International news brief: Imran Khan likely to be arrested in foreign funding case: Report

Islamabad, Oct 08: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan is likely to be arrested in foreign funding case, ARY citing sources reported on Friday. The report comes soon after the other PTI leaders including Tariq Shafi, Hamid Zaman and Saif Niazi were arrested the same day.

The media outlet said that Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah ordered concerned authorities to lodge a case against Imran Khan. Earlier also Dawn newspaper citing sources reported that the federal government has prepared a plan under which the police have been given a go ahead to put Imran Khan under house arrest at his Banigala residence after the announcement of the much-hyped long march.

Bialiatski joins small group of jailed Nobel Peace laureates

Belarussian pro-democracy campaigner Ales Bialiatski, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with human rights groups in Russia and Ukraine, is the fourth person in the 121-year history of the Nobel Prizes to receive the award while in prison or detention.

Bialiatski, 60, who founded the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Center Viasna, was detained following protests in 2020 against the re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. He remains in jail without trial and faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

Nobel committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen urged Belarus to release Bialiatski but acknowledged that chances of that happening in time for the Dec. 10 award ceremony were slim.

Multiple explosions rock eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv

A series of explosions rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke in the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions. The blasts came as Russia concentrated attacks on Friday in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14. It was not immediately clear what caused the Kharkiv blasts or what was hit.

France calls for its citizens to leave Iran immediately

The French government on Friday issued a warning to its citizens in Iran, urging them to "leave the country as soon as possible," citing the risk of arbitrary detention.

"All French visitors, including dual nationals, are exposed to a high risk of arrest, arbitrary detention and unfair trial," said a statement on the Foreign Ministry website.

"This risk also concerns people making a simple tourist visit," it added.

The French Foreign Ministry website also warned that the "capacity of the French embassy in Tehran to provide consular protection to nationals arrested or detained in Iran is very limited."

Biden order promises EU citizens better data privacy

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday designed to allay European concerns that US intelligence agencies are illegally spying on them. It promises strengthened safeguards against data collection abuses and creates a forum for legal challenges.

The order builds on a preliminary agreement Biden announced in March with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a bid to end a yearslong battle over the safety of EU citizens' data that tech companies store in the US. The reworked Privacy Shield "includes a robust commitment to strengthen the privacy and civil liberties safeguards for signals intelligence, which should ensure the privacy of EU personal data," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters.

Four individuals want me assassinated, alleges former Pak PM Imran Khan

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday alleged that four individuals were conspiring to assassinate him on charges on blasphemy, warning that the names of these schemers will be revealed to the nation if anything untoward happens to him. Addressing a rally in Mianwali in Pakistan's Punjab province, Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders were accusing him of committing blasphemy in a bid to incite religious hatred against him. "What was the game behind this [allegation]... four individuals sitting behind closed doors decided to get me killed over blasphemy allegations," Khan alleged.