Koor, who was fired by Kiir in early October and placed under house arrest, caused panic among local residents before it was contained after about an hour. Following the meeting, South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF) spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said the incident took place after a "misunderstanding" between security forces attempting to relocate the ex-head of the National Security Services. Koang said Koor had now agreed to the relocation "with his dear wife, one bodyguard, and a cook" elsewhere in the city. He would be provided with additional army protection at his new residence, but Koang emphasised he was not under "their (army) detention." He said four people, two civilians and two soldiers, had been killed during the confrontation. The meeting convened by Kiir included the heads of defence, police, national security and military intelligence. A source in the presidency press unit said Koor was also present. The Sudans Post newspaper quoted a security official as saying the meeting had "resolved all outstanding tensions" and that the spy chief and his family "have been assured of their safety". In an alert to its staff on the ground on Thursday, the United Nations in South Sudan had said the shooting was linked to the arrest of the former spymaster and advised people to take cover. Koang told AFP that Koor "remains at his house", and denied claims circulating on social media that he had fled to the UN compound in Juba. There was a heavy deployment of military forces around his home in the Thongpiny district, an AFP correspondent said, but traffic has resumed and people were going about their daily business. Police spokesman John Kassara said the situation was now calm but that Thongpiny remained sealed off and residents "should remain vigilant". Koor became head of the feared National Security Services (NSS) after South Sudan's independence in 2011 but was sacked in October leading to widespread speculation he had been planning to overthrow Kiir. After his dismissal from the NSS, Koor was appointed governor of Warrap State, Kiir's home state, but this was abruptly revoked by the president before he took the oath of office. Koang said there had been a "misunderstanding" between two security services forces present at Koor's residence when a third unit arrived for the relocation. "That was the start of the armed confrontation that you heard," he said. Four people, two servicemen and two civilians, were killed in the incident, he said, and two civilians were wounded. Koor's sacking came just two weeks after Kiir again postponed by two years, to December 2026, the first elections in the nation's history. The delay has exasperated the international community, which has been pressing the country's leaders to complete a transitional process, including unifying rival armed forces and drawing up a constitution. The NSS was at the centre of controversy in July when parliament approved amendments to legislation allowing the agency to continue to arrest -- without a warrant -- anyone accused of offences against the state, raising alarm among rights groups and South Sudan's international partners. The country has struggled to recover from a brutal civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and his now deputy Riek Machar from 2013 to 2018 that killed about 400,000 people and drove millions from their homes. It remains one of the poorest and most corrupt countries on the planet and continues to be plagued by chronic instability and climate disasters. str-txw-rbu/giv

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A retired police officer in the nation’s capital was convicted Monday of lying to authorities about leaking confidential information to the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group. US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson convicted former Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Shane Lamond of obstructing justice and making false statements after a trial without a jury. Sentencing was scheduled for April 3 after Lamond’s conviction on all four counts. Lamond was charged with leaking information to then-Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio , who was under investigation in the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner . Lamond testified at his bench trial that he never provided Tarrio with sensitive police information. Tarrio, who testified as a witness for Lamond’s defense, said he did not confess to Lamond about burning the banner and did not receive any confidential information from him. But the judge did not find either man’s testimony to be credible. Jackson said the evidence indicated that Lamond was not using Tarrio as a source after the banner burning. “It was the other way around,” she said. The judge said the string of messages that Lamond and Tarrio exchanged over the course of months showed a pattern: “Lamond and Tarrio talk, and Tarrio immediately disseminates what he learns,” she added. The judge described Tarrio as an “awful witness” who was “flippant, grandiose and obnoxious” on the stand. “He was one of the worst I’ve had the opportunity to sit next to during my tenure on the bench,” Jackson said. After the verdict, defense attorney Mark Schamel said it was premature to say if there will be an appeal. “It’s unbelievably disappointing to see every single thing that Lt. Lamond did viewed through a lens to make it appear to be something other than it was,” Schamel said outside the courtroom. “There is nothing disloyal about him at all, and it’s a sad day for him.” Tarrio eventually pleaded guilty to burning the banner stolen from a historic Black church in downtown Washington in December 2020. He was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, part of what prosecutors called a plot to use force to keep Donald Trump in the White House after the 2020 election. Lamond, who met Tarrio in 2019, had supervised the intelligence branch of the police department’s Homeland Security Bureau. He was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys when they came to Washington. Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the January 6 siege. The Miami resident wasn’t at the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building and interrupted the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Prosecutors said the trial evidence proved Lamond tipped off Tarrio that a warrant for his arrest had been signed. “Similarly, the defendant affirmatively advised Mr. Tarrio in a written message that he was being asked to identify him for a warrant, a warning obviously in contemplation of the subsequent prosecution and with obvious ramifications for it,” prosecutors wrote . Lamond’s indictment says he and Tarrio exchanged messages about the January 6 riot and discussed whether Proud Boys members were in danger of being charged in the attack. “Of course I can’t say it officially, but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name and reputation dragged through the mud,” Lamond wrote. Lamond said he was upset that a prosecutor labeled him as a Proud Boys “sympathizer” who acted as a “double agent” for the group after Tarrio burned a stolen Black Lives Matter banner in December 2020. “I don’t support the Proud Boys, and I’m not a Proud Boys sympathizer,” Lamond testified. Lamond said he considered Tarrio to be a source, not a friend. But he said he tried to build a friendly rapport with the group leader to gain his trust. Justice Department prosecutor Joshua Rothstein pointed to messages that suggest Lamond provided Tarrio with “real-time updates” on the police investigation of the December 12, 2020, banner burning. Lamond, 48, of Colonial Beach, Virginia, was charged with one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements. He retired in May 2023 after 23 years of service to the police department.

Enzo Maresca believes Chelsea have shed their ‘ Cole Palmer FC’ tag after watching his side become the Premier League ’s most prolific outfit. Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over Southampton took Chelsea’s goalscoring tally to 31 in 14 Premier League games this season, two more than table-toppers Liverpool. Last term, the Blues’s attack was regularly accused of being overreliant on Palmer, who scored 22 goals and provided 11 assists during a remarkable breakthrough campaign. That reliance was evidenced towards the back end of the season, when Mauricio Pochettino took his side to Arsenal without the ill Palmer and saw them hammered 5-0. It was the only one of Chelsea’s final 15 games that the Englishman missed and brought their only defeat. This term, however, even with Palmer continuing to contribute heavily, the goals have been shared around. Christopher Nkunku is the club’s leading scorer across competitions with 12 goals, while Nicolas Jackson has eight league goals and Noni Madueke five. In all, 10 different players have scored in the league for Chelsea, a spread bettered only by three clubs. Tellingly, Maresca’s men have already taken eight points from league games in which Palmer started but did not score or assist - the same as in the entirety of last term. “Yeah, and we are very happy,” Maresca said, when asked whether Chelsea now free of that ‘Cole Palmer FC’ moniker. “If you remember in my first press conference, I said that we cannot rely on Cole for every game because it is not correct. “He has to enjoy football, but if we prepare the season thinking Cole is the only solution then we are wrong. “We work every day to allow Cole to be in situations where he can be the best and be good. You see that we move him from the right side to the left side, or from one side to the other side, because we want to put players in situations where they can be the best.” Meanwhile, Maresca refused to engage with supporters’ concerns over Anthony Taylor ’s appointment as referee for Sunday’s London derby against Tottenham. Taylor took charge of the heated 2-2 draw between the sides two years ago, which ended with an infamous spat between then managers Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte, and with Chelsea adamant that both Spurs goals should have been disallowed. The 46-year-old was also in the middle for the Blues’s fiery 1-0 win at Bournemouth earlier this season, awarding a Premier League record 14 yellow cards, including eight to Chelsea players. Maresca insisted he will not be warning his team any more than usual about their behaviour ahead of the game. “We don’t plan the game because of the referee,” he explained. “For sure we give the players some information in terms of some general information. “But that game was probably intense because Bournemouth away, you see last night and in general – the Arsenal game, the City game – they are always intense, aggressive. “So, sometimes the game becomes difficult to manage for the referee so you start to give yellow cards. But I don’t have anything to say about the referee.”As a country frequently plagued with military interventions, Thailand has many lessons to learn from the recent political upheaval in South Korea, which reveals a case of democracy at work. The world watched with grave concern as South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made a shock bid late on Tuesday night to suspend civilian rule -- the first time in more than 40 years in the East Asian country's history -- with martial law and eventually breathed a sigh of relief after the cabinet repealed the order six hours after. The president's martial law was nullified by parliament, which voted 109:0 against it. Of course, the people of South Korea and the opposition MPs deserve credit for their hard-won victory. More importantly, the whole incident attests to the fact that South Korea has a strong checks-and-balances mechanism, with a political system that efficiently prevents abuse of power by its leaders, as there is a mechanism for parliamentarians to veto the president's martial law. As the incident develops, every element of society in South Korea, including the military, respects -- and tries to maintain -- the rule of law. Worth mentioning is the professionalism of the South Korean military, who refrained from violence and avoided the use of force when confronting angry crowds. Otherwise, the situation could have been far worse. Now President Yoon has to face the consequences as parliament is set to impeach him today. The victory of the people in South Korea has rekindled hope for politically conscious people in Thailand who are struggling to promote democracy post-coup. So many people who followed the Korean upheaval cannot help but ask: "What if?" The Korean incident sheds new light on the need for Thailand to have a mechanism to counter extraordinary powers, ie, martial law or a coup. Some may argue that South Korea and Thailand have different political cultures. While South Koreans are determined not to compromise, many Thais opt for flexibility despite this equating to a handshake with authoritarianism. Of course, delusions over bad, corrupt politicians and the colour-coded conflicts that preceded the 2006 and 2014 coups may have led some Thais to embrace military interventions, but at the end of the day, Thais have learned time and again that coups are indeed the problem, not the solution. There is no proof that coups did not lead to stagnation for the country. Coup makers are not fit to lead democratic governments. Most of them end up reinforcing patronage and client systems, if not nepotism. They end up no different than the politicians they eked out. Take a look at the current military-sponsored charter, which contains so many clauses that are not well-matched with democratic principles, resulting in an inefficient checks-and-balances system that poses a political time bomb. Despite such flaws, charter amendment is an uphill task. It's a pity that previous attempts of pro-democracy MPs to introduce anti-coup laws that would have provided a tool against military intervention -- like a ban on amnesty for coup makers and the ability for people to bring treason charges against them -- flopped. Yet, it's not too late to rekindle such efforts, together with a public awareness campaign for democratisation. It may be a long time before Thailand can catch up with the East Asian country, but the South Korean incident has set an example. A very good one.

Four members of Congress unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday that would spark changes at the U.S. Center for SafeSport, placing a time limit on resolving cases that can sometimes take years and improving communication between the center and abuse survivors. The Safer Sports for Athletes Act looks to address some of the bigger concerns that have opened the center to criticism since it was established in 2017 to handle sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports and their grassroots cousins. The bill has potential for a fivefold increase of an existing grant to the center, bringing it to $10 million a year. But even if the full amount were approved, it wouldn't solve all of the problems. As before, that grant can only be used for training and education , not investigations and enforcement, which are the focus of complaints about the center , and also of the reforms the lawmakers are seeking. “We’re hoping the combination of appropriations for other activities will free up money for investigations, as well as the streamlining,” said one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina. The center estimates the reforms in the bill could cost more than $4.5 million. It currently operates on a budget of around $21 million a year, most of which comes from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its sports affiliates, known as national governing bodies, or NGBs. “It's really unclear, and I don't think that some parts of the bill jibe with other parts of the bill," SafeSport CEO Ju'Riese Colon said. "We're going to need some more conversation to suss out some of this stuff. Right now, it just doesn't really add up for us.” The center's critics, meanwhile, have long been skeptical about giving more resources to an agency they feel is missing the mark. The bill would also mandate that investigations be concluded within 180 days after a report is made, with possibilities to extend them. Some of the most egregious complaints about the center have come from people who say it has taken years for their cases to be resolved. The center currently receives about 155 reports a week, which comes to more than 8,000 a year. When fully staffed, it has 77 people on its response and resolution team. “Too many other survivors have also been left waiting for years for SafeSport to investigate or have their cases closed without action,” said soccer player Mana Shim, who helped lawmakers draft the bill. Shim's own case, involving sexual harassment and coercion by her coach, took more than two years for the center to resolve and led to investigations and reforms across American soccer. Other reforms include a requirement for the center to provide victim advocates at no cost for those needing them — a move already underway as part of a menu of changes the center announced earlier this year — and to assign case managers who can give timely updates to victims and the accused. “I have questions around, if the center were to hire and staff the advocates, there might be some conflict of interest with us doing this internally," Colon said. The center was also concerned with one provision that would redefine how arbitration works and another that would change the dynamics of information sharing between the center and the USOPC and NGBs. The other bill sponsors were Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio; Don Bacon, R-Nebraska; and Kathy Castor, D-Florida. The lawmakers positioned the bill as one that will help the Denver-based center, while making clear they are not satisfied with the results so far. “We're going to make sure the center has the resources it needs to effectively respond to thousands of reports it handles annually,” Castor said. “It has unfortunately fallen short." Ross conceded this bill will probably get pushed to the next Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, “but we needed to set the stage as soon as possible.” AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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