Despite a slowdown in the last few years, the Indian e-commerce market remains one of the world’s fastest-growing and is set to overtake several global peers.“We expect the online retail market in India to grow at a CAGR of 29.2% to cross $73 billion in 2022, representing nearly 5.7% of total retail sales,” says a March 22 report by US-based Forrester Research. “We expect apparel, footwear, and grocery to continue to be a key focus for online retailers in 2018.”Over the last couple of years, the Indian e-commerce sector has witnessed a slowdown due to regulatory actions like new guidelines for foreign direct investment (FDI), the demonetisation of two high-value notes, which sucked cash out of consumers’ hands, and the new goods and services tax regime which led to a decline in consumer spending, Forrester said.Yet, India, with its $27 billion e-commerce market, may soon close the gap with Australia’s $31 billion one.“Reduction in data prices and the launch of affordable 4G devices will further boost the expansion of the buyer base for online retail in markets like India,” Forrester said. “Increasing adoption of mobile payments will also boost sales via mobile devices.”Within India, the e-commerce war heated up after US-based Amazon gained a firm footing against homegrown rival Flipkart.“After surpassing Flipkart in 2016 for the first time, Amazon has strengthened its position as metropolitan Indian consumers’ preferred online retail destination and is aggressively closing the gap with Flipkart to become the single-largest online retailer in India in terms of sales,” Forrester said. In 2018, Flipkart may find it even harder to battle Amazon, the report said. “Fashion remains the only category where Flipkart has a significant edge due to its acquisition of fashion online retailers Myntra and Jabong. With Amazon’s continuing focus on fashion and grocery in 2017 and 2018, Flipkart will find it difficult to retain its edge in 2018,” the report said.

Bombing raids have killed more Syrians in the besieged enclave of eastern Ghouta before a delayed UN vote on a ceasefire to allow medical and food aid to reach civilians.Nearly a week into one of the most fierce assaults of Syria’s long civil war, over 520 people were dead and thousands more injured, Médecins Sans Frontières said.Many of the bombing raids have targeted medical buildings, and doctors in the remaining facilities are struggling to keep up with the stream of severely injured patients.The scale of the attacks from barrel bombs and other missiles was making it hard to find and count the dead, rescuers said. The civil defence rescue service, known as the White Helmets, said it had documented at least 350 deaths in the first four days of the attacks. “Maybe there are many more,” Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the group told Reuters. “We weren’t able to count the martyrs yesterday or the day before because the warplanes are touring the skies.”Most people who had escaped death or injury were hiding in underground bunkers with little or no electricity, and low food supplies.“The situation is disastrous, kids didn’t eat for two days in a row,” one activist said. “Local councils cannot even provide meals for children. The adults might be able to endure but the kids can’t.“We have large numbers of babies under the age of six months lacking formula, whose mothers [don’t have milk] to breastfeed them. Generally we have large numbers of kids aged between six months and five years with nothing to eat.”Doctors and medical activists from around the world called for an end to the violence, protection for civilians, and greater action from the UN, in a joint appeal published in the Lancet.The group represented medical centres from Harvard to Britain’s Royal Free hospital, Panzi hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Syrian American Medical Society.“Inaction in the face of unrelenting attacks on civilians represents an epic failure of world leaders,” the appeal said. It condemned “patterns of attacks, which predominantly target civilian areas, and demonstrate a position that all civilians in opposition-held areas are legitimate targets”.On Friday, the UN security council failed to agree on a proposed 30-day ceasefire across Syria, to allow for emergency humanitarian deliveries and medical evacuations, because of Russian objections.Intense talks at the UN headquarters in New York followed a direct appeal by French and German leaders to Vladimir Putin for Russia to support a ceasefire, but a vote was pushed back several times as talks stalled.In an apparent attempt to win Moscow’s support, Kuwait and Sweden, who are sponsors of the draft resolution, dropped a demand for the ceasefire to take effect 72 hours after the resolution passed. Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, has said an immediate ceasefire is unrealistic. A new text only demands that all parties halt fighting “without delay”. Topics Syria United Nations Middle East and North Africa news

A rape victim is facing 20 years in jail charged with attempted murder, after she gave birth to her abuser’s baby in a latrine in El Salvador.In a case that highlights the rigidity of the country’s abortion laws, Imelda Cortez, 20, from an impoverished rural family in San Miguel, has been in custody since April 2017 after giving birth to a baby girl fathered by her abusive elderly stepfather.Cortez was rushed to hospital after her mother discovered her in severe pain and bleeding heavily. The emergency room doctor suspected an abortion and called the police. Officers found the baby healthy and alive.Cortez had been abused by her 70-year-old stepfather since she was 12 years old and said she had no idea she was pregnant. The baby survived, but Cortez was charged with attempted murder, denied bail and sent to jail after a week in hospital.“This is the most extreme, scandalous injustice against a woman I’ve ever seen,” said Bertha María Deleón, one of Cortez’s defence lawyers. “The state has repeatedly violated Imelda’s rights as a victim; she’s deeply affected but denied psychological attention.”Abortion is illegal in all circumstances in El Salvador and the total ban has led to aggressive persecution of women.Like Cortez, most are poor, single rural-dwellers convicted on tenuous evidence after having a gynaecological complication such as a miscarriage or stillbirth. In many cases, the women did not realise they were pregnant.This pattern of prosecutions targeting a particular demographic suggests a discriminatory state policy which violates multiple human rights, according to Paula Avila-Guillen, director of Latin America Initiatives at the New York based Women’s Equality Centre.Cortez’s case is a stark illustration of how the law criminalises victims.While Cortez was in hospital, her stepfather visited her, threatening to kill her, her siblings and her mother if she reported the abuse. Another patient overheard and told a nurse, who called the police.At first, prosecutors accused Cortez of inventing the abuse to justify her crime, until a DNA test confirmed the baby’s paternity. Her stepfather is yet to be charged.The criminal trial against Cortez opens today, with a ruling by the three judges expected within a week.A psychological evaluation detected cognitive and emotional deficits consistent with abuse and trauma, yet Cortez has received no psychological support since being detained 18 months ago. She has never been allowed to hold her baby daughter.“When you thought nothing could be crueller in El Salvador, you get Imelda’s case, which shows the fierce determination of prosecutors to go after poor women regardless of the circumstances and evidence. By shackling these women to hospital beds and sending them to prison, it sends a strong message: if you’re poor, it’s not safe to seek healthcare,” said Paula Avila-Guillen.Abortion was criminalised in El Salvador 21 years ago, by legislators from across the political spectrum. Hopes have plummeted of the ban being relaxed to allow abortion in cases of rape or human trafficking, when the foetus is unviable, or to protect the pregnant woman’s life.A parliamentary bill, drawn up almost two years ago amid a groundswell of public and medical support for reform, remains stuck at the committee stage, with no hope of a vote as political parties gear up for next year’s general election.Yet campaigners refuse to give up. Five women wrongly imprisoned for murder – Teodora del Carmen Vásquez, Mayra Figueroa, Elsy Rivera, Katherine Mazariego and Maria Lopez – have been freed so far this year after dogged campaigning by domestic and international human rights groups.A further 24 women known to activists are still serving 15 to 30 years in jail. Cortez is one of four awaiting trial or, in the case of Evelyn Hernández, a new ruling after her 2017 guilty verdict was recently overturned. Topics Global development Women's rights and gender equality Reproductive rights (developing countries) Sexual violence Abortion El Salvador Americas Health news

India’s growing hunger for online video streaming has set a world record.Hotstar, the country’s largest video streaming platform, has said that it has topped the global record for the highest number of concurrent viewers for a single event by an online broadcaster.On April 10, viewership for the Indian Premier League (IPL) match between the Chennai Super Kings and the Kolkata Knight Riders peaked at 5.5 million, the company told Quartz.Hotstar’s mobile app and website are streaming the ongoing 60-day professional T-20 cricket league, IPL, with commentary and a ticker scroll in six languages: Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Kannada.Hotstar’s record beats the earlier one of 4.6 million concurrent viewers for the inauguration ceremony of US president Donald Trump in January 2017.“Crossing five million on a live sporting event is like breaking the 10-second barrier in the 100-metre dash,” Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan said. “We are proud that we are the first to get here.”Online video streaming has gained traction in India in recent years thanks to inexpensive smartphones and falling mobile data charges. In 2017, consumption rose almost five times, with smaller cities (with a population between 100,000 and one million) seeing a 4.3 times jump year-on-year and metros expanding 3.5 times.Indians spend an average of around 4.5 hours a day accessing the internet on their smartphones, about 37% more than the time spent watching TV, according to a research report released in February.While several international players, such as Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, are investing in India by bringing more local content to their platforms, homegrown Hotstar is way ahead of rivals in terms of monthly active subscribers. Hotstar was launched in February 2015 by television network Star India.

About six months before the iPhone hit store shelves in 2007, Steve Jobs called Corning’s CEO, Wendell Weeks, and asked him if he could create a glass cover for a new Apple product that would resist scratches and breakage.Corning would have to scramble to have something ready for the manufacturing ramp-up that preceded the iPhone’s release. But the iPhone itself was conceived in a remarkably short timeframe, as Apple hurried to pre-empt other phone makers that were adding iPod-like music features to their devices, threatening Apple’s iPod business.Actually, the original iPhone spec called for a plastic cover over the touchscreen display. The story goes that Jobs, after using a prototype iPhone for a few weeks, became very worried that the device’s display would get scratched when jumbled around in user’s pockets with keys and coins. So he gathered his engineers and demanded a new glass covering be used for the iPhone. Hence Jobs’s phone call to Weeks.Jobs’ six-month deadline was a real challenge for Corning, the VP of Corning’s Gorilla division, John Bayne, told me. Bayne said it normally takes Corning close to two years of R&D to get any new product to market.Fortunately, like the iPhone itself, Gorilla Glass benefited from some earlier R&D, Bayne explained. In the 1960s Corning had worked on strengthened glass for car windshields, and while that product never came to market, Corning would later roll that work into a new glass used in TVs and laptops. And that served as the backbone of the glass Corning proposed to Jobs for the future iPhone. (Bayne’s comments are unusual because it’s standard operating procedure for Apple suppliers to never talk about their relationship with Apple.)Apple accepted Corning’s invention, and Gorilla Glass has been a key (if under-appreciated) component of the iPhone ever since, making 2017 the 10th anniversary of Gorilla Glass as well as the iPhone.Prior to the iPhone, plastic screens were standard fare on smartphones. The iPhone delivered a whole new design metaphor, introducing a glass touchscreen as the main user interface. That, perhaps more than anything else, opened the door for the device to be used like a computer that fits in your pocket. The Gorilla Glass defined the feel of the user’s finger moving around on the touchscreen. For many, it was that tactile experience, combined with the rapid and smooth response of the software, that was the iPhone’s magic.After Gorilla Glass was used in the iPhone, other smartphone makers quickly followed suit in switching from plastic to glass to cover the front of their devices. Corning says that since 2007 it’s delivered 58 square miles of Gorilla Glass–the equivalent of 28,000 football fields.While many other smartphone makers have crowed about using Gorilla Glass, Apple has rarely (if ever) publicly acknowledged Corning as the maker of the iPhone’s glass cover.The Gorilla’s FutureOver the years Corning has strengthened Gorilla Glass exponentially: Gorilla Glass 5 can survive a drop from a height four times higher than the Gorilla Glass used in the original iPhone.I asked Bayne what the future holds for Gorilla Glass. Smartphone vendors continue to ask for thinner and lighter glass, he told me, which makes the glass even more susceptible to breakage. So the current goal is to develop a thin and light piece of glass that’s virtually unbreakable. Bayne believes Corning will achieve that within the next two to three years.Gorilla Glass has become more important to Apple and other smartphone vendors as more new smartphones—such as the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X—have glass on their backs as well as their fronts. This is needed to enable the wireless charging features coming out in new models. Since glass is RF (radio frequency) neutral, it allows various radio and electromagnetic signals to be transmitted through the back of the phone.As a result of Apple and Corning’s long-term relationship, Apple has invested $200 million in Corning to help it further develop its glass manufacturing. The investment is part of a larger Apple effort to help American manufacturers innovate.I spoke to Steve Jobs just after he got off the stage at the iPhone announcement event in January 2007. I remember him telling me he believed the iPhone would usher in a new era of mobile computing. Ten years later that sounds almost like an understatement. And Gorilla Glass has been a defining factor in the experience of using an iPhone. Corning may deserve more credit than it’s gotten for its contribution to Jobs’ world-changing device.

France has charged eight men, including three minors, following an investigation into far right activists allegedly plotting to target politicians and mosques, prosecutors announced on Saturday in Paris.The men, aged between 17 and 29, are accused of being party to a “criminal terrorist conspiracy”, and of links to Logan Alexandre Nisin, a militant who was arrested near Marseille in June.Nisin is the founder of a group dubbed OAS. He was detained after posting that he planned to attack black people, jihadists, migrants and “scum”.The 21-year-old had earlier come to the attention of French authorities as the administrator of a Facebook page glorifying neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage in 2011 in Norway.The prosecutor’s office in Paris said the group formed by Nisin “had plans to commit violent actions with vague outlines”.Anti-terror police had arrested 10 people on Tuesday over the alleged plot, but two of them, including Nisin’s mother, were released, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.Among the potential targets for attacks were places of worship, including mosques, politicians, “people of North African descent or black people” and “anti-fascist” activists, a source said.“The organisation was planning purchases of weapons and paramilitary training. Some were already trained in shooting,” the source added.OAS was the acronym for the Secret Army Organisation, a French far right paramilitary group that fought to stop Algerian independence.Nisin was formerly active in the far right political group Action Francaise.France remains under an enhanced security status. Parliament on Wednesday adopted a tough anti-terror bill which replaced a state of emergency imposed in 2015 after jihadist attacks in Paris. Topics France The far right Paris news

Whatever the merits of the suit, Mr. de Blasio and his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, are the very embodiment of a possible line of defense by the oil companies. Namely, that it wasn’t the oil companies that created the greenhouse gases, but society in general — companies and individuals who used oil to generate electricity, or for transportation.Many mornings, Mr. De Blasio is driven 11 miles to his gym in Park Slope, Brooklyn, from the official mayor’s residence on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Gracie Mansion.Former Mayor Bloomberg, a billionaire, rode the subway most days. On the other hand, Mr. Bloomberg routinely splurged on carbon usage by deploying his personal fleet of carbon-inefficient private jets and helicopters for long-distance travel. He would use them to fly to a weekend home in Bermuda, for instance, or to Europe. In an episode so rich you could choke on it, Mr. Bloomberg brought an entourage aboard his personal Falcon 900 to Copenhagen, at a cost in carbon emissions that was 37 times more than if the group had flown commercial.The reason for the trip? Mr. Bloomberg was speaking at a conference on climate change.In New York, the police regard S.U.V.s as the most prudent for moving and protecting the mayor, and no one should begrudge any officials the security they need to carry out the work they do on behalf of the public. That goes for their recreation, at least for mayors, who put in long hours. At some point, every last one of them winds up splutteringly frayed or fried, so getting to a favorite gym probably helps keep Mr. de Blasio from losing his mind.Just because it is easier to deplore hypocrisy in others than in ourselves does not make any of us immune to it. Hypocrisy is more widely practiced by humans than any creed. Mr. Bloomberg’s health department wanted restaurants to cut sodium from their recipes but he was known to shake salt on slices of pizza and saltine crackers.

Immigration law in Britain allows for visas to be issued to those with “exceptional talent” — in fields such as science, engineering, digital technology and fashion — or categories of “sport,” like archery, cricket, snooker or yoga.But according to Mr. Lawson, chess does not qualify as an exceptional talent or a sport.Ms. Reeves and others have suggested that if Mr. Singh earned more than £120,000, he would be eligible to extend his work visa. But the Home Office said that was not an option.Mr. Singh’s visa, intended for transfers within a company, was “not a route to settlement” in the country, “and it is not an option to immediately extend it once the five-year period of leave comes to an end — regardless of how much the individual is earning.”Famous sporting figures have been allowed to settle in Britain in the past, including Mo Farah, the Olympic distance runner, who was born in Somalia and became a naturalized British citizen.And as Britain moves closer to leaving the European Union, the government has spoken in favor of attracting talent from around the world, amid fears that tighter borders could isolate the country.For now, Shreyas — who is ranked fourth in the world for his age group, according to the English federation — is competing in the British Chess Championships. “We are getting a lot of support,” Mr. Singh said on Thursday, “but we’re not getting any response from Sajid Javid.”The prodigy and his family are worried, his father says.“He’s asking a lot of questions about why we have to go back to India,” Mr. Singh said. “This is the only place he remembers.”

An Argentinian prosecutor was murdered four days after he formally accused the then president Cristina Fernández of covering up the role of Iranian officials in connection with the country’s deadliest terror attack, a border police investigation has found.The report, obtained by the Associated Press, bases its conclusions on controversial new evidence and sharply contradicts earlier official findings that Alberto Nisman likely killed himself.Nisman, 51, was found dead on 18 January 2015, with a bullet in his right temple. A .22 caliber pistol was found next to him. The crusading prosecutor had led the investigation into the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre, which killed 85 people.Coming just days after Nisman challenged Fernández, his death became a politically charged controversy. Allies of Fernández suggested Nisman took his own life because he couldn’t back up his allegations. Many other Argentinians insisted he had been murdered. It triggered anti-government protests ahead of the 2015 presidential election.Fernández has insistently denied any wrongdoing and says her government had no role in Nisman’s death. The initial police reports and autopsies concluded there was no sign anyone else had been present when he died. While the national forensics team said there was no concrete evidence it was a homicide, the federal police said the lawyer shot himself in his bathroom.Federal prosecutor Eduardo Taiano told the AP that Nisman’s death was the most complicated criminal case he had ever investigated. Taiano, who took over the stalled case from another judge in 2016 following a supreme court order, requested a multidisciplinary border police team take a fresh look after an investigation that had been highly questioned for mishandling of evidence and other irregularities. Taiano said that the agency, whose main role was to guard borders and fight drug trafficking, was chosen because it hadn’t been involved in the earlier, much-questioned investigation.The border police report says Nisman was beaten by two people who drugged him and placed him in front of his bathtub. While one of the attackers held him under the armpits “as in a hug” the other placed the gun on his head and shot him. It was about 2:46am on a Sunday.The investigation listed key evidence that wasn’t mentioned in previous reports: Nisman’s nasal septum was broken, he had suffered blows to his hip and other areas, and ketamine, a drug with strong anaesthetic properties, was in his body.The new report concludes that the attackers tried to stage a suicide, but it notes that other experts throughout the series of investigations never found any traces of gunpowder on Nisman’s hands.The 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and injured hundreds. Fernández’s government struck a 2013 accord with Iran, which was portrayed as a way to reach the truth behind the attack, but the deal, which was approved by congress, was later ruled unconstitutional by an Argentinian court. Nisman believed Fernández was using the deal with Iran to secretly negotiate and help shield the Iranian officials allegedly behind the attack.Taiano told the AP that he would compare the new report with previous ones and decide whether to treat Nisman’s death as a murder, suicide or induced suicide. A report by forensic experts on behalf of Nisman’s family in 2015 also argued that the prosecutor did not shoot himself. However, their report said only one attacker carried out the killing by holding Nisman’s right hand and pulling the trigger to make it look like a suicide.The fatal shot was fired from a gun that had been loaned to Nisman by aide Diego Lagomarsino, a computer technician who said the prosecutor asked for the weapon because he feared for his and his daughters’ lives.A forensic report sent by Lagomarsino’s defence to Taiano contends Nisman shot himself standing in front of a mirror and then fell back, hitting his head. It says there is no proof Nisman was under the effects of ketamine and argues he suffered injuries on his left hip and ankle several hours before his death. A lesion on his bottom lip could have happened while the body was being transported, it says. The death was said to have taken place between 8am and noon, several hours later than estimated by the border police report.Taiano said a major challenge for the investigation was contamination of the crime scene. More than 60 people walked carelessly in Nisman’s luxury apartment for several hours after the body was found by his mother and security guards.In addition, Nisman’s mobile phone and computer were tampered with to delete any traces of the information and calls that he received in the hours before his death. And the apartment building’s security cameras had not been working for days before he died.“The challenge is very complex,” Taiano said. “If this had been investigated differently from the start, this would be a whole different thing.”Federal police officers who were in charge of Nisman’s security are also being investigated, and experts say the differing conclusions on what happened could point to negligence or the mishandling of information. Topics Argentina Iran Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Americas news

Winter is coming, and Delhi is preparing for another season with lung-choking smog.Some eight residents of India’s capital are thought to die each day because of the city’s notoriously polluted air. Though authorities have been trying to clean it up by cutting traffic and the use of coal in power plants, the problem hasn’t really gone away. The newest culprit seems to be what has become coal’s replacement: an even dirtier fuel called petroleum coke.Petcoke, as it is commonly called, starts its life in the pits of Canada’s tar sands, which are one of the dirtiest sources of crude oil. It is then refined in the US Gulf Coast, where the lighter and most valuable fractions, such as petrol and diesel, are removed. What is left behind is petcoke, which cannot be burned in the US and most other countries because it produces more carbon, sulfur, and heavy-metal emissions than even coal. To try and make some money on what would otherwise be waste, US companies export petcoke to markets that still use them, including India and China.Since 2014, China has been cutting its use of petcoke. That leaves India as the biggest importer of the dirty fuel.Even India’s use of petcoke is coming under fire. In February, the country’s supreme court ordered the government to ban the use of the fuel in power generation or limit the amount of sulfur emitted in the process. For comparison, India’s lax regulations say that the amount of sulfur contained in fuels should be no more than 4,000 parts per million (ppm) but the regional environmental agency says that petcoke contains 72,000 ppm of sulfur.However, the government has failed to ban or regulate the fuel. So the court has come up with a deadline of Oct. 24 for the government to come up with a plan. The deadline is after India’s largest festival, Diwali, when people burst lots of firecrackers. Anticipating the problem, the country’s supreme court has banned the sale of firecrackers until after Diwali is over. Be assured, however, that simply not bursting firecrackers isn’t going to make Delhi’s smog problem go away.

US President Donald Trump has sparked outrage by reportedly using crude language to describe foreign countries in an Oval Office meeting.Mr Trump insists he did not insult Haitians and appeared to deny calling any nations "shitholes", as was reported, prompting a global outcry.Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said Mr Trump called African countries "shitholes" and used "racist" language.But two Republicans present said they could not remember those comments.Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, of Arkansas and Georgia, said they heard the president "call out" what they described as "the imbalance in our current immigration system".Amid widespread coverage of his remarks at the private meeting with lawmakers to discuss immigration legislation on Thursday, Mr Trump on Friday tweeted that his language at the meeting had been "tough". But he added that the words attributed to him were "not the language used".Many US media outlets reported the comments on Thursday, quoting witnesses or people briefed on the meeting. The White House did not deny them."I cannot believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday," Mr Durbin told reporters on Friday. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a top Republican, said the reported comments were "unfortunate" and "unhelpful.Two views: Are Trump's views racist or not?Hillary Clinton, who lost to Mr Trump in the 2016 presidential election, said the country had been subjected to his "ignorant, racist views of anyone who doesn't look like him".Mr Trump ignored press questions about the issue as he signed a proclamation declaring a holiday in honour of civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr - as presidents do every year. He said Americans were celebrating that "self-evident truth" that "no matter what the colour of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God".Mr Trump's reported remarks came as lawmakers visited him on Thursday to discuss a bipartisan proposal that would impose new restrictions on immigration but protect the so-called "Dreamers" - hundreds of thousands immigrants brought to the US illegally as children - from deportation.Mr Trump was said to have told them that instead of granting temporary residency to citizens of countries hit by natural disasters, war or epidemics, the US should instead be taking in migrants from countries like Norway."Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" the Washington Post quoted him as saying, in remarks first reported to be about Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. How countries have reacted What has Trump said about your country? Democrats decry 'cruel' immigration order Mr Durbin said that when Mr Trump was told that the largest groups of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) were from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti, the president responded: "Haitians? Do we need more Haitians?"But in another tweet on Friday the president denied that he insulted Haitians. Botswana summoned the US ambassador to "express its displeasure" at what it called "highly irresponsible, reprehensible and racist" comments It asked the ambassador "to clarify if Botswana is regarded as a 'shithole' country given that there are Botswana nationals residing in the US" The African Union said it was "frankly alarmed" by Mr Trump's statement UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the comments, if confirmed, were "shocking and shameful", adding: "I'm sorry but there is no other word for this but racist." Haiti's US Ambassador Paul Altidor told the BBC the idea that "we're simply immigrants who come here to take advantage of the US" is wrong. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) accused the president of falling "deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of racism and xenophobia" Mia Love, a Utah Republican and the only Haitian-American in Congress, demanded an apology from Mr Trump for the "unkind, divisive, elitist" comments Black Democrat lawmaker Cedric Richmond said the comments were "further proof that his Make America Great Again agenda is really a Make America White Again agenda" But Steve King, a right-wing Republican Congressman from Iowa, backed the president in a tweet: 11 things we never said before Trump Trump defeat still haunts Democratic voters What will Trump impact be on world trade? What promises has Trump kept as president? The Washington Post broke the story with the word "shithole" in its headline and in the alert that the paper sent out to followers' smartphones.On US TV, some broadcasters gave content warnings or avoided saying the word altogether. Fox News used asterisks to obscure the offensive word along the bottom of the screen, but CNN and MSNBC carried it in full.Around the world, journalists reporting in other languages faced the question of how to translate what Mr Trump had said. In French, headlines featured "pays de merde", using the expletive to refer to the countries but without the word "hole" In Spanish, "países de mierda" was used, similar to the French, as well as "países de porquería", which means "trash countries" In German, "Drecksloch" , which literally means dirt hole but like the word used by Mr Trump is considered vulgar In Dutch, one newspaper used "achterlijk" (backward) as its headline In Japanese, a word that translates as "outdoor toilet" was used In Portuguese, one outlet used a word that translates as 'pigsty', while others translated the quote literally

Breast cancer is fast becoming a public health crisis in India, and society’s squeamishness over women’s bodies could make the situation even worse.Over 46% of Indian women surveyed by Aegon Life Insurance said that taboos around discussing sexuality and menstruation make it difficult to promote an understanding of breast cancer. Aegon Life surveyed 550 men and women aged between 18 and 54 in major metros across the country.“The Indian society has deemed several aspects of human physicality as taboo, which creates an obstacle to a free discourse on breast cancer and self-checking for lumps,” Aegon Life said in a statement. “Many respondents said that several cultural factors dissuade women, specifically, from discussing certain physical ailments with their family, which eventually might lead to a delay in accessing the required healthcare.”More worryingly, the Aegon Life survey reveals that many Indians aren’t entirely sure what causes breast cancer, believing it to be the result of hormonal problems. Actually, it’s a combination of lifestyle-related factors, such as having children later in life and breastfeeding less, that are believed to increase the risk.Moreover, only about 3% of the respondents said their friends and family knew about the disease and conducted self check-ups. But nearly a quarter had never discussed breast cancer with them. Is there enough awareness amongst your friends and family about breast cancer? Respondents Yes 17.22% No 33.42% They have an in-depth understanding about the disease and the signs to look for 1.29% They know about the disease and conduct self check-ups 3.34% They have a superficial understanding of the disease 20.05% I have never discussed this with my friends and family 24.68% To top it off, nearly 55% said they had no idea that October was breast cancer awareness month.

Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video Vice-President Pence says IS defeated despite Syria attack Mike Pence has claimed that the Islamic State group has been defeated - on the same day of an apparent suicide bombing in Syria that killed American soldiers. The US vice-president didn't mention the attack in Manbij during his speech.

There is “lots of evidence” chemical weapons are being prepared by Syrian government forces in Idlib, north-west Syria, the new US representative for Syria has said, warning any attack on the last big rebel enclave would be a “reckless escalation”.“I am very sure that we have very, very good grounds to be making these warnings,” said Jim Jeffrey, who was named on 17 August as secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s special adviser on Syria overseeing talks on a political transition. “Any offensive is to us objectionable as a reckless escalation,” Jeffrey said. “There is lots of evidence that chemical weapons are being prepared.”Washington has issued a strong warning to Syria’s government against using chemical weapons in the widely expected operation.Jeffrey said any offensive by Russian and Syrian forces, and the use of chemical weapons, would force huge refugee flows into south-eastern Turkey or areas in Syria under Turkish control.The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has massed his army and allied forces on the frontlines in the north-west and Russian planes have joined his bombardment of rebels there – the prelude to a possible assault.The fate of the insurgent stronghold in and around Idlib province now seems to rest on a meeting to be held in Tehran on Friday between the leaders of Assad’s supporters Russia and Iran, and the rebels’ ally Turkey.Backed by Russian air power, Assad has over several years taken back one rebel enclave after another. Idlib and its surroundings are now the only significant area where armed opposition to Damascus remains.Jeffrey described the situation in Idlib as “very dangerous” and said Turkey, which has backed some rebel groups in the region, was trying to avoid an all-out Syrian government offensive.“I think the last chapter of the Idlib story has not been written. The Turks are trying to find a way out. The Turks have shown a great deal of resistance to an attack,” he said.He said the US had repeatedly asked Russia whether it could “operate” in Idlib to eliminate the last holdouts of Isis and other extremist groups. Asked whether that would include US air strikes, Jeffrey said: “That would be one way.” Topics Syria Chemical weapons Middle East and North Africa Bashar al-Assad news

Last Friday, Sirley Gonçalves was cleaning up the house she and her husband had just finished building in this rural village in south-eastern Brazil when she heard a huge noise.Her instinct was to run. A dam at the mine where many in Córrego do Feijão made a living had burst, sending big waves of waste from iron ore extraction, destroying everything here.Hours earlier, Claudio Pereira Silva, her 44-year-old husband, had gone to work at the mine, where for five years he had been a train operator. "My husband left home for work in the morning, said 'God be with you', as he always did," said 54-year-old Ms Gonçalves, her tears coming easily.But he never came back. The pride of Brazil becomes its most hated company In pictures: Deadly dam collapse The dam collapsed at around lunchtime without warning. The torrent of toxic sludge buried not only parts of her village but the plant's own facilities, including the cafeteria where hundreds of workers were believed to be eating, the administrative buildings and the loading terminal for trains, where Mr Silva worked."He really liked his work," said Ms Gonçalves, "but he was afraid that something could happen one day. We were always at meetings about safety and evacuation routes."But the alarm system that Vale, Brazil's largest mining company and the mine's owner, had installed in the village to warn the residents of any risk did not go off. Those who survived ran for their lives after hearing the noise that terrified Ms Gonçalves.Her home was unaffected. But Córrego do Feijão, a district of Brumadinho where the dam was located, was the worst-hit area. Its lower part now lies under a thick layer of mud, in some places up to 15m (49ft). And many of Ms Gonçalves' neighbours are believed to be under it."It's so difficult," she said. "We loved each other so much." Interactive Dam collapse in Brazil 29 January 2019 24 January 2019 The trail of destruction spreads over an area equivalent to more than 100 football pitches, according to Ibama, Brazil's environment agency, and it reaches the vital Paraopeba river.Almost a week later, there is almost no hope that any of the 259 people who are still missing will be found alive. Ms Gonçalves believes her husband's body is inside one of the locomotives, where one of his colleagues has been found, but access to the area is difficult. Ninety-nine deaths have already been confirmed. It is not known what caused the dam to collapse, as Vale says it was being regularly monitored and had stability reports issued by independent companies. But five people connected with the company's licensing process have been arrested.Vale is the biggest employer in Brumadinho and mining royalties make it the town's biggest source of revenue. A recent ranking by Valor newspaper considered it the fifth best company in which to work in Brazil.Now the name sparks outrage with many in Córrego do Feijão and across Brazil who blame the company for this tragedy. "The families are desperate. Vale destroyed our lives," said Ms Gonçalves. "They must have known the dam would break. But they don't care about their employees, they care about their money."This comes with added disbelief at seeing history repeat itself. "Vale, reoffending assassin," says a fresh graffiti on a wall in the village.In November 2015, a mining dam operated by Vale's subsidiary, Samarco, collapsed in the town of Mariana, just 120km (74 miles) away in the same state of Minas Gerais, killing 19 people and devastating two nearby villages.The trail of destruction along the Doce river became Brazil's worst environmental disaster and, up until today, no-one has been convicted in the case while residents say they are still waiting compensation. It was also an eye-opener in Brumadinho and other towns in Minas Gerais which are next to mines, an important regional industry. The state has more than 200 dams classified with "high potential risk" in case of a collapse. "After Mariana, we came to fear that the same could happen here," said Caio Cesar de Assis Braga, a city legislator in Brumadinho.After visiting the Córrego do Feijão mine last December, he demanded assurances from Vale on safety concerns. But he never got an answer."Our feeling now is of outrage because it's too much sadness," he said at the funeral of a friend who did not manage to escape the mud. "The city lost its joy, its people. Brumadinho is dead."He counted 25 people he knew as missing. "Soon people will be coming here to make documentaries about how we've been forgotten, about how nothing has been done." For now, Ms Gonçalves and many other women are in an agonising wait. With her partner for 20 years presumed dead, she thinks she will never be able to live in their new house."After this tragedy, this place is over for us."

Amid recent hype about “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea, the US, an outspoken opponent of China’s “militarisation” has been flexing its own military muscle by sending naval vessels and aircraft carriers to the region. Four questions need to be answered to clarify the real situation.First, what is freedom of navigation? According to international law, ships navigating in the territorial waters of countries other than their own must meet the “innocent passage” requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). That means not using force or threatening the use of force, and not engaging in military exercises or intelligence gathering. Although naval ships are not subject to UNCLOS provisions of innocent passage, they are required by many countries to obtain prior permission or provide advance notice to enter foreign territorial waters. Such is the provision of China’s Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone.So, freedom of navigation is not an absolute freedom to sail at will. The US Freedom of Navigation Program should not be confused with freedom of navigation that is universally recognised under international law. The former is an excuse to throw America’s weight about wherever it wants. It is a distortion and a downright abuse of international law into the “freedom to run amok”.Second, is there any problem with freedom of navigation in the South China Sea? The reality is that more than 100,000 merchant ships pass through these waters every year and none has ever run into any difficulty with freedom of navigation. Despite some disputes between China and some of its neighbours, maintaining stability in the South China Sea has been a matter of consensus for all the countries in this region. The overall situation has been stable, thanks to the joint efforts of all the regional partners.Last August, for example, the foreign ministers of China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries agreed on the framework of a code of conduct. The parties have agreed to hold at least three more rounds of consultations before the end of this year. The South China Sea is calm and the region is in harmony. The so-called “safeguarding freedom of navigation” issue is a bogus argument. The reason for hyping it up could be either an excuse to get gunboats into the region to make trouble, or a premeditated intervention in the affairs of the South China Sea, instigation of discord among the parties involved and impairment of regional stability.The third question concerns militarisation of the South China Sea? The US, the self-professed opponent to “militarisation”, keeps sending destroyers, cruisers, carriers, reconnaissance flights and strategic bombers, fully loaded with advanced offensive weapons, to this region in total disregard of others’ sovereignty and security or the peace and stability of the area. What is “militarisation” or “troublemaking” if not this blatant show of force? Instead of getting this straight, some countries followed suit by condescendingly accusing China of “not playing by the rules”. This is not only making a mess of the regional situation but also assisting the troublemakers.China is naturally vigilant and on guard against provocations and needs to increase its defensive capabilities, such as building necessary facilities on its islands. This is the responsibility and right of a sovereign country. These facilities, while serving the purpose of safeguarding the sovereignty and security of China, will also provide relevant navigational services to ships and aircraft passing through this region and help ensure the openness and safety of the shipping and flight routes. China is the biggest littoral state in the South China Sea and it is firmly committed to peaceful development, to peace and stability in the South China Sea and to regional prosperity and growth. There is no doubt about this.The last question is what does it take to ensure peace and stability in the South China Sea?A calm and tranquil South China Sea matters directly to the prosperity and development of China and its neighbours, who treasure peace and stability in this region more than anyone else. Therefore it is up to China and the Asean countries to find a solution through negotiation and consultation among themselves.Peace, like air and sunshine, is hardly noticed when people are benefiting from it. But no one can live without it. China respects and supports freedom of navigation in the South China Sea according to international law. But freedom of navigation is not the freedom to run amok. For those from outside the region who are flexing their muscles in the South China Sea, the advice is this: if you really care about freedom of navigation, respect the efforts of China and Asean countries to safeguard peace and stability, stop showing off your naval ships and aircraft to “militarise” the region, and let the South China Sea be a sea of peace.• Liu Xiaoming is China’s ambassador to the UK Topics South China Sea Opinion China Donald Trump US foreign policy Asia Pacific US military comment

Enlarge this image A Syrian woman carries an infant Thursday past the ruins of a restaurant in Manbij that was targeted by the Islamic State. Four Americans were killed in the attack. Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images A Syrian woman carries an infant Thursday past the ruins of a restaurant in Manbij that was targeted by the Islamic State. Four Americans were killed in the attack. Delil Souleiman/AFP/Getty Images The Department of Defense released Friday the names of three Americans who died in a suicide bombing at a restaurant in Manbij in northern Syria. A fourth U.S. casualty was a military contractor and has not yet been identified in the attack that is said to have killed 15 people.The three people who died in Wednesday's attack are Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Fla.; Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of upstate New York, and Scott A. Wirtz of St. Louis, Mo., a civilian who was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency as an operations support specialist. Enlarge this image Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Fla., was killed in the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Wednesday. Fort Bragg via AP hide caption toggle caption Fort Bragg via AP Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, 37, of Boynton Beach, Fla., was killed in the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Wednesday. Fort Bragg via AP Farmer was a Green Beret, the Associated Press reports. His father told the news service that Farmer had been in the military for 13 years and had been previously assigned to Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.Kent was a Navy interpreter and a mother of two children, the AP reports. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Kent grew up in Pine Plains, N.Y., and was the daughter of a state police field commander. Cuomo ordered flags on state buildings lowered to half-staff in Kent's honor.Wirtz was a former Navy SEAL and he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the AP reports.The bombing undermined recent claims by the Trump administration that the Islamic State has been defeated. In December, President Trump said, "We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land. And now it's time for our troops to come back home."Wednesday's attack showed a different reality. Pentagon spokesman Charles Summers Jr. said in a statement, "As Wednesday's attack demonstrates, ISIS remains a threat. We will continue to hit the remnants of ISIS hard to destroy any residual networks and ensure its enduring defeat." Middle East U.S. Troops Killed By Blast In Syria; Islamic State Claims Responsibility Manbij is on Syria's northern border with Turkey. The town was once under ISIS control until Kurdish troops backed by the U.S. drove them out. NPR's Tom Bowman reports the U.S. has outposts on the Turkish border and that Americans routinely patrol in Manbij. The U.S. has been training local forces to take over patrolling duties — a handover that has been thrust into uncertainty by Trump's December announcement the U.S. will withdraw. Enlarge this image Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Pine Plains, N.Y., was killed in a suicide bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group in Syria on Wednesday. U.S. Navy/AP hide caption toggle caption U.S. Navy/AP Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon M. Kent, 35, of Pine Plains, N.Y., was killed in a suicide bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group in Syria on Wednesday. U.S. Navy/AP In July, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., visited the area. He said Wednesday that the president should "look long and hard at where he's headed in Syria."Graham said he believed he had eaten at the restaurant that was targeted. A vegetable seller near the restaurant told The New York Times that Americans were a regular presence there. That may have left the troops exposed, said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies."A number of Americans had frequented the restaurant," Jones told NPR. "Members of Congress, civilians, intelligence officials, including ones from the Defense Intelligence Agency. That raises a lot of questions about the operational security procedures the Americans were practicing while there." Jones said the Islamic State has moved into a "guerrilla phase" with the U.S. as a major target. Previously, Jones said, ISIS faced off directly against Iraqi and Syrian security forces. However, the group has lost territory in recent years and they have adapted their approach. Kurdish-led forces have been concerned with ISIS sleeper cells, according to CNN's Clarissa Ward, who reported from Manbij days before the attack. She said two local security offers had been killed in a bombing the day before the Americans were targeted.When NPR's Bowman visited Manbij in February 2018, he found a lively town of about 100,000 residents with a bustling market and functional schools more than a year after the Islamic State had been forced out. But the legacy of the extremist group remained close, in the severed limbs of residents who survived the Islamic State's harsh justice system and in the threat of ongoing attacks. ISIS fighters slipped back in for occasional attacks including a March 2018 bombing that killed American Master Sergeant Jonathan Dunbar and a British soldier. Kurdish forces told Bowman they were strained between fighting the Islamic State, fending off Turkish forces to the north and defending against militias associated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the south. The possible U.S. withdrawal has rattled Kurdish forces. In December the official Kurdish YPG twitter account tweeted, "We invite the Syrian government forces to assert control over the areas our forces have withdrawn from, in particular Manbij, and to protect these areas against a Turkish invasion."

The US attorney general is stepping up inquiries into the origins of the Russia investigation, working with intelligence chiefs to see how surveillance was conducted and naming a US attorney to oversee the investigation.The investigation is examining intelligence and surveillance used during the Russia investigation that shadowed Donald Trump’s presidency for nearly two years. William Barr is working with the CIA director, Gina Haspel; director of national intelligence, Dan Coats; and FBI director, Christopher Wray, as part of the inquiry.Barr tapped John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, but Barr remains directly involved in the investigation, which he initiated about three weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke Tuesday to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.With Durham’s appointment, Barr is addressing a rallying cry of Trump and his supporters, who have accused the justice department and FBI of unlawfully spying on his campaign.Democrats have accused Trump of using the allegations to divert attention from the special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings that Russia aided Trump’s 2016 campaign and that he could not exonerate the president on the question of whether he tried to impede Mueller’s investigation. Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin.As he left the White House on Tuesday for a trip to Louisiana, Trump referred to Mueller’s investigation as a “hoax” – as he has frequently done in the past – and said he hadn’t asked Barr to open the inquiry and hadn’t known about it in advance.“But I think it’s a great thing that he did it,” Trump said. “I am so proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it. I think it’s great.”Durham’s appointment comes about a month after Barr told members of Congress he believed “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign in 2016. He later said he didn’t mean anything pejorative and was gathering a team to look into the origins of the special counsel’s investigation.Barr provided no details about what “spying” may have taken place but appeared to be alluding to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained on a former Trump associate, Carter Page, and the FBI’s use of an informant while the bureau was investigating former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.Wray said last week that he did not consider court-approved FBI surveillance to be “spying” and said he had no evidence the FBI illegally monitored Trump’s campaign.Durham’s inquiry, which will focus on whether the government’s methods to collect intelligence relating to the Trump campaign were lawful and appropriate, is separate from an investigation by the justice department’s inspector general. The agency’s watchdog is also examining the Russia inquiry’s origins and Barr has said he expects the watchdog report to be done in May or June.The former attorney general Jeff Sessions had appointed another US attorney, John Huber, in March 2018 to review aspects of the Russia investigation, following grievances from Republican lawmakers.The review by Huber, Utah’s top federal prosecutor and an Obama administration holdover, is a “full, complete and objective evaluation” of Republican concerns, Sessions said at the time.Both the inspector general’s investigation and the inquiry being conducted by Huber are winding down, the person familiar with the inquiries said.Congressional Republicans have also indicated they intend to examine how the investigation that has shadowed Trump’s presidency began and whether there are any legal concerns.Durham is a career prosecutor who was nominated for his post as US attorney in Connecticut by Trump. He has previously investigated law enforcement corruption, the destruction of CIA videotapes and the Boston FBI office’s relationship with mobsters.Durham was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 2018. At the time, Connecticut’s two Democratic senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, called Durham a “fierce, fair prosecutor” who knows how to try tough cases.On Tuesday, Blumenthal said Durham was a “talented professional tasked with a very unprofessional and unbecoming mission”.“This so-called investigation is a politically motivated distraction and threatens to sully his reputation as a straight-shooting, serious, smart prosecutor. It’s a waste of his talent,” Blumenthal said. Topics Trump-Russia investigation William Barr Robert Mueller US politics Trump administration Russia Donald Trump news

Apple halted after-hours trading of its shares briefly on Wednesday afternoon to announce to shareholders that it had a worse-than-expected holiday quarter.In a letter to investors, the company said it revised down its revenue for the quarter to $84 billion from the range of $89 billion to $93 billion it had provided on November 1. The company posted revenue of $88.3 billion for the 2017 holiday quarter.All other guidance metrics–gross margin, operating expenses, other income, and expense, and tax rate–remained generally unchanged, Apple said.Apple blamed slow iPhone sales–especially in China–as well as fewer-than-expected iPhone upgrades for the shortfall. “While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the letter. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.”Cook says China’s economy began to slow in the second half of 2018, with the Chinese government reporting GDP growth during the September quarter as the lowest seen in 25 years. “We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States,” Cook adds.The fact that Apple took the dramatic step of halting trading is an indication that the company was taken by surprise by the iPhone sales shortfall. It had, after all, predicted a record holiday quarter. But let’s add some perspective here, courtesy of Jason Snell over at Six Colors:“To be clear, that’ll still be the second largest Apple quarter ever,” Snell tweets. “Apple is an enormous revenue and profit generator, and will remain so for years to come.”And there was some very good non-iPhone news in Cook’s letter. Apple said it has put more than 100 million new Apple devices into service over the past year. And all of those devices can be used to buy Apple services, which many see as the company’s main revenue driver in the future. To wit, sales of services (like Apple Music and iCloud) generated more than $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, Apple said, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment.In addition, the holiday quarter was big for Apple’s wearables business. The company said wearables sales grew by almost 50% over last year’s holiday quarter, the Apple Watch and AirPods being especially popular this year.Moor Insights & Strategy principal analyst Patrick Moorhead, for one, wasn’t surprised by today’s guide-down. “Suppliers had been telegraphing the issue for a few months . . . iPhone units are likely down and I believe prices on the more premium, higher priced phones are down due to holiday discounting,” Moor writes in a note to Fast Company. “The company is growing its services and ‘other’ categories, just not enough to drive overall revenue growth.”Moor adds that investors are waiting for Apple to demonstrate a path back to double-digit growth. Until they see that, the Apple stock price may remain depressed.

Enlarge this image A bombing and shooting attack during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula reportedly has killed at least 305 people. The region has been dealing with an Islamist insurgency for years. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Stringer/AFP/Getty Images A bombing and shooting attack during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula reportedly has killed at least 305 people. The region has been dealing with an Islamist insurgency for years. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images Updated at 6:36 a.m. ET SaturdayA terrorist attack that targeted a mosque in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has left at least 305 people dead and more than 120 wounded Friday, according to the public prosecutor's office.The death toll makes it the deadliest attack in the country's recent history.At least 27 of those killed were children, according to the prosecutor's office.Chief Prosecutor Nabil Sadeq said in a statement Saturday that between 25 and 30 people carried out the attack after arriving in five all-terrain vehicles, according to The Associated Press."Teams of attackers set off bombs and then opened fire as worshippers tried to flee," NPR's Jane Arraf reports. "Others used rocket-propelled grenades.""The Egyptian government launched airstrikes overnight on what it said were hideouts and fighters involved in the attack," she adds.The bombing and shooting attack took place in the town of Bir al-Abd, the AP says, located in the country's northeast not far from the border with the Gaza Strip.Police officers told the wire service on Friday that men in four off-road vehicles shot at worshippers who were at the al-Rawdah mosque for Friday prayers.Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi spoke to the country on state television, condemning the attack and encouraging the country not to lose hope. "The armed forces and the police force, will avenge our martyrs, and restore security and stability, with utmost force during the coming short period, this is our [response]," Sissi said. "We will respond [to] this act with brute force in facing those extremist terrorist [factions]." He ordered the government to allocate compensation to the families of the dead. He also announced three days of national mourning.Officials from around the world, including Israel, Iraq, France and the United Kingdom, condemned the attack. President Trump denounced the attack hours later and said he planned to call Sissi.Just before 5 p.m. ET on Friday, the White House confirmed Trump's call. The statement said Trump offered condolences to the president and his people while also condemning the attack."The international community cannot tolerate barbaric terrorist groups and must strengthen its efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all its forms," the White House said.Officials from the U.S. Embassy in Egypt offered the following message of support: "Today's terrorist attack on worshippers attending Friday prayers at a mosque in Arish was an unconscionable act of cowardice and hate. The Embassy extends heartfelt condolences to the families of those who were killed and we wish a speedy recovery to those injured. As Egypt battles the scourge of terrorism, the United States stands committed to the safety and security of Egypt and its people." Egypt's State Intelligence Service released a statement outlining eight official "indications" from the attack saying emphatically that the true target of the terrorists was "the Egyptian people; their security, stability, sources of livelihood, the solid unity of all Egyptians and the lives of innocent people."It is not known yet who planned and carried out the assault on the mosque, but there has been an Islamist insurgency in the region for several years. Officials said a midair explosion of a Russian jet in 2015 over the Sinai was the work of terrorists. Sissi said the plane bombing was meant "to hit relations with Russia," which has conducted military interventions in Syria's civil war ostensibly to target the Islamic State there.