Image copyrightAFPImage captionPresident Macron has expressed support to setting 15 as the age of consent
Last November, a 30-year-old man was acquitted of rape after a court determined his 11-year-old victim had not been subjected to “constraint, threat, violence or surprise”.
In another case, a court initially said a 28-year-old man should face charges of sexual assault, and not rape, after saying the victim was not physically forced to have sex.
But the same court reversed its decision last month, saying the accused should indeed face rape charges.
14 years old: Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal
15: Greece, Poland, Sweden
16: Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia
17: Cyprus
In the UK the age of sexual consent is 16, but children under the age of 13 have additional legal protections that declare they can never consent to sexual activity.
The national minimum age to buy a handgun is already 21, with a three-day waiting period. However, a person can be as young as 18 to buy a rifle in Florida, with no waiting period.
Mr Cruz was 18 years old when he purchased the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle he turned on students and school staff, authorities said according to Reuters.
Media captionStudent to lawmakers “Shame on you”
Senators listened to three hours of often emotional testimony before voting.
“Do I think this bill goes far enough? No! No, I don’t!” Democratic Senator Lauren Book told the AP news agency. She said she hoped for a ban on assault weapons, but the Senate had already rejected the provision at the weekend.
Armed ‘marshals’ in schools
Under the bill, classroom teachers have been exempted from a new voluntary armed “marshals” programme for schools in Florida.
The programme – named after Aaron Feis, a coach who died in the Parkland shooting – will allow school staff who do not teach in classrooms to be armed, subject to school district approval and specialist training.
The exemption of classroom teachers was deemed necessary to get the bill passed. Republican Governor Rick Scott – who has the final say on the bill – has opposed arming teachers.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School parents and students had also decried the proposal.
A ban on the sale or possession of bump fire stocks – a piece of metal or plastic that allows a semi-automatic weapon to fire rounds of bullets in seconds, much like a machine gun – was also approved.
The new bill represents a break with the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has resisted proposals to raise age limits or impose new waiting limits.
Media captionSeven things the NRA blames after Florida
Meanwhile, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law on Monday a bill to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people under restraining orders – a measure which the state touted as the first bill to pass since the Parkland massacre.
Media captionFootage shows the aid convoy reaching “hell on earth”
Medics in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area of Syria say they have been treating people with breathing problems after a suspected chlorine attack.
The reports follow government air strikes and shelling just hours after the last UN aid envoy left the enclave following a supposed five-hour truce.
Syria denied allegations it had carried out the attack, dismissing them as an act of desperation by Western powers.
Russia meanwhile has offered rebels safe passage out of the area.
The latest suspected chemical attack targeted the town of Hammoria and led to the evacuation of dozens of civilians, according to the Syrian Civil Defence, whose volunteer rescue workers are widely known as the White Helmets.
The group tweeted that “more 30 suffocation cases”, including women and children, were reported following what it described as a “regime gas attack”.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, which uses a network of sources on the ground, said it could not specify the cause of the illnesses.
Syrian state media suggested the attack had been staged amid “desperate attempts by some Western countries in the [UN] Security Council and the Human Rights Council to rescue terrorists who will face their inevitable end at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army”.
The UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into the recent violence, and has already condemned the alleged use of chemical weapons.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed dire assessments of the humanitarian situation in the enclave as “ridiculous lies”.
On Tuesday, the Russian military said in a statement that its forces would provide transport and security for the rebels and their families looking to leave the besieged enclave.
The offer, which would allow rebels with personal weapons through a secure corridor, could pave the way for a deal by which the opposition would surrender its last major stronghold near Damascus to Mr Assad.
A spokesman for one of the dominant rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta, Faylaq al-Rahman, accused Russia – Syria’s key ally – of military escalation and of trying to displace the population by force.
Media captionRelief convoy arrives in the Eastern Ghouta
On Monday, 94 civilians were killed amid Syrian government air strikes in Eastern Ghouta, despite a supposed five-hour truce, according to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which operates medical facilities there.
A UN convoy delivering the first aid since February to the town of Douma was forced to cut short its mission and left after nearly nine hours amid shelling. The UN’s refugee agency said 10 out of more than 40 trucks had not been emptied.
The Syrian Red Crescent earlier said 46 truckloads of food parcels were delivered to 27,500 people, along with health items for more than 70,000 people in Douma.
Media caption“At least in heaven there’s food”: The children caught up in Eastern Ghouta air strikes
More than 700 people have been killed in violence in Eastern Ghouta since the government intensified its offensive in recent weeks, many of them children.
Several reports suggest government forces are attempting to cut the region – home to about 393,000 people – in two.
Image copyrightKYMILLMAN.COMImage captionExperts confirmed the bottle was jettisoned as part of a German oceanographic experiment in 1886
A Perth family has found the world’s oldest known message in a bottle, almost 132 years after it was thrown into the sea, Australian experts say.
Tonya Illman picked up the bottle while going for a walk around sand dunes on a remote beach in West Australia.
Her husband Kym Illman told the BBC they found some paper in the bottle but had “no idea” what it was until they took it home and dried it in the oven.
Experts have confirmed it is an authentic message from a German ship.
The note in the bottle, which was dated 12 June 1886, was jettisoned from the German ship Paula, as part of an experiment into ocean and shipping routes by the German Naval Observatory.
The Illman family were driving through a beach north of Wedge Island on 21 January when the car became bogged down in the sand, and Mrs Illman and her friend decided to go for a walk.
“Tonya saw a whole lot of rubbish on the ground, and thought she’d help pick up some rubbish,” Mr Illman told the BBC.
She found and picked up the bottle, thinking it would be nice for her bookshelf, he added.
Image copyrightKYMILLMAN.COM
Mr Illman said his wife passed the bottle “to our son’s girlfriend, who saw what she thought was a rolled-up cigarette, and tipped it out with the sand”.
“Tonya tried to untie the string around the paper, but it was rather fragile, so we took it home and put it in the oven for five minutes to dry up the moisture.
“Then we unrolled it and saw printed writing. We could not see the hand written ink at that point, but saw a printed message that asked the reader to contact the German consulate when they found the note.”
Later, they also noticed faint handwriting on the note, with a date of 12 June 1886 and the name of the ship, Paula.
When they saw the date they thought it was “too far-fetched” to be real, Mr Illman said – but they researched the bottle online and took it to experts at the Western Australian Museum.
Image copyrightKYMILLMAN.COMImage captionKym and Tonya Illman have loaned the find to the Western Australian Museum
“Incredibly, an archival search in Germany found Paula’s original Meteorological Journal and there was an entry for 12 June 1886 made by the captain, recording a drift bottle having been thrown overboard. The date and the coordinates correspond exactly with those on the bottle message,” Dr Anderson said.
The handwriting on the journal, and the message in the bottle, also matched, he added.
Thousands of bottles were thrown overboard during the 69-year German experiment but to date only 662 messages – and no bottles – had been returned. The last bottle with a note to be found was in Denmark in 1934.
The bottle found on Wedge Island was found “mostly exposed without any form of cork or closure, and was about a quarter full of damp sand”, and the bottle appeared to have lain “buried or mostly buried”, partially filled with damp sand, Dr Anderson added.
Sand dunes in the area are quite mobile during storm events and heavy rain, so the bottle could have been subject to “cyclical periods of exposure” which could have led to the cork in the bottle drying out and becoming dislodged, “while the tightly rolled paper along with a quantity of sand remained inside preserved”.
“The narrow 7mm bore of the bottle opening and thick glass would have assisted to buffer and preserve the paper from the effects of full exposure to the elements, providing a protective microenvironment favourable to the paper’s long-term preservation,” the report added.
Image copyrightAFP/GETTY IMAGESImage captionAn-26 – like this one in an archive photo – is a twin-engine turboprop civilian and military transport aircraft
A Russian transport plane has crashed in Syria killing all 26 passengers and six crew members believed to have been on board, the defence ministry says.
The An-26 plane crashed during landing at Hmeimim airbase, near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, the ministry is quoted as saying by Russian media.
The plane was not fired upon, Russia says, and preliminary data suggests a technical malfunction could have caused the crash.
This was just a week after Russian warplanes were damaged at the airbase in a rebel mortar attack.
What is known about Tuesday’s crash?
The Russian defence ministry says the plane crashed at about 15:00 Moscow Time (12:00 GMT).
It says the plane went down about 500m (1640ft) from the runway.
A special commission is to be set up to investigate the crash.
What is Hmeimin?
It is Russia’s main base for air strikes on rebel groups in Syria – strikes that have enabled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces to recover much lost ground.
Russian strikes are said to have killed many civilians – though Moscow insists that it only targets rebel “terrorist” fighters.
What are Russia’s air force losses in Syria?
Russia launched its military operation in September 2015, saying it was acting upon a request by President Assad.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionImages said to show the wreckage of Russia’s Sukhoi-25 plane shot down over Idlib on 3 February
Adm Harry Harris, head of the US Pacific Command, praised the discovery.
“As the son of a survivor of the USS Lexington, I offer my congratulations to Paul Allen and the expedition crew of Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel for locating the ‘Lady Lex’,” he said on Tuesday.
Image copyrightPAUL G. ALLENImage captionThe ship was sunk along with 35 aircraft on board
The Battle of the Coral Sea is considered a key moment in halting Japan’s advance in the Pacific during the war.
The Lexington was scuttled by US forces after being struck by several Japanese torpedoes and bombs during the battle.
The US Navy said 216 crew members died after the ship was attacked. More than 2,000 others were rescued.
Image copyrightPAUL G. ALLENImage captionOne of Lexington’s anti-aircraft guns
“Lexington was on our priority list because she was one of the capital ships that was lost during WWII,” Vulcan spokesman Robert Kraft said.
Pictures from the seabed taken by the Petrel show the Lexington’s nameplate and guns. Some of the ship’s aircraft are also shown in remarkably good condition.
Image copyrightAFP
The ship will not be retrieved because the US Navy considers it to be a war grave.
Mr Kraft said it had taken about six months of planning to locate the ship.
Myanmar has not stopped its ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in Rakhine state, a United Nations human rights official said on Tuesday.
The UN envoy’s assessment of a continued “campaign of terror and forced starvation” comes six months after a military crackdown caused a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims.
Some 700,000 people have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since August.
They have since told of murder, rape and arson by soldiers and vigilantes.
Myanmar’s military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies targeting civilians in Rakhine state.
“The ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues,” said the UN’s assistant secretary-general for human rights, Andrew Gilmour.
Media captionRohingya Muslims displaced from Tula Toli village in Rakhine State gave disturbing accounts
“I don’t think we can draw any other conclusion from what I have seen and heard in Cox’s Bazar,” he added, referring to a district in southern Bangladesh which is home to most of the refugees.
“The nature of the violence has changed from the frenzied blood-letting and mass rape of last year to a lower intensity campaign of terror and forced starvation,” Mr Gilmour said after speaking with recently arrived Rohingya in packed refugee camps, according to AFP.
The UN envoy said it was “inconceivable” for any Rohingya to return to Rakhine state in the near future in a “safe, dignified and sustainable” way.
“The government of Myanmar is busy telling the world that it is ready to receive Rohingya returnees, while at the same time its forces are continuing to drive them into Bangladesh,” Mr Gilmour said.
Media captionWatch: Drone footage from the DEC shows the extent of sprawling camps on the Bangladesh border
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionKim Jong-un was pictured welcoming delegates to the dinner
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he wants to “vigorously advance” closer ties with South Korea, according to state media.
The report follows a rare visit to Pyongyang by senior South Korean officials, who had dinner with the normally reclusive leader.
They are the first officials from Seoul to meet Mr Kim since he came to power.
The trip was part of a wave of rapprochement moves surrounding the Winter Olympics.
South Korea commented only briefly on the meeting, saying the visit was “not disappointing” and the two sides had reached a “satisfactory agreement” on holding future talks. The special envoys returned to Seoul on Tuesday morning, Yonhap news agency said.
The delegation is expected to visit Washington later this week to brief US officials on their talks in the North.
The US has said it is “cautiously optimistic” about improving North-South contacts, but ruled out formal talks with Pyongyang unless it is ready to give up its nuclear weapons. Throughout the Olympics the US maintained that North Korean gestures of rapprochement would carry little weight without such a commitment.
Surprising imagery
Kim Jong-un has met very few foreign officials since he became leader in 2011 and the last time envoys from the South visited Pyongyang was in 2007.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
So the sight of a southern delegation smiling, shaking hands and sitting down for dinner with him is significant.
Among the delegation were intelligence chief Suh Hoon and National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong.
They were aiming to capitalise on the reduced tensions after the Games, which saw the Koreas march together under a single flag.
The hope is that future formal talks will break the diplomatic standoff between the US and North Korea and persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, something it has fiercely resisted despite ever-increasing punitive sanctions.
The North’s KCNA news agency said Mr Kim had “warmly welcomed” the delegates and held an “openhearted talk” with them.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe visiting envoys (left) held talks with their North Korean counterparts before the dinner hosted by Kim Jong-un
They passed on a letter from South Korean President Moon Jae-in in which he invited Mr Kim to attend further talks.
KCNA said Mr Kim had “exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement” on the letter and gave orders for it to be acted on.
The dinner, which lasted four hours, also featured Ri Sol-ju, Mr Kim’s wife who rarely appears at official events, and his sister Kim Yo-jong, who was part of a North Korean delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics.
The South’s response to the apparently cordial meeting is likely to remain muted until the delegates return to Seoul.
Officials have stressed the talks were only preliminary but the parties had “somewhat shared” views on some issues.
When asked whether nuclear disarmament had been discussed, a senior officials from Mr Moon’s office said “I assume so”, the Yonhap news agency reports.
The OP’S NEWS has obtained leaked emails that show a lobbying effort to get US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sacked for failing to support the United Arab Emirates against regional rival Qatar.
Major Trump fundraiser and UAE-linked businessman Elliott Broidy met US President Donald Trump in October 2017 and urged him to sack Mr Tillerson, the emails reveal.
In other emails, he calls the top US diplomat “a tower of Jello”, “weak” and says he “needs to be slammed”.
Mr Broidy says Qatar hacked his emails.
“We have reason to believe this hack was sponsored and carried out by registered and unregistered agents of Qatar seeking to punish Mr Broidy for his strong opposition to state-sponsored terrorism,” a spokesman for the businessman said.
He said some of the emails “may have been altered” but did not elaborate.
Saudi Arabia, UAE and a number of Arab countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in June 2017 over its alleged support for terrorism, a claim which it denies. The unprecedented move was seen as a major split between powerful Gulf countries, who are also close US allies.
Qatari officials denied the claims in a statement to the OP’S NEWS .
Its communications office said: “Qatar would like to state unequivocally that it has not engaged in or committed any of the alleged accusations made falsely by Mr Broidy, nor has it engaged or paid anyone to do so.
“We believe that Mr Broidy’s baseless accusations are simply a diversionary tactic to distract attention from the serious allegations against himself and his client the Government of the United Arab Emirates.
“The Government of Qatar reserves its right to taking any necessary legal action as the victim of false allegations by Mr Broidy or others.”
Mr Broidy’s defence company Circinus has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with the UAE, according to the New York Times newspaper.
He had recently returned from the UAE when he met Mr Trump at the White House in October.
What did the emails say?
According to a memorandum he prepared of the meeting, Mr Broidy urged continued support of US allies the UAE and Saudi Arabia and advised Mr Trump against getting involved in last year’s row with Qatar.
Mr Broidy called Qatar “a television station with a country” – alluding to broadcaster Al Jazeera – and said it was doing “nothing positive”, according to the emails.
He said he touted a regional counter-terrorism force being set up by the UAE that his company was involved with, and suggested that the US president “sit down” with Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and a top UAE military commander.
“I offered that MBZ [the crown prince] is available to come to the US very soon and preferred a quiet meeting in New York or New Jersey. President Trump agreed that a meeting with MBZ was a good idea,” Mr Broidy wrote in an email.
He also said he advised the president on Mr Tillerson – who was “performing poorly and should be fired at a politically convenient time”.
He emailed a detailed account of his meeting with the president to George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman with decades of experience serving as an interlocutor between the Middle East and Washington.
Sources familiar with the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, tell the BBC that Mr Nader has become a person of interest and has been questioned in recent weeks.
Investigators questioned Mr Nader and other witnesses on whether there were any efforts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a New York Times report.
What else was in the leaked emails?
Mr Broidy also detailed a separate sit-down with Mr Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, according to the emails.
After Mr Broidy criticised Qatar extensively to Mr Kushner, “Jared’s demeanour was very passive and pleasant but he seemed to not want to engage on this issue,” he wrote to Mr Nader.
However, Mr Kushner has maintained that he has had no role in his family’s business since joining the White House last year.
Has anyone else claimed to have been hacked?
UAE ambassador to Washington Yousef al-Otaiba – who in diplomatic circles is known as the most effective and influential ambassador in Washington – has himself been a recent victim of email hacking.
It’s well known in Washington that Mr Otaiba and Mr Kushner have enjoyed a close relationship.
Industry experts looking at both hacks have drawn comparisons between the two, showing reason to suspect links to Qatar.
“This is rinse and repeat on Otaiba,” a source familiar with the hack told the BBC.
<a class="story-body__link-external" (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); href=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/uae-hacked-qatari-government-sites-sparking-regional-upheaval-according-to-us-intelligence-officials/2017/07/16/00c46e54-698f-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.b09ebb16e650″ style=”-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(17, 103, 168, 0.3); border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: inherit; line-height: 1.375; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>The UAE has also been known to use similar tactics, and was accused of hacking Qatari government websites prior to the blockade, according to the FBI.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionGuillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water won the most Oscars
The Oscars Awards ceremony attracted its smallest recorded US television audience.
The live show averaged 26.5 million total viewers, down from 32.9 million in 2017, according to Nielsen data reported by the ABC network, which broadcast the event.
However, these figures do not include digital and mobile viewing.
The 90th edition of the Oscars was still expected to be most-watched non-sporting US television event of 2018.
Despite the reported fall in viewing figures, prices for advertising slots on US networks rose significantly.
Media analysts say that advertisers spend significant amounts on shows that bring in live audiences as they are more likely to watch commercials than those viewing shows or events that have been recorded.
The Oscars ceremony has been broadcast since 1953, while audience figures date back to 1974.
The Shape of Water, a film about a woman and an amphibious creature, won the most Oscars with four, including best director for Guillermo del Toro and best film.
Frances McDormand won best actress for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and persuaded every female nominee to stand with her in a night full of statements about inclusion.
Britain’s Gary Oldman was named best actor for playing Winston Churchill in World War Two epic Darkest Hour.
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