Rescuers searched for the missing in Iran on Friday after landslides and floods triggered by heavy rains killed at least 53 people, officials said.

Mehdi Valipour, head of emergency operations at the Red Crescent Society, told state TV that 16 people were still missing after two days of floods that have affected 400 towns and villages in 18 of Iran’s 31 provinces. Many highways were closed.

Friday’s worst-hit area was Firouz Kooh, in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains northeast of Tehran, where at least 10 people died, Tehran Governor Mohsen Mansouri told state TV.

He was later quoted by local news agencies as saying about six people were also missing.

Floods were still ravaging northern areas of Tehran province on Friday, he said, adding that despite repeated warnings, trekkers were still heading toward Firouz Kooh.

The town of Firouz Kooh, about 140 kilometers from Tehran, is a favorite retreat for vacationers because of its cool summer temperatures. The area's lush trails are also popular with trekkers.

State media said at least eight people died on Thursday in a landslide caused by floods in the village of Imamzadeh Davood northwest of Tehran that also damaged a religious shrine there. As many as 14 people were reported missing.

Last Saturday, flash floods in the southern Fars province killed 22 people./Reuters

Kenyan authorities have called on Facebook to do more to rid the platform of hate speech ahead of the August 9 general election. Rights group Global Witness said the social media company approved hate speech advertisements promoting ethnic violence.

Research has shown how social media has played a destructive role in elections worldwide, enabling parties and individuals to stoke unrest by disseminating hateful speech and misinformation.

Global Witness set out to study whether the biggest social media platform, Facebook, was able to detect hateful and inciteful messages concerning Kenya’s election — and whether Facebook was prepared to deal with the haters and those spreading fear.

In June, Global Witness submitted 10 ads in English and 10 in Swahili that contained hate speech.

The senior adviser of the organization, Jon Lloyd, said the hateful messages were approved.

Lloyd said Global Witness submitted batches of three to four advertisements. The first ads submitted were in Swahili, with the assumption that Facebook would have weaker controls in Swahili than it would in English.

All the Swahili ads were accepted without issue, Lloyd said, often within a few hours. Three English ads were initially rejected for a violation of Facebook’s grammar profanity policy, Lloyd said.

“We were invited to amend the ads and resubmit them,” he said.

Lloyd said they made adjustments to correct the grammar and profanity and the ads were accepted.

In Kenya, Facebook has about 10 million users. As the East African nation prepares to elect a new president on Aug. 9, experts warn there is a real risk of ethnic violence propagated on the platform and the spread of disinformation.

In a statement, Facebook admitted Friday to have missed some hate speech messages because of mistakes by the people and machines the platform relies on.

Facebook also said they have Swahili speakers and technology to help remove harmful content and have invested in people and technology to help ensure safe and secure elections in Kenya.

But Lloyd of Global Witness said it appears Facebook is not capable of dealing with the issues of hate speech that threaten Kenya’s political stability.

Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission, tasked with addressing and minimizing ethnic tensions, said it has seen less in-person hate speech in this year's campaign compared to past years.

But Danvas Makori, one of the members of the government-funded commission, said the problem has not gone away.

“Hate speech has migrated from political rallies and platforms to social media platforms,” Makori said. “No longer do we see politicians engaging in hate speech in rallies today. They use their proxies, whether bloggers, to conduct and propagate hate speech mostly online.”

Kenya’s previous elections have been characterized by ethnic tensions and violence, most notably the 2007 polls when post-election violence killed more than 1,100 people.

Global Witness is calling on Facebook to take the Kenyan elections seriously and protect users from speech that could cause a repeat of that violence./VOA

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has pardoned eight people sentenced to prison, including a journalist and a researcher, a member of the Presidential Pardon Committee said Friday.

"Presidential pardon for eight convicts," lawyer Tareq al-Awadi, a member of a committee formed in April to review the cases of prisoners eligible for presidential pardons, said in a statement.

Left-wing journalist and political activist Hisham Fouad, sentenced to four years in jail in November for "spreading false news," and researcher Ahmed Samir, sentenced earlier this month to three years on the same charge, were among those named in the statement on Twitter.

Both Fouad and Samir had appeared before courts whose verdicts cannot be appealed.

The announcement came after an Egyptian judge on Monday ordered the release of human rights lawyer Mohamed Ramadan, who was initially accused of "terrorism" and held in preventive detention for nearly four years for backing a French protest movement.

Cairo has faced frequent criticism of its human rights record, with advocacy groups saying there are currently about 60,000 political prisoners, many facing brutal conditions and overcrowded cells.

Since el-Sissi reactivated the dormant Presidential Pardon Committee earlier this year, dozens of prisoners have been released from provisional detention./VOA

A US judge Friday ordered the military chief of eastern Libya, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, to compensate Libyan plaintiffs who allege he ordered the torture and extrajudicial killings of their family members.

The federal judge in the state of Virginia, where Haftar lived before returning to Libya, ruled that he had not cooperated with the court and that by "default" was ordered to pay damages to the families.

Haftar, a dual US-Libyan citizen whose name is spelled "Hifter" in American legal documents, can still appeal the decision, and future hearings will need to be held to determine the level of compensation.

Nonetheless, Friday's ruling represents a major setback for the military leader.

"Justice has prevailed. Hifter will be held responsible for his war crimes," said Faisal Gill, one of the lawyers spearheading the cases, in a statement shared with AFP.

Filed in 2019 and 2020, the civil lawsuits argue that Haftar, as head of the eastern-based Libyan National Army, authorized the indiscriminate bombings of civilians during his unsuccessful 2019 campaign to take Tripoli, resulting in the death of the plaintiff's family members.

They are suing Haftar under a 1991 US law, the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for civil lawsuits against anyone who, acting in an official capacity for a foreign nation, commits acts of torture and/or extrajudicial killings.

The court had paused the case ahead of Libyan elections in December 2021 -- but restarted it after the vote was once again delayed.

Haftar has also unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss the suit, claiming immunity as a head of state.

Oil-rich Libya has been mired in a bitter power struggle since the fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime in 2011, with a major division between the north African country's east and west.

Two governments are vying for power: one based in Tripoli and another supported by Haftar's army, which controls portions of the east and south.

Haftar, 78, is a Soviet-trained soldier who assisted in the 1969 coup that brought Kadhafi to power. After taking on a senior military position in Libya's war with Chad, Haftar was taken as a prisoner of war, and subsequently disavowed by Kadhafi.

He was ultimately offered political asylum in the United States, where he lived for 20 years and gained American citizenship as well as, according to the Wall Street Journal, several properties worth millions of dollars.

(AFP)

French authorities on Friday held a fireman from the south of France accused of being behind a series of wildfires in the region which he says he started in a quest for adrenaline.

The man, a volunteer fireman from the Herault region, was arrested on Wednesday, regional prosectors said.

The case of the man dubbed in media as the "pyromaniac fireman" has sparked a keen interest in France, which was shocked by a swathe of wildfires in last week's heatwave that forced the evacuation of thousands of people. 

Montpellier prosecutor Fabrice Belargent said in a statement that the man had admitted starting fires with a lighter on May 26, July 21 and most recently over the night of July 26-27.

"Asked about his motive, he declared that he had done this in order to provoke an intervention by the fire brigade to save him from an oppressive family environment and because of the excitement these interventions caused him," said Belargent.

"Adrenaline he called it -- these are his own words," said the prosecutor. "He also said he had a need for social recognition." 

Adding to the irony, the full time job of the man, who has not been identified by name but is in his 30s, was a forester with preventing fires one of his primary responsibilities.

His lawyer Marie Bar told BFM TV that under questioning the man had "expressed very strong regret and above all a strong sentiment of shame".

She confirmed he had been remanded in custody by an investigating judge ahead of trial. 

"He apologised to the.... firemen who he works with as he calls them his big family. This is someone who is very devoted to his work," she said.

"He finds it hard to explain. In a way he is relieved to have been arrested. He explains it as an addiction."

If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison and a 150,000 euro ($153,000) fine.

"It's disgusting to have within the organisation this type of individual," former fire brigade colonel Ludovic Pinganaud told BFM, adding that out of 200,000 volunteer fireman in France there were just "some sick people" addicted to fires. 

(AFP)

Torrential rains unleashed devastating floods in Appalachia on Thursday, as fast-rising water killed at least eight people in Kentucky and sent people to their rooftops to be rescued.

Water gushed from hillsides and flooded out of streambeds, inundating homes, businesses and roads throughout eastern Kentucky. Parts of western Virginia and southern West Virginia also saw extensive flooding. Rescue crews used helicopters and boats to pick up people trapped by floodwaters.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tweeted Thursday evening that the state's death toll from flooding had risen to eight. He asked for continued prayers for the region, which was bracing for more rain.

"In a word, this event is devastating," Beshear said earlier in the day. "And I do believe it will end up being one of the most significant, deadly floods that we have had in Kentucky in at least a very long time."

In Breathitt County in Kentucky, Krystal Holbrook's family raced against surging floodwaters in the early morning hours to move possessions to higher ground. Their ordeal began around 4 a.m. Thursday, as they scurried in the dark to move vehicles, campers, trailers and farm equipment. But as the water kept rising throughout the day, the concern was that "higher ground is getting a little bit difficult," she said.

"It looks like a huge lake back here," she said.

Beshear warned that property damage in Kentucky would be widespread. The governor said officials were setting up a site for donations that would go to residents affected by the flooding.

Dangerous conditions and continued rainfall hampered rescue efforts Thursday, the governor said.

"We've got a lot of people that need help that we can't get to at the moment," Beshear said. "We will."

Flash flooding and mudslides were reported across the mountainous region of eastern Kentucky, western Virginia and southern West Virginia, where thunderstorms dumped several centimeters of rain over the past few days.

With more rain expected in the area, the National Weather Service said additional flooding was possible into Friday in much of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Forecasters said the highest threat of flash flooding was expected to shift farther east into West Virginia.

Poweroutage.us reported more than 31,000 customers without electricity in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, with the bulk of the outages in Kentucky.

"There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on top of roofs waiting to be rescued," Beshear said earlier Thursday. "There are a number of people that are unaccounted for and I'm nearly certain this is a situation where we are going to lose some of them."

Rescue crews worked throughout the night helping people stranded by the rising waters in eastern Kentucky's Perry County, where Emergency Management Director Jerry Stacy called it a "catastrophic event."

"We're just in the rescue mode right now," Stacy said, speaking with The Associated Press by phone as he struggled to reach his office in Hazard. "Extreme flash flooding and mudslides are just everywhere."

Roads in many areas weren't passable after as much as 15 centimeters of rain had fallen in some areas by Thursday, and 7.5 centimeters more could fall, the National Weather Service said.

Beshear said he has deployed National Guard soldiers to the hardest-hit areas, and three parks in the region were opened as shelters for displaced people.

Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for six counties in West Virginia after severe thunderstorms this week caused significant local flooding, downed trees, power outages and blocked roads.

Communities in southwest Virginia also were flooding, and the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, Virginia, warned of more showers and storms Thursday.

The UN Security Council has condemned the Myanmar junta's execution of four prisoners, drawing praise from ousted Myanmar lawmakers.

In a rare consensus on the post-coup crisis, the Security Council on Wednesday released a statement condemning the executions — Myanmar's first in decades — and calling for the immediate release of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The members of the Security Council condemned the Myanmar military’s execution of opposition activists over the weekend," the Council said.

"They recalled the Secretary-General's statement of 25 July 2022 and echoed his call for the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained prisoners."

The statement was endorsed by Russia and China — the junta's two major allies that have previously shielded it at the UN — as well as neighbouring India.

"Welcome UN Security Council condemning execution of democracy activists," said the "National Unity Government" (NUG) on a verified Twitter account.

It was time for the council to "take concrete actions against the junta, it added.

International condemnation

The NUG — dominated by lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted party — has been working to topple the coup and been declared a "terrorist" organisation by the junta.

The executions announced on Monday sparked condemnation from around the globe, heightened fears that more will follow and prompted calls for sterner international measures against the already-isolated junta.

Among the four executed were Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) and veteran democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu — better known as "Jimmy".

Both were sentenced to death under anti-terrorism laws.

The junta is increasingly isolated on the world stage, with Cambodian leader Hun Sen the only head of state to have visited since the coup that plunged the country into turmoil.

The Cambodian PM had also made a personal request to junta chief Min Aung Hlaing not to go ahead with the executions.

Myanmar's junta has lashed out against international condemnation of its use of capital punishment, saying the four executed prisoners "deserved many death sentences".

Source: AFP

Suspected rebels have killed twelve civilians in recent attacks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said.

The head doctor of a hospital in Oicha in North Kivu province on Thursday that he had received five bodies on Wednesday from a village that lies to the west of the town.

Another seven bodies arrived from another village to the west of Oicha on Thursday, head doctor Jerome Munyambete told AFP news agency.

"These people were killed by machetes and bullets," he said.

Darius Kasereka, a civil society representative in Oicha, confirmed the death toll and said in a statement that the twelve civilians had been "brutally slaughtered".

The area surrounding Oicha has been "invaded by ADF rebels," he added, referring to the Allied Democratic Forces group.

The ADF is among the most violent of the more than 120 militias that roam the DRC's troubled east.

The group – which Daesh group claims as its central African branch – has been accused of massacring Congolese civilians as well as staging attacks in neighbouring Uganda.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi placed North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province under the administration of security forces last year in a bid to stem the violence.

But the measure has failed to stop attacks against civilians.

Source: AFP