Yellow Vest protesters who have suffered life-changing injuries at the hands of French police have launched their own association, promising fresh actions against police brutality.

Called “the mutilated for the edification of others,” the collective aims to accurately calculate the number of people who have been injured nationally by police during Yellow Vest protests. It also called for an end to the use of the non-lethal weapons deployed by French police — namely tear gas canisters and Flash Balls — and a large national demonstration is scheduled in Paris on May 26.

Among those attending was Jerome Rodrigues, a prominent Yellow Vest leader who was hit in the eye with a gas canister during a demonstration in January. “You have 19 people in front of you and you have only 26 eyes that look back,” he told the press conference. “Count, there is a small problem,” he added.

“We demand the truth, justice and the ban on so-called sublethal weapons,” said Robin Pages, another activist. He accused French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner of “lying” when the he suggested that only “10 people have been hit in the head by LBD [Flash Ball] shots.”

According to statistics gathered by the activist group Desarmons-les (“Disarm Them”), at least 154 people have been seriously injured by police use of non-lethal weapons during protests. Of that number, 22 people have lost the use of an eye due to Flash Balls. A further five have had their hands torn off by gas canisters.

The growing list of casualties has done little to prevent police use of non-lethal weapons, who fired gas at hundreds of protesters in order to prevent them from gathering at the EU Parliament building in Strasbourg on Saturday.

Now in entering its 25th week, the movement has morphed from one protesting a planned fuel tax hike into a wider campaign against austerity and the pro-business policies of the French government. 

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One of two Emirati men detained in Turkey on suspicion of both spying and having possible ties to the Jamal Khashoggi embassy murder case has reportedly taken his own life in prison, according to government and media sources.

The man was arrested by Turkish authorities 10 days ago and was later formally charged with “military and political” and “international espionage.” He was found dead having apparently hanged himself in his cell in Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul on Sunday.

Turkish authorities are now launching an investigation into the suspicious circumstances of the man’s death as he was being detained in solitary confinement.

The two men claimed they were Palestinian nationals but admitted to working on behalf of UAE intelligence, reports Al Jazeera. One of the two alleged UAE spies reportedly arrived in Turkey just two days after Khashoggi’s murder.

Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and then dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October in a case which sparked international outcry. So far, the the Saudi public prosecutor has charged 11 people in connection with Khashoggi’s murder.

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Under a state of emergency after a spate of suicide bombings last week, Sri Lanka has imposed a ban on all forms of face coverings. The measure is aimed at helping police with identification as they hunt for terrorism suspects.

The order comes into effect on Monday. It makes no exception for religious reasons, banning burkas, veils and masks alike.

“A decision has been taken by the president to ban all forms of face covering that will hinder easy identification under emergency regulations,” the presidential office stated on Sunday.

The Sri Lankan government enlisted the support of Muslim religious leaders before deciding in favor of the blanket ban on all garments that might hinder a person’s identification. Some Muslim clerics in the Buddhist-majority country vocally sided with the government, asking women to stop wearing burka and niqab, which leaves only a slit or a mesh, respectively, open for the eyes.

Muslims, who make up around 10 percent of the total population in Sri Lanka, are growing increasingly wary of potential retaliation over the attacks on Christian churches and luxury hotels perpetrated by radical Islamists with apparent links to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

READ MORE: Sri Lankan military finds 15 bodies, including 6 kids, after shootout at suspected militant hideout

The state of emergency was declared after a series of deadly suicide blasts rocked the country on April 21, leaving 253 people dead and hundreds injured. In the following days, the country unleashed a sweeping crackdown on potential suspects in the attacks, arresting over 70 people all over the country and facing off with militants in anti-terrorist raids. After a gun battle with suspected terrorists in the city of Kalmunai on Friday, police reportedly discovered a stash of explosives and precursors in the apartment, including bags of fertilizer, gunpowder and acids. IS claimed the killed gunmen were its soldiers.

READ MORE: For Christ’s sake! Why do liberals get tongue-tied when discussing the world’s largest religion?

Some 10,000 Sri Lankan law enforcement officers are combing through the country in a bid to trace suspects in the attacks who are still at large. On Sunday, police said it detained two brothers believed to be the main suspects in the Easter Sunday attacks.

The restrictions have also affected the island nation’s Christian minority after the authorities ordered the closure of all Catholic churches as a precaution. Instead of holding a public Mass on Sunday, Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith delivered a sermon from his home chapel, broadcast live on television. Christians account for some 7.4 percent of the population, including some 6.1 percent who are Roman Catholics.

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Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan was embroiled in a heated exchange on live television during his interview with an animal hunter who boasted about killing more than 5,000 elephants.

Morgan was interviewing Zimbabwean big game hunter Ron Thomson via video link on Monday morning’s show. The hunter admitted to feeling “nothing” while killing more than 5,000 elephants, along with 800 buffalo, up to 60 lions, roughly 50 hippos and about 40 leopards.

READ MORE: Piers Morgan blasts Meghan & Harry for blowing taxpayer cash to become ‘King & Queen of Africa’

Thomson, who denied being a trophy hunter, compared his career choice to that of a brain surgeon, explaining that he would never allow emotions to cloud his judgement while on the job.

“I felt nothing. If I had got emotionally involved in what I was doing, I would never have been able to get my job done,” said Thomson to Morgan and his co-host Susanna Reid.

In the interview, the animal hunter fought back against Morgan’s questioning and insisted he didn’t enjoy killing the elephants and claimed the government-funded culling is necessary to control the animals who he claimed are damaging national parks in South Africa. Thomson also denied that elephants are facing extinction, despite their plummeting population being widely documented.

The live conversation took a turn for the combative, however, when Morgan described Thomson’s “detached” language as barbaric. A shouting match ensued, which was made all the more intense by a significant transmission delay, with Thomson pointing to the camera, yelling that Morgan had no idea how the culling impacted him.

“It’s very easy for you to sit in an armchair in London and not have to contend with what the African people have to contend with,” Thomson argued.

READ MORE: Piers Morgan ‘identifies as hippo’ in response to Alyssa Milano’s ‘trans, immigrant, gay’ tweet

Naturally the heated exchange evoked a fierce response from animal lovers and viewers who, for once, appeared to be firmly on Morgan’s usually controversial side of the debate. “It’s not often I agree with anything @piersmorgan has to say but in this case well said and well done on taking on this hideous man,” wrote one user.

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At least five people including a pastor have reportedly been killed during a gun attack on a church in Burkina Faso by suspected militants who fled the scene on motorbikes.

The attack happened during Sunday service at approximately midday in the northern town of Silgadji, close to the border with Mali, according to reports. Celebrant Pierre Ouedraogo, his sons and other worshippers were shot dead in the attack.

“Unidentified armed individuals have attacked the Protestant church in Silgadji killing four members of the congregation and the pastor. At least two other people are missing,” a security source told AFP.

The attack comes amid an uptick in alleged jihadist violence in the country. A Catholic priest was kidnapped a month ago and there has been no update on his whereabouts since, while on Friday, some five teachers were shot dead in the east of the country.

Heavily armed, Al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali have carried out a number of high-profile attacks in central Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in recent months, including an assault on a Malian military base in which 11 soldiers were killed.

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Unrelenting Yellow Vest activists have marched in Paris and other French cities for the 24th straight weekend, just days after Emmanuel Macron tried to placate the protest movement with promises of lower taxes.

The demonstrators who assembled in Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg on Saturday appear to signal that despite the French president’s recent concessions to the group, the Yellow Vest movement is alive and well.

Oh Thursday, Macron held the first major press conference of his two-year presidency, in which he announced that he wanted to implement “significant” income tax cuts. The televised conference, however, was not well received among those who have turned out week after week to demonstrate against Macron’s business-friendly austerity measures.

AFP, after interviewing a dozen Yellow Vests in the south of France about their opinion of the press conference, reported that activists thought Macron’s olive branch was “rubbish.”

Jérémy Clément, regularly cited as a spokesperson for the movement, told the news agency that “the President has understood our claims, but he hasn’t provided the answers to them.”

The Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) protests began last November as a rally against a proposed gas tax. Now an international movement, French Yellow Vest activists have assembled for 24 Saturdays in a row as of this week. Some demonstrations have led to violent clashes with police, resulting in serious injuries.

Macron has already offered €10 billion ($11.1bn) in tax cuts and income subsidies for the working poor and pensioners, back in December, but the pledge did not slow down the burgeoning protest movement.

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In a move that many have interpreted as a shot across the bow of US President Donald Trump, Pope Francis has donated $500,000 to help Central American migrants stranded in Mexico as they try to reach America.

The aid is specifically intended to assist 75,000 people who arrived in Mexico last year as part of six migrant caravans.

The donation will be taken from the Catholic Church’s Peter’s Pence fund, from church collections around the world. Peter’s Pence said in a statement that aid to migrants by governments and private individuals has dropped as global media coverage of the crisis decreased.

“All these people were stranded, unable to enter the United States, without a home or livelihood,” Peter’s Pence said. “The Catholic Church hosts thousands of them in hotels within the dioceses or religious congregations, providing basic necessities, from housing to clothing.”

The US has heaped pressure on Mexico to stop the flow of migrants from Central America moving towards the US border. Last month, Trump cut all aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, accusing the Central American countries of not doing “a thing for us.”

Many have interpreted the Pope’s donation as a rebuke of Trump’s policies towards migrants and some are even saying that the US president is being “trolled” by the pontiff.

However, not everyone is happy that this is how the Pope chose to use the funds.

Pope Francis recently spoke out against governments that build walls to keep out migrants, saying: “Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up.”

Many of the migrants attempting to reach the US say they are escaping violence,  persecution and poverty in their home countries.

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Iran may pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as part of retaliatory measures to a renewed sanctions push from Washington, Iran’s foreign minister has said.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said that quitting the agreement designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons was among “numerous options” available to Tehran, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Sunday. The move comes after the Trump administration announced new efforts on Monday to cut Iranian oil exports “to zero” by removing exemptions from sanctions for US buyers of Iranian crude.

“The Islamic Republic’s choices are numerous, and the country’s authorities are considering them… and leaving [the] NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) is one of them,” Zarif said.

His comments follow strong rhetoric from US military officials against Tehran on Saturday. Speaking during a visit to Gulf allies aimed at creating “common cause against the threat of Iran,” US Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie said enough resources would be deployed to prevent Iran from taking “dangerous” actions. “We will be able to respond effectively,” he said.

Washington’s latest measures against Iran ended six months of waivers granted to its eight biggest oil customers, allowing them to continue Iranian imports without falling foul of the American sanctions regime. However, they now have until May 1 to cease orders for Iranian crude or risk the wrath of the US.

First ratified in 1970, the NPT aims to promote the eventual disarmament of existing nuclear arsenals, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries, and the promotion of the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Four countries have never signed up to the accords: South Sudan, Israel, Pakistan, and India.

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Experts from NASA and other government agencies are gearing up to tackle an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. No, it’s not another remake of a Hollywood blockbuster, it’s part of a simulation to prepare for the doomsday scenario.

When the International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference kicks off next week, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office will team up with other agencies and scientific institutions, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to work on how they would handle an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

The group hopes to learn the best strategies for dealing with the threat, starting from the instant a potentially dangerous asteroid is detected by astronomers.

The experts will work on the following fictional scenario:

Astronomers discover an asteroid on March 26, 2019 and give it the name ‘2019 PDC.’ Very little is known about the asteroid’s physical properties, and experts have determined it could be anywhere from 100-300 meters in size. The astronomers class 2018 DPC as a ‘potentially hazardous asteroid.’

Initially, the European Space Agency and NASA’s ‘impact monitoring systems’ forecast that the asteroid has a 1-in-50,000 chance of striking Earth and it is most likely to strike on April 29, 2027. However, after monitoring the asteroid for a month, they conclude that the chances of the object hitting Earth have increased dramatically to 1-in-100.

Once again, this is fictional – there’s no need to call Bruce Willis just yet.

NASA says the exercise won’t be tightly scripted. The goal is to investigate how all the relevant agencies and citizens might respond to an actual impending asteroid strike. The space agency has already taken part in six similar exercises in recent years.

“These exercises have really helped us in the planetary defense community to understand what our colleagues on the disaster management side need to know,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. “This exercise will help us develop more effective communications with each other and with our governments.”

So there you have it. When the asteroid comes, they will be ready. We hope.

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Yellow Vest protesters have marched on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, prompting police to deploy tear gas. The demonstrators have also swarmed several TV stations, demanding better coverage of their movement.

The 24th consecutive weekend of demonstrations saw more than 5,000 protesters take to the streets across France, including 2,600 in Paris, according to Interior Ministry figures, which the Yellow Vests have often questioned in the past.

In Strasbourg, tear gas filled the streets as police struggled to keep hundreds of demonstrators away from the EU Parliament buildings. Police have blocked roads and bridges, and clashes have broken out between heavily armored riot control officers and masked protesters.

Wearing improvised gas masks, the Yellow Vests kicked tear-gas canisters back at the battalions of police blocking the roads.

Paris has been the epicenter of the Yellow Vest movement since it began as a show of opposition to a planned fuel tax hike last November. On Saturday, activists surrounded the headquarters of several French television networks there, demanding better coverage of their weekly demonstrations.

Saturday’s marches came two days after French President Emmanuel Macron tried to assuage popular anger with promises of lower taxes. However, activists have continued to demonstrate against Macron’s pro-business, pro-EU policies, calling his peace offering “rubbish.”

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