Woman who spent £16m at Harrods faces extradition hearing

An Azerbaijani woman who spent £16 million at London's up-market Harrods department store and was the first to be targeted by new British legislation on "unexplained wealth" was freed on bail Thursday as she fights an extradition request by Baku.

Zamira Hajiyeva, 55, is the wife of an ex-state banker who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for embezzlement in their home country of Azerbaijan.

Mrs Hajiyeva, who was arrested last week in London, faces two charges of embezzlement in Azerbaijan.

Mrs Hajiyeva, who lives in a £15m house near to the London store, is wanted by the authorities in Azerbaijan for an alleged conspiracy to defraud the Azerbaijani national bank.

Russian tycoon Rybolovlev charged in Monaco

Russian Dmitry Rybolovlev has been detained for questioning by police in Monaco in connection with a corruption investigation. Mr Rybolovlev, who lives in the principality and owns Monaco FC football club, was taken into police custody on Tuesday.

The judge has been investigating for more than a year whether the fertilizer tycoon, who owns soccer club AS Monaco, sought to influence Monaco’s law enforcement officials in a long-running dispute with Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier.

The Russian alleges Bouvier conned him out of $1 billion by inflating the price of 38 pieces of art he bought over a 10-year period. Rybolovlev is suing his former art adviser in Monaco, Singapore and Switzerland. Bouvier has denied wrongdoing.

Under Monaco's criminal system, which mirror France's, a suspect is placed under investigation by a magistrate, who then determines whether there is sufficient evidence to hold a trial.

Multiple dead in mass shooting at California bar

At least 12 people have been killed, including a police officer, at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California.

The shooting came just over a year after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas after a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel room. There was an eerie parallel between the two shootings as some of the same people who emerged from the bar, the Borderline Bar & Grill, described having survived the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip.

At least 200 people were reportedly inside the Borderline Bar and Grill, which was hosting a university student night, at the time of the attack.

Officials say the suspect, who has not been identified, was found dead inside.

They have not yet confirmed any motive behind the attack.

Pakistan: Asia Bibi released from jail

Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy after spending eight years on death row, has been freed from prison.

The mother-of-five was released from prison in the city of Multan on Wednesday and it remains unclear exactly where she is.

Last week's Supreme Court ruling sparked violent protests from Islamists and the government agreed to their demand to stop her leaving Pakistan.

News of her release led to some confusion, with reports she had been taken to another country.

But the foreign office later said she was still in Pakistan.

What was Asia Bibi accused of?

The trial stems from an argument Asia Bibi had with a group of women in June 2009.

They were harvesting fruit when a row broke out about a bucket of water. The women said that because she had used a cup, they could no longer touch it, as her faith had made it unclean.

Prosecutors alleged that in the row which followed, the women said Asia Bibi should convert to Islam and that she made offensive comments about the Prophet Muhammad in response.

She was later beaten up at her home, during which her accusers say she confessed to blasphemy. She was arrested after a police investigation.

Acquitting her, the Supreme Court said that the case was based on unreliable evidence and her confession was delivered in front of a crowd "threatening to kill her".

.

.

Tiwa Savage Wins Best African Act at MTV EMA

Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage flew the African flag high at this year’s MTV EMA Awards that were held in Bilbao, Spain on Sunday.
The star edged out Mzansi’s Shekinah and Gqom duo Destruction Boyz, Davido (Nigeria), Fally Ipupa (DRC) and Nyashinski (Kenya) to win the African Act category.
She said: "I'm just a girl from Nigeria living my dreams. I'm so thankful to everyone that's supported my journey so far, especially my fans. Thank you MTV!"

 

Gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger found dead in prison

Infamous Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, 89 years, has been found dead in a US federal prison in West Virginia.

He was discovered unresponsive in his cell at the maximum security facility shortly after being transferred there from a Florida jail.
Bulger was the head of a violent South Boston crime ring known as the Winter Hill Gang from the 1970s into the 1990s. In 1995, Bulger was tipped off about his imminent indictment by an FBI agent and escaped, remaining on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list until getting apprehended in 2011 in Santa Monica, California.
The former leader of South Boston's Winter Hill gang inspired the film Black Mass featuring Johnny Depp, and The Departed, which won the Academy Award for best picture in 2006.
His death comes on the same day that he was transferred to the Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia, which houses 1,385 inmates, according to reports.
An inmate with mafia ties is now under investigation for Bulger's killing, three sources briefed on the incident told the Boston Globe.

Babies born in US may lose citizenship as President Trump takes hard stance on immigration

President Donald Trump has disclosed his plan to sign an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorised immigrants born on US soil.

The action, which Trump previewed in a television clip broadcast Tuesday, would be the most aggressive by a president elected to office pledging to take a hard line on immigration, an issue he has revived in advance of next week’s midterm elections.

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump said during an interview with Axios scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

Chris Coons, a US Senator and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Tuesday that Trump "was driving a false narrative on immigration"  to stoke fear ahead of the November 6 congressional vote.

The 14th Amendment states that: "all persons born or n

aturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

A legal challenge would prompt the nation's courts to weigh in on what would be one of the most sweeping moves of the Trump administration. It has already targeted immigration through a travel ban from several Muslim-majority countries, child-parent separations for migrants, refugee policies and other actions.