The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s suicide attack which left at least 20 people dead in Peshawar, a city near the Afghan border.
Another 63 people were injured in the attack, according to reports.
It is the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan this year and the first major attack as the country prepares for a general election on July 25.
In a statement, Pakistani Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Khurasani, said that the “successful bombing (in Peshawar) is the beginning of revenge,” and that “details of the suicide bombing will be shared soon.”
The dead include Awami National Party (ANP) candidate Haroom Bilour, who was due to contest this month’s election.
Bilour’s father, former provincial minister, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, was also killed in a suicide attack carried out by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012.
At a briefing Tuesday before the attack, military spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, detailed the vast security operation which will be put in place as polling starts.
Almost 372,000 security personnel will be deployed to ensure those going to the polls are protected, including around 135,000 reservists and four thousand personnel each from the Pakistan Air Force and Navy.
Earlier this week, Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) revealed the names of six personalities – including former cricketer and chairman of the Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI) Imran Khan, and ANP leader Asfandyar Wali – who it said could be targeted by terrorists.
NACTA director, Obaid Farooq, told lawmakers he had already forwarded 12 threat alerts to various ministries and law enforcement agencies.
More than 105 million people are eligible to vote at 85,307 polling stations on July 25, an election that, if it goes successfully, will be only the second democratic transfer of power in Pakistan’s history.
Khan’s party is seen as the strongest challenger to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which has been dogged by accusations of corruption.
Former PML-N Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to 10 years in prison and handed an £8 million ($10.5 million) fine this month, over corruption charges related to his family’s purchase of overseas properties.
His brother, Shahbaz Sharif, currently leads the party, which vehemently rejected the Islamabad court’s verdict.
Mass protests are expected later this week when Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz arrive back in Pakistan from London, where Sharif’s wife is currently receiving cancer treatment.
They are expected to be detained on arrival at Lahore airport, making Sharif the first former leader to be arrested on corruption charges in the country’s history.
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Facebook faces £500,000 fine from UK data watchdog
The UK’s data protection watchdog intends to fine Facebook £500,000 for data breaches – the maximum allowed.
The Information Commissioner’s Office said Facebook had failed to ensure another company – Cambridge Analytica – had deleted users’ data.
The ICO will also bring a criminal action against Cambridge Analytica’s defunct parent company SCL Elections.
And it has raised concerns about political parties buying personal information from “data brokers.”
Specifically it named one company, used by the Labour Party, called Emma’s Diary, a company that gives medical advice and free baby-themed goods to parents.
Facebook said it would respond to the report “soon.”
The ICO also said another company – Aggregate IQ – which worked with the Vote Leave campaign in the run up to the EU Referendum – must stop processing UK citizens’ data.
The action comes 16 months after the ICO began its probe into political campaigners’ use of personal data following concerns raised by whistleblower Christopher Wylie, among others.
Mr. Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica – a London-based political consulting firm – said his company had made unauthorised use of personal data harvested from millions of Facebook users.
The ICO found that Facebook had breached its own rules and failed to make sure that Cambridge Analytica had deleted this personal data.
While Cambridge Analytica insisted it had indeed wiped the data after Facebook’s erasure request in December 2015, the ICO said it had seen evidence that copies of the data had been shared with others.
“This potentially brings into question the accuracy of the deletion certificates provided to Facebook,” said an ICO spokesperson.
Responding to the ICO report, Mr. Wylie said: “Months ago, I reported Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to the UK authorities.
“Based on that evidence, Facebook is today being issued with the maximum fine allowed under British law.
“Cambridge Analytica, including possibly its directors, will be criminally prosecuted.”
READ ALSO: Facebook boss, Zuckerberg, now world’s third richest
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Trump Nato: EU’s Tusk warns president to appreciate allies
US President Donald Trump is set to meet other Nato leaders for potentially fractious talks at a summit in Brussels shortly.
Ahead of his visit, Mr. Trump hit out at the EU on trade and at his Nato allies for failing to spend enough on defence.
He was met with a sharp rebuke from European Council President Donald Tusk, who accused the president of criticising Europe “almost daily.”
“Dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don’t have that many.”
Mr. Tusk added that the EU spent more than Russia on defence, and as much as China.
He said the US did not and would not have a better ally than the EU, reminding the president that European troops had also fought and died in Afghanistan after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.
For his part, President Trump predicted that the Nato meeting could be harder than his summit with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in Finland next Monday.
President Trump has said the US is being “taken advantage of” by other members of the Nato alliance, which was set up in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union, of which Russia is the main successor state.
His main objection is that all but a handful of member states have still not increased their defence budgets to meet a goal of spending at least 2% of their annual economic output on defence by 2024.
The US currently spends more than 3.5% of its GDP on defence and pays about 22% of Nato’s running costs but European officials say just 15% of America’s overall defence spending happens in Europe on Nato business.
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Latino picnicker harassed in Illinois park as cop stands by
A woman wearing a Puerto Rican flag shirt at an Illinois park was racially harangued by a white man as a police officer stood by.
Mia Irizarry, 24, filmed the stranger’s tirade, which unfolded as she set up a picnic to celebrate her 24th birthday.
She repeatedly urged an officer to intervene as the man confronted her, jabbing his finger at her and demanding to know if she was a US citizen.
Local officials said the officer has been assigned to desk duty.
The Forest Preserves of Cook County, a local government agency that manages parkland in the Chicago suburbs, said it was investigating the officer’s actions.
Authorities said the intoxicated suspect was arrested and charged with assault and disorderly conduct over the 14 June incident.
He was named in police reports as 62-year-old Timothy Trybus.
In the video clip, as Mia Irizarry sets up her picnic the man approaches and demands to know why she is wearing her shirt, which had “Puerto Rico” written on it.
“You should not be wearing that in the United States of America,” the man shouts.
“Are you a citizen? Are you a United States citizen?”
Ms. Irizarry tells him Puerto Rico is part of the US, politely addressing the man as “sir.”
“We don’t own Puerto Rico,” the man replies. “Are you educated?”
She asks a park police officer to help, saying: “I am renting this area and he’s harassing me about the shirt that I’m wearing.”
But the policeman does nothing.
She says: “Officer, I’m renting, I paid for a permit for this area.
“I do not feel comfortable with him here, is there anything you can do?”
But the officer walks away.
Coming closer, the man says: “You’re not gonna change us, you know that?”
“OK, OK,” Ms. Irizarry says, trying to placate him.
Pointing at her, the man says: “You’re not American, if you were American you wouldn’t wear that.
“Why is she wearing that [expletive]?”
As more police officers arrived, the man was detained.
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China ‘shocked’ by US actions in trade dispute
China said it is “shocked” after the US announced plans for fresh tariffs, escalating a trade war between the two countries.
The US listed $200bn (£150bn) worth of additional products it intends to place tariffs on as soon as September.
The move comes just days after the two countries imposed tit-for-tat tariffs of $34bn on each other’s goods.
Beijing described Washington’s latest threat as “totally unacceptable,” saying it would harm the world.
“The behaviour of the US is hurting China, hurting the world and hurting itself,” a spokesperson for China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
The spokesperson also said the government would have to take the “necessary counter-measures.”
The list names more than 6,000 items including food products, minerals and consumer goods such as handbags.
The public will have until the end of August to comment on the list before the new tariffs – to be imposed at 10% – come into effect.
Asian stock markets fell sharply on Wednesday as investors shunned risk amid escalating trade tensions between the two economic giants.
In China, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 1.6%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 2%.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index shed 1.2%.
The White House says the tariffs are a response to unfair trade practices by China.
The US wants China to stop practices that allegedly encourage transfer of intellectual property – design and product ideas – to Chinese companies, such as requirements that foreign firms share ownership with local partners to access the Chinese market.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said there was “no justification” for China’s retaliation.
“As in the past, the United States is willing to engage in efforts that could lead to a resolution of our concerns about China’s unfair trade practices and to China opening its market to US goods and services,” he said.
“In the meantime, we will remain vigilant in defending the ability of our workers and businesses to compete on a fair and reciprocal basis.”
Many companies in the US are opposed to the administration’s use of tariffs against China, saying they risk hurting business and the economy without being likely to change behaviour.
On top of the $34bn worth of tariffs that came into effect on Friday last week, the White House has said it would consult on tariffs on another $16bn of products.
US President Donald Trump has suggested these could come into effect later this month.
In total, the new import taxes that President Trump is threatening to impose are almost equal to the value of China’s entire goods exports to the US, worth more than $500bn last year.
“It’s a difficult situation for a number of our companies. They’re getting increasingly worried about where this is all going,” Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical companies, said on Tuesday before the latest measures were announced.
“They can’t figure out what the end game is.”
