Six In The Morning Wednesday 8 May 2019

Asia Bibi: Christian leaves Pakistan after blasphemy acquittal

Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who spent years on death row after being convicted of blasphemy, has left the country, officials have confirmed.

Her conviction was overturned last year by the Supreme Court.

She was originally convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a row with her neighbours.

Asia Bibi has always maintained her innocence in a case that has polarised Pakistan.

Pakistani government officials did not reveal her destination, or say when she left.

Iran to announce partial withdrawal from nuclear deal

A year after Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 agreement, Iran takes ‘reciprocal measures’

Iran will announce its partial withdrawal from the nuclear deal signed with world powers, a year after Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement signed in 2015, Tehran has announced.

Wednesday’s “reciprocal measures” will be formally conveyed to ambassadors to countries remaining inside the deal – France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia. Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will separately set out the technical and legal details in a letter to the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini.

Iran insists the announcements will not amount to a complete withdrawal from the agreement, and may include a two-month deadline for the EU to implement its obligations before further Iranian steps are taken.

Sandra Bland: Family requests case be reopened after new footage of arrest emerges

The video shows the arrest from her perspective, and was not a part of the original trial

Lily PuckettNew York

Newly released mobile phone footage shows a police officer pulling a stun gun and threatening to ‘light up’ a woman – days before she died in custody.

Police dash cam footage released at the time of Sandra Bland’s arrest shows officer Brian Encinia forcibly removing her from her car, and he later told investigators that his safety was “in jeopardy at more than one time” during the arrest.

But the latest 39-second video obtained by Houston’s WFAA and the nonprofit news organisation the Investigative Network, shows Ms Bland’s arrest from her perspective for the first time, and it’s led to the family demanding that the case be re-opened.

Sudan’s military council want protesters to back Sharia legal system

Sudan’s army rulers Tuesday stated that Islamic law should remain the guiding principle in the legal system, after protest leaders made no mention of Sharia law when handing in their demands for the future of their country.

The 10-member military council, which seized control of the country after president Omar al-Bashir was deposed in April, was given the plans for a new political and cultural beginning for the country by civilian activists.

The military council told reporters that the generals overall agreed to the proposals but had “many reservations”. These included that the protesters had not included Islamic Sharia law in their proposals.

We’ll soon know the exact air pollution from every power plant in the world. That’s huge.

Satellite data plus artificial intelligence equals no place to hide.

Tuesday brings a somewhat mind-blowing announcement in the world of power plants and pollution.

In a nutshell: A nonprofit artificial intelligence firm called WattTime is going to use satellite imagery to precisely track the air pollution (including carbon emissions) coming out of every single power plant in the world, in real time. And it’s going to make the data public.

This is a very big deal. Poor monitoring and gaming of emissions data have made it difficult to enforce pollution restrictions on power plants. This system promises to effectively eliminate poor monitoring and gaming of emissions data.

New York Times: Tax documents show Trump businesses lost more than $1 billion in a decade

Updated 0653 GMT (1453 HKT) May 8, 2019

President Donald Trump’s businesses reported losses of $1.17 billion from 1985 to 1994, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing information from tax documents from those years.

It appears Trump lost more money than nearly any other individual US taxpayer year after year, the Times reports, according to the 10 years of tax information the newspaper acquired.
Trump ran for president branding himself as a self-made billionaire, touting his financial success, but he has been steadfast in his refusal to release his tax returns to the public, despite mounting pressure from Congress. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin formally denied a request from the House Ways and Means Committee for Trump’s last six years of tax returns, a period not covered by the documents reported by The Times on Tuesday.