An explosion has rocked the Port Authority bus terminal near Times Square in New York.  The explosion took place on Monday morning at the station, which is one of the busiest commuter hubs during rush hour, at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue in New York, according to officials.

“The NYPD is responding to reports of an explosion of unknown origin at 42nd Street and 8th Ave, #Manhattan. The A, C and E line are being evacuated at this time. Info is preliminary, more when available,” the New York police department wrote on their Twitter account.

Law enforcement sources said one suspected bomber – who had wires attached to him – was taken into custody. He was arrested after the device partially detonated, according to sources. His identity was not immediately known. Francisco Ramirez — a commuter — told CNN that he heard two explosions as he was exiting a bus about 7:45 a.m. ET.

“From what I saw it sounded like it came from the subway, but I’m just guessing,” he said. “It was two distinct explosions seconds from each other. As I was making my way toward the outside, I kept getting shoved by cops and there were cops at every entrance blocking and there was police and SWAT everywhere.”

“It was scary. It was just a lot of chaos but I didn’t see any injuries,” he added.  President Donald Trump was briefed on the explosion, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. New York Mayor de Blasio has also been briefed on the incident.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has once again railed against the media blasting journalists and calling their work “a stain on America” after a string of errors in reporting on his presidency emerged over the past week.

“Very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media. They are out of control — correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed…a stain on America!” Trump tweeted Sunday.

The tweet came after some journalists made several reporting errors causing them to become targets of Trump and conservative media and commentators.

The errors by CNN and ABC have been widely covered in the media, including on CNN, which featured a Sunday segment on mistakes in journalism.

Trump referred to ABC News’s Brian Ross as a “fraudster” on Friday, a week after he reported that the president had directed his former national security adviser Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials during the campaign.

ABC later corrected the report to say the president directed Flynn to contact Russia “after” he was elected.

Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel has also became Trump’s most recent target after the president demanded Saturday that he apologize for tweeting a photo of an empty arena before a Trump rally in Florida that had been taken hours before the event started.

Weigel responded and apologized minutes after Trump tweeted that he had “put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived.”

Trump’s comments were his latest attack against the news media for the coverage he receives. During a speech in Phoenix, Arizona, in August, he called journalists “truly dishonest” and “sick people.”

Trump has repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on critical media reports about his administration, often without providing any evidence to support his case.

As a candidate, Trump had pursued the same anti-media rhetoric threatening to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

Source: Presstv

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has revealed that since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons crisis, 5, 277 Ambazonian refugees have so far been registered by the UNHCR agency in Nigeria.

The UN says it is running out of resources to support new asylum seekers who arrived on December the 4^th in Cross River State after the 84 year old French Cameroun dictator, Paul Biya declared war against the people of Southern Cameroons.

The UN body noted that new asylum seekers from Akwaya, Otu, Eyumojock, Nsan, Dadi and Bodam arrived Cross River State in Southern Nigeria. “A joint registration team from UNHCR and the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI) will continue biometric registration for new arrivals in Cross River State” UNHCR stated.

The Southern Cameroonian refugees have been receiving food and non-food items including mattresses, blankets, mosquito nets, cooking utensils and hygiene kits from the UN. But with the renewed escalation of the conflict in Cameroon and the arrival of thousand new asylum seekers, the ability to respond has been affected by the lack of additional resources to support newcomers.

Cameroon Concord News understands that the UNHCR Nigeria and its partners have developed a contingency plan for about 40,000 newcomers from the Federal Republic of Ambazonia with a nominal budget of $ 18 million.

By Sama Ernest with files from CIN

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv to vent their anger at the regime corruption, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down. Israeli media estimated that about 10,000 people turned out for the protest dubbed the “March of Shame” in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Similar demonstrations also took place in other Israeli cities.

Saturday’s rally was part of the weekly events sparked by corruption allegations against Netanyahu, who has been questioned in two cases and is suspected of being involved in bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Around 20,000 Israelis join the demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, holding up signs reading “Crime Minister.”

Protesters held banners reading, “Crime Minister,” “Neither left, nor right (we demand) integrity,” “We are fed up with corrupt (politicians)” and “Sweep the corrupt away.” They further shouted slogans such as “Corporate power, organized crime,” “We won’t stop until Bibi resigns,”  “The people demand legal justice,” “Shame-Mafia” and “Bibi go home.”

Demonstrator Mira Levni said the Israelis “don’t like … the behavior of our leaders.” “I came to protest this unbelievable racist and corrupt regime. We are going to keep coming to protest until Netanyahu goes down,” said another demonstrator, Yigal Shtayim.

Another participant, Sigal Aviv, stressed that in addition to graft, the event was meant to denounce the Tel Aviv regime’s policies such as occupation and mistreatment of refugees.

“Our idea is to voice that this demonstration should include other issues, not only the issue of corruption, the corruption is only the symptom, it’s not the disease, the disease is the occupation, the disease is the way the regime treats refugees, the way it treats lower class people in Israel,” she said.

Netanyahu is suspected of having received luxury gifts from businessmen overseas in Case 1000. He is also being investigated in Case 2000 for an alleged media bribery scheme to help Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper against its competitor Israel Hayom in return for favorable coverage of the premier.

Source: Presstv

An armed group has attacked a base of the United Nations peacekeepers in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing at least 14 peacekeepers and wounding 40 others.

The UN peacekeepers, who were mostly from Tanzania with at least five Congolese soldiers, blamed the Friday attack on a rebel group based in neighboring Uganda.

“It’s a very huge attack, certainly the worst in recent memory,” said UN deputy-spokesman Farhan Haq from New York.

The base, which is located about 45 kilometers from the town of Beni, has been repeatedly attacked by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group. It is home to the peacekeeping mission’s rapid intervention force, which has a rare mandate to go on the offensive, according to Radio Okapi, which is backed by the UN mission.

The UN has described the attack in Congo as the worst in the recent UN history as well as a war crime.

The radio station, citing military sources, said fighting had lasted four hours.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo had one of the most brutal colonial rules before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars that left the mineral-rich country poor and politically unstable.

In 2006, the UN mission helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, paving the way for President Joseph Kabila to be elected for a five-year term.

His second term in office ended in 2016. Under the DR Congo’s constitution, Kabila is banned from seeking a third term. However, Kabila is authorized to stay in office until his successor is elected but he decided to remain in power. This prompted the UN to urge the Congolese authorities “to respect the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Congolese Constitution.”

The delay in holding an election has flared up violence in the country.

Source: Presstv