A group of gunmen stopped a bus on a highway in southwestern Pakistan before forcing passengers off and executing 14 of them, according to local officials.

While there were nearly three dozen people on the bus in total, the assailants appear to have selectively targeted their victims. Before anyone was killed, the gunmen asked for the passengers’ ID cards, it has been reported. It is still unclear if a specific ethnic or religious group was sought out.

The attackers were wearing uniforms of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, the provincial home secretary, Haider Ali, told AFP. The Frontier Corps is a provincial auxiliary force of the Pakistani government that maintains security on the borders with Iran and Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Khan called the attack a “barbaric” act and urged authorities to make “every possible effort” to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice.

A group of ethnic minority Baluch separatists later claimed responsibility for the deadly assault. The separatists have been waging a low-level insurgency, and often target security services and people from Punjab.

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Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno claimed the expulsion and arrest of Julian Assange had nothing to do with the US pressure or himself seeking revenge for damaging leaks, telling RT these are all insinuations by his predecessor.

Assange spent almost seven years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London until last week, when Moreno abruptly revoked his political asylum. The WikiLeaks co-founder was immediately arrested by UK police on charges of skipping bail and under a sealed US indictment.

Former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa, who was the one to provide protection to the journalist and publisher back in 2012, slammed Moreno for the move, calling him the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian history.” The incumbent president acted because he wanted to receive benefits from the US and get revenge on Assange for publishing documents about Moreno’s “blatant corruption,” Correa told RT.

Yet, when RT Spanish correspondent Helena Villar asked Moreno to comment on those accusations, he replied that there was “no way” was going to do it. “I already refuted this in my statements and through the documents I presented,” the Ecuadorean leader stated. “Those are the typical schemes, which the former president likes to use so much to hide the fundamental truth. Don’t forget that an order for his arrest had been issued in Ecuador.”

A congressional probe was launched against Moreno in February after the release of the so-called ‘INA Papers,’ which got their name from an offshore company that had allegedly been used by the president for shady operations. WikiLeaks denied they had anything to do with the leak, but the Ecuadorian leader believes otherwise.

Moreno was talking to the press in Washington where he’d arrived for a five-day visit, which won’t, however, see him meeting any members of the Trump administration. The journalists, of course, wanted to know if the US had anything to do with him giving Assange up.

After all, the Americans want the journalist to be extradited from Britain and prosecuted for alleged conspiracy with former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who passed classified US military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010.

“The US had nothing to do with this decision,” the president assured the press, insisting that terminating Assange’s asylum was “a sovereign decision of the Ecuadorean people.”

The statement clearly goes against fresh reports from the Ecuadorean capital, Quito, where protesters clashed with police and demanded Moreno’s resignation over how he has treated the WikiLeaks founder.

In order to justify his decision, the president again accused Assange of violating all possible rules during his stay at the Ecuadorean embassy and “treating ambassadors, security personnel and other staff as if they were his servants.” He even claimed that Assange was “often visited by hackers, whom he instructed on how to distribute information on issues that were of interest to him and his sponsors.”

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Saudi Arabia has secretly beheaded two Indian nationals without notifying either the embassy or the men’s relatives of the brutal executions. To add to the shock, the Kingdom will not surrender the remains to the families.

Satwinder Kumar of Hoshiarpur and Harjeet Singh of Ludhiana were decapitated on February 28, in connection with the case of the murder of another Indian man back in 2015. The verdict was reached without the knowledge of the Indian embassy and without any prior warning issued to the men’s families.

The news of the capital punishment only surfaced after Satwinder’s wife, Seema Rani, approached the Indian government asking them to contact the Kingdom to seek clarification on her husband’s fate, after hearing rumors of his demise in a Saudi jail. This week, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) finally confirmed the beheadings, which Punjab’s chief minister has called “barbaric and inhuman.”

“He had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2013 to work as a truck driver on a two-year contract. He was arrested in 2015 but the family came to know about his arrest several months later,” Rani said, blaming MEA for failing to intervene and prevent the executions.

To add more to the families’ shock, the MEA letter said that “under the Saudi system, the mortal remains of those who are executed are not handed over either to the embassy of that country or to the family members of the deceased.”

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Three US service members were injured in yet another traffic incident in Poland, as Washington and Warsaw are reportedly nearing a deal on permanent US presence in the eastern European country.

A military truck traveling in a convoy between Swietoszow and Luboszow in Lower Silesia caught fire on Wednesday, local media reported. The injured service members were taken to a hospital and military firefighters were on the scene. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

The incident comes amid reports that the US and Poland are close to reaching a deal on establishing a permanent US military base, which Polish President Andrzsej Duda joked would be called “Fort Trump” during his visit to Washington last fall.

This is the third mishap involving US troops struggling with rural Polish roads so far this year. Last month, two soldiers were injured when three army vehicles collided near the Hungarian border. In February, a bus carrying US service members overturned in Lower Silesia, putting six soldiers in the hospital.

Poland currently hosts around 4,000 US troops – including a tank brigade, an infantry brigade, and an Air Force detachment – as part of an ongoing NATO effort to “deter Russia” launched in 2015. The leadership in Warsaw has been eager for a permanent US presence.

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A recent study found that hair samples taken from men’s beards contained more bacteria than fur taken from dogs, generating many breathless headlines in the process. However, this factoid is cherry-picked and somewhat misleading.

The actual purpose of the study, originally published in July 2018 in the journal European Radiology but which has reemerged in recent days, aimed to determine whether it was indeed hygienic to use human MRI scanners on our pets (Spoiler: it is).

“The main objective of this prospective multi-centre study is to determine whether it would be hygienic to evaluate dogs and humans in the same MRI scanner by comparing the microbial flora of dogs and humans,” it said.

As our pets enjoy longer life-spans, they experience an increase in diseases associated with their old age, many of which necessitate radiological scans. Germaphobes and hygiene enthusiasts alike were concerned at the potential for the transmission of zoonotic diseases, infectious diseases that can pass from animals to humans (like bird flu or rabies) and which account for 75 percent of new human diseases.

“People are afraid that they will contract a zoonosis if they share scanners with their furry friends,” the researchers wrote in their paper. However, we already share a large number of bacteria with our canine companions owing to our close proximity, even without sharing MRI machines.

The researchers took samples from the coats and mouths of 30 dogs and from 18 bearded men who also had upcoming MRI examinations, by pressing agar plates onto their facial hair. We already know that the vast majority of bacteria found in human body hair are essentially harmless to us (thanks, immune system), and some can be, and often are, beneficial to our health.

Long story short: it’s fine for dogs to use human MRI machines and it might even be more hygienic than it otherwise would have been because of sterilization techniques used after the canine scans.

“In this prospective multi-centre study, we showed that dogs do not pose a significant hygiene risk to humans even if they utilise the same MRI scan facility,” the researchers wrote.

Finally, various studies have extolled the virtues and health benefits of facial hair on men, with some suggesting those without beards were more than three times as likely to be harboring methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA).

Microbiologist Adam Roberts carried out an experiment in which he was able to grow more than 100 types of bacteria from material swabbed from beards and found that it was possible that some of the microbes killed other harmful microbes off. Certain beard bacteria can also be harvested to develop antibiotics.

So while the quantity of bacteria on men’s beards may be higher than man’s best friend, the quality of the bacteria may, in fact, mean they are healthier than their clean-shaven human counterparts and just as healthy as their dogs.

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Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia has died after shooting himself in the head as police arrived at his home to arrest him. The ex-president was rushed to hospital, but doctors could not save him.

As police officers knocked on his door on Wednesday morning, Garcia shut himself in his room and shot himself in the head. The former leader was rushed to hospital, reportedly suffered multiple cardiac arrests during surgery, and died several hours later.

Peruvian president Martin Vizcarra confirmed Garcia’s passing, sending his condolences to the late leader’s family and loved ones.

Garcia, who served as president of Peru from 1985 to 1990 and again from 2006 to 2011, had been under investigation for bribery. The former president was one of more than 230 people across Latin America investigated in a corruption case centered on Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht.

The former leader sought asylum in Uruguay last November, after a judge barred him from leaving Peru for 18 months. The asylum request was denied, and a judge in Lima ordered his detention on Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Garcia took bribes from Odebrecht in exchange for a lucrative public transport contract in Lima. Garcia denied the charge, and claimed he was being politically persecuted.

Peru’s last five ex-presidents have all served jail time or are under investigation for corruption. Garcia’s successor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is also being investigated for his alleged involvement in the Odebrecht scandal. Prosecutors are currently seeking to extend Kuczynski’s detention until he can be brought to trial.

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The current CIA director reportedly played on Donald Trump’s emotions to persuade him to expel dozens of Russian diplomats, using pictures of dead ducks and sick children that she claimed had been exposed to Novichok.

The New York Times reports that the president was reluctant to throw out any Russian officials in the aftermath of the Salisbury poisonings in Britain last year, until Gina Haspel, who was CIA deputy director at the time, showed him pictures of children “sickened by the Novichok” and “a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.”

The revelation marks the first public mention of the existence of such material which the New York Times reports had been provided by British intelligence.

At no point during the Salisbury poisoning saga have the British authorities mentioned the discovery of dead ducks or children having been made ill by poison. Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper says its government sources are not aware of any photographs having been sent to the CIA.

There are now questions over whether Trump was not only emotionally manipulated by a senior member of his own spy agency, but also whether he was shown misinformation or misleading material in order to get him to take more hostile actions against Russia.

It’s suggested that Haspel resorted to playing on the emotions of Trump because he was reluctant to agree to London’s request to expel diplomats. He reportedly regarded the Salisbury poisoning as “legitimate spy games,” although Moscow denies any responsibility for what happened to former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Haspel is said to have pushed for the “strong option” of sending 60 Russian diplomats home, which is what Trump ultimately agreed to.

The pictures shown to the president may refer to the three children who were asked to go to hospital two weeks after the Skripals were found poisoned, but all three were given the all clear.

The children had apparently fed ducks alongside the former spy on the day he was discovered unconscious on a park bench, but there was no evidence of exposure to poisonous substances in any of them and they were sent home.

The report in the NYT has now opened yet more room for speculation surrounding events in Salisbury. There is either evidence which has not been publicly released by Britain for unknown reasons or the CIA was manipulating the material it gave to Trump. 

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Of all the relics kept at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris (Notre-Dame de Paris), the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the True Cross are the most revered. Their fate was in question as the 850-year-old church went up in flames.

Relics believed to be a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, as well as the Crown of Thorns he wore, have been kept at the cathedral for centuries. The braided circle held together by golden thread has about 70 or so thorns attached. The relics were obtained from the Byzantine Empire in 1238, and brought to Paris by King Louis IX.

All of the relics were saved and the cathedral’s treasury was preserved despite the damage, according to a Paris Match journalist who quoted Father Frederic, one of the priests at Notre-Dame, on Monday evening.

Notre-Dame is the most visited monument in the French capital. Over 12 million people visit the cathedral every year, making it the most visited monument in Paris – ahead of the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, according to official statistics.

READ MORE: Watch the moment Spire of Notre Dame cathedral collapses due to fire

It has been damaged and restored many times over its 850-year history, but never so severely as during Monday’s fire that has toppled its spire and caused its roof to completely collapse.

Construction on the original cathedral, located on the central island of Paris (Ile de la cite) began in 1163, and was largely completed by 1260. It was fitted with additional flying buttresses in the 1500s, to support the imposing Gothic structure.

READ MORE: Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on fire (PHOTO, VIDEO)

Built like a “poor people’s book,” the cathedral’s exterior featured sculptures and reliefs illustrating the stories from the Bible – for example, the western facade facing the square showed the Last Judgment – as well as gargoyles and other monstrous creatures.

Notre-Dame was damaged and desecrated during and after the 1789 French Revolution, but was somewhat repaired for the December 1804 coronation of Emperor Napoleon I.

Victor Hugo’s novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1831) revived the popular interest in the landmark, and restoration work began in 1845. Its famous stained glass windows – first built in 1225 – and exterior statuary, were rebuilt at this time. Additional cleaning and restoration work was done in the 1960s and again in the 1990s.

The cathedral has been a target of several terrorist plots in recent years. In February 2017, four people were arrested in Montpelier on charges of plotting to attack the cathedral. A car filled with explosives was found outside Notre Dame in September 2016.

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The US is targeting Cuba with additional sanctions, including restricting travel to the island nation, limiting remittances, and sanctioning additional entities, White House national security adviser John Bolton said.

US citizens sending remittances to Cuba will be limited t $1,000 per person per quarter, Bolton said on Wednesday. Non-family travel will be restricted to reduce “veiled tourism” that benefits the Cuban government and military, he added.

“Through the Treasury Department, we will also implement changes to end the use of ‘U-turn transactions,’ which allow the regime to circumvent sanctions and obtain access to hard currency and the US banking system,” Bolton said in a speech to veterans of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, when CIA-backed Cuban exiles tried to overthrow Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government.

The move comes a day after the White House announced it would stop issuing waivers on implementing the Helms-Burton law, which would penalize anyone in the world who did business with Cuban entities using property seized from US owners following the 1959 Cuban revolution.

“No one will take the fatherland from us, neither by seduction nor by force,” Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Treasury has not officially announced the new sanctions, but Bolton said five entities will be added to the Cuban blacklist, including the military-owned airline Aerogaviota.

The US cut diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961, and over the following decades imposed a wide range of sanctions on the island nation, just 90 miles south of Florida. Former president Barack Obama sought to soften the US policy in 2015, leading to the reopening of the US and Cuban embassies and loosening of travel restrictions.

In June 2017, however, Trump rolled back all of Obama’s changes, returning to a hard-line policy on Cuba. Additional sanctions were introduced this year, as part of the US effort to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela spearheaded by Bolton and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), son of Cuban exiles.

The Trump administration has accused Cuba of “occupying” Venezuela, claiming that the Cuban military was helping Maduro stay in power.

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US National Security Advisor John Bolton has signaled that Washington’s latest sanctions on Venezuela are a “warning” to “external actors” against deploying military assets to support the government of Nicolas Maduro.

The US imposed new sanctions on the Central Bank of Venezuela on Wednesday, restricting US transactions and cutting off access to US dollars. It also targeted Cuba with sanctions, including travel restrictions.

Bolton said the measures should be seen by other powers, including Russia, as a warning against providing any help for Maduro government, which the Trump administration has branded “illegitimate.”

Bolton said Russia’s recent deployment of military planes to Venezuela posed a “threat to security” in the region, just two months after the US openly attempted to instigate a military coup in the country.

He said Russia’s “provocative” action was a threat to “international peace” and security.

“Today, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well,” Bolton said, referencing the infamous US policy of opposition to European colonialism in the Western hemisphere beginning in 1823, which ultimately allowed the US to treat Latin America as its own background and experimental coup playground.

During his speech, Bolton also announced new sanctions on Nicaragua’s Bancorp and on Laureano Ortega, the son of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. Bancorp had previously been sanctioned for its links to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA.

The US has also made recent threats to Nicaragua, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning in February that Ortega’s “days are numbered” and the “the Nicaraguan people will soon be free.”

The Trump administration called for the overthrow of Maduro’s government in mid-January and announced it would recognize opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaido as the country’s “legitimate” leader.

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