Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Two U.S. military bases in Texas to house immigrants: Mattis

Honduran families seeking asylum wait on the Mexican side of the Brownsville-Matamoros International Bridge after being denied entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., June 24, 2018. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

By Phil Stewart

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (Reuters) – The U.S. military is preparing to house immigrants at two bases in Texas, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday, the latest sign of the military being drawn into a supporting role for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Fort Bliss, an Army base in El Paso, Texas, and Goodfellow Air Base in San Angelo, Texas, would be used, Mattis said, but he added that he could not confirm any specifics.

“We’ll provide whatever support the Department of Homeland Security needs in order to house the people they have under their custody,” Mattis told reporters in Alaska before leaving on an Asia trip.

In the face of outrage at home and overseas over his crackdown on illegal immigration, Trump was forced last week to abandon his policy of separating children from parents who are apprehended for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The U.S. military, and Mattis in particular, have stressed that it is simply providing logistical support to the Department of Homeland Security, which deals with immigration issues.

“We’re not going to get into the political aspect. Providing housing, shelter for those who need it is a legitimate governmental function,” Mattis said.

One U.S. official, speaking earlier on the condition of anonymity, said it was expected that one of the bases would house immigrant families and another immigrant children.

On Sunday, Mattis said the U.S. military was preparing to build temporary camps at two military bases to house immigrants but did not name the facilities.

Last week, the U.S. military said it had been asked by the government to get ready to house up to 20,000 immigrant children.

Trump has previously turned to the military to help with his border crackdown. Earlier this year, U.S. National Guard forces were dispatched to border states to help tighten security.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska; additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

‘Space kingdom’ seeks citizens for life beyond Earth very soon

People attend the inauguration ceremony of Asgardia's first Head of Nation in Vienna, Austria June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

VIENNA (Reuters) – Feel like the world is going to the dogs? Want to get away from it all? Here’s a solution: become a citizen of the nation of Asgardia and hope it makes good on its promise to colonize the moon.

Asgardia was founded just 20 months ago, and it already has about 200,000 citizens, a constitution and an elected parliament. It has a leader, Igor Ashurbeyli, who was inaugurated on Monday.

It also has grandiose ambitions. It wants to build up a population of 150 million within 10 years. It plans to set up “space arks” with artificial gravity in outer space where humans could live permanently.

“This day will certainly be recorded in the annals of the greatest events in the history of humankind,” Ashurbeyli said in his inaugural speech to an audience of several hundred in the Hofburg, Vienna’s former imperial palace.

“We have thus established all branches of government. I can therefore declare with confidence that Asgardia – the first space nation of the united humankind – has been born,” said Ashurbeyli, a Russian engineer, computer scientist and businessman.

Asgardia – named after Asgard, a world in the sky in Norse mythology – says its citizens now live in more than 200 countries, outnumbering the United Nations’ 193 member states. Becoming a citizen online is free.

It wants to attract the 2 percent of the world’s population that is “most creative”. Asked how that was working out so far, Ashurbeyli said, “Citizenship selection will continue. It might even involve IQ tests.”

Ashurbeyli said he intends to have satellites providing Internet access around the globe in five to seven years, space arks operating in 10 to 15 years, and finally to establish a permanent settlement on the moon within 25 years.

Asgardians now pay an annual membership fee of 100 euros. It plans to collect taxes on businesses and private income, which it says will be kept very low.

“For this early phase of Asgardian nationhood … I am primarily responsible for its financing, along with a number of other donors who are citizens of Asgardia,” he said.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy and Boris Kavic, editing by Larry King)

Migrants ‘knock at front door’ for asylum after Trump crackdown

A Mexican migrant child arranges freshly-washed clothing at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, Mexico June 22, 2018. Picture taken June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

By Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA/REYNOSA, Mexico (Reuters) – More Mexicans and Central Americans are lining up to make asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border as word spreads of a U.S. crackdown on families crossing illegally and the threat of brutal gangs lying in wait if they go it alone.

Officials at shelters in border cities as well as migrants from Mexico and Central America told Reuters there was a rising number of people waiting, often for weeks, to make asylum pleas to immigration authorities at official border crossings.

Many of the dozens of migrants interviewed by Reuters said they decided to present an official asylum request after hearing about parents being separated from children when crossing the U.S. border illegally, and about friends making successful requests.

Following an outcry at home and abroad over his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week to end the family separations. But over 2,000 children are yet to be reunited with their parents.

The migrants, many with children in tow, told harrowing tales of kidnapping, extortion and murder by gangs in Mexico and Central America. That threat was enough to inspire the perilous journey in hope of receiving asylum in the United States.

“They don’t go through the mountains or deserts anymore, they go to the front door,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University.

But their chances of asylum may be diminishing.

On June 11, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned a grant of asylum to a Salvadoran domestic abuse victim, potentially excluding immigrants seeking refuge from sexual, gang and other forms of violence in their homelands.

Those threats were the basis of a “credible fear” argument that could prevent them from being returned.

That risk has yet to deter migrants.

WAITING GAME

Shelters run by charities in Reynosa, Tijuana and Nogales – Mexican cities separated by hundreds of miles along the border – all reported an uptick in migrant asylum seekers.

Marla Conrad, a coordinator at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, said that so far this month, she had seen about an extra 100 people lining up for asylum compared with May.

At the border in Tijuana, 26-year-old Jose Cortes from El Salvador, traveling with his 5-year-old daughter, said the waiting list to request asylum was now 1,150 people long. When he arrived two weeks ago, it had 1,000 names on it.

Migrants manage the waiting list, a task currently with Cortes. When his turn comes to cross into the United States for an asylum interview, he will pass the list to another migrant.

It is growing even as 30 to 60 people are called up daily to plead their cases with U.S. border agents.

Mexican Jacqueline Moreno, 43, said that as recently as December, her daughter managed to cross and successfully request asylum on the same day. Now, fleeing violence in her home state of Michoacan with her son, 13, Moreno said she had been waiting three weeks.

MANY MORE PEOPLE

Some migrants followed tips from their hometowns about how to seek asylum. Others paid thousands of dollars to people smugglers, or “coyotes,” who assured them a case could be made.

Many stay near the border in spartan shelters, with rows of brightly colored tents, or in dingy hotels often charging prices they struggle to pay.

Patricia Flores and her 7-year-old son are among thousands of Central Americans waiting at the border.

After witnessing a gangland killing in their neighborhood, Flores decided to pay $4,000 to a human smuggler who told her she could just get to the border and ask for asylum.

Flores has been desperately trying to get a meeting at the border but said she had been turned away by Mexican officials.

Her son described how he saw his neighbor shot in the head back in El Salvador.

“My mom said it’s our secret but if I tell anyone, I am going to go to heaven. I don’t want to,” he said, adding he was not afraid. Pointing to his green T-shirt with a cartoon on it, he said that was his “bulletproof jacket.”

Adelia Contini, from Brazil, has run a church-funded shelter for women and children in Tijuana for nine years. She too has noticed a increase in asylum seekers.

“Since 2013, we started seeing more people asking for asylum, but not as much as now,” she said. “Since January, there are many more people, more than last year.”

‘WAITING TO KILL US’

Encouraged by relatives and friends in the United States, Honduran Lorena Mejia has been waiting for two weeks in a shelter in Reynosa near the banks of the Rio Grande with her husband and four children to apply for asylum.

Returning home did not bear thinking about, Mejia said, explaining that she and her family had been threatened because they witnessed a massacre in Honduras a few years ago.

“We can’t go back there. They’re waiting to kill us,” the 31-year-old said, adding that two other witnesses had already been murdered. “We have to get in.”

Sharon Melissa Analco, 23, arrived in Tijuana on Friday with her 5-year-old daughter, fleeing kidnappers terrorizing her family in Acapulco in the violent Mexican state of Guerrero.

Analco said she had no money to pay for her stay, having expected to be able to get right into the United States. But a U.S. official turned her away at the crossing, telling her she would have to put her name on a list and wait her turn.

“I can’t wait out there,” she recalled telling the official, weeping on the plaza next to the border. “I’m in danger.”

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Michael O’Boyle and Anthony Esposito; Editing by Dave Graham, Daniel Flynn and Peter Cooney)

Taliban rejects pleas by Afghan elders for a ceasefire extension

FILE PHOTO: Taliban walk as they celebrate ceasefire in Ghanikhel district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan June 16, 2018.REUTERS/Parwiz/File Photo

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban on Monday rejected pleas by Afghan elders and activists for an extension of this month’s ceasefire and said they amounted to a call for surrender to foreign forces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the peace “slogans” and urged civil society activists and others not to join movements he said played into the hands of U.S. and international forces the Taliban wants to force from the country.

“They are not speaking about the occupation or the withdrawal of foreigners. Their objective is that we lay down our weapons and accept the regime imposed by the invaders,” he said in a statement.

A truce over the three day Eid al-Fitr festival this month, during which unarmed Taliban fighters mingled with soldiers and civilians in the capital Kabul and other cities has given fresh impetus to the calls for peace, although many also dismiss the ceasefire as a Taliban trick.

A small group of peace marchers who came to Kabul on foot from the southern province of Helmand this month have also gained prominence, with pleas to all sides to end a conflict which has now lasted for 40 years.

“Tribal elders may not be able to bring about peace and create a ceasefire to the whole country but they can for their own districts and they will,” said Dawlat Wazir, an elder in Jani Khil district in the eastern province of Paktia.

In Jani Khil, elders held a meeting that drew hundreds of people at the weekend, calling on the government and Taliban forces to refrain from fighting in their area.

“We are so fed up with operations by government forces in our areas that trigger fighting for days,” said Malek Sakhto, one of the elders behind the meeting. “We’re pleading with the government and the Taliban to agree on a ceasefire and stop killing each other and civilians.”

The success of such local initiatives is mixed and may stand little chance as military operations pick up.

President Ashraf Ghani ordered government forces to stop offensive operations against the Taliban for another 10 days after the end of the ceasefire but there has since been fierce fighting in several areas.

In Logar, to the south of the capital Kabul, local elders and religious scholars have been trying to arrange a ceasefire in Azra district, according to Abdul Wali, a member of the Logar provincial council.

He said an informal accord had been reached but local people were still waiting for an official announcement from the Taliban shadow governor for Logar, Muallah Ismail Akhondzada.

In Kunar province, on the border with Pakistan, another group of walkers is making its way to Kabul, a statement from the governor’s office said.

(Additional reporting by Samiullah Paiwand, Qadir Sediqi; Editing by James Mackenzie and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Syrian military extends southwest assault, thousands displaced

Smoke rises from al-Harak town, as seen from Deraa countryside, Syria June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa al-Faqir

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on Deraa city for the first time in nearly a year on Monday, a rebel and a war monitor said, extending an assault in southwest Syria which has driven thousands from their homes.

Along with the barrels crammed with explosives, the helicopters dropped leaflets saying the army was coming and urging people to “kick out the terrorists as your brothers did in eastern Ghouta”, the sources said.

“My wife and I left with only the clothes on our backs, because the house was completely destroyed,” Muhammad Abu Qasim, 45, told Reuters. Heavy bombing had turned his village northeast of Deraa into “an unbearable hell”.

The region is politically sensitive because of its proximity to Israel and Jordan and because of a “de-escalation” deal there agreed between the United States, Jordan and Syrian government ally Russia.

Washington had warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies that violations of the ceasefire would prompt a response, but rebels said the United States had told them not to expect any American military support.

A European diplomat told Reuters the violation of the de-escalation agreement by Russia and Syria was “deeply troubling”.

“No one is in any doubt about the likely military outcome from this uneven clash, but the consequences could be significant. It not only risks a significant humanitarian crisis, but is likely to destabilize further an already precarious situation. It also casts real doubt about Russia’s willingness to stand by its own commitments,” he said.

The fighting has displaced thousands of people and threatens to uproot many more from their homes, adding to the around 6.5 million people already internally displaced by Syria’s seven-year-old conflict.

After fleeing her home many times since the start of war, 30-year-old widow Um Muhammad has once again been forced to move with her three children, and is now sheltering in a school deeper inside rebel territory in southwest Syria.

“Each of us took only our clothes. Right now there’s bombardment everywhere,” she told Reuters.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by RIA news agency as saying Russian officials hoped to discuss southwest Syria with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton soon, and separately with Jordan.

Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Twitter on Sunday his country, already hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, could not take in Syrians fleeing fighting in the southwest and demanded the de-escalation agreement be respected.

BIRTHPLACE OF UPRISING

Assad has turned to the southwest after driving rebels from their last besieged enclaves in western Syria, including eastern Ghouta near Damascus, earlier this year.

It is one of two major areas still held by rebel factions, along with Idlib province on the border with Turkey in the northwest. Deraa, the southwest’s largest city, was an early center of the uprising against Assad in 2011 and has been split into rebel and government sectors for years.

Recent fighting has focused on the town of Busra al-Harir, half way along a narrow rebel salient stretching into government areas northeast of Deraa. If taken, it would split that salient in half, putting the northern part under siege.

The pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that the army had advanced into Busra al-Harir.

The UK-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported fierce fighting inside the town between the army, along with allied militia, and insurgents.

But Abu Shaima, spokesman for a central operations room for rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said the insurgents had foiled attempts to advance.

Abu Bakr al-Hassan, spokesman for the FSA rebel group Jaish al-Thawra, said Russian planes were carrying out heavy air strikes to support the strong Busra al-Harir offensive.

On Sunday an air strike hit a medical center in Busra al-Harir, causing extensive damage but no casualties, said the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations, a charity that works in opposition parts of Syria.

The bombardment has killed about 30 people since it began on June 19, the Observatory reported.

The Syrian military said in a statement on state media on Monday it was committed to protecting civilians in the area.

Russia also said on Monday it had helped the army repel an insurgent attack in the southwest, killing 70 rebel fighters. Syrian state media reported that rebels shelled the nearby city of Sweida.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Iran bans 1,300 imports as protesters, police clash over currency weakness

FILE PHOTO: A woman looks at exchange rates by the window of a currency exchange shop in Tehran's business district, Iran January 7, 2012. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi /File Photo

By Andrew Torchia

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran is banning imports of over 1,300 products, preparing its economy to resist threatened U.S. sanctions, amid rare public protests against the plunge of its currency to record lows.

Police patrolled Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Monday as security forces struggled to restore normality after clashes with protesters angered by the rial’s collapse, which is disrupting business by driving up the cost of imports, witnesses said.

Traders from the bazaar, whose merchants supported Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, told Reuters by telephone that most shops remained closed.

“Police have dispersed the protectors. We are all angry with the economic situation. We cannot continue our businesses like this. But we are not against the regime,” said a merchant in the bazaar, who asked not to be identified.

Industries and trade minister Mohammad Shariatmadari slapped the import ban on 1,339 goods that could instead be produced within the country, Iran’s Financial Tribune newspaper reported on Monday, quoting an official document.

Prohibited imports include home appliances, textile products, footwear and leather products, as well as furniture, healthcare products and some machinery, the Tehran Times said.

The order suggests the U.S. sanctions threat is pushing Tehran back toward running a “resistance economy” designed to conserve foreign exchange reserves and become as self-sufficient as possible in many products.

The rial is under heavy pressure from the U.S. sanctions threat. It sank as low as 90,000 against the dollar in the unofficial market on Monday from 87,000 on Sunday and around 75,500 last Thursday, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com. At the end of last year, it stood at 42,890.

After U.S. President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from world powers’ deal with Iran on its nuclear program, some U.S. sanctions are to be reimposed in August and some in November.

This may cut Iran’s hard currency earnings from oil exports, and the prospect is triggering a panicked flight of Iranians’ savings from the rial into dollars.

Hundreds of merchants gathered in front of parliament in Tehran on Monday to protest at the rial’s fall, witnesses said.

In the Grand Bazaar, hundreds staged a similar protest, videos posted on social media showed. A larger, sustained series of protests could put pressure on President Hassan Rouhani, who has already been harshly criticized by hardliners for his economic record.

Ali Fazeli, the head of Iran’s Chamber of Guilds, a business association, told the semi-official Tasnim news agency later on Monday: “Business is as usual in the Grand Bazaar.”

State TV quoted Tehran’s deputy governor Abdolazim Rezaie as saying “no one has been arrested in the Tehran protests”, adding that all the shops will be open on Tuesday.

On Sunday, merchants at Tehran’s mobile phone shopping centers Aladdin and Charsou shut their shops to protest against the rial’s slide, Fars news agency reported.

RESISTANCE ECONOMY

Iran eased its “resistance economy” policy after many international sanctions were lifted in January 2016 under the nuclear deal. Rouhani announced plans to boost Iran’s foreign trade and give foreign companies a bigger role in its economy.

With Iran now aiming to close its markets to many foreign products and the government intervening to support locally owned companies, those goals look more distant.

Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian economist who heads energy risk analysis at London’s Betamatrix consultancy, said the sanctions threat was strengthening interests in the Iranian government that favored tighter state control of the economy.

“In the coming months we will see much more intervention in the economy by the government, a centrally imposed style of management by dictat,” he said.

One result is likely to be a shift of influence over Iran’s non-oil foreign trade from the private sector, along with a strong presence by the government’s Revolutionary Guards, to near-complete dominance by the Guards, he added.

Emadi and other Iranian economists noted that Iran had imposed import bans during the previous sanctions era before 2016 with only limited success.

Many foreign goods continued to enter the country at higher prices as a result of corruption and smuggling, benefiting business interests with the close official ties needed to arrange the shipments.

The government is justifying its latest clampdown on imports by citing economic security. The Tehran Times quoted Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi, head of parliament’s economic committee, as saying the ban would prevent an outflow of $10 billion of foreign currency.

The International Monetary Fund estimated in March that the government held $112 billion of foreign assets and reserves, and that Iran was running a current account surplus. These figures suggested Iran might withstand the sanctions without an external payments crisis.

But as U.S. pressure constricts Iran’s access to the international banking system, its ability to deploy some of those resources may have suffered. Indian government sources told Reuters last week that New Delhi was looking to revive a rupee trade mechanism to settle part of its oil payments to Iran, fearing foreign channels to pay Tehran might close.

Concern about the rial’s vulnerability is prompting ordinary Iranians to pour money into non-cash assets. Tehran real estate prices have climbed and Iran’s stock market has jumped 17 percent since the end of May to a record high. Prices of gold coins have also risen sharply, local media reported.

(Editing by William Maclean)

Spain’s population grows for second straight year due to immigration

FILE PHOTO: The border fence separating Spain's northern enclave Ceuta and Morocco is seen from Ceuta, Spain, June 22, 2018. REUTERS/Juan Medina/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s population rose for the second straight year in 2017, after having fallen between 2012 and 2015 in the midst of an economic downturn, as an increase in foreigners offset a fall in the number of Spaniards, official data showed on Monday.

The figures come as Europe grapples with a rising influx of migrants, mostly from north Africa and war-torn countries such as Syria, after Mediterranean arrivals spiked in 2015. Sixteen EU leaders met for emergency talks in Brussels on Sunday to find a “European solution” to the issue.

The population of Spain increased to 46.66 million to Jan. 1, 2018, a rise of 132,263 people than a year earlier, the highest since Jan. 1 2013, the National Statistics Institute reported.

Spain saw a net increase of migrants arriving in the country of 146,604 people, after the arrival of almost half a million people last year, the largest migrant influx in 10 years, the data showed.

The total number of deaths in Spain in 2017 outpaced the number of births at the fastest pace since records began in 1941, data showed last week as the number of births dropped 4.5 percent while the number of deaths rose 3.2 percent.

The largest increases in migrants came from Venezuela, Colombia, Italy and Morocco, while the largest decreases were from Romania, Britain and Ecuador, INE said.

(Reporting by Paul Day; Editing by Jesús Aguado, William Maclean)

Supreme Court poised to rule on Trump travel ban, California law on anti abortion clinic regulations

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen after the court revived Ohio's contentious policy of purging infrequent voters from its registration rolls, overturning a lower court ruling that Ohio's policy violated the National Voter Registration Act, in Washington, U.S., June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Erin Schaff/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court, winding down its nine-month term, will issue rulings this week in its few remaining cases including a major one on the legality of President Donald Trump’s ban on people from five Muslim-majority nations entering the country.

The nine justices are due to decide other politically sensitive cases on whether non-union workers have to pay fees to unions representing certain public-sector workers such as police and teachers, and the legality of California regulations on clinics that steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion.

The justices began their term in October and, as is their usual practice, aim to make all their rulings by the end of June, with more due on Monday. Six cases remain to be decided.

The travel ban case was argued on April 25, with the court’s conservative majority signaling support for Trump’s policy in a significant test of presidential powers.

Trump has said the ban is needed to protect the United States from attacks by Islamic militants. Conservative justices indicated an unwillingness to second-guess Trump on his national security rationale.

Lower courts had blocked the travel ban, the third version of a policy Trump first pursued a week after taking office last year. But the high court on Dec. 4 allowed it to go fully into effect while the legal challenge continued.

The challengers, led by the state of Hawaii, have argued the policy was motivated by Trump’s enmity toward Muslims. Lower courts have decided the ban violated federal immigration law and the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring one religion over another.

The current ban, announced in September, prohibits entry into the United States by most people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

In a significant case for organized labor, the court’s conservatives indicated opposition during arguments on Feb. 26 to so-called agency fees that some states require non-members to pay to public-sector unions.

Workers who decide not to join unions representing certain state and local employees must pay the fees in two dozen states in lieu of union dues to help cover the cost of non-political activities such as collective bargaining. The fees provide millions of dollars annually to these unions.

The justices seemed skeptical during March 20 arguments toward California’s law requiring Christian-based anti-abortion centers, known as crisis pregnancy centers, to post notices about the availability of state-subsidized abortions and birth control. The justices indicated that they would strike down at least part of the regulations.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

When a text can trigger a lynching: WhatsApp struggles with incendiary messages in India

Satish Bhaykre, 21, who was beaten by a mob due to a fake WhatsApp text, poses inside his house on the outskirts of Nagpur, India, June 23, 2018. Picture taken June 23, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

By Sankalp Phartiyal, Subrat Patnaik and David Ingram

MUMBAI (Reuters) – A WhatsApp text circulating in some districts of India’s central Madhya Pradesh state helped to inflame a mob of 50-60 villagers into savagely beating up two innocent men last week on suspicion that they were going to murder people and sell their body parts.

The essence of the message, written in Hindi, was that 500 people disguised as beggars were roaming the area so that they could kill people to harvest their organs. The message also urged recipients to forward it to friends and family. Police say the message was fake.

Police officers who joined several local WhatsApp groups, found three men circulating the message and they were arrested, said Jayadevan A, the police chief for Balaghat district, where the incident occurred.

This happened just weeks after a WhatsApp text warning of 400 child traffickers arriving in the southern Indian technology hub of Bengaluru led a frenzied mob to lynch a 26-year-old man, a migrant construction worker from another Indian state, on suspicions that he was a kidnapper. He was attacked while he was just walking on the road.

So far this year, false messages about child abductors on Facebook Inc <FB.O>-owned WhatsApp have helped to trigger mass beatings of more than a dozen people in India – at least three of whom have died. In addition, fake messages about child snatchers on Facebook, as well as some texts on WhatsApp, also led to the lynching of two men in eastern India earlier this month.

WHATSAPP’S BIGGEST MARKET

With more than 200 million users in India, WhatsApp’s biggest market in the world, false news and videos circulating on the messaging app have become a new headache for social media giant Facebook, already grappling with a privacy scandal.

In India, a country with over a billion phone subscribers with access to cheap mobile data, false news messages and videos can instantly go viral, creating mass hysteria and stirring up communal tensions.

Those tensions can be high between the Majority Hindu community and the minority Muslim population but also within the rigid Hindu caste hierarchy where the so-called Dalits at the bottom of the pyramid have faced attacks for trying to improve their position in society.

In 2017, at least 111 people were killed and 2,384 injured in 822 communal incidents in the country, according to the federal home affairs ministry. It is unclear whether any of these incidents were triggered by fake news messages.

WhatsApp said it is aware of the incidents in India through media coverage.

“Sadly some people also use WhatsApp to spread harmful misinformation,” WhatsApp said in a statement. “We’re stepping up our education efforts so that people know about our safety features and how to spot fake news and hoaxes.”

Group texts, where fake news spreads most easily, are still a minority: 90 percent of messages are between two people, and the average group size is six people, according to the messaging platform.

WhatsApp also said it is considering changes to the service. For example, there is now a public beta test that is labeling any forwarded message.

The company is not planning any changes to its encryption, which ensures messages are not read by anyone except the sender and the recipient.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

Two senior Indian government officials told Reuters that New Delhi had engaged with WhatsApp on the issue but they are not allowed to discuss the matter publicly. WhatsApp declined to comment on possible contact with Indian government officials.

Indian ministries of IT, home affairs and information and broadcasting did not respond to requests for comment.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

A deluge of hoax news incidents, several with fatal consequences, may bolster the Indian government’s attempts to get social networks to share more user data so that police can track down those spreading rumors. That concerns privacy advocates who fear the authorities will use such access against activists and political opponents, and not just against those spreading malicious information.

“Government restrictions on dissemination of false news are too often an attempt to shroud government intentions of restricting freedom of expression and criticism,” according to David Kaye, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.

India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also recently floated a tender for a firm to scrutinize social media posts of Indian users and identify fake news.

The Indian authorities have been signaling they will take an increasingly harsh line with foreign companies who are providing Internet services in India.

India’s central bank in April issued a directive compelling all payments firms operating in the country to store payments data locally within six months for “unfettered supervisory access”. Separately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is working on a data protection law that could force all foreign tech firms to store key Indian user data locally.

“There is a distinct link between fake news and laws being proposed undermining privacy,” said Apar Gupta, a co-founder of advocacy Internet Freedom Foundation.

Meanwhile, the inflammatory hoax news messages keep coming.

One floating in Bengaluru last month warned parents to take “extra measures towards the safety” of children during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as they remain busy with prayers and shopping.

More than 500 kidnappers have entered the southern state of Karnataka from western Rajasthan state and the cities of Chennai and Hyderabad, the message said.

WhatsApp messages on organ thieves or child abductions are just the tip of the iceberg though – fake reports can range from incorrect medical advice to news about top jobs.

A recent message circulating in India’s northeast starts by saying the deadly brain-damaging Nipah virus has arrived in Shillong city and advises parents to keep children away from lychees, a popular summer fruit. No confirmed cases of Nipah have been found yet outside of southern Kerala state.

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal, Subrat Patnaik and David Ingram; additional reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi, Derek Francis and Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Edited by Martin Howell)

Soccer team trapped in flooded cave complex in Thailand

Thai military personnel and rescuers are seen outside the Tham Luang caves, where 13 members of an-under 16 soccer team are trapped, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Search and rescue teams in Thailand were looking on Monday for 13 members of an under-16 soccer team trapped in a flooded cave complex deep inside a mountain.

The boys’ bicycles and soccer boots were found at the mouth of the Tham Luang caves, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, after they went missing late on Saturday.

Relatives pray outside the Tham Luang caves, where 13 members of an-under 16 soccer team are trapped, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

Relatives pray outside the Tham Luang caves, where 13 members of an-under 16 soccer team are trapped, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

They were believed to have been trapped by rising waters inside the cave network when heavy rain hit.

Members of a navy “seal” unit including a team of divers, are searching the cave system.

“The team went down to a depth of 5 meters (16 feet) and found a large chamber … but we’ve found no trace of the children,” the navy unit said on its Facebook page.

A navy commander overseeing the search said he was hopeful the 12 twelve boys and their 20-year-old coach would be rescued.

“I believe they’re all still alive but they might be exhausted … we should get good news today,” Rear Admiral Arparkorn Yookongkaew told Reuters.

Rescue teams search the Tham Luang caves for 13 members of an under-16 soccer team, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

Rescue teams search the Tham Luang caves for 13 members of an under-16 soccer team, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

People wanting to explore the cave are meant to get permission. Thailand is in the middle of its rainy season when caves can flood.

(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Juarwee Kittisilpa; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Robert Birsel)