Three men were arrested by the UK’s counter-terrorism police following a car explosion in Liverpool, which killed one person and injured another, a statement said Sunday.

The men -- aged 29, 26, and 21 -- were detained in the Kensington area of Liverpool and later arrested under the Terrorism Act, in connection with the explosion that took place outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, according to the statement.

“The passenger of the car - a man - was declared dead at the scene and is yet to be formally identified.

“The driver - also a man - was injured at the scene and remains in hospital in a stable condition," the statement said.

"Detectives from Counter Terrorism Police North West continue to keep an open mind about the cause of the explosion and are working closely with colleagues at Merseyside Police as the investigation continues at pace," it added.

Merseyside police said they were called to Liverpool Women's Hospital at 10.59 a.m. over an incident on Sunday.

Images showing a car on fire were largely shared on social media.

Earlier in the day, local police said in a statement: "Unfortunately, we can confirm that one person has died and another has been taken to hospital where he is being treated for his injuries, which thankfully are not life-threatening," the local police said.

Eyewitnesses said a taxi pulled up at the hospital before the fatal explosion.

"So we far we understand that the car involved was a taxi which pulled up at the hospital shortly before the explosion occurred," the statement also said.

The hospital said it was restricting visitors until further notice, with patients being diverted to other hospitals where feasible, and that staff could leave and enter under police supervision.

“I am being kept regularly updated on the awful incident at Liverpool Women’s Hospital,” Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote on Twitter.

“Our police and emergency services are working hard to establish what happened and it is right they are given the time and space to do so,” she noted.

Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson said: “The incident at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital is unsettling and upsetting and my thoughts are with those affected. I’d like to thank the emergency services for their swift response and for bringing calm to the situation.”/aa

 An arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, is still valid, an ICC spokesman said on Sunday.

“The ICC arrest warrant remains in force and has not changed,” Fadi al-Abdullah told Anadolu Agency.

“The ICC does not comment on political issues,” he added.

Earlier Sunday, Saif al-Islam submitted his application to run in Libya’s upcoming presidential election.

In 2011, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Saif al-Islam on charges of committing crimes against humanity in Libya.

Libya’s presidential and parliamentary elections are set to take place on Dec. 24 under an UN-sponsored agreement reached by Libyan political rivals during meetings in Tunisia on Nov. 15, 2020.

The oil-rich country’s electoral commission on Nov. 8 opened registration for candidates in the polls despite ongoing tensions between the parliament, the High Council of State, and the unity government regarding electoral powers and laws.

Libyans hope that the upcoming elections will contribute to ending an armed conflict that has plagued the oil-rich country for years./aa

From initial struggles with diabetes to becoming an ambassador for Iran’s national diabetes society, the journey has been awe-inspiring for Nilofar Atayee, 30, who has been a diabetic her entire life.

A Type 1 diabetic, Atayee is also a representative in Iran for the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an umbrella organization of more than 230 diabetes unions in 170 countries.

She is a classic example of how adversity can be turned into an opportunity, especially in a place where diabetic patients have often faced near-death experiences due to the scarcity of life-saving medicine.

Last October, when an acute shortage of insulin pens caused by a new round of US sanctions put millions of lives at risk in Iran, Atayee used all her resources to help other at-risk diabetic patients, while dealing with the problem herself.

“Considering that I am a medical practitioner and I work in the field of medicine and medical equipment, I struggled with the same problem,” Atayee, who until recently worked at the Gandhi Hospital in Tehran, told Anadolu Agency.

While the problem has been temporarily addressed, she said diabetic patients in Iran continue to face a “myriad of challenges,” especially in smaller cities and towns where there is less awareness about the disease.

According to IDF estimates, there are 5.4 million cases of diabetes in the adult Iranian population of around 57 million, with a 9.4% nationwide prevalence.

But an independent study conducted by researchers at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in October put the figure at 7.5 million, which means 15% of the adult population.

Atayee attributes the spike in cases to a “lack of accurate screening, information and training,” which is the primary focus of the Iranian Diabetes Society (IDS), which has more than 20 branches in Iran.

That, in turn, is made worse by a lack of access to essential medicine, either because of shortages or high prices, which keep getting higher amid economic woes.

- Sanctions and Mismanagement

Diabetic patients in Iran have long grappled with a lack of access to medicine, including insulin pens, due to shortages or exorbitant prices, a problem that experts acknowledge is caused by sanctions and mismanagement.

Out of an estimated 7.5 million patients in Iran, around 1 million require daily insulin injections and the use of blood glucose test strips to measure blood sugar level, Dr. Amin Beheshti, a diabetes specialist, told Anadolu Agency, pointing to occasional shortages.

"Although insulin pens are covered under insurance in Iran, local pharmacies often run out of their supplies, which leads to their skyrocketing prices on the black market," he said, blaming the situation on sanctions and smuggling.

Although Iran has homegrown insulin pens, the demand for foreign-made pens remains high, which becomes "problematic" with banking transactions hit by sanctions, he added.

Maryam Rajab, a trainer and counselor at the IDS, said insulin pens "may not" be available at all pharmacies, blood sugar test strips are "expensive" and oral medications are "sometimes not covered under the insurance."

Saman Berahmani, a diabetic and an amateur cyclist, said procuring insulin pens has become a "difficult and tedious task" even for someone like him with health insurance, as prices have surged.

"This time last year, I would buy a pack of 100 needles for 70,000 toman ($2.5). Now, the same pack costs me 280,000 toman ($10), which is a four-fold increase," he told Anadolu Agency, suggesting that even life-saving medicine has become expensive with sanctions sending local currency into a tailspin.

He also blamed it on what he termed "wrong policies" of the Food and Drug Organization, a regulatory body that operates under the Health Ministry.

Shaqayaq Madani, a diabetic and ambassador for the IDS, echoed the same concerns. She told Anadolu Agency that the cost of diabetes care equipment has become "very high" in Iran.

She said it was "hard" for her in the beginning to cope with the disease, but later it became "easier" after she became associated with the national diabetes society.

The IDS is a non-governmental body, affiliated with the IDF, that seeks to raise awareness about the disease through outreach programs and training.

"Awareness helps to better control blood sugar and prevent irreversible complications of diabetes," Rajab, who has been associated with the organization for 24 years, told Anadolu Agency.

- Alarming surge

Iran is home to the second largest diabetic population in the Middle East, which experts fear could jump to 9.5 million by 2030, with mortality associated with the disease assuming alarming proportions.

The prevalence of diabetes has almost doubled in the last two to three decades in Iran, with a staggering surge recorded in the last five years, according to Baqer Larijani, the head of the Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute at TUMS.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a program to mark National Diabetes Week, which coincides with World Diabetes Day, Larijani said efforts are being made to step up awareness programs and the expansion of diabetes clinics in different provinces.

"Obesity, air pollution and lack of physical activity are three main factors behind the surge in diabetes in Iran," he said, adding that kidney diseases and neurological complications also quite often result from the disease.

Commenting on the effect of coronavirus on diabetic patients in Iran, the official said 12% of those hospitalized for the virus were diabetics, putting their mortality rate at 14%, compared to the overall 8.4%.

Alireza Mahdavi, director of the National Diabetic Prevention and Control Program at the Health Ministry, speaking on state television earlier this week said there has been an increase in diabetic patients in Iran since the outbreak of the virus early last year.

He said Type 1 diabetes is more common in children and adolescents, while Type 2 is more prevalent in adults in Iran, although both face the same degree of risk./aa

The death toll rose from six to 32 in an attack attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province after more bodies were found, local authorities said Saturday.

The attack occurred Thursday in Kisunga village southeast of Butembo, where attackers killed civilians and burned a health facility and several homes.

Abdoul Kalemire, the head of the chiefdom of Bashu said 29 bodies were counted Saturday following a search for missing persons which started Friday.

Most victims were executed with machetes after being taken hostage, he said.

Sixteen bodies were reportedly found along the road to Virunga Park, where attackers retreated while 10 others were found in the park.

The victims included three caregivers and a security guard at the burned health center, according to Edgard Mateso, vice president of North Kivu civil society group.

Noting that two doctors who work at the facility managed to escape, Mateso said the attackers killed others while retreating from the village.

Four charred bodies were found at the burned Kyalumba Health Center.

Kyalumba Health Center acted as a referral health facility for residents in the Kisunga region.

Sources said several people were still unaccounted for on Saturday, including two nurses from the Kisunga health facility that was set on fire.

President Felix Tshisekedi proclaimed a “state of siege” in May in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, replacing senior civilian officials in the state with army officers in a bid to curb growing insecurity.

However, more than 1,400 people have been killed in attacks attributed to the ADF since the declaration of state of siege in the two provinces, North Kivu provincial MP Jean-Paul Ngahangondi said last month./aa

YouTube's "dislike" count – a warning that a video might be disputed or poorly produced – is being turned off in a controversial move that the company says it is being done to protect content creators from abuse.

The Google-owned platform says it will no longer show how many negative ratings a video has received in an effort to create an "inclusive and respectful environment."

Since the announcement on Wednesday, tens of thousands of users of the web's largest video platform are criticizing the move in the comments section of a video explaining the new policy.

However, users will still be able to click on the dislike button for any video, YouTube said. It will no longer impact other users' discretion to watch a video, as the dislike counter will be visible only to the creators of the video.

In a blog post on Wednesday, YouTube said the button was being misused for campaigns against certain users in what it said were "dislike attacks" to reduce the number of people watching their videos.

Any content a user dislikes would continue to influence the selection of videos suggested to the user on YouTube's "Home" page, the company said.

YouTube, alongside Reddit, was one of a rare few social platforms to give users the option to vote down a piece of content, in contrast to platforms like Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, which push users to more positive single click engagements.

While YouTube's public comments section remains intact, removing a quick means to see the public verdict on a video will make it more difficult to spot bad or disputed content, users have argued.

"This isn't about protecting creators. This is about protecting corporations and media companies," one user commented on a YouTube video announcing the changes. The comment received 14,000 likes and an unknown number of dislikes.

YouTube's video announcing plans to hide dislike counts received 33,000 thumbs down (dislikes), four times more than the number of thumbs up (likes).

Following the announcement, YouTube dismissed user complaints that the move amounts to censorship and protecting big brands and advertisers.

"It’s an important step to reduce behavior that aims to silence and harass creators, especially smaller creators and channels just getting started on YouTube," a YouTube community manager wrote on the company blog.

YouTube itself long held the record for the most disliked video after its own 2018 mashup of appearances from vlogger stars reached nearly 10 million dislikes in less than a week.

Responding to comments that the company was removing the dislike count to prevent a repeat of this PR disaster, the company admitted it had "learned the hard way how it feels to get a lot of dislikes" but that the change was about protecting creators.

Its decision to remove only the dislike count comes in contrast to moves at Instagram and Facebook, where users are now able to hide the number of likes./DS

Ahıska Turks, who were forced to leave their homeland in 1944 by late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, marked on Sunday the 77th year since their exile.

Brought to Turkey from Ukraine and settled in eastern Bitlis province in 2016 per the instructions from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Ahıska still suffer the pain of exile from when they were deported from their homeland in 1944 under Soviet rule.

The World Ahıska Turks Association says more than 92,000 Ahıska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks, were expelled from Georgia's Meskheti region by Stalin.

Some 72 Ahıska Turks families have continued to live in the Ahlat district after arriving five years ago.

Simizar Mehmetoğlu, 81, who was exiled with her family at the age of 4, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they were hungry, thirsty and naked in exile.

Mehmetoğlu said she could not go to school, could not find her mother and did not see her father after soldiers took him.

She said she and her siblings were first exiled to Uzbekistan when they were young. "I entered Uzbekistan young and left old. There are no moms and dads. We lived as orphans in Uzbekistan for 40 years," she said.

Mehmetoğlu recalled that they went to Ukraine after Uzbekistan. From there, they were brought to Turkey upon instructions from Erdoğan. "May Allah be pleased with those who helped us. May the gates of paradise be opened for them," she said.

Saniye Binali, 65, who was born in exile, said she went through very painful years during the exile.

"My flesh trembles when I recall it (the exile) now. We lived well in Uzbekistan, where I was born. I studied until the 10th grade. I got married there and have four children. When the Fergana events broke out in 1989, they tortured us a lot," she said, referring to the massacre of hundreds of Ahıska Turks by native Uzbeks. "From there we went to Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Russia. Finally, I returned to Ukraine. Then we came to Turkey."

Yaşar Hüseyin, 61, said his family will not leave Turkey, adding they love the country.

History of the exile

Meskheti, a region now located on Georgia's border with Turkey, was left to Russia following a war between the Ottoman Empire and czarist Russia in 1828-1829.

After World War I, the region, which was now within the Soviet Union, was given to the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. This marked the beginning of many years of suffering for Ahıska Turks, like many other Turkish and Muslim communities in the USSR.

After Stalin signed an exile order for the Ahıska Turks, despite their service to the Soviet army fighting Nazi Germany in World War II, over 86,000 Ahıska Turks were expelled from their homeland to distant lands within the Soviet Union.

Thousands of Turks and Muslims living in the Meskheti region were loaded onto wagons just hours after being informed of their forced migration, not even being allowed to pack their belongings.

During their deportation, which lasted more than a month, nearly 17,000 Ahıska Turks lost their lives due to hunger, cold and illness.

Those who survived were forced to remain in various regions in Central Asia, where a further 30,000 died due to hunger and disease.

The Soviet administration forced Ahıska Turks to work the most labor-intensive jobs, regardless of age or gender, and barred them from leaving their designated areas, punishing violators by exiling them and their families to Siberia for 25 years.

Under Stalin, the Soviet authorities claimed that the Ahıska Turks had collaborated with Nazi Germany in World War II, when in reality they had actually been on the frontlines with the Russians.

With the dissolution of the USSR, it was understood that these charges were false and that the real aim was different.

According to Soviet records, the exile of the Crimean and Meskhetian Turks was meant to ethnically cleanse the Black Sea regions of Turks.

Today, approximately 20,000 people live in the Meskhetian region, though a very small number of the population are Turkish.

The majority of Ahıska Turks still live where they were exiled or in the countries they later migrated to.

According to reports from international organizations and other sources, 550,000-600,000 Ahıska Turks currently live far from their homeland.

Some have made their way to Turkey, while others are in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and the United States.

Georgia has failed on its part to take concrete steps to resolve the issue despite a law it enacted in 2007 on the return of Ahıska Turks.

Their return to their homeland, which has been on the agenda for decades since the dissolution of the USSR, has not been resolved since.

Millions of other Muslim or Turkic peoples, including Crimean Tatars and northern Caucasian peoples such as Chechens, were also subjected to forced deportations by the Soviets in 1943 and 1944 over accusations of collaborating with invading Nazi Germany.

Hundreds of thousands died on the road to Central Asia and Siberia, while survivors were not allowed to return to their homeland until the late 1980s.

Turkey’s efforts

Turkey has been actively involved in facilitating the Ahıska Turks' return to their homeland, as well as granting citizenship to tens of thousands of people.

In December 2015, Turkey received the first group of 677 families of Meskhetian Turks from Ukraine. They were flown to Turkey and accommodated in new residences built for them on orders from the presidency.

Turkey has also granted citizenship to over 40,000 Ahıska Turks so far.

In January this year, which saw increased numbers of COVID-19 infections worldwide, Turkey also sent medical supplies to Ahıska Turks living in Kyrgyzstan to help their fight against coronavirus.

The aid sent by Turkey's Foreign Ministry arrived in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

The campaign was carried out in coordination with the World Union of Ahıska Turks (DATUB), headquartered in the Turkish metropolitan city of Istanbul.

Yekta Kamil Noyan, Turkey's acting charge d'affaires in Bishkek, handed over the supplies – which consisted of 20,000 surgical masks, 1,200 N95 face masks, 1,500 protective overalls, seven thermometers, a ventilator, 115 face shields and medicine boxes – to the Ahıska Turks' Association in Kyrgyzstan to be distributed among the people.

Atamsha Dursunov, head of the Association of Ahıska Turks, said medical supplies sent by Turkey are very important in the fight against COVID-19.

He also thanked the Turkish administration, the Foreign Ministry and DATUB.

In 2019, a group of 40 Ahıska Turks living in Kazakhstan also returned to their homeland in Georgia's Meskheti region after 77 years with the support of Turkey's state-run agency.

According to a statement by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), the Ahıska Turks returned to the Meskheti region in cooperation with TIKA and the Ahıska Turks Homeland Society.

They paid a visit to the abandoned houses and the graves of their ancestors and also visited monuments and prayed for those Ahıska Turks who died 77 years ago during exile from the ancestral lands.

The delegation was accompanied by Sadyr Eibov and Ismail Ahmedov, officials of the World Union of Ahıska Turks./DS