A 17-year-old girl in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand is in a critical condition after she was raped and then set on fire, police say. A local man has been arrested in connection with the attack.It is the second such incident to be reported in Jharkhand in recent days - another teenage girl who police say was raped and burned alive died on Sunday.Police have not indicated the two cases are connected. They come as India reels from a string of violent sexual crimes.One of them involves an eight-year-old Kashmiri Muslim girl who was gang raped, drugged and murdered in January. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the trial of eight men, all of them Hindus, who have been arrested in the case must be held in Punjab because of the deep divisions between the communities. In the latest case in Jharkhand, the girl is undergoing treatment in hospital after suffering 95% burn injuries, police told BBC Hindi's Ravi Prakash. "The accused told us that he wanted to marry the victim but she wasn't ready," police officer Shailendra Barnwal said. They added that he attacked her on Friday in her relative's house in a village in Pakur district. The accused lived close by. According to the police, he waited until she was alone, then broke into the house and raped her before setting her alight. Neighbours reportedly rushed to the house on hearing her screams and took her to hospital. India outrage spreads over rape of eight-year-old girl Why India's rape crisis shows no signs of abating The main suspect and 14 others have already been arrested in connection with the earlier rape and burning case in the state. It took place in Chatra district, about 380km (236 miles) from Pakur, late on Friday. The shocking case in Kashmir and another in Uttar Pradesh state have caused outrage in India. Following protests, the cabinet approved the introduction of the death penalty for people convicted of raping children. A number of serious crimes in India carry the death penalty, but raping a child was not among them until now.About 40,000 rape cases were reported in India in 2016.Many cases, however, are believed to go unreported because of the stigma that is attached to rape and sexual assault.

A 16-year-old girl in India was burnt alive after her parents complained to village elders that she had been raped, according to police. Fourteen people have been arrested in connection with the attacks in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.Police said the elders had ordered the accused rapists to do 100 sit-ups and pay a 50,000 rupee (£550; $750) fine as punishment.They were so enraged they beat the girl's parents then set her on fire."The two accused thrashed the parents and rushed to the house where they set the girl ablaze with the help of their accomplices," Ashok Ram, the officer in charge of the local police station, told AFP news agency. Why India's rape crisis shows no signs of abating How do Indian parents talk to their children about rape? The girl was believed to have been abducted from her home while her parents were attending a wedding.Local police said she was raped by two men in a forested area near the village of Raja Kendua.Upon discovering the assault, her parents went to village elders to pursue charges against the suspected perpetrators.Councils of village elders carry no legal weight. However, they have significant influence in many parts of rural India and are a way of settling disputes without having to go through India's expensive judicial system.Police in the state say that they have arrested 14 of the 18 people they want to investigate with regards to the rape and subsequent murder.One of the two men accused of carrying out the attack has yet to be arrested, Bokaro inspector general of police Shambhu Thakur told the Hindustan Times.However, several village elders have been charged with passing unlawful orders and tampering with evidence.The latest incident comes as India reels from a string of violent sexual crimes.About 40,000 rape cases were reported in India in 2016. Many cases, however, are believed to go unreported because of the stigma that is attached to rape and sexual assault.

An Indian journalist and cartoonist who has received online threats over a cartoon that refers to recent incidents of rape says she will not back down.Swathi Vadlamudi's cartoon depicts a conversation between Hindu god Ram and his wife, Sita, to criticise right-wing support for the accused.In the cartoon, Sita tells Ram she is "glad" she was kidnapped by demon king Ravan and not her husband's followers.Ms Vadlamudi said the threats have only made her "stronger".The illustration has been shared by thousands on social media, but her use of the characters from the Hindu epic Ramayana in the cartoon has sparked controversy.Ms Vadlamudi told BBC Telugu's Prithvi Raj that drawing satirical cartoons was a hobby of hers. She said the illustration was meant to condemn two gruesome incidents of rape which made national headlines last week.An eight-year-old Muslim girl from Kathua district in Indian-administered Kashmir was brutally gang raped and murdered - outrage grew after two ministers from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused men, who are Hindu. In another case, a 16-year-old girl attempted suicide outside a BJP lawmaker's house after alleging that he raped her. Why did India wake up so late to a child rape and murder? Why India's rape crisis shows no signs of abating In an interview with BBC Telugu, Ms Vadlamudi said both incidents "involved India's ruling BJP - either leaders who have committed a crime or supporters who have backed the offenders". She said that many of those who defended the accused or insisted on their innocence identified themselves as "bhakts" or "zealous devotees" of the god Ram.Given the brutality of these crimes, she said she couldn't help but wonder what would have happened to Sita if, in the epic, she had been kidnapped by these so-called "Ram bhakts".After the cartoon was published, she has received numerous threats online, with many calling for her arrest. Some of the threats also referred to the recent murder of an Indian journalist who was known for casting a critical eye on Hindu fundamentalism. "I can't sleep at night because of the threats on social media," she said, adding that her family was concerned over her safety.Indian police have registered a case against Ms Vadlamudi after a right-wing group insisted the cartoon hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus. Women's groups and the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) have condemned the complaint against her, calling it an "attack on the press". In the last few years, journalists seen to be critical of Hindu nationalists have been berated on social media, while many women reporters have been threatened with rape and assault.The Committee to Protect Journalists, a non-governmental organisation, has ranked India as a country with a poor record in safeguarding journalists. Their research shows that at least 27 journalists have been murdered because of their work in India since 1992.

Eight men accused of the rape, torture and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-administered Kashmir have pleaded not guilty in a specially convened fast-track court.The body of the victim, who belonged to a Muslim nomadic tribe, was found in a forest on 17 January near Kathua city of Indian-administered Kashmir.Outrage over the case has been growing.The trial began amid reports of another child being raped and murdered in the western state of Gujarat.The victim in this case is yet to be identified, but a police report detailing the extent of the injuries inflicted on her has been making headlines in the country. Why did India wake up so late to a child rape and murder? Do India's 'fast track' courts work? The Kathua rape case made headlines last week when Hindu right-wing groups protested over the arrest of the eight men, whose community had been involved in a land dispute with the Muslim nomads.Outrage grew after two ministers from India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused men. Details of the injuries inflicted on the minor victim have also horrified many Indians. The accused include a retired government official, four police officers and a minor.The minor will be tried separately in accordance with India's juvenile act.The Jammu and Kashmir government has appointed two special public prosecutors for the case.

Police in India are questioning several people in connection with the brutal rape and murder of a six-year-old in the northern state of Haryana.Her body was found on Sunday close to her home from where she was allegedly abducted on the night of 8 December. The extent of the injuries to the child have horrified Indians, with many drawing parallels with the 2012 Delhi bus rape that caused massive outrage.The child's mother told BBC Hindi's Manoj Dhaka that they wanted justice."It's been 24 hours and the police are yet to catch anyone," she said. Police have detained three of her husband's relatives for questioning but no arrests have been made so far. However no details have been released. The government has formed a special investigative team as public pressure mounts on authorities to catch those responsible for the crime. Locals, including activists and political leaders from the district, have gathered in the village to protest. Viewpoint: Why death penalty won't end sexual violence in India Indian women break code of silence over sexual violence Rural India's battle against sexual violence The girl's family is demanding an inquiry by the federal police, saying they have no faith in the local police. The girl's father, a rag picker, said he was away on work the night his daughter was abducted. When his wife woke up the next morning, he said, she realised one of their daughters was missing. The couple have three other children - two sons and one daughter. The family lives on a plot of land along with four other families in a Haryana town. Police suspect those who raped and killed the girl could have come from a nearby slum. The girl's family had initially refused to cremate her until the killers were caught. The funeral only went ahead after the police assured them that they would make an arrest soon. They have set a deadline for the police - 11am on Wednesday morning - to make an arrest. If that doesn't happen, they have threatened to escalate the protest. In another incident, one man has been arrested over the alleged gangrape of a teenage cancer patient from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.The girl has alleged that she was abducted and raped by two men, and when she approached a neighbour for help he raped her as well.Scrutiny of sexual violence has grown in India since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in the capital Delhi.The crime sparked days of protests and forced the government to introduce tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty.However, brutal sexual attacks against women and children continue to be reported across the country.

India's Cabinet has approved the introduction of the death penalty for those who rape children, amid uproar over a series of high-profile cases.The change to the country's penal code applies to those convicted of raping a child under the age of 12.There have been nationwide protests in recent weeks over the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl.The government has come under fire for not doing enough to prevent sexual-assault cases, many involving children.A number of serious crimes in India carry the death penalty, but raping a child was not among them until now.Nearly 19,000 cases were registered in India in 2016 - more than 50 each day. What do parents tell their children about rape? The hunger striker demanding death for rapists Why India's rape crisis shows no signs of abating The executive order was cleared at a special cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.It allows capital punishment for anyone convicted of raping children under the age of 12. Minimum prison sentences for rape against girls under the age of 16 and women have also been raised. According to Reuters, which has seen a copy of the order, there was no mention of boys or men.Two recent rape cases have shocked the nation. Protests erupted earlier this month after police released horrific details of the rape of an eight-year-old Muslim girl by Hindu men in Kathua, in Indian-administered Kashmir in January. Anger has also been mounting after a member of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was accused last week over the rape of a 16-year-old girl in northern Uttar Pradesh state.India's poor record of dealing with sexual violence came to the fore after the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus. This led to huge protests and changes to the country's rape laws.But sexual attacks against women and children have since continued to be reported across the country. Executions are rarely carried out in India, with just three recorded in the last decade.The four men convicted in the Delhi bus case were sentenced to death, though this has not yet been carried out.The judge in that case said it fell into "the rarest of rare category" which justifies capital punishment in India. India's penal code, according to the Hindustan Times, had already prescribed the death penalty for gang rape.Hanging is the main method of execution. A man convicted of financing the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings was the last person to be executed in India - in 2015.

Rapists of children should be executed within six months of their crime, a leading advocate for women's rights in India has demanded. Swati Maliwal made the appeal in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the brutal gang rape and murder of student Jyoti Singh, 23, whose death sparked national protests. "Nothing has changed in the past five years," Ms Maliwal, chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, told the BBC. "Delhi is still the rape capital. Last month, there was a brutal gang-rape of a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, and the gang-rape of a seven-year-old, and another one-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped." On average, she said, three girls and six women were raped in the capital every day. Was Delhi gang rape India's #Metoo moment? Delhi rapist says victim shouldn't have fought back India did reform its rape laws as a result of the outcry five years ago, taking steps to speed up trials and press police officers to take allegations of rape and sexual assault more seriously, reports the BBC's South Asia regional editor. Jill McGivering. There is more awareness and increased reporting of cases, Ms Maliwal told our correspondent - "but that hasn't solved the problem".In her letter, Ms Maliwal urges the prime minister to go further and have child rapists executed within months of their crime. Jyoti Singh's mother still hadn't had justice, she said, because although the perpetrators had been convicted and sentenced to death, no-one responsible had yet been hanged.

As India's rape crisis continues, a hashtag has emerged expressing support for a hunger striker demanding tougher penalties for rapists. "#BetiKhatreMeinHai" which translates to "daughter in danger" is being used to rally support and draw attention to Swati Maliwal's protest. Ms Maliwal is the chairperson of the Dehli Commission for Women, a government body that promotes women's rights in the city. She began her hunger strike on Friday 13 April. One of her demands is that anyone convicted of raping a young girl should be hanged within six months.A week on from the start of Ms Maliwal's protest, the hashtag has over 41,000 mentions on Twitter.Ms Maliwal tweeted she would not end her fast until Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, accepts her demands. India journalist threatened over anti-rape cartoon Why did India wake up so late to a child rape and murder? Why India's rape crisis shows no signs of abating Two long-running rape cases continue to be the focus of emotionally charged conversations on social media in India. Outrage has spread in the country after the brutal gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl from Kathua in Indian-administered Kashmir came to public attention. There is also uproar after a 16-year-old girl in Unnao in northern Uttar Pradesh state accused a lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of raping her.Since Maliwal began her hunger strike, the rape and murder of two other young girls in Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have also been widely reported in the country."Daughter in danger" has been used to express anger about not enough being done to help stop violence against women in India.You might also like: Why Afghan women are campaigning for their names to be heard Women mock the way they are portrayed by male writers Calling your husband by name for the first time Many also criticised India's ruling party for failing to tackle increasing crimes against women. Mr Modi, who has faced criticism over his delayed response to the problem, said rape should not be politicised in his latest remarks on the issue. "A rape is a rape. How can we tolerate this torture with our daughters? You are always questioning your daughters, why don't you ask the same questions to your sons? I believe this is the evil of not just the individual but also of the society," he said, while addressing the Indian diaspora in London on 18 April.Many users of the hashtag have been critical of the Indian prime minister, while others praised Ms Maliwal.Others were concerned for Ms Maliwal's welfare: "Swati must not continue with her fast, she did everything to make them hear. Let people decide if they are ok with such politicians, it's no use risking your own life when the government doesn't care for our daughters," tweeted one supporter.Although the hashtag was created to express support for the hunger strike, detractors also used it to raise their concerns. "Crime rate for rape in India is already very low. We are not even in top 50 countries. Crime-against-women laws are biased in favour of women. Why this drama of #BetiKhatreMeinHai? Your boy is more likely to be accused in fake rape molestation charges than actual rape. What next?" read one reply to an update on Maliwal's protest.

Fire doesn’t heed history. It doesn’t care about posterity or culture or memory. Fire consumes everything and anything, even if that thing is the last of its kind. On Sunday night, it came for the National Museum of Brazil, burning for six hours and leaving behind ashes where there had been dinosaur fossils, the oldest human remains ever found in Brazil, and audio recordings and documents of indigenous languages. Many of those languages, already extinct, may now be lost forever.It’s the kind of loss that’s almost impossible to quantify. For the researchers who worked in the museum, the conflagration sent their life’s work up in smoke.“It is very difficult to react to reality and try to return to life,” linguist Bruna Franchetta, whose office burned down in the fire, told WIRED in an email. “At the moment we do not know the extent of the destruction of the Documentation Center of Indigenous Languages in the National Museum. We have to wait a long time for a survey of what is left in the middle of the rubble. At the moment I can say nothing about what has not turned to ashes, but I hear colleagues saying that it was all lost.”It didn’t have to be this way. All of these artifacts could have been systematically backed up over the years with photographs, scans, audio files. The failure to do so speaks to a vital truth about the limits of technology: Just because the means to do something exists technologically doesn’t mean it will be done. And it underscores that the academic community has not yet fully embraced the importance of archiving importance of archiving—not just in Brazil, but around the world.Though Franchetta says work had begun recently to digitalize the CELIN archive, she has no idea how far it had gotten, and it focused on only a part of the collection. “The loss is immense, and much of what has been destroyed by the flames can never be recovered,” she says.In 2018, when an iPhone automatically backs up every photo you take, you might think knowledge is safer today than it was in the days of the Library at Alexandria. The fire in Brazil puts the lie to that assumption. To undertake the archiving of so vast a collection—the National Museum of Brazil reportedly lost 20 million artifacts in all—requires time, money, and a sense of urgency.As museum staff and researchers try to pick up their lives, find a new offices to work in, and figure out how to continue their work, there's plenty of blame to go around. Much of it belongs at the feet of the Brazilian government, which had slashed the budget for the National Museum and the University of Rio De Janeiro, which runs it. The museum was so strapped for money that last year, after termites destroyed a wooden base holding a 42-foot dinosaur skeleton, it started a crowdfunding campaign to raise $15,000 to replace it. The building had no sprinkler system. Government cuts are also why, when firefighters arrived to fight the flames Sunday night, they reportedly found no water in the hydrants, having instead to get water from a nearby lake.'It is very difficult to react to reality and try to return to life.'Bruna Franchetta, LinguistAll this austerity both made the fire more likely and made it burn more fiercely and longer than it needed to. Brazil’s cultural minister said that before the fire struck the museum, it had been poised to receive $5 million from the government for upgrades, including adding a fire suppression system.But the lack of a backup archive goes beyond governments. Certainly funding played a huge part, but even scholars who spend their lives studying history and loss, researching how cultures end, can fall for the notion that there will always be more time.“I think people just had the idea that, well it can be done someday, what’s the urgency?” says Andrew Nevins, a linguist affiliated with the National Museum. “The idea of digitizing as an urgent priority wasn’t in the air...Instead there was lots of funding and sources for going into the field and finding the last speakers right now of [a given language].” That’s obviously important work, but without a plan for how to safely back up and keep those records, much of it is now lost.That loss is not merely to science, or to future museum visitors, but to those cultures who entrusted their histories to the museum. An estimated 500 indigenous tribes currently live in the Amazon, speaking around 330 languages, about 50 of which are estimated to be endangered—but before colonization there were likely as many as 2,000 tribes. The CELIN archive contained research into roughly 160 of these languages, estimates Franchetta.Linguist Colleen Fitzgerald, who heads the United States’ National Science Foundation’s project on protecting endangered languages, notes that field work of the type that created the collection in Brazil involves deep collaboration with the communities being studied. Often over the course of many years, researchers gain access to people’s lives, stories, and customs. The responsibility to protect what they share is a solemn one.“Brazil [does not have] a diffuse culture of file safeguarding, especially through scanning and storing in various backups and in different secure locations,” says Franchetta. She notes that their academic community rarely discusses best practices in how to create digital archives. Nevins agrees. Though students and professors labor to collect everything they can about endangered languages, he sees far less emphasis on protecting what they gather.“The first reaction that many of us had was indignation: How could this happen, how could there be no sprinkler system? But I think as the dust started to settle there’s also some indignation at the state of library science in Brazil," says Nevins. "Why isn't library science in Brazil at a place where digitizing existing materials is as important as going out and collecting stuff?”Brazil is no outlier. Troves of important linguistic and anthropological collections exist in museums small and large, in institutes and universities in every nation, each with different budgets and practices around digital archiving. In fact, so many collections are at risk of loss due to catastrophes like fire or floods that just last month the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property held a simulation to train people in how to save precious artifacts after a crisis. Though the ephemerality of material knowledge concerned researchers for years, only recently have international standards for digital archiving emerged.Fitzgerald notes that the NSF only instituted archiving data management requirements for work it funds in 2011. The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, in Nijmegen, Germany, created a group that runs a central digital archive in 2000 into which researchers can upload their linguistic field work. The group also funds archival work around the world; Franchetta says the National Museum in Brazil had received funding from them for some of its digitization work. And in 2003, different linguistic groups concerned with endangered languages formed the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network, a consortium dedicated to digitizing the diffuse linguistics archives around the world. Though it has a handful of member organizations across the world, none are in South America.'I think people just had the idea that, well it can be done someday, what’s the urgency?'Andrew Nevins, LinguistEven when the decision does get made to archive a language, it comes at a tremendous cost. Just this year, the Archive for Indigenous Languages of Latin America, a DELAMAN member run by the University of Texas at Austin, finally digitized a collection of proto-languages from Latin America—among them Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, and Uto-Aztecan—based on more than 100,000 documents, 900 CDs of audio recordings, and hundreds of boxes of field notes taken by renowned Mesoamericanist Terrence Kaufman. The project took six years, with full time work from professors and graduate students, and specialized equipment. It was only possible through a $302,627.00 NSF grant awarded in 2012.That figure is more than twice the reported annual maintenance budget of the entire National Museum, which was reportedly $128,000—though this year it only had received $13,000, total, according to National Geographic. The collection in the linguistics wing of the museum alone was far larger than 100,000 documents. To digitize it all properly would have required not just buy-in from the powers that be, but also expensive specialized tools, like noninvasive scanners than can salvage audio recordings from the wax cylinders used a century ago to gather interviews.And that's just the equipment. Someone has to watch the tape to make sure it doesn’t skip. Someone has to mark the metadata that makes it possible to search through a digital archive. “Someone’s got to sit there while it’s being digitized. There’s human labor just in that process.” says Fitzgerald. That can be a graduate student or undergrad, notes Nevins, though some specialized equipment requires technicians with specific skills. Fitzgerald recently awarded a grant to a team in Hawaii that will work to make more advanced automated archival tools that might make this process easier—and, crucially, cheaper.Much of the work digitizing cultural artifacts has always been a labor of love undertaken by dedicated individuals in their free time. A group like this had worked for years scanning small parts of the most important collection that burned on Sunday, known as the Curt Nimuendajú collection. Nimuendaju was a German linguist at the turn of the 20th century who recorded hundred of hours of Amazonian languages that are now extinct. Two linguists in Brazil run the group Etnolinguistica as an homage to his work. Though their website contains some scans of his documents, it is far from a comprehensive archive of his primary sources. "They’re an impressive group that scans stuff all the time but it’s not institutional at all," says Nevins. "It’s just a bunch of people, a bunch of web denizens who go scanning stuff."In the aftermath of the fire, many crowdsourced campaigns have sprung up. Franchetta says the CELIN department has put out a call to any researchers and students who ever photocopied anything from the collection to please send copies back to the National Museum. “But that's a drop in the ocean,” she says.Academics from all over the world have been amplifying calls to share any photographs or recordings taken inside the museum in an effort to rebuild. Wikipedia put out a similar call. The spirit of collaboration and a sense of the community coming together in a time of crisis is palpable. But it can’t replace what’s been lost.“My will, with the anger that we are all feeling, is to leave that ruin as memento mori, as memory of the dead, of the dead things, of the dead people, of the archives, destroyed in that fire,” Brazil’s most famous anthropologist, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, who was affiliated with the museum, told a newspaper in Portugal this week.The global academic community, and the researchers in Brazil, hope that memento mori provokes an awakening about the urgent need to digitize the world’s knowledge. If fire comes for another historically important collection, maybe then it won’t take the world’s knowledge with it.More Great WIRED StoriesGoogle wants to kill the URLWill tourism threaten the world’s largest telescope?How Searching became more than an 'internet movie'Step pretending tech CEOs can't fix this messMeet the man with a radical plan for blockchain votingLooking for more? 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The same morning, “Katherine Fulton” also began promoting DCLeaks in the same awkward English Mr. Redick used. “Hey truth seekers!” she wrote. “Who can tell me who are #DCLeaks? Some kind of Wikileaks? You should visit their website, it contains confidential information about our leaders such as Hillary Clinton, and others http://dcleaks.com/.”So did “Alice Donovan,” who pointed to documents from Mr. Soros’s Open Society Foundations that she said showed its pro-American tilt and — in rather formal language for Facebook — “describe eventual means and plans of supporting opposition movements, groups or individuals in various countries.”Might Mr. Redick, Ms. Fulton, Ms. Donovan and others be real Americans who just happened to notice DCLeaks the same day? No. The Times asked Facebook about these and a half-dozen other accounts that appeared to be Russian creations. The company carried out its standard challenge procedure by asking the users to establish their bona fides. All the suspect accounts failed and were removed from Facebook.On Twitter, meanwhile, hundreds of accounts were busy posting anti-Clinton messages and promoting the leaked material obtained by Russian hackers. Investigators for FireEye spent months reviewing Twitter accounts associated with certain online personas, posing as activists, that seemed to show the Russian hand: DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, Anonymous Poland and several others. FireEye concluded that they were associated with one another and with Russian hacking groups, including APT28 or Fancy Bear, which American intelligence blames for the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails.Some accounts, the researchers found, showed clear signs of intermittent human control. But most displayed the rote behavior of automated Twitter bots, which send out tweets according to built-in instructions.The researchers discovered long lists of bot accounts that sent out identical messages within seconds or minutes of one another, firing in alphabetical order. The researchers coined the term “warlist” for them. On Election Day, one such list cited leaks from Anonymous Poland in more than 1,700 tweets. Snippets of them provide a sample of the sequence:@edanur01 #WarAgainstDemocrats 17:54@efekinoks #WarAgainstDemocrats 17:54@elyashayk #WarAgainstDemocrats 17:54@emrecanbalc #WarAgainstDemocrats 17:55@emrullahtac #WarAgainstDemocrats 17:55Lee Foster, who leads the FireEye team examining information operations, said some of the warlist Twitter accounts had previously been used for illicit marketing, suggesting that they may have been purchased on the black market. Some were genuine accounts that had been hijacked. Rachel Usedom, a young American engineer in California, tweeted mostly about her sorority before losing interest in 2014. In November 2016, her account was taken over, renamed #ClintonCurruption, and used to promote the Russian leaks.ImageRachel Usedom’s Twitter account was taken over and used to post political leaks.

Inside a packed New York City courtroom, and under heightened security on Monday, US prosecutors accused three former South American football administrators of taking millions of dollars in bribes as part of a web of endemic corruption at the heart of the sport’s governing body, Fifa. José Maria Marin, the 85-year-old former head of Brazil’s football federation, Juan Ángel Napout, the 59-year-old Paraguayan who was president of South American football’s governing body Conmebol, and Manuel Burga the 60-year-old former president of the Peruvian football federation, have denied multiple counts of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. Their trial is the first in a sprawling federal corruption investigation of Fifa that was announced in May 2015 after several officials were arrested during a morning raid on a hotel in Zurich. Since then more than 40 officials and marketing executives have been charged by US authorities with 23 already pleading guilty. As the defendants looked on, Marin staring ahead, Burga with his head in his hand and Napout appearing to take frantic notes, assistant US attorney Keith Edelman pointed to each of the men and told the jury: “These defendants cheated the sport in order to benefit themselves.” He added that they “did it year after year, tournament after tournament, bribe after bribe”. The trial will focus on how marketing and sponsorship rights were sold for two major South American tournaments, the Copa América and the Copa Libertadores, as well as the Brazilian domestic tournament Copa do Brasil. The officials are accused of regularly taking six-figure bribes. During his opening remarks, Edelman singled out an event in May 2014 in Miami, Florida, where Fifa officials had gathered to announce a special centennial expansion of the Copa América, which would be held in the United States for the first time.“By all appearances it’s a proud moment in the history of the game,” Edleman told the jury. “There are drinks, press conferences but underneath the surface are lies, greed, corruption. Some of these officials had other reasons to celebrate, they had agreed to receive millions of dollars in bribes regarding the tournament.”Edelman said the US government would present evidence, derived from witness testimony, bank records, covert recordings and other documentation that proved each of the officials had received bribes. Marin, Edelman said, had received “millions into a US bank account”. Napout, the prosecutor alleged, had received his money in cash, sometimes “over $100,000 at a time”, whereas Marin, who had been the subject of a domestic corruption investigation, had told a middleman to “hold on to the money until the coast was clear”. In each of their openings defense attorneys did not deny there had been corruption at Fifa, but said their clients were not part of it. They accused the US government of relying on the testimony of Fifa officials who had already pleaded guilty and cooperated with authorities in order to reduce their own sentences. Argentinian-Italian marketing executive Alejandro Burzaco is expected to be a key government witness, and according to Napout’s attorney, Silvia Pinera, got a “sweetheart deal” after he “turned himself in and began telling stories”. She accused the US government of paying other guilty officials hundreds of thousands of dollars to remain in the country to testify and providing their families with visas to the United States. “They’ve been here for years on our dimes,” Pinera told the jury. “We’re the taxpayer.”Bruce Udolf, an attorney for Burga, argued that the government had “simply gone too far” and “simply got it wrong” by charging his client, labelling the allegations “despicable”. “They’ve made a lot of righteous charges against a lot of bad people. But Manuel Burga is not one of them,” Udolf said. Charles Stillman, Marin’s attorney, likened the conspiracy to a match of football among children, arguing his client had remained out of the game while other more senior officials dictated the play. “Marin was not one of them,” he told the jury. “He’s kind of like the youngster standing off to the side, picking up daisies.” Both prosecutors and defense attorneys were at pains to explain to the court the significance of Fifa and football itself by comparing them to US sports. “It [Fifa] is kind of like the NFL or Major League Baseball but it’s for soccer all around the world,” Edelman told the jury. He added: “Here and around the world soccer is more than just a sport. It’s a passion, a way of life.” The trial is expected to last up to six weeks. All three defendants face extensive prison time if found guilty. Topics Fifa Football politics Brazil Americas news

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaks during a news conference in Ankara, Turkey September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Umit BektasANKARA (Reuters) - Bombing the Syrian province of Idlib is wrong and should be stopped, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding that Ankara was going to push at Friday’s planned summit in Tehran for a decision to stop such attacks. Speaking at a joint news conference with his German counterpart Heiko Maas who is on an official visit to Ankara, Mevlut Cavusoglu said a common strategy was required to eliminate radical groups in Idlib but the continuation of attacks could be disastrous. Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Andrew RocheOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A striking picture of a five-year-old girl grabbing her dangling sister's T-shirt after air strikes in northern Syria has circulated on social media.The girls' horrified father is shown scrambling to rescue his daughters from the building's rubble in Ariha, Idlib, after government bombing of the town on Wednesday."He [the photographer] couldn't see anything at first because of the rubble and dust - but then he heard the sounds of babies, children, and the father," media outlet SY-24 told BBC News.Warning: This article contains a distressing image and videoIt has brought attention back to the war in Syria, where the Russian-backed government is trying to recapture Idlib from rebels and jihadists.The UN said last week that more than 350 civilians had been killed and 330,000 forced to flee their homes since fighting in northern Syria escalated on 29 April.Journalist Bashar al-Sheikh filmed the family trapped in the rubble when covering the air strikes on Ariha, before stopping to help them.Moments later, the building collapsed, further injuring the trapped children, five-year-old Riham and seven-month-old Tuqa.The girls were freed from the ruins and after being taken initially to a local clinic, they were transferred to a larger hospital in Idlib. Why does the battle for Idlib matter? Why is there a war in Syria? Who's in control of Idlib? Riham died from her injuries and her baby sister remains in the intensive care unit, according to SY-24.Their father has been identified as Amjad al-Abdullah, from Ariha. His wife, Asmaa Naqouhl, was killed at the scene.The Syria Civil Defence, whose volunteer first responders are widely known as the White Helmets, said they rescued another young man from the ruins of his house. On Wednesday, 20 civilians, including five children, died in air strikes on at least three areas of the province, according to the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Russian air strikes had killed 10 people from one family, including three children, in Khan-Sheikun, it said.It is unclear how the group identified the attacking planes as Russian.On Monday, at least 31 civilians were killed in rebel-held town Maarat al-Numan when warplanes targeted a market and residential areas.Idlib, northern Hama and western Aleppo province make up the last opposition stronghold in Syria after eight years of civil war. It is supposedly covered by a truce brokered in September by Russia and opposition-backer Turkey that spared the 2.7 million civilians living there from a major government offensive.The photograph is the latest in a series of shocking pictures that have focused the world's attention on Syria.Pictures of drowned toddler Alan Kurdi on a beach in Turkey shocked the world in 2015, leading to promises from global leaders to address the Syrian refugee crisis.In 2016 a photograph of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh bloodied and stunned in the back of ambulance during the battle for northern city Aleppo caused outrage.He has since been pictured in his new home with his family.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of Russia’s military intelligence agency that the West has blamed for a string of brazen attacks died on Wednesday after “a serious and long illness”, the Russian defense ministry said on Thursday, hailing him as a “true son of Russia.” The Ministry of Defense heaped praise on Colonel-General Igor Korobov, 62, who had run the spy agency, best known as the GRU, since 2016, saying he had been made a Hero of Russia for his service in the post, the highest state award. “The loving memory of this wonderful person, a true son of Russia, a patriot of the Fatherland Colonel-General Igor Valentinovich Korobov will always be in our hearts,” the ministry said in a statement. President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to Korobov’s relatives in a statement saying he had led “a “legendary agency,” while state news agency TASS cited a military source as saying Vice-Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the agency’s first deputy head, had been standing in for Korobov during his illness and was favorite to formally succeed him. Britain has accused the GRU of attempting to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve agent, the Netherlands has accused it of trying to hack the global chemical weapons watchdog, and U.S. intelligence agencies say it tried to hack the 2016 presidential election. Russia denies all those allegations. Speculation about Korobov’s fate had been growing since an unconfirmed media report that Putin had summoned him after the Skripal affair and severely criticized the operation which left the Skripals alive and the GRU a target of mockery in the Western media. Korobov was absent from a ceremony in Moscow this month where Putin and other senior officials celebrated the centenary of the GRU, with the Russian leader praising its skill and “unique abilities.” Korobov’s death paves the way for Putin to appoint a successor to head an agency that intelligence experts say should not be underestimated and which has stepped up its covert missions as tension mounts between Russia and the West. Asked last month if there would be a shake-up at the defense ministry in the aftermath of the Skripal affair, the Kremlin said the low quality of the allegations leveled at GRU did not justify such changes. The United States included Korobov’s name on a March sanctions blacklist of people believed to have helped “undermine cyber security on behalf of the Russian government”. Slideshow (2 Images)Korobov was a Soviet military veteran who served in the air force and, according to his official biography, began working for the GRU in 1985. The GRU, founded as the registration directorate in 1918 after the Bolshevik revolution, is one of Russia’s three main intelligence agencies, alongside the domestic Federal Security Service and the SVR Foreign Intelligence Service. The last head of the GRU, Igor Sergun, also died at a relatively young age. He was just 58 when the Kremlin said in 2016 he had died unexpectedly. Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in Moscow; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Clarence Fernandez, William MacleanOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

There is no way to redo 1991, but there are ways to do better.The facts underlying Christine Blasey Ford’s claim of being sexually assaulted by a young Brett Kavanaugh will continue to be revealed as confirmation proceedings unfold. Yet it’s impossible to miss the parallels between the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing of 2018 and the 1991 confirmation hearing for Justice Clarence Thomas. In 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee had an opportunity to demonstrate its appreciation for both the seriousness of sexual harassment claims and the need for public confidence in the character of a nominee to the Supreme Court. It failed on both counts.ImageMs. Hill testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in 1991.CreditGreg Gibson/Associated PressAs that same committee, on which sit some of the same members as nearly three decades ago, now moves forward with the Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings, the integrity of the court, the country’s commitment to addressing sexual violence as a matter of public interest, and the lives of the two principal witnesses who will be testifying hang in the balance. Today, the public expects better from our government than we got in 1991, when our representatives performed in ways that gave employers permission to mishandle workplace harassment complaints throughout the following decades. That the Senate Judiciary Committee still lacks a protocol for vetting sexual harassment and assault claims that surface during a confirmation hearing suggests that the committee has learned little from the Thomas hearing, much less the more recent #MeToo movement.With the current heightened awareness of sexual violence comes heightened accountability for our representatives. To do better, the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee must demonstrate a clear understanding that sexual violence is a social reality to which elected representatives must respond. A fair, neutral and well-thought-out course is the only way to approach Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh’s forthcoming testimony. The details of what that process would look like should be guided by experts who have devoted their careers to understanding sexual violence. The job of the Senate Judiciary Committee is to serve as fact-finders, to better serve the American public, and the weight of the government should not be used to destroy the lives of witnesses who are called to testify.Here are some basic ground rules the committee should follow:Refrain from pitting the public interest in confronting sexual harassment against the need for a fair confirmation hearing. Our interest in the integrity of the Supreme Court and in eliminating sexual misconduct, especially in our public institutions, are entirely compatible. Both are aimed at making sure that our judicial system operates with legitimacy.ImageThe Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill last week.CreditDoug Mills/The New York TimesSelect a neutral investigative body with experience in sexual misconduct cases that will investigate the incident in question and present its findings to the committee. Outcomes in such investigations are more reliable and less likely to be perceived as tainted by partisanship. Senators must then rely on the investigators’ conclusions, along with advice from experts, to frame the questions they ask Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey. Again, the senators’ fact-finding roles must guide their behavior. The investigators’ report should frame the hearing, not politics or myths about sexual assault.Do not rush these hearings. Doing so would not only signal that sexual assault accusations are not important — hastily appraising this situation would very likely lead to facts being overlooked that are necessary for the Senate and the public to evaluate. That the committee plans to hold a hearing this coming Monday is discouraging. Simply put, a week’s preparation is not enough time for meaningful inquiry into very serious charges. Finally, refer to Christine Blasey Ford by her name. She was once anonymous, but no longer is. Dr. Blasey is not simply “Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser.” Dr. Blasey is a human being with a life of her own. She deserves the respect of being addressed and treated as a whole person.ImageBrett Kavanaugh appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing.CreditTasos Katopodis/EPA, via ShutterstockProcess is important, but it cannot erase the difficulty of testifying on national television about the sexual assault that Dr. Blasey says occurred when she was 15 years old. Nor will it negate the fact that as she sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dr. Blasey will be outresourced. Encouraging letters from friends and strangers may help, but she cannot match the organized support that Judge Kavanaugh has. Since Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh have the same obligation to present the truth, this imbalance may not seem fair. But, as Judge Kavanaugh stands to gain the lifetime privilege of serving on the country’s highest court, he has the burden of persuasion. And that is only fair.In 1991, the phrase “they just don’t get it” became a popular way of describing senators’ reaction to sexual violence. With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the prevalence and harm that sexual violence causes individuals and our institutions, as well as a Senate with more women than ever, “not getting it” isn’t an option for our elected representatives. In 2018, our senators must get it right.Anita Hill is university professor of social policy, law, and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Brandeis University.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), join the Facebook political discussion group, Voting While Female, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

With winds dying down, fire officials said on Sunday they had apparently “turned a corner” against wildfires that have devastated California wine country and other parts of the state over the past week. Thousands got the all-clear to return home.While the danger from the deadliest, most destructive cluster of blazes in California history was far from over, the smoky skies started to clear in some places. “A week ago this started as a nightmare and the day we dreamed of has arrived,” Napa County supervisor Belia Ramos said. People were being allowed home in areas no longer in harm’s way, and the number of those under evacuation orders was down to 75,000 from nearly 100,000 the day before. Fire crews were able to gain ground because winds that had fanned the flames did not kick up overnight as much as feared. “Conditions have drastically changed from just 24 hours ago and that is definitely a very good sign,” said Daniel Berlant of the California department of forestry and fire protection, who noted that some of the fires were 50% or more contained. “It’s probably a sign we’ve turned a corner on these fires.” The blazes were blamed for at least 40 deaths and destroyed some 5,700 homes and other structures. Most victims were elderly, though they ranged in age from 14 to 100. The death toll could climb as searchers dig through the ruins. Hundreds of people were unaccounted for, though authorities said many were probably safe but had not let anyone know.In hard-hit Sonoma County, Sheriff Rob Giordano said authorities had located 1,560 of more than 1,700 people once listed as missing. Many were put on the list after people called from out of state to say they couldn’t reach a friend or relative. “It’s a horror that no one could have imagined,” said Governor Jerry Brown, after driving past hundreds of “totally destroyed” homes with US senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris on Saturday. Brown, 79, and Feinstein, 84, said the fires were the worst of their lifetimes and reminded people that the blazes remain a threat and they should leave their homes if told to go.County officials said they would not let people return home until it was safe and utilities were restored. Crews worked around the clock to connect water and power, in some cases putting up new poles next to smoldering trees, the sheriff said. Many evacuees grew impatient to at least find out if their homes were spared. Others were reluctant to go back or to look for another place to live. Juan Hernandez, who escaped with his family from his apartment on 9 October before it burned down, still had his car packed and ready to go in case the fires flared up again and threatened his sister’s house, where they have been staying in Santa Rosa. “Every day we keep hearing sirens at night, alarms,” Hernandez said. “We’re scared. When you see the fire close to your house, you’re scared.” Evacuation orders were lifted for Calistoga, a Napa Valley city of 5,000 known for its mud baths, mineral spas and wine tastings. The city was cleared out on Wednesday as winds shifted but homes and businesses were spared. At the Sonoma fairgrounds, evacuees watched the San Francisco 49ers play Washington on television, received treatment from a chiropractor and got free haircuts. Michael Estrada, who owns a barber shop in neighboring Marin County but grew up in one of the Santa Rosa neighborhoods hit hard by the blazes, brought his combs, clippers and scissors. “I’m not saving lives,” he said. “I’m just here to make somebody’s day feel better, make them feel normal.” Lois Krier, 86, said it was hard to sleep on a cot in the shelter with people snoring and dogs barking. She and her husband, William Krier, 89, were anxious to get home but after being evacuated for a second time in a week on Saturday they didn’t want to risk having to leave again. “We’re cautious,” she said. “We want to be safe.” Nearly 11,000 firefighters were still battling 15 fires across a 100-mile swath of the state. In the wooded mountains east of Santa Rosa, where a mandatory evacuation remained in place, a large plume of white smoke rose as firefighters tried to prevent the fire from burning into a retirement community and advancing on to the floor of Sonoma Valley, known for its wineries. Houses that had benefited from repeated helicopter water drops were still standing as smoke blew across surrounding ridges. A deer crossed the highway from a burned-out area and wandered into a vineyard not reached by the flames.Some evacuees were returning home in Mendocino County, 70 miles north of the more well-known and more heavily populated Napa and Sonoma. Some residents felt they were being ignored as they dealt with their own catastrophic fires.“We have been hit just as hard as anyone,” said Sonya Campbell, who lost her house. “I don’t get why we aren’t getting any attention.” Thousands were evacuated in Mendocino and hundreds lost homes. Eight died, including 14-year-old Kai Shepherd, whose parents and sister suffered severe burns.No causes have been determined for the fires, though power lines downed by winds are seen as a possibility. Topics Wildfires Natural disasters and extreme weather California US weather news

A minute later, he shared the video with me. I was with a friend in a cafe in New Delhi. I saw the first two frames and froze. I wanted to vomit and fought tears. My friend got me a glass of water. “How could they?” I threw up and burst into tears.I called a friend who worked in tech forensics. He said it was a clear fake, probably produced with a new app called Deepfake. His words did not console me. The video was on my phone and on numerous others across the country.Minutes later, my social media timelines and notifications were filled with screenshots of the video. Some commented on how prostitution was my forte. I went into a frenzy blocking them, but they were everywhere, on my Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Some commenters asked what I charged for sex, others described my body. Many claiming to be nationalist Hindus sent pictures of themselves naked.I started getting screenshots from friends of a Twitter account created in my name. I was doxxed. A tweet with my name, picture, phone number and address was being circulated. “I am available,” it said. Someone sent my father a screenshot of the video. He was silent on the phone while I cried. After a while he spoke in a sad, heavy voice. “I am surprised this did not happen earlier,” he said. “They want to break you. The choice is yours.”I asked a friend to take charge of my Facebook account and send me screenshots and links of every message posted to my inbox. The reporter in me wanted the digital record, but I shuddered every time my phone beeped.I have no way of finding out who produced the video. What I do know is this: Most of the Twitter handles and Facebook accounts that posted the pornographic video and screenshots identify themselves as fans of Mr. Modi and his party, and argue for turning India into a “Hindu rashtra” — a country for Hindus only, where religious minorities have almost no rights. I reported several of those accounts to the cybercrime section of the Delhi Police.That night the administrator of a Facebook page called Varah Sena wrote, “See, Rana, what we spread about you; this is what happens when you write lies about Modi and Hindus in India.” The comment was posted along with the concocted video on Facebook and Twitter. (The page was deleted after I filed the police complaint.)

Police in India have registered a case against Bollywood actor Alok Nath after a complaint by producer Vinta Nanda who has accused him of raping her.This is one of the few police cases to be registered against someone named in India's #MeToo movement, which has gained momentum in recent months.In October, Ms Nanda accused the popular actor of sexual harassment and rape in a detailed Facebook post. Mr Nath has denied the charge and also filed a defamation case against her. He has demanded an apology and symbolic compensation of 1 rupee from her.The actor has also been accused of sexual harassment by two other actresses. Ms Nanda worked with Mr Nath on a 1990s hit TV series called Tara, which she wrote. In her Facebook post, she alleged that he had also sexually harassed the lead actress on the show. Ever since the allegations surfaced, Mr Nath has strongly denied the claims made in her post, which contains harrowing details about the alleged abuse. Preity Zinta: India outrage over Bollywood actress's #MeToo comment #MeToo firestorm consumes Bollywood and media Bollywood actress who began India #MeToo firestorm Ms Nanda said she had waited for 19 years to speak out and asked others "who have suffered at the hands of predators to come out and say it aloud".While she did not name anyone initially, many on social media deduced that it was Mr Nath after her post went viral. She later confirmed that she had indeed been referring to him. After the allegations, Mr Nath told journalists that he did not "agree" with the claims. "It [rape] must have happened, but someone else would have done it," he said. In recent months, the #MeToo movement in the country has led to a number of women making allegations against various comedians, journalists, authors, actors and filmmakers. It began in September when actress Tanushree Dutta repeated her 10-year-old allegation against veteran actor Nana Patekar, accusing him of harassing her on a film set in 2000. Patekar has denied the allegation, calling it "a lie".But since then several other Bollywood actors and directors have faced accusations of improper behaviour.The highest-profile figure to be named in India's #MeToo movement is MJ Akbar, who resigned last month as the country's junior foreign minister after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment and assault. Mr Akbar has strongly denied the allegations and has filed a criminal defamation case against a female journalist.

A week after Charlottesville, the Medieval Academy and 28 other scholarly groups released a statement condemning the “fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality.” Some medievalists overhauled their teaching, discussing misappropriations of history along with the history itself. Suddenly, professors began worrying about how to respond to students who might bring up white nationalist themes in class — or who might assume that medievalists themselves are white supremacists.“We had to think about, ‘Who do they think we are?” said Nicholas Paul, director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University and a co-editor of the forthcoming book “Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past.”The idea of medieval studies as a haven for white nationalist ideas gained ground when Rachel Fulton Brown, an associate professor of medieval history at the University of Chicago, began feuding with Dorothy Kim, an assistant professor of medieval English literature at Brandeis, after Dr. Kim, writing on Facebook, highlighted an old blog post of Dr. Fulton Brown’s titled “Three Cheers for White Men,” calling it an example of “medievalists upholding white supremacy.”Many scholars were outraged when Dr. Fulton Brown, in a riposte to Dr. Kim written a few weeks after Charlottesville, tagged the right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos, whose website then ran an article about the dispute. Last July Mr. Yiannopoulos followed up with a 16,000-word attack on the field, which assailed Dr. Kim and others as “an angry social justice mob.”The article caused a furor, as scholars accused colleagues of providing screenshots of private Facebook conversations and surreptitious recordings of conference sessions to Mr. Yiannopoulos.Since then, Dr. Fulton Brown has become more isolated, as some who initially supported her have distanced themselves after she began citing the far-right writer Vox Day and even, in a recent blog post, entertained the idea that the Christchurch shooting might have been a “false flag operation.” (Dr. Fulton Brown, in an interview, said the depiction of her as a white supremacist or a member of the alt-right is “a misnomer” that “depends on a fantasy about me.”)

Two men have been arrested in the Indian state of Bihar for allegedly raping a woman who was bathing in the Ganges, in a case that has provoked widespread disgust in a country used to appalling incidents of sexual violence.Police said the suspects took turns to assault the 45-year-woman, who had been bathing in an area called Simar Ghat on Sunday morning, and filmed her ordeal. The footage was then widely shared on social media.In the video, the two men are allegedly seen dragging the woman from the water and raping her, ignoring her as she appeals to them to respect the sanctity of the “mother” river. The Ganges is worshipped as a goddess by many Hindus.Police said the woman had not reported the attack and they had learned about it only when the video spread online. Officials told the Times of India the woman continued to resist lodging a report even after police arrived at her home.“She had completely suppressed the ordeal faced on Sunday and told no one,” said the local deputy police commissioner, Anand Kumar. “It was only after persuading her for a long time that she became ready to give her statement.”The alleged attackers and victim are from the same village. Police told the Guardian the woman’s statement had been recorded on video to prevent her from being pressured to recant by others in the community.They said they had been unable to find the video on the arrested men’s phones but were conducting forensic tests to see if it had been deleted.Sexual violence has become a national issue since the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a Delhi student triggered protests across the country. Official statistics show there were nearly 39,000 reported rapes in India in 2016. Some surveys suggest more than 99% of sexual violence cases are never referred to police.A report from Human Rights Watch last year said India’s laws on sexual violence had improved. Regressive practices, for example the so-called “two-finger test” used to determine the virginity of assault victims, had been scrapped. But it said police and community leaders were still failing to implement the changes in many jurisdictions, especially those in rural areas. Topics India South and Central Asia news