Taiwanese defence ministry has warned that China could be capable of mounting a “full-scale” invasion of the Island by 2025.

The warning by the Taiwanese defence ministry comes days after 77 Chinese warplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone.

Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago, in which the defeated Nationalists fled to Taipei. However, Beijing views Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory even though the Chinese Communist Party has never governed the democratic island of about 24 million people.

Beijing has refused to rule out military force to capture Taiwan if necessary, and blames what it calls “collusion” between Taiwan and the United States for rising tensions.

“With regards to staging an attack on Taiwan, they currently have the ability. But [China] has to pay the price,” Chiu Kuo-cheng, the defense minister, told Taiwanese journalists on Wednesday, October 6.

But he said that by 2025, that price will be lower — and China will be able to mount a “full-scale” invasion.

At a parliament meeting Wednesday, Chiu described cross-strait military tensions as “the most serious” in more than 40 years since he joined the military, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

At the meeting, the Taiwan military submitted a report to lawmakers saying China’s anti-intervention and blockade capabilities around the Taiwan Strait will become mature by 2025, according to CNA.

Lawmakers also reviewed an $8.6 billion special defense budget for homemade weapons, including missiles and warships.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Chiu said that Taiwan has not made any moves to provoke an attack in response to the Chinese air incursions.

“We will make preparations militarily,” he said. “I think our military is like this — if we need to fight, we will be on the front lines.”

A Romanian billionaire was killed along with his wife, son, and five other people when the plane he was piloting crashed into a building in Italy on Sunday, October 3.

Dan Petrescu, 68, one of the richest men in his home country, was operating a single-engine Pilatus PC-12 before it slammed into an office building undergoing renovations in San Donato Milanese, a town southeast of Milan, authorities said.

The fatal wreck took place minutes after the plane took off from Milan’s Linate airport at about 1 p.m., according to aviation agency ANSV, which has opened an investigation.

The plane’s black box has been recovered, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported, citing Deputy prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano. 

The billionaire’s 65-year-old wife, their son Dan Stefano, 30, and a child were also among the eight people aboard the plane that died in the wreck.

Petrescu headed a major construction firm and owned a string of hypermarkets and malls.

According to the Romanian newspaper Adevarul, Petrescu was a worth 3 billion euros.

Witnesses recalled the moment the plane plummeted out of the sky and smashed into the building, which was thankfully empty .

One named as Andrea, 19, told tgcom.24.:  “I saw the plane lose control. I saw it just as it crashed. I saw it dive.  The plane was low. And then there was a lot of smoke, flames in the sky. Pieces were flying. I was very scared.”

Emergency workers said several cars in a nearby parking lot were set ablaze, but the vehicles were unoccupied at the time.

The Pilatus PC-12 single engine plane took off from the main runway at Linate airport at 1.04pm local time but crashed 11 minutes later. Their plane was on its way to the island of Sardinia to visit Mr Petrescu’s 98-year-old mother at the family villa.

“The plane hit the building on the facade, with an extremely violent impact,” said Carlo Cardinali from Milan fire brigade.

“The pilot made a turn, so he noticed some anomaly.”

A thick column of dark smoke rose from the crash site and was visible for miles around the site

Firefighters were extinguishing the flames of the now-charred building, which reportedly was under renovation.

The plane’s black box has been recovered and prosecutors have opened an investigation.

Speaking at the scene, Milan prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano, said “there does not appear to have been an alarm launched from board”.

A 35 year old police sergeant raped a woman 14 years his junior and got her pregnant when she was drunk, a court sitting today, October 6, has heard.

Ben Lister was a serving officer with West Yorkshire Police when it is alleged he sexually assaulted the woman after a night out.

Bradford court heard Lister had given the woman a ‘peck on the lips’ in the Acapulco nightclub, Halifax, West Yorkshire, earlier in the evening of August 29, 2016.

But the woman told a friend who was out with them: ‘He’s not my type. He is too old for me.’

The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said: ‘She told me he had a girlfriend. I was scared because he was old. I was just in shock.’

The group of friends got drunk before returning to one of their homes where Lister and the complainant slept on separate sofas in the living room.

She said: ‘I was paralytic. I was literally going all over the place. I was 10 out of 10 drunk.’

The woman said she couldn’t remember Lister having sex with her after he dragged her onto the floor.

Tearfully, she recalled: ‘I have always known what happened to me. I have flashbacks in my head. I have nightmares about it – his head above me and his hand on my chest.’

A month later the woman realised she was pregnant, but told friends the baby was her ex boyfriend’s.

However, a work colleague who saw photos of Lister on Facebook commented: ‘How much does [your baby] look like him [Lister].’

The court heard that the complainant did not report the alleged rape to police until January 7, 2020.

Before that she had saw Lister on Facebook and saw pictures of him, his wife and child. She told the jury how much her baby looked like his and his wife’s baby.

DNA tests carried out, identified Lister as the complainant’s child’s father, the trial has been told.

Lister has denied charges of rape and sexual assault.

The trial continues.

YouTube has removed two channels of disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly, who was found guilty of some sex crimes last week. 

YouTube said in statement that two of the singer’s channels, RKellyTV and RKellyVevo, have been removed and he will no longer be able to create or own any other YouTube channel. 

Catalog of his music will however be available on YouTube Music, YouTube’s audio-streaming service, and the videos uploaded by other YouTube users will continue to be available. A YouTube spokesperson told Reuters in a statement; 

“We can confirm that we have terminated two channels linked to R. Kelly in accordance with our creator responsibility guidelines.”

YouTube VP of legal, Nicole Alston also wrote in a memo; 

“Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm.

 “Ultimately we are taking this action to protect our users similar to other platforms.”

On September 27, Kelly was found guilty in New York federal court of leading a scheme to recruit women and girls for sex, following decades of women coming forward to accuse him of sex crimes.

Kelly’s music has largely disappeared from radio but is still available on streaming platforms. His hit record “I Believe I Can Fly” was for years a popular choice at graduation ceremonies. He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years behind bars, and could face up to life in prison at his May 4, 2022, sentencing.

Kelly’s longtime label, Sony Music’s RCA Records, parted ways with the singer in January 2019 after months of criticism. However, nearly his entire catalog remains with the label and is still available on major music-streaming services.

In a survey conducted by Morning Consult after Kelly’s conviction, 44% of audio-streaming service users said platforms like Spotify and Apple Music should remove his music from their catalogs, while 36% said his songs should stay up and 20% had no opinion or said they didn’t know.

Ernest Johnson, a Missouri man convicted of killing three convenience store workers during a closing-time robbery nearly 28 years ago is set to be executed despite requests for mercy from the Pope Francis, two federal lawmakers and thousands of petition signers.

Johnson, 61, is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday evening, October 5, at the state prison in Bonne Terre, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of St. Louis. It would be the seventh U.S. execution this year.

“The state is prepared to deliver justice and carry out the lawful sentence Mr. Johnson received in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Court’s order,” Parson, a Republican, said in a statement about his decision not to reduce the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
 

Jeremy Weis, Johnson’s lawyer, said he was “very disappointed” by the decision.
 

“We believe we made a compelling case to him that it was the right moral decision and I guess he disagreed,” Weis said.
 

In a letter last week to Parson, a representative for Pope Francis wrote that the pope “wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr. Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life.”
 

Republican Gov. Michael Parson on Monday declined to grant clemency despite the urging of several people, including the pope. 

Johnson’s attorney, Jeremy Weis, said executing Johnson would violate the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits executing intellectually disabled people. On Monday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution.

“This is not a close case — Mr. Johnson is intellectually disabled,” the court filing stated.

He said multiple IQ tests and other exams have shown that Johnson has the intellectual capacity of a child. He also was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and in 2008, he lost about 20% of his brain tissue to the removal of a benign tumor.

The India’s supreme court has approved the government’s decision to pay 50,000 rupees ($674) as compensation for every death due to Covid-19.

The Supreme Court’s order followed a petition by the country’s lawyers seeking compensation under India’s disaster management laws.

India has officially recorded more than 447,000 Covid-19 deaths so far but experts believe that up to 10 times more people could have died in the pandemic.

On Monday, October 4, Justice MR Shah said the “next of kith and kin of the deceased person” shall be paid this compensation. This would be “over and above the amounts paid by the centre and state under various benevolent schemes”, he said.

The court added that the compensation should be paid within 30 days after a family submits an application.

The announcement comes after petitioners in June sought the court’s intervention in paying compensation to the families of Covid-19 victims.

They said since Covid-19 was “specially” notified as a disaster under India’s National Disaster Management Act, compensation should be paid to the victims.

The 2005 law was enacted for efficient management of disasters, including preparation of mitigation strategies, capacity-building and compensation for lost lives, injuries and damaged properties.

The law says monetary assistance of 400,000 rupees should be paid to family of people who have lost their lives in a disaster.

According to the Indian government, the compensation will be paid “to the next of kin of the deceased due to Covid-19, subject to cause of death being certified as Covid-19” as per the guidelines. The funds for this compensation will be provided by the states.

Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul could be put into darkness as the winter sets in because the country’s new Taliban rulers haven’t paid countries that supply it with electricity or resumed collecting money from citizens who use it.

Electricity imports from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan provide half of Afghanistan’s power consumption nationwide, with Iran providing additional supplies to the country’s west. Domestic production, mostly at hydropower stations, has been affected by this year’s rain drought.

Afghanistan lacks a national power grid, and Kabul depends almost completely on imported power from Central Asian countries.

Tajikistan, whose relationship with the Taliban is rapidly deteriorating is the country’s main power supplier. It could decide to cut off its power supply for nonpayment of electrical fees, according to Reuters.

Unless addressed, the situation could cause a humanitarian disaster, warned Daud Noorzai, who resigned as chief executive of the country’s state power supplier, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, nearly two weeks after the Taliban’s takeover on Aug. 15.

“The consequences would be countrywide, but especially in Kabul. There will be blackout and it would bring Afghanistan back to the Dark Ages when it comes to power and to telecommunications,” said Mr. Noorzai, who remains in close contact with DABS’s remaining management. “This would be a really dangerous situation.”

The United Nations (UN) voiced its extreme concern about reports of the excessive use of force by police against migrants and asylum seekers in Tripoli, Libya. 

In a statement on Saturday, October 2, the UN Assistant Secretary-General Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, Georgette Gagnon, said that at least 1 migrant was killed and at least 15 others injured, 6 seriously, when police raided several locations in Gargaresh Municipality west of Tripoli.

The Friday’s raid carried out on houses and temporary makeshift shelters was a part of a security campaign against illegal migration, drug and liquor trafficking.

The area has seen several waves of security raids over the years, but the latest one was described as the fiercest so far.

The police rounded up about 4,000 illegal migrants of different nationalities during the operation, the Interior Ministry that led the campaign confirmed.

According to the Interior Ministry, the Attorney General gave orders for the raids after public outcry from the locals over the high rate of crime in the area.

The migrants were gathered in the Collection and Return Centre of Ghout Al-Shaal district, where they received medical assistance, said Col. Nouri al-Grettli, head of the centre, noting that they would pursue distributing migrants to other centres to reduce the overcrowding.

Media outlets quoted government officials as saying that many of the detained had lived illegally in Libya for years, and the authorities would deport as many as possible of the migrants to their home countries.

According to reports of officials from the Directorate of Combatting Illegal Migration, at least 4,000 people, including women and children, were arrested during the security operation. Unarmed migrants were harassed in their homes, beaten and shot, says Georgette Gagnon.

“While the UN fully respects the state’s sovereignty and supports its duty to maintain law and order, and protect the security of their population, it calls on state authorities to respect at all times the human rights and dignity of all people, including migrants and asylum-seekers,” she added. 

Gagnon confirmed that the UN received reports of 1 young migrant being shot and killed, 5 other migrants sustained gunshot wounds and 2 of them are in serious condition in intensive care.

It also received reports that communications were shut down with individuals unable to access information and seek assistance.

Gagnon also reiterated that the use of excessive and unwarranted lethal force by Libyan security and police forces during law enforcement operations is a violation of national and international law.

“We call on the Libyan authorities to investigate reports of security forces’ use of lethal and excessive force against migrants in yesterday’s operation,” the UN Official noted.

“In line with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the Berlin Conclusions, we reiterate our call on the Libyan authorities to end and prevent arbitrary arrest and detention, and immediately release those most vulnerable, particularly women and children,” the statement read.

“In this context, we again urge the government to immediately allow the resumption of International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) operated voluntary humanitarian evacuation and return flights and departures of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in Libya to destinations outside the country,” it concluded. 

Pope Francis has condemned the spate of killings and kidnappings in northern Nigeria and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to guarantee the safety of all Nigerian citizens, Tori Me! reports.

Francis expressed his solidarity with Nigerians after 34 people were killed in villages in the north-western state of Kaduna on Sunday.
“I pray for those who have died, for the injured and for the entire Nigerian population. Pope Francis said during his Wednesday’s General Audience at the Vatican City.

The head of the Catholic church described the attacks as senseless killings of Nigerians by suspected jihadists and noted that massacres were not only happening in southern Kaduna, but all over the country.

“I learnt with pain the news of the armed attacks that took place last Sunday against the villages of Madamai Abun in northern Nigeria…I hope that the country always guarantees the safety of all its citizens,” he said.

Nigeria is in the grip of insecurity across parts of the country with an increase in kidnappings for ransom and continued attacks by terrorist group Boko Haram.

The Pope’s comments came as a prominent Nigerian doctor was ambushed and assassinated in the southeast of the country in Anambra State on Tuesday.

Chike Akunliyi was the husband of Dora Akunliyi, a former civil servant and head of the country’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
President Buhari has vowed to bring his killers to justice.

A 41-year-old Police sergeant, Ricki Vaughan has been sacked after sleeping with a landlady he met on duty and sexting a young barmaid. 

Vaughan was said to have gone on two dates with the landlady named only as Ms E, after he drove to her pub in a police car to discuss a charity barbecue. They had sex on two occasions after Ms E contacted PS Vaughan through one of his police colleagues

A misconduct panel heard that Ms E, then the manager at the Wellington pub in Welwyn Village, Herts, suspected she was pregnant after sleeping with PS Vaughan and subsequently turned up at his house drunk one evening, forcing him to call the police to get her to leave.

Vaughan also exchanged messages with a barmaid named as Ms C, centered on organizing some work experience at the force’s control room. He also sent “sexual, crude and cynical” messages about her to a police colleague.

In one of the messages to his colleague named as PC A, he wrote “Odds on me shagging her (hand up emoji).”

PS Vaughan’s messages to the teen were reportedly not professional and were instead “a calculated ruse to get in contact with Ms C in order to be able to gauge whether or not she was open to meeting for a potentially sexual encounter”.

The police officer who was dismissed from the force last week after being found for gross misconduct, reportedly tried to form relationships with a total of four women whom he met as a police officer.

The independent panel which sat on September 21, found that PS Vaughan had: 

– Used his position by forming and/or attempting to form relationships with members of the public who he met through his work.

– Failed to treat colleagues and/or members of the public with courtesy and respect.

– Had behaved in a discriminatory way towards colleagues.

– Had regularly spoken about women in a disrespectful way.

The police officer was also found to have made daily comments of a sexual nature about female colleagues passing by the window of his office. One officer, PC Hayley Twist, said the remarks included “she’s nice” and “I know what I would like to do to her”.

Claims of him telling a colleague “your missus has big t**s”, was not found to be proven. Other allegations which include telling same colleague that his 13-year-old daughter was attractive and asking when she would turn 18, were dismissed.