Man Impersonating North Korea's Kim Jong Un Mocks Trump During NATO Summit
Man Impersonating North Korea's Kim Jong Un Mocks Trump During NATO Summit |Vantage on Firstpost
Man Impersonating North Korea's Kim Jong Un Mocks Trump During NATO Summit |Vantage on Firstpost
A man impersonating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was seen protesting outside the venue of the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He was carrying a balloon rocket with text reading 'Trump's here to negotiate peace – Putin's peace' and 'Europe, my troops are already in Ukraine, where are yours?'
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Indian Express
29 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Congress: Election Commission move to revise rolls an admission that all not well
The Congress on Thursday said the Election Commission's announcement of a special intensive revision (SIR) of the voting lists in poll-bound Bihar is a 'clear and explicit admission… that all is not well with India's electoral rolls'. Other Opposition parties, too, objected to the move, arguing that the month-long exercise will disenfranchise lakhs of vulnerable voters ahead of elections this year. The EC had said Tuesday that all existing electors in Bihar who were not on the rolls in 2003 would have to again provide documentation proving their eligibility. This was to be the beginning of a nationwide exercise. A Congress committee tasked with looking into elections said in a statement Thursday: 'In simple terms, the EC wants to discard the current electoral rolls entirely and create a fresh new electoral roll for the state… This is a clear and explicit admission by the EC that all is not well with India's electoral rolls. Exactly what the Congress party and the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi have been repeatedly pointing out with evidence from Maharashtra.' The eight-member EAGLE committee said: 'Lakhs of Union and state government officials will now control and dictate who has correct documents and who doesn't, who gets to vote in the upcoming Bihar elections etc. This carries a huge risk of willful exclusion of voters using the power of the state machinery.' At a meeting of political parties with Bihar's Chief Electoral Officer Wednesday in Patna, representatives from the INDIA bloc — including the RJD, Congress, CPI(ML) Liberation and CPI(M) — unanimously rejected the SIR, calling it a ploy to exclude poor, rural and minority electors. RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha told The Indian Express that the party would go to the EC. 'This is a massive exercise, and with the Bihar election notification expected in just two-and-a-half months, the timing is questionable. This process could have started much earlier. We feel very strongly that this entire exercise, is it a kind of cover? Cover to make sure that people from subaltern classes and minorities, backward and Dalits, are you going to invisibilise them?' he said. Opposition parties flagged concerns on the commission's stringent documentation requirements. The new rules set different proof thresholds by birth cohort. Voters born between July 1, 1987, and December 2, 2004, are required to provide proof of either parent's Indian citizenship, while those born after December 2, 2004, need documentation for both parents. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the EC was 'acting like a stooge of the BJP' and asked whether the move was a backdoor attempt to implement the NRC. 'I don't understand the reason behind the EC move or the rationale behind selecting these dates. This is nothing short of a scam. I seek clarification from the Commission on whether they are trying to implement the NRC through backdoors. In fact, this looks to be more dangerous than the NRC which every political party in opposition must resist,' she told reporters. The Congress statement said the EC rules on birth certificates are 'arbitrary, whimsical and onerous on the estimated 8.1 crore eligible voters in Bihar in 2025'. CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, too, drew parallels with Assam's NRC exercise and argued in a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner that completing the verification of '78 million voters' in one month was 'logically absurd and a logistical nightmare'.
The Hindu
36 minutes ago
- The Hindu
U.S. requires visa applicants to share social media used in 5 years: U.S. Embassy in India
Describing each visa adjudication as a 'national security decision', the U.S. has asked applicants to share their social media usernames or handles for each platform they have used in the last five years. The U.S. Embassy in India shared the information in a brief statement issued on Thursday (June 26, 2025), which also cautioned against 'omitting' social media information, as it could lead to 'visa denial and ineligibility for future visas.' The statement that was posted on X read, 'Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160 visa application form. Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit it.' The communication continued, 'Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas.' On June 23, the U.S. Embassy asked those applying for an F, M, or J non-immigrant visa to switch the privacy settings of their social media accounts to 'public' to facilitate vetting, which it said was necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the US under law. The embassy had also said since 2019, the U.S. has required visa applicants to provide 'social media identifiers' on immigrant and non-immigrant visa application forms. The F or M category is for student visas, and the J category is for exchange visitor visas. In Thursday's (June 26, 2025) communication, the embassy also attached two related digital posters. National security decision 'Every U.S. visa adjudication is a national security decision,' read the caption on the top of a poster, followed by a note. The note read, 'The United States requires visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on visa application forms. We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting.' It comes against the backdrop of an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration in Los Angeles recently. On June 24, the embassy's statement said that the U.S. had increased enforcement of immigration laws, and violators would face detention, deportation, and permanent consequences for future visa eligibility. The U.S. further warned that those entering the country illegally would face jail time and deportation. The U.S. Embassy in India has issued a series of statements on the subject of visas and immigration this month. On June 19, the embassy said a U.S. visa was 'a privilege, not a right,' and its screening did not stop after a visa was issued, as authorities might revoke it if one broke the law. The embassy had also said that using illegal drugs or breaking any of the U.S. laws while on a student or visitor visa could make one ineligible for future U.S. visas. Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy in India also issued statements, underlining that while people travelling legally to America were welcome, illegal entry or abuse of visas won't be tolerated by the country. The United States 'will not tolerate' those who facilitate illegal and mass immigration to the U.S., its embassy said on June 16, 2025. The U.S. Embassy had said the U.S. had 'established new visa restrictions' targeting foreign government officials and violators.
Hindustan Times
43 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
India refuses to sign SCO statement over Pahalgam
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers' meeting couldn't issue a joint communique on Thursday after India refused to endorse the document because it didn't address its terrorism-related concerns, officials aware of the matter said. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during the SCO Defence Ministers' Meeting, in Qingdao, China. (@rajnathsingh) Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who attended the meeting at Qingdao in China, refused to sign the joint communique as it was silent on the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed but mentioned Balochistan and the hijacking of the Jaffer Express by Baloch militants in March, the officials said, asking not to be named. Pakistan's insistence on not having any reference to the Pahalgam attack, while retaining the reference to the situation in Balochistan, stymied the finalisation of a joint statement, the officials said. The SCO works by consensus and a joint communique cannot be issued if even one member state doesn't endorse it. China, the current president of the SCO, has deep military and strategic ties with Pakistan, which it strongly supported during the recent four-day clashes with India under Operation Sindoor. The operation was India's direct military response to the Pahalgam terror strike, the worst attack on civilians since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal responded to a question about the SCO meeting's failure to issue a joint communique by tacitly pointing to Pakistan's role in the matter. 'I understand [the meet] could not adopt a joint statement. I also understand that certain member countries could not reach consensus on certain issues and hence the document could not be finalised. On our side, India wanted concerns on terrorism reflected in the document, which was not acceptable to one particular country, and therefore the statement was not adopted,' he said. A press release issued by the Indian side is 'very instructive in how we look at the threat of terrorism', he said. 'The defence minister, in his address, called upon these 11 countries to come together to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations... He also reiterated the need to uphold that the perpetrators, organisers, financers, sponsors of reprehensible acts of terrorism, including cross-border terrorism, need to be held accountable and brought to justice,' Jaiswal said. Singh further said SCO members must be 'in lockstep in our endeavour in strengthening stability and security in our neighborhood', he added. In his address, Singh said every act of terrorism was criminal and unjustifiable, and the bloc must unite in eliminating the menace for collective safety and security. He said India launched Operation Sindoor, exercising its right to defend itself against terrorism and pre-empt and deter further cross-border attacks. During the Pahalgam terror attack, victims were shot after they were profiled on religious identity, and the The Resistance Front --- a proxy of UN-designated terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) --- claimed responsibility for it, Singh said. 'The pattern of Pahalgam attack matches with LeT's previous terror attacks in India. India's zero tolerance for terrorism was demonstrated through its actions. We have shown that epicentres of terrorism are no longer safe and we will not hesitate to target them.' India launched the Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7 and struck terror and military installations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), It triggered a four-day military confrontation with Pakistan involving fighter jets, missiles, drones, long-range weapons and heavy artillery before the two sides reached an understanding on stopping all military action on May 10. The biggest challenges faced by the region were related to peace, security and trust-deficit, with increasing radicalisation, extremism and terrorism being the root cause of these problems, Singh said. 'Peace and prosperity cannot co-exist with terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of non-state actors and terror groups. Dealing with these challenges requires decisive action.' On May 15, Singh questioned if nuclear weapons were safe in Pakistan's control and custody and demanded that its arsenal be placed under the supervision of global nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calling the neighbour 'irresponsible and rogue'. 'It is imperative that those who sponsor, nurture and utilise terrorism for their narrow and selfish ends must bear the consequences. Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy and provide shelter to terrorists. There should be no place for such double standards. SCO should not hesitate to criticise such nations,' Singh said in Qingdao. Singh called for proactive steps to check the spread of radicalisation among the youth, acknowledging the significant role of the RATS (regional anti-terrorist structure --- a body under the SCO) mechanism in tackling the challenge. 'The joint statement of the Council of SCO Heads of State on 'Countering Radicalisation leading to Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism' issued during India's chairmanship symbolises our shared commitment.' SCO is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Their defence ministers' meeting was held as a precursor to the annual summit of its leaders set for the autumn.
