Facebook on Monday announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse", a virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a leading voice in Silicon Valley hype around the idea of the metaverse, which would blur the lines between the physical world and the digital one.

The technology might, for example, allow someone to don virtual reality glasses that make it feel as if they're face-to-face with a friend -- when in fact they are thousands of miles apart and connected via the internet.

"The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start," Facebook said in a blog post.

"Today, we are announcing a plan to create 10,000 new high skilled jobs within the European Union (EU) over the next five years."

The European hires will include "highly specialised engineers", but the company otherwise gave few details of its plans for the new metaverse team.

"The EU has a number of advantages that make it a great place for tech companies to invest -- a large consumer market, first class universities and, crucially, top quality talent," the blog post said.

- Distraction from bad news? -

The announcement comes as Facebook grapples with the fallout of a damaging scandal, major outages of its services, and rising calls for regulation to curb its vast influence.

The company has faced a storm of criticism over the past month after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing Facebook knew its sites could be harmful to young people's mental health.

The Washington Post last month suggested that Facebook's interest in the metaverse is "part of a broader push to rehabilitate the company's reputation with policymakers and reposition Facebook to shape the regulation of next-wave Internet technologies".

But Zuckerberg also appears to be a genuine evangelist for the advent of the metaverse era, predicting in July that Facebook will transition from "primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company" over the next five years.

Facebook bought Oculus, a company that makes virtual reality headsets, for $2 billion in 2014 and has since been developing Horizon, a digital world where people can interact using VR technology.

In August it unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a feature where co-workers wearing VR headsets can hold meetings in a virtual room where they all appear as cartoonish 3D versions of themselves.

- Blurring the lines -

Metaverse enthusiasts point out that the internet is already starting to blur the lines between virtual experiences and "real" ones.

Stars such as pop diva Ariana Grande and the rapper Travis Scott have performed for huge audiences, watching at home, via the hit video game Fortnite.

In Decentraland, another online platform widely seen as a forerunner to the metaverse, you can already get a job as a croupier in its virtual casino.

"No one company will own and operate the metaverse. Like the internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability," Facebook said in its blog post.

It is not the only company pouring millions into developing the technology that could turn a fully-fledged version of the metaverse into reality.

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, announced earlier this year that it had raised $1 billion in new funding, with some of that money set to support its vision of the metaverse.

Pope Francis on Saturday delivered a speech that demanded powerful institutions change their ways of operating in order to better serve the poor, stressing that the status quo keeps people in poverty, creating an unjust society.

“Personal change is necessary, but it is also indispensable to adjust our socioeconomic models so that they have a human face, because many models have lost it,” the pope said at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, his own initiative for grassroots organizations and church leadership to work together for structural changes in favor of social, economic and racial justice.

He called on several corporate institutions to make foundational changes aligned with helping disadvantaged people ― pharmaceutical labs to release vaccine patents; financial groups to cancel poor countries’ debts; extractive industries to cease destroying the environment; arms manufacturers to stop production; telecommunications giants to make educational material and connectivity more accessible, and more.

He also demanded that the media push harder against disinformation, tech giants “stop preying on human weakness,” and food corporations “stop imposing monopolistic systems of production and distribution that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry.”

“In the name of God, I call on powerful countries to stop aggression, blockades and unilateral sanctions against any country anywhere on earth. No to neo-colonialism,” he said. “Conflicts must be resolved in multilateral fora such as the United Nations. We have already seen how unilateral interventions, invasions and occupations end up, even if they are justified by noble motives and fine words.

“This system, with its relentless logic of profit, is escaping all human control,” he continued. “It is time to slow the locomotive down, an out-of-control locomotive hurtling towards the abyss. There is still time.”

The 84-year-old pope from Argentina has previously spoken out on many of the issues he mentioned Saturday, especially urging powerful people to create an economically and environmentally just world where the poor and marginalized aren’t left behind by the wealthy elite.

On Saturday, he reiterated his support of protesters ― specifically young people ― who use their transformative power to fight injustice.

“Do you know what comes to mind now when, together with popular movements, I think of the good Samaritan? ... The protests over the death of George Floyd,” he said. “It is clear that this type of reaction against social, racial or macho injustice can be manipulated or exploited by political machinations or whatever, but the main thing is that, in that protest against this death, there was the collective Samaritan who is no fool! This movement did not pass by on the other side of the road when it saw the injury to human dignity caused by an abuse of power.”

Pope Francis is considered one of the most progressive pontiffs ever, having cautioned Catholics to focus on serving the poor and oppressed rather than becoming “obsessed” with topics like abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception. He is also one of the most vocal popes in terms of his commentary on social justice, climate change and systemic oppression.

“Together with the poor of the earth, I wish to ask governments in general, politicians of all parties, to represent their people and to work for the common good,” he said. ”Let them stop listening exclusively to the economic elites, who so often spout superficial ideologies that ignore humanity’s real dilemmas. May they be servants of the people who demand land, work, housing and good living.”

  HuffPost  

The Blue Valley School District in Johnson County, Kansas, boasts some of the top public high schools in the state. Generally, candidates for the school board sail to victory unopposed, while turnout is a meager single-digit percentage of all eligible voters.

"Very sleepy, very sedate," said Andrew Van Der Laan, who is running for one of three contested seats on the school board in the Nov. 2 election.

But in past months, a school board meeting went virtual because of safety concerns after reported threats were made as dozens of people gathered to oppose the district's mask policy. A group, Mask Choice 4 Kids, has held rallies and encouraged children to wear T-shirts in support of the cause and pull down their masks in coordinated protest to "peacefully disrupt the educational system ... until kids and parents have a CHOICE to wear a mask in school."

This year's school board race is heating up in Kansas' most populated county — and across the country.

School board meetings have become ideological battlegrounds during the pandemic, activating public comments and lawsuits over mask enforcement and other Covid-related learning requirements. They have also become a forum for fights over the teaching of critical race theory in the wake of racial justice protests in 2020. And school board recall efforts are under way in districts in several states, including Louisiana, Virginia and Wisconsin.

But this election cycle has shifted in another way: Outside special interest groups and political action committees have a toehold in nonpartisan races that might otherwise draw little interest from even local citizens, say some school board members, candidates and academics.

"It's telling that the conception of where decisions are being made is changing," said Van Der Laan, a father of three and self-employed business consultant and executive leadership coach who has never previously run for elected office. "You used to see presidential races, Senate races and gubernatorial races holding that influence. Now, you're seeing it filter all the way down to the schools."

In August, a group called The 1776 Project PAC said it was endorsing the slate of Blue Valley candidates running against Van Der Laan and two other candidates with shared interests. The endorsements are among more than 50 the PAC has made, supporting school board candidates in Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio and elsewhere.

The group, which has a New York mailing address, says it rejects the "divisive philosophy" of critical race theory and "The 1619 Project," created by The New York Times to examine the effects of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans. The group contends such programs are "being taught in classrooms in nearly every state across the country."

Despite some recent efforts by GOP-controlled statehouses to ban schools' use of critical race theory, an academic study that suggests looking at U.S. history through a lens of systemic racism, a June survey by the nonpartisan Association of American Educators found that more than 96 percent of teachers in K-12 schools said they were not required to teach the theory.

Supporters of the theory and "their positions are incredibly hostile to white people, Western civilization, classical liberalism, the enlightenment, the founding of America, and capitalism," according to The 1776 Project PAC.

The group raised more than $437,880 in contributions, federal campaign finance data from April to September show.

The Blue Valley School District, which has a student population of almost 22,000 and is 70 percent white, says critical race theory is not part of its district-approved curriculum.

And yet, parent groups within the community say they're confused as to why there's interest in endorsing local candidates. The 1776 Project PAC did not respond to a request for comment, but an organizer told Axios in May that its goal is to campaign on behalf of school board candidates nationwide.

The leader of Mask Choice 4 Kids, Tana Goertz, said the group plans to endorse school board candidates this week.

Goertz — who was a finalist in season three of NBC's "The Apprentice" and who campaigned for former President Donald Trump, the show's former host, in her home state of Iowa — is not from Johnson County. But she became involved with the group after a college student from the county who started it abruptly resigned last month amid scrutiny over his father's role as a CEO in the health care industry.

"The group grew into something much bigger than a college student could handle," Goertz said in an email. "I'm not shocked or amazed that people who disagree with our stance on the subject were quick to point the finger that this group had an agenda other than being patriots who stand up for our freedom, our faith and our families."

State Sen. Cindy Holscher, a Democrat from Johnson County, said school board meetings have become a "bastion of harassment" against members who sought to uphold the countywide mask mandate recommendation for children in kindergarten through grade six — instituted over the summer as the delta variant surged and public health officials affirmed that wearing masks can help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The Blue Valley School District's requirement for masking now includes all grades through high school.

The school board races "feel more like what we've seen for these state Legislature campaigns in terms of boots on the ground," Holscher said. "There's lots of marketing and fear tactics to get people whipped up."

At a Blue Valley candidates forum last week, topics surrounding critical race theory; diversity, equity and inclusion; and the district's mask policy and Covid-related protocols took center stage.

Ideological clashes over school board issues are not new, said Vladimir Kogan, an Ohio State University associate professor of political science. Schools have debated the teaching of evolution and intelligent design, sex education and Common Core, an educational tool that was decried by Republicans in the last decade.

If candidates motivated by politically charged issues end up sweeping local elections this November, that could prop up more PACs, extremists and political operatives to set their sights on school boards, he added.

"You have adults basically arguing over national partisan issues because that's what they're angry about," Kogan said. "But you have to wonder: Are the kids going to be collateral damage from these polarizing debates?"

Monic Behnken, who sits on the school board in Ames, Iowa, just north of Des Moines, decided not to run for re-election this November after being a member since 2017. While she already knew she wanted to stay on for only a single term, ever-changing policies related to the pandemic and the fallout from racial justice protests in the area only made the position thornier.

Normally, she said, "our job is, do we want to pay for lights on the tennis court? Do we want to hire this DJ for prom?"

But in February, during Black History Month, the school district faced criticism for a weeklong "Black Lives Matter at School" event, with Republican lawmakers, conservative groups and some community members calling it a misuse of resources and morally objectionable or one-sided.

A PAC emerged over the summer, Ames Deserves Better, set up by parents in response, saying on its website that "embracing diversity means honoring the decision each family makes for itself."

In Ankeny, another Des Moines suburb, a school board race garnered attention after Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, made an unusual appearance by attending one candidate's campaign launch and openly endorsing her in the election.

Behnken, who is Black, said that while one upside is it seems like more people are interested in the work of the Ames Community School District's board, there's also more at stake on broader issues like classroom and learning equity for all students.

"The difference is now there is a political action committee operating in our community. Two towns over, the governor of our state is getting into an election," she added. "Those are unprecedented things in this community."

School board races have also taken hold of social media groups, with opposing sides and candidates' supporters slinging accusations.

Erica Massman, a parent who is on the steering committee of one nonpartisan community organization, Stand Up Blue Valley, said it once felt like no matter where your political allegiance lay, everyone could agree that they wanted to protect the district's public schools — the "golden goose" that keeps property values high and attracts businesses and jobs, she added — from being underfunded or losing top-tier teachers.

But she worries that "dark money" and outside influence may try to undermine that by supporting school board candidates with a different agenda.

Stand Up Blue Valley is backing Van Der Laan and two other candidates who have expressed support for masking initiatives that follow public health officials' recommendations.

On the opposing slate, one candidate declined to comment to NBC News and the other did not respond to a request for comment. A third candidate dropped out of the school board race in September, although her name will remain on the ballot.

One Facebook group has accused Stand Up Blue Valley of being a "hyper-partisan PAC" and picking "ultra-progressive candidates."

Massman, a Republican, said she laughs when she hears about such posts.

"I just found out I'm a radical liberal," she said. "My neighbors get a kick out of it."

Van Der Laan said prospective voters have been polite as he campaigns in his district, which spans 91 square miles outside of Kansas City, Missouri.

On Facebook, however, the language people are using has been "combative," he said. He shrugs it off.

He recently received an anonymous call from someone who he thought wanted to talk about his candidacy. But the question, it seemed at first, was unrelated: What political party are you registered with?

Van Der Laan replied that he's a Democrat. The person said, "OK, thank you," and then hung up./NBC

  "Squid Game," Netflix Inc's biggest original series launch, is estimated to be worth almost $900 million for the streaming giant, Bloomberg News reported late on Saturday, citing figures from an internal Netflix document.

The nine-episode thriller, in which cash-strapped contestants play childhood games with deadly consequences in a bid to win 45.6 billion won ($38.58 million), became an international hit after it launched last month.

In comparison to its estimated net worth, the show cost just $21.4 million to produce, Bloomberg said.

According to the report  about 132 million had watched at least two minutes of the show in its first 23 days, easily breaking the record set by U.K. costume drama "Bridgerton," which was streamed by 82 million accounts in its first 28 days.

Netflix had earlier announced the show had amassed 111 million fans, but Bloomberg said those figures were based on slightly older data.

Los Gatos, California-based Netflix estimated that 89% of people who started the show watched more than one episode, the news agency said, and 66% of the viewers finished watching the series in the first 23 days.

Netflix declined to comment on the report. An attorney for the company told Bloomberg that it would be inappropriate for Bloomberg to disclose the confidential data contained in the documents that it had reviewed.

The series is also the first Korean drama to snatch the top spot on Netflix in the United States, and has even spurred interest among people in learning Korean.

In China, where Netflix is unavailable without a VPN, a Beijing bakery has introduced a Squid Game-themed confection-making challenge in its store.

The show has even drawn positive comments from Amazon Inc founder Jeff Bezos, with the billionaire calling the work "impressive and inspiring." Amazon's streaming service Prime Video competes with Netflix./Reuters 

Several massive asteroids are expected to whiz close to Earth in the coming weeks, including one nearly the size of the Empire State Building.

Two are expected to soar near the planet on Saturday, followed by more in the coming days, according to data from NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

On Friday, Asteroid 2021 SM3, which has a diameter of up to 525 feet -- bigger than the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt -- was projected to zoom by around 3.5 million miles away from Earth, USA Today first reported based off CNEOS data.

Near-Earth objects are defined by NASA as "comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood."

But fear not, though these asteroids are passing relatively close to Earth, they're still a great distance away, experts say.

"Astronomically, these are coming close to the Earth. But in human terms, they are millions of miles away and can get no closer than millions of miles away," Paul Chodas, the director of the CNEOS at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, told ABC News.

The center tracks near-Earth objects for the entire asteroid community so that when close approaches happen astronomers can know where and when and observe their movements.

One of the closest approaches is Asteroid 2021 TJ15, which will pass the Earth at the same distance at the moon, or 238,854 miles away, on Saturday.

"That asteroid has a diameter of 5.6 to 13 meters (18 to 42 feet). That's a tiny asteroid coming to about the distance of the moon. It's still a long, long way, it can't hit the Earth, there's no chance of that," Chodas said.

Asteroid 2004 UE is up to 1,246 feet, nearly the size of the Empire State Building, that will make its close approach Nov. 13 about 2.6 million miles from Earth.

"So that is the size of a small building. That's approaching a medium size. But that's 11 lunar distances approaching sequence, it cannot get any closer than 11.11 lunar distances," Chodas said.

The center has discovered and tracked over 27,000 near-Earth objects. Asteroids range in size with most being small-, medium-size asteroids ranging from 300 meters to 600 meters (984 feet to 1,968 feet) in size and large ones 1 kilometer (3,280 feet) and up in size. He said many of the asteroids that pass Earth are tiny and burn up when they enter the planet's atmosphere.

Unlike the apocalyptic plots in movies, the chances of a massive astroid striking the planet is extremely rare, Chodas said.

"It's simply the fact that there are very fewer medium- and large-size asteroids that come near the Earth to begin with," he said. "There are comparatively few large asteroids. The largest near-Earth asteroid is something like 10 kilometers. But there's only one or two of those."

The asteroids are discovered through observatories, cameras, telescopes and asteroid surveys that search the night sky for movement. After an asteroid is discovered, the center tracks their measurements and locations, and computes an orbit trajectory to predict its future movements to see if there's any chance it'll intersect with Earth.

Just how often do asteroids end up hitting Earth?

"Over the last 20 years of doing this, we've had a total of four asteroids -- tiny, tiny asteroids -- that have been observed in space and headed for the Earth, and have impacted the atmosphere and burned up. They became a bright fireball in each case," Chodas said. "In two of the cases, we've predicted where they would hit ahead of time and predicted where to find the meteorites. Expeditions have gone out and found the meteorites. So our mathematics work pretty well."

One of the most prominent was the Chelyabinsk Event in Russia in February 2013.

"That was the largest observed impact we've had in recent memory, I guess it's a 100-kind of year event. That was a 20-meter asteroid that blazed through the atmosphere over Russia, and it disintegrated. What was started off as a 20-meter asteroid ended up as a core rock that was only one meter across, and it landed in a frozen lake and made a nice round hole in the ice," Chodas said.

So far this year, the biggest asteroid to pass by Earth was Asteroid 2001 FO32, dubbed Apophis the "God of Chaos", in March which was estimated to be 1,100 feet across, NASA said.

Michael Zolensky, an astromaterial curator and researcher at NASA, told ABC News asteroids are " basically leftovers from planet formation."

"Some of them have been whacked and broken by impacts from the other asteroids and then have kind of come back together again, as sort of traveling beanbags of loose rubble," he said.

On Saturday, NASA's newest asteroid probe named Lucy took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a 12-year mission to study some asteroids known as Trojans around Jupiter.

Lucy will be the first spacecraft to visit these asteroids with the hopes of helping scientists learn more about how our solar system's planets formed and how they ended up in their current configuration, NASA said in a release./NBC

One person is dead in a shooting early Sunday morning at a Louisiana university, just days after a person was killed in a similar incident on campus.

A shooting occurred at about 1:15 a.m. in the quad area at Grambling State University, located between Monroe and Shreveport, according to a statement from the school Sunday. One person, who was not an enrolled student, died and seven others were injured, authorities said.

One person is in critical condition and the others suffered non-life threatening injuries according to Louisiana State Police.

“At the time of the incident, a homecoming event was underway in McCall Dining Center,” the statement said. “All persons present sheltered in place and were released once the all-clear was given by University Police."

Louisiana State Police confirmed its detectives were investigating.

The school cancelled its homecoming events for Sunday and classes on Monday, offering counseling services to students and staff.

Sunday morning’s shooting is the second fatal incident on campus in a week.

Louisiana State Police issued an arrest warrant Friday for a suspect in the death of Damarius Murphy at Grambling State University. A 16-year-old was also injured in that incident, which occurred between two people who were not Grambling students.

It’s unclear whether the two incidents are related.

The university increased security on campus following the Wednesday shooting, telling students the next day to expect "increased law enforcement presence" as homecoming events continued.

Grambling State President Rick Gallot questioned in a statement Sunday why anyone would come onto campus to shoot innocent people.

"Our campus community has worked tirelessly to keep our students and others safe for the homecoming activities,” Gallot said. “Yet, with all of our planning and coordination with our local, parish, regional, and state law enforcement partners, we still find ourselves grieving the loss of life and injuries just as too many communities in our country have experienced as well."

Extracurricular activities will be limited along with non-student access to the campus in the future, Gallot announced during a press conference Sunday.

Homecoming traditionally features a number of activities that draws alumni and local community members to the school, where events have occurred without incident for years, Gallot continued.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary about outsiders, as you would say, being here," Gallot said. "The difference now is outsiders who have a reckless disregard for the safety of others here on campus and we are not going to stand for it. We will we will not spare any effort to ensure that our campus is safe."/NBC

Turkey for tacos, chicken products, orange juice and meal trays are just a few of the items that Shonia Hall, director of school nutrition services for the Oklahoma City Public Schools, said she can't find.

The latest victim of the supply chain slowdown is the school cafeteria, leaving nutrition administrators scrambling to get proper meals on the table for students as they return to the classroom.

A few weeks ago, Hall's distributor couldn't get sporks, spoons or forks and she had to run to her local Sam's Club to buy 60,000 of each "to get us through for a few days in hopes the truck would show up," Hall said in an interview.

"We can't just hope. We have to be proactive," she said. I can't feed kids without utensils, right?"

Such shortages and being forced to turn to retail stores to fill the void when distributors don't come are becoming more prevalent at schools across the country.

"It's an additional cost to your budget, to your program," said Hall, who adds that she is grateful for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program, which has increased its reimbursement to schools trying to meet meal demands.

And the crunch is coming at an unprecedented time for school lunches.

The meal service waivers known as the "Seamless Summer Option" has been extended through June 2022. The waivers allow for schools to offer meals free of charge to students. Republicans in Congress have been critical of the proposal made by Democrats to make universal free meals permanent because of the potential high price tag.

Just this week President Joe Biden announced three of the largest U.S. goods carriers, Walmart, FedEx and UPS, will up their efforts to address supply chain issues after retailers have already begun warning that some products may not make it to the shelves before the holidays.

"Never again should our country and our economy be unable to make critical products we need because we don't have access to materials to make that product," Biden said in a speech Wednesday.

Logistical backups at shipping ports, driven in part by worker shortages and Covid outbreaks, have doubled the time it takes for some products to make their way from Asia to the U.S.

"Well, we're struggling, you know, we can get food, but we're having a lot of outages and shortages," said Stephanie Dillard, child nutrition director at Enterprise City Schools in Alabama.

The school district has dealt with inconsistent deliveries of food and supplies, like trays and utensils, which is an added layer of stress on school staff who are coming back from a year of mostly remote learning due to the Covid pandemic.

"Every week everybody is holding their breath, not knowing whether we're going to get a truck or not because we don't know if there's going to be truck drivers or there's going to be employees in the distributors' warehouses," Dillard said in an interview.

Schools served almost 500 million lunches on average per month from September 2018 to May 2019. The number dropped during the pandemic-scarred 2020-21 school year to about 330 million lunches per month, according to the USDA.

Besides allowing higher reimbursement rates, the USDA is also giving schools more leeway when it comes to meeting meal guidelines and extending the nationwide waiver through the 2021-22 school year to make all meals free of charge.

Brenton Lexvold, a food service director for Red Wing Public Schools in Minnesota, said he's seeing 62 percent participation in the school lunch program and has seen an increase in breakfast participation.

But if schools can't consistently deliver the food they have told students and parents is on the menu, he worries families won't trust them to provide the meal.

"Sometimes the customers are kind of taking a gamble of saying, 'Well, do I eat school lunch today or am I packing something from home?'" Lexvold said in an interview.

The food service distribution industry has an estimated 17,500 warehouse positions and 15,000 driver positions currently open, according to the International Foodservice Distributors Association. In a recent survey of trade associations members, 100 percent of respondents indicated it was difficult or extremely difficult to find both warehouses and drivers.

The industry has been experiencing what experts call the bullwhip effect, where companies that have pulled back their operations seek to rapidly scale up when demand surges, leaving suppliers scrambling to keep up, said Meghan Cieslak, the association's communications director.

"In terms of school delivery delays, our members are working as hard as possible to get schools the supplies they need," Cieslak said. "The product shortages having the biggest impact should get better in the short term. The labor shortage is impacting both schools and the foodservice supply chain, so that will remain a concern."

While these shortages are affecting the entire country, the hit on school meals is particularly important "because at the end of the day, we are expected not only to give our children a good education, there's also the expectation of providing a nutritious meal," Lexvold said.

"And when you're having these supply issues, it's going to impact your ability to be able to provide that, or at least you're going to spend a lot more time trying to source foods or items that can hit that nutritious box."/agencies

A political party in Algeria Sunday called for prosecuting France in international courts for the crimes it committed in Algeria during its 132 years of colonial rule.

In a statement on the 60th anniversary of the 1961 French police massacre of peaceful Algerian demonstrators in Paris demanding independence for their country, the Movement for the Society and Peace said: “Honoring the martyrs requires suing (France) internationally.”

On Oct. 17, 1961, over 300 peaceful Algerian demonstrators were killed by the French police, with many thrown into the River Seine.

France’s crimes include its massacre of nearly 4,000 Muslim worshipers during the colonial era, which spanned 1830 to 1962.

The worshippers were killed as they staged a sit-in inside an Ottoman Mosque called Ketchaoua in an effort to stop it from being converted into a church.

"France colonized us for 132 years, during which there were heinous crimes that cannot be erased with fine words,” Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said in a televised interview last Sunday.

“There are families and tribes that were completely erased, such as Zaatcha (southeastern Algeria), and not even the babies were spared.”

He added: "(In Ketchaoua) they killed 4,000 worshipers who were martyred after being surrounded by cannons and exterminated."/aa

Tunisian authorities rescued 31 irregular migrants off the coast of Tunisia, according to the country’s interior ministry on Sunday.

A ministry statement said seven migrants were stopped in the Mediterranean town of Kelibia in the northeastern Nabeul province.

Seven other migrants were rescued and two bodies retrieved after a boat capsized 10 kilometers off the coat of the central Mahdia province, the ministry said, adding that search is still ongoing for 21 missing migrants.

Tunisian naval forces also stopped 17 illegal migrants from African nationalities in the coastal Monastir province, the ministry said.

Almost on daily basis, the Tunisian authorities stop illegal migration attempts and arrest hundreds of irregular migrants.

For years, Maghreb countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania and Morocco have witnessed attempts by migrants from mainly sub-Saharan Africa to reach Europe in hope of a better life. While some of the migrants manage to reach their destination, others often die during the process./aa