News Headlines - 11 April 2021

▽Iran says electrical problem in atomic facility is act of ‘nuclear terrorism’

Iran on Sunday described a blackout at its underground Natanz atomic facility as an act of “nuclear terrorism,” raising regional tensions.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, stopped short of directly blaming anyone for the incident. Details remained few about what happened early Sunday morning at the facility, which initially was described as a blackout caused by the electrical grid feeding the site.
Many Israeli media outlets offered the same assessment that a cyberattack darkened Natanz and damaged a facility that is home to sensitive centrifuges. While the reports offered no sourcing for the evaluation, Israeli media maintains a close relationship with the country’s military and intelligence agencies.

▽Kyrgyzstan referendum backs presidential rule | Reuters

Voters in Kyrgyzstan supported handing greater powers to the presidency in a referendum on Sunday, confirming public trust in the populist head of state Sadyr Japarov, although the turnout was low.
The constitutional reform will bring the political system of the Central Asian nation closer to that of its ex-Soviet neighbours, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, making it easier for Japarov to push through his policies.
Japarov and his supporters also hope a strengthened presidency will make the country more stable after violent revolts toppled its leaders in 2005, 2010 and in 2020, when Japarov was catapulted from a prison cell and into office.

▽19 people sentenced to death by Myanmar military - CNN

Nineteen people have been sentenced to death in Myanmar for killing an associate of an army captain, the military-owned Myawaddy TV station said on Friday -- the first such sentences announced in public since a February 1 coup and crackdown on protesters.
The report said the killing took place on March 27 in the North Okkalapa district of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. Martial law has been declared in the district, allowing courts martial to pronounce sentences.

▽Ecuador Elections: Guillermo Lasso Set to Win Presidential Vote - The New York Times

Guillermo Lasso, a 66-year-old conservative former banker, was set to win Ecuador’s presidential election and beat out Andrés Arauz, a 36-year-old leftist handpicked by former President Rafael Correa.
With more than 94 percent of the votes counted after 10 p.m., Mr. Lasso had 52 percent compared with Mr. Arauz’s 47.32 percent, according to the Electoral Council official counting system in Ecuador. Mr. Arauz conceded defeat in a speech.

▽Soviet-era ′Lord of the Rings′ film a YouTube hit | DW

In 1991, Khraniteli (Russian for "guardians"), a television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic The Lord of the Rings fantasy stories, was broadcast shortly before the USSR collapsed.
It is a low-budget production that aired 10 years before the release of the first part of director Peter Jackson's blockbuster film trilogy, LOTR for short, which starred Elijah Wood as the young hobbit Frodo Baggins. Interestingly, Wood himself tweeted about the Russian film on YouTube.