An Islamic State offshoot has amassed around 5,000 militants in northern Afghanistan on the border of post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, the director of Russia’s FSB has warned, adding that many of them have fought in Syria.

“Especially worrying is re-deployment of terrorist groups into northern provinces of Afghanistan,” Alexander Bortnikov told chiefs of ex-Soviet intelligence services in Dushanbe. He warned that ‘Wilayat Khorasan’, a local Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) affiliate, had managed to gather 5,000 fighters in the area.

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Terrorist cells are now infiltrating into former Soviet countries where they are forming ties with organized crime. To keep a low profile, they try to pose as refugees and migrants, according to Bortnikov.

Islamists have suffered a series of defeats in Syria and Iraq, but they still remain a danger. “Now they are trying to regroup in areas which Syrian government doesn’t control, or hide out in refugee camps,” the FSB chief noted.

Another alarming trend is that terrorist groups are relocating their forces to other parts of the world, including Northern Africa and Southeast Asia.

Despite military losses, terrorist organizations are accumulating massive foreign funding to prepare for attacks “all around the world.” Notably, they resort to cryptocurrencies and online payment services to receive money from abroad. Revenues from “illicit oil trade, human trafficking and other criminal activities” also are used by terrorists to stay afloat.

Last month, the FSB director warned of IS militants returning to their countries of origin and creating terrorist cells at home. More than 1,500 of 5,000 jihadists from Europe who earlier joined IS managed to return from the Middle East, Bortnikov said at the time.

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Ukraine’s US Embassy seems to have gone overboard on scaremongering Russia as it tried to pass off a photo of Jewish Holocaust victims as Crimean Tatars that were being deported by the Soviet Union during WWII.

Kiev’s diplomatic mission took to Twitter on the anniversary of the 1944 deportation uploading a black-and-white photo of multiple people being forced into a wooden boxcar. The emotive picture was obviously to show how cruel the Soviets were towards Crimean Tatars at the time.

The Embassy proclaimed that it was “our duty” not to allow the repetition of “a bitter history.” But it turns out that history per se – or doing proper research, at the very least – isn’t the strongest suit of Ukrainian diplomats.

The photo they used has nothing to do at all with the wartime displacement of Crimean Tatars by Soviet authorities. It was in fact taken at a Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland, and the people filmed in and outside the wagon were the ones who perished in one of the Nazi death camps.

The Russian Embassy in the US was apparently the first to spot the offbeat blunder. In doing so, they checked the Ukrainian tweet against an official publication by the American Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

To make matters worse, the Ukrainian embassy’s publication made another appeal to their audience which raises more than a few eyebrows. “It was a day when we couldn’t stop Stalin,” the Embassy wrote while publishing the infamous photo.

The “we” part looks especially odd given that stopping the Soviets at final stages of World War II meant fighting in or alongside Nazi forces.

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The story was met with little praise in Crimea. Seitumer Nimetullaev, leader of a local Crimean Tatar NGO, bemoaned the “unacceptable historical error that was likely made unintentionally.” Nevertheless, he urged Ukraine’s embassy “to become more competent in history issues, especially when it comes to tragedies of entire peoples.”

READ MORE: Familiar symbols? Ukraine’s president poses with ‘elite’ paratrooper sporting…SS insignia (PHOTOS)

Russia, for its part, has never disavowed the 1944 deportation, in which Crimean Tatars were forcibly relocated to Soviet Central Asia en masse by Joseph Stalin after it emerged that some of them collaborated with the Nazis. They began to return to Crimea after the war, but many faced bitter land disputes struggled with a lack of political representation.

Shortly after Crimea chose to cede from Ukraine and join Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree officially rehabilitating Tatars and other ethnic minorities on the peninsula. May 18 is celebrated each year to pay tribute to people deported during the war.

It isn’t the first time images of the notorious Lodz ghetto became the source of a humiliating gaffe in Ukraine. Two years ago, former President Petro Poroshenko landed himself in hot water when he tried to illustrate the 1947 displacement of Western Ukrainians to Siberia by publishing a photograph again showing the Jewish ghetto. The president’s office quietly deleted the post, but not until it was relentlessly mocked online.

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European countries won’t ban Huawei from their markets because they see the firm as a reliable partner, the Chinese tech giant’s vice president has said in response to sweeping restrictions on the company imposed by the US.

“We don’t think this can happen in Europe,” Catherine Chen told Italy’s Corriere della Sera after Huawei was officially blacklisted from doing business with US companies. The company has been working with European partners for “10 or 20 years” developing 5G and other solutions, she stressed.

“I believe they will make decisions independently,” the Huawei official said.

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Last week, the US Commerce Department announced that it would add Huawei and 70 affiliates to its so-called “Entity List,” which bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from US companies without US government approval. However, the company has been granted a 90-day US general license, allowing the Chinese telecom to maintain its existing networks and provide users with software updates, even as it prepares for its blacklisting to go into effect.

The US continues to claim that Huawei’s products pose national security risks and serve as a mechanism for Chinese espionage through backdoors in its equipment. For its part, Huawei has accused the US of unfair market competition pointing out the US’s own record of backdooring allies’ communications.

Nevertheless, American efforts to convince European nations to bar Huawei from their 5G networks have failed so far – although Australia has agreed to adopt such a ban.

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The man accused of carrying out a mass shooting at a New Zealand mosque faces new charges, including one count of engaging in a terrorist act, according to law enforcement officials.

New Zealand police have charged Brenton Tarrant with one act of carrying out a terrorist act. One murder charge and two additional attempted murder charges have also been filed.

The 28-year-old Australian man went on a shooting rampage that left 51 people dead in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15.

Tarrant is now facing 92 charges – 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder, and one terrorism charge.

He is alleged to have penned a 74-page neo-fascist manifesto, titled “The Great Replacement” where he delves into what had inspired him to carry out the shootings and vows “revenge” against Muslim “invaders.” His weapons bore neo-Nazi inscriptions and slogans, names of extremists, as well as historic figures who waged wars against Muslims.

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Google has reportedly suspended its licenses and product-sharing agreements with Chinese communications giant Huawei, as Washington accuses the company of spying for Beijing.

The Silicon Valley tech giant has cut its business deals with Huawei that involve the transfer of hardware and software, Reuters and the Verge report. Following the move, Huawei will likely lose access to Android operating system updates, and its forthcoming smartphones will be shut out of some Google apps, including the Google Play Store and Gmail apps. The Chinese firm, however, will still have access to the open source version of the Android operating system.

“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” a Google spokesperson confirmed in a brief statement. “For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.”

Washington repeatedly accused Huawei of installing so-called ‘backdoors’ into its products on behalf of the Chinese government. The heads of six US intelligence agencies warned American citizens against using Huawei products last year, and the Chinese company’s phones were banned from US military bases shortly afterwards.

Huawei denies all accusations of spying. Nevertheless, the US Commerce Department added Huawei to its blacklist on Thursday, after President Donald Trump ruled that the Chinese firm could “undermine US national security or foreign policy interests,” particularly in developing America’s 5G network. The ban forbids Huawei from buying parts or technology from US suppliers.

Coupled with the latest development from Google, the ban will likely see Huawei remain in place or tumble in the global smartphone market. The Chinese company overtook Apple at the beginning of the month to become the second biggest manufacturer worldwide, after South Korea’s Samsung.

Although Google has often had an antagonistic relationship with the Trump administration, Sunday’s report comes less than two months after CEO Sundar Pichai met with President Trump at the White House. After the meeting, Trump announced that Pichai’s firm was “totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military.”

The company has indeed shown a willingness to work for the benefit of the US military. Google was contracted in 2017 to create an AI program to analyze video footage from drones using machine learning, a project codenamed ‘Project Maven’ by the Pentagon. Google’s competitors, Microsoft and Amazon, have both lent their cloud computing power to the Pentagon to help the military develop its AI projects.

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Iran is open for talks and diplomacy but those avenues are closed under the status quo, with its economy being strangled by the US, the Iranian president said, adding that Tehran’s only option now is to resist.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, under whose tenure the universally acclaimed 2015 nuclear deal was struck, said on Monday that his country welcomes diplomacy and all sorts of negotiation in principle, but will not be coerced into them by debilitating economic sanctions and military threats.

“I favor talks and diplomacy but under current conditions, I do not accept it, as today’s situation is not suitable for talks and our choice is resistance only,” Rouhani said, as cited by IRNA news agency.

He added that the Iranian authorities feel the support of ordinary people who did not buy into the idea that Iran is responsible for the spike in tensions, despite attempts by “the enemy” to portray it as such. The unilateral nature of Washington’s sanctions is prime evidence of Iran’s victimhood, Rouhani said.

“If we walked away from the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the formal name of the nuclear deal] with the US provocative acts, then, in addition to the US, the UN and world would also impose sanctions on us,” he said.

Rouhani admitted that the US sanctions crackdown on Iran has taken a toll on its economy, having severely impaired the Islamic Republic’s international trade, considering that some 87 percent of global financial transactions are conducted in dollars. That shrunken ability to deal with the outside world and decreasing government revenues are Iran’s two main concerns at the moment, he said.

US President Donald Trump hurled a fresh threat at Tehran on Monday, by vowing to meet any provocation with “great force.” Trump floated the idea of negotiations, but said it’s exclusively up to Iran to take the first step. “If they call, we will certainly negotiate, but this is going to be up to them,” he said. Rouhani, as well as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had all previously rejected Washington’s arm twisting. “Try respect – it works!” Zarif tweeted.

READ MORE: US ‘genocidal taunts’ won’t end Iran – Zarif

The relationship between Iran and the US has been on the rocks ever since Trump came to power. His decision to pull the US out of the nuclear deal sent nearly a decade’s work by diplomats from across the world to the dustbin of history and widened the rift with Iran; and his intransigent rhetoric has sparked concerns of an all-out war. Although that scenario is what both countries say they want to avoid, the US has done nothing to dampen the fears, recently sending a Navy strike group and bomber force to the region citing an Iranian “threat.”

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Huawei has been granted a 90-day US general license, allowing the Chinese telecom to maintain its existing networks and provide users with software updates even as it prepares for exile on a Commerce Department blacklist.

The grace period allows Huawei’s American customers to continue with business as usual, according to the Commerce Department, which announced on Monday that the Chinese firm could continue using US technology for which it already had a license – but that new equipment would have to apply for new licenses, which are unlikely to be granted.

The announcement came shortly after Google confirmed it would sever its relationship with Huawei in order to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order, which added Huawei and 70 of its affiliates to a trade blacklist last week, citing nonspecific concerns about “national security threats.” Google confirmed that Huawei devices running the Android operating system would remain fully functional during the 90-day grace period.

While Android-powered Huawei phones would have continued to function at a basic level even if the company made it to the blacklist, users would be unable to download operating system updates, and new Huawei phones would only run the open-source version of Android.

The Commerce Department first hinted that it might postpone Huawei’s inclusion on the blacklist on Friday, suggesting the stay of execution would allow companies time to switch their equipment over to non-Huawei alternatives. But China has signaled it is willing to up the ante in the Huawei trade-war-within-a-trade-war, and some analysts are concerned Beijing might curtail US access to the rare earth minerals Huawei’s competitors need to manufacture their devices. 

The Trump administration has warned its allies that Beijing is using backdoors in Huawei tech to spy, imploring and even threatening countries including the UK and Germany to steer clear of using Chinese equipment to construct their 5G telecom networks, or face exclusion from the sharing of sensitive intelligence. Huawei, however, has maintained it does not spy for the Chinese government, accusing the US of using “national security” as an excuse to unfairly shut down competition.

Huawei became the number-two mobile manufacturer last year, edging out Apple. The company has reportedly been developing its own mobile operating system since 2012 as a contingency plan should they find themselves cut off from the US market, wary of meeting the same end as fellow Chinese telecom ZTE, which was forced to close its doors for months after a similar blacklisting effectively sealed their fate. 

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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is set to face a no confidence vote in parliament after several ministers from former coalition partner, the Freedom Party (FPO), resigned following a corruption scandal.

Peter Pilz, an environmentalist MP who leads his own independent group, said he would bring the motion to Austria’s lower house during a special session scheduled for Monday, following European Parliament elections.

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“I am quite certain that it will succeed and that I will manage to ensure that Kurz will no longer be chancellor on Tuesday,” Pilz told Reuters. If his motion is successful, it will end Kurz’s hopes of holding office until the snap elections he had planned for September.

Pilz’s plan to bring down the government early comes following comments from Herbert Kickl, who until Monday had served as interior minister in the coalition government. The senior FPO figure said the party would support any future opposition motion to bring down the government if it was proposed, according to news website Oe24.

“It would be almost naive for Kurz to assume that we, the FPO, have no distrust of him following his distrust in us,” Kickl told the news outlet. “Whenever the extraordinary session happens, those who give trust receive trust and those who give distrust get distrust,” he said without elaborating.

Kickl’s role as interior minister was already in doubt on Monday, as Kurz pushed for his resignation over the weekend. Kurz argued that as an FPO member, Kickl was unfit to lead a corruption probe into his party’s boss and former vice chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache. After Kickl resigned, FPO ministers followed suit, leaving several ministerial positions vacant. Kurz said he would fill the gaps – which include posts at the defense and transport ministries – with non-political “experts” until fresh polls can be held.

The cull of FPO ministers was accepted by President Alexander Van der Bellen on Tuesday, with the exception of Karin Kneissl, who had requested to stay on as transitional foreign minister. While originally nominated for the position by the FPO as an “independent expert,” she is officially non-party.

The two-year political marriage between the FPO and OVP deteriorated over the weekend, after reports in German media on Friday placed Strache at the heart of an influence-peddling scandal. Video footage from 2017 allegedly shows that Strache offered government contracts to the supposed niece of a Russian oligarch in return for buying an Austrian news outlet and flipping its editorial stance to support to FPO. Strache then resigned on Saturday with Kurz suggesting that new elections could be held in September.

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#Romanovs100 AR Family Photo Album has been shortlisted for one of the world’s most prestigious design awards – D&AD 2019. The book was published following RT’s history project dedicated to Russia’s last reigning royal family.

To celebrate the achievement, the book is now available for free download HERE. Unlock the album’s full potential by downloading a free iOS app that not only goes with the print edition, but also works with the digital version. Download the app HERE.

#Romanovs100 reviewed the last decades of the Russian Empire as seen through the lenses of the Romanov family’s cameras using accounts on four social networks. Each platform showcased its own narrative, format and content. With the album, #Romanovs100 combines the visual language of photography with AR tech to create an interactive history book featuring the humane story and unique photographic legacy of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II. This extended reality breaks the ‘fourth wall’ of storytelling providing for side-narratives, archive video, 3D visualisations and more.

#Romanovs100 currently boasts 17 accolades including Clio Entertainment, The Drum Social Buzz and Shorty awards. The project’s teaser videos and posters were recently honored by the ADC’s Merit awards in the Motion/Film Craft and Photography/Social Media nominations respectively.

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Google has reportedly suspended its licenses and product-sharing agreements with Chinese communications giant Huawei, as Washington accuses the company of spying for Beijing.

The Silicon Valley tech giant has cut its business deals with Huawei that involve the transfer of hardware and software, Reuters and the Verge report. Following the move, Huawei will likely lose access to Android operating system updates, and its forthcoming smartphones will be shut out of some Google apps, including the Google Play Store and Gmail apps. The Chinese firm, however, will still have access to the open source version of the Android operating system.

“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” a Google spokesperson confirmed in a brief statement. “For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.”

Washington repeatedly accused Huawei of installing so-called ‘backdoors’ into its products on behalf of the Chinese government. The heads of six US intelligence agencies warned American citizens against using Huawei products last year, and the Chinese company’s phones were banned from US military bases shortly afterwards.

Huawei denies all accusations of spying. Nevertheless, the US Commerce Department added Huawei to its blacklist on Thursday, after President Donald Trump ruled that the Chinese firm could “undermine US national security or foreign policy interests,” particularly in developing America’s 5G network. The ban forbids Huawei from buying parts or technology from US suppliers.

Coupled with the latest development from Google, the ban will likely see Huawei remain in place or tumble in the global smartphone market. The Chinese company overtook Apple at the beginning of the month to become the second biggest manufacturer worldwide, after South Korea’s Samsung.

Although Google has often had an antagonistic relationship with the Trump administration, Sunday’s report comes less than two months after CEO Sundar Pichai met with President Trump at the White House. After the meeting, Trump announced that Pichai’s firm was “totally committed to the U.S. Military, not the Chinese Military.”

The company has indeed shown a willingness to work for the benefit of the US military. Google was contracted in 2017 to create an AI program to analyze video footage from drones using machine learning, a project codenamed ‘Project Maven’ by the Pentagon. Google’s competitors, Microsoft and Amazon, have both lent their cloud computing power to the Pentagon to help the military develop its AI projects.

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