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Islamic State militants in northern Syria have blown up another monument in the ancient city of Palmyra, officials and local sources say.

The Arch of Triumph was «pulverised» by the militants who control the city, a Palmyra activist told AFP news agency.
It is thought to have been built about 2,000 years ago.

IS fighters have already destroyed two ancient temples at the site, described by Unesco as one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.

«The Arch of Triumph was pulverised. IS has destroyed it,» Mohammad Hassan al-Homsi, an activist from Palmyra told AFP on Monday.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the conflict, said sources on the ground had confirmed the destruction.

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Smartphone users can do «very little» to stop security services getting «total control» over their devices, US whistleblower Edward Snowden has said.

The former intelligence contractor told the BBC’s Panorama that UK intelligence agency GCHQ had the power to hack into phones without their owners’ knowledge.

Mr Snowden said GCHQ could gain access to a handset by sending it an encrypted text message and use it for such things as taking pictures and listening in. The UK government declined to comment.

Nosey Smurf

Mr Snowden spoke to Panorama in Moscow, where he fled in 2013 after leaking to the media details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by his former employer, the US National Security Agency (NSA). He did not suggest that either GCHQ or the NSA were interested in mass-monitoring of citizens’ private communications but said both agencies had invested heavily in technology allowing them to hack smartphones. «They want to own your phone instead of you,» he said. Mr Snowden talked about GCHQ’s «Smurf Suite», a collection of secret intercept capabilities individually named after the little blue imps of Belgian cartoon fame. «Dreamy Smurf is the power management tool which means turning your phone on and off with you knowing,» he said. «Nosey Smurf is the ‘hot mic’ tool. For example if it’s in your pocket, [GCHQ] can turn the microphone on and listen to everything that’s going on around you — even if your phone is switched off because they’ve got the other tools for turning it on. «Tracker Smurf is a geo-location tool which allows [GCHQ] to follow you with a greater precision than you would get from the typical triangulation of cellphone towers.»

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has unveiled new gun control laws in the wake of the deadly Oregon school shooting.

She proposes abolishing legislation that protects gun makers and dealers from being sued by shooting victims.

Mrs Clinton also vowed to use executive powers as president to expand background checks at gun shows and ban domestic abusers from purchasing guns. The issue of gun control is a hugely divisive issue in the US.

Her announcement comes after a deadly shooting at Umqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, last week left eight students and a teacher dead.
of people who shouldn’t have them. «We need to prevent these kinds of terrible crimes that are happening.»

Hillary Clinton’s firm stand on gun control, outlining the legislation she backs as well as the unilateral actions she would take as president, represents both an opportunity and a risk for her White House campaign.

It’s an opportunity because gun control is one of the few issues where she can convincingly run to the left of the populist — and increasingly popular — Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator has a mixed record on supporting increased firearm regulation, including voting against background checks in 1993 and for shielding gun manufacturers from negligence lawsuits in 2005.

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