News in Brief
ABUJA (Dispatches) -- Nigerian Muslims on Saturday rallied here to demand the release of top Muslim cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.
Calling for justice for the 65-year-old cleric, arrested in 2015 along with his wife on trumped-up allegations, the protesters chanted slogans in support of Zakzaky.
The leader of Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) has been held since December 2015 following a deadly raid by Nigerian army troops on his residence in the country’s northern Kaduna State. He and his wife as well as a large number of his followers have been kept in detention ever since.
During the raid, Zakzaky’s wife sustained serious wounds and more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons were killed.
The latest protest rally for Zakzaky’s freedom came after a court in the city of Kaduna ruled earlier this month against his immediate release due to his deteriorating health that requires urgent medical care.
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LONDON (AP) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May fought back Saturday against critics of her Brexit deal, telling her Conservative opponents that their alternative plans for Britain's departure from the European Union wouldn't work.
May is battling to win over rebels in her own ranks and save her leadership after a grueling week, with two Cabinet ministers quitting and other Conservative critics plotting to oust her immediately after Britain struck a divorce deal with the EU.
In a public relations offensive, May tried to win support in a Daily Mail interview that revealed how her husband supported her during what she admitted to be "a pretty heavy couple of days." She also laid into political opponents, saying the alternatives they favor to tackle a key stumbling block -- the issue of how to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit -- wouldn't resolve the problem.
"People say 'If you could only just do something slightly different, have a Norway model or a Canada model, this backstop issue would go away.' It would not. That issue is still going to be there," she said in the interview, published Saturday.
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HELSINKI (Reuters) -- Russia's Ambassador to Finland Pavel Kuznetsov has been summoned to a meeting on Monday with Finnish state secretary Matti Anttonen over the disruption of Finland's global positioning system (GPS) signal during recent NATO war games.
"We don't have anything to hide here. Disruption is a serious matter which disturbs civil aviation. We will act towards Russia, we will discuss this and we expect answers," Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said in a statement to public broadcaster Yle while on a state visit to the United States.
The Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday that the disruption of Finland's GPS signal during recent NATO war games came from Russian territory.
The Kremlin on Monday dismissed an earlier allegation from Finland that Russia may have intentionally disrupted the signal during the war games.
Earlier in November, Finland's air navigation services issued a warning for air traffic due to a large-scale GPS interruption in the north of the country. Russia was also recently accused by Norway, which had posted a similar warning in its own airspace.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- An unmanned rocket carrying cargo blasted off into space on Friday in the first launch of a Russian-made Soyuz-FG rocket from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome since a dramatic aborted launch in October.
The rocket took off with a Progress MS-10 spacecraft at 18:14 GMT (00:14 local time) carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Progress MS-10 is expected to dock at the ISS on Nov. 18, Russia’s space agency said.
The last manned mission to the ISS was abruptly cut short on Oct. 11 two minutes after liftoff when the Soyuz-FG rocket failed, forcing a Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut to perform an emergency landing.
The rocket failure was caused by a sensor that was damaged during assembly at the Soviet era-cosmodrome at Baikonur, according to Russian investigators.
The first manned mission to the ISS since the failure is due to take off at the beginning of December.
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LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Archaeologists say they found tombs at a Bolivian quarry containing remains from more than 500 years ago that give an insight into the interaction of various peoples with the expanding Inca empire.
The remains, which were found about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from La Paz, belong to more than 100 individuals from an indigenous civilization and were buried with more than 30 vessels used by the Incas for performing death rites, said an archaeologist involved in the excavation.
"The vessels are whole and are Incan," said Jedu Sagarnaga, an archaeology professor at Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz who led the investigation.
The site near the modern-day town of Viacha also contained elongated skulls that may have been stretched to differentiate the social rank of individuals, he said.
***
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AFP) -- Central African Republic (CAR) lawmaker and former militia leader Alfred Yekatom was extradited to The Hague Saturday to stand trial in the International Criminal Court probing war crimes and crimes against humanity, a government source said.
The source said the charges against Yekatom, a former militia leader of a faction of the anti-balaka movement involved in sectarian bloodletting, were not specified.
It was the first extradition from CAR to the court.
The ICC launched an investigation in September 2014 into crimes committed in the country since 2012.
Calling for justice for the 65-year-old cleric, arrested in 2015 along with his wife on trumped-up allegations, the protesters chanted slogans in support of Zakzaky.
The leader of Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) has been held since December 2015 following a deadly raid by Nigerian army troops on his residence in the country’s northern Kaduna State. He and his wife as well as a large number of his followers have been kept in detention ever since.
During the raid, Zakzaky’s wife sustained serious wounds and more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons were killed.
The latest protest rally for Zakzaky’s freedom came after a court in the city of Kaduna ruled earlier this month against his immediate release due to his deteriorating health that requires urgent medical care.
***
LONDON (AP) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May fought back Saturday against critics of her Brexit deal, telling her Conservative opponents that their alternative plans for Britain's departure from the European Union wouldn't work.
May is battling to win over rebels in her own ranks and save her leadership after a grueling week, with two Cabinet ministers quitting and other Conservative critics plotting to oust her immediately after Britain struck a divorce deal with the EU.
In a public relations offensive, May tried to win support in a Daily Mail interview that revealed how her husband supported her during what she admitted to be "a pretty heavy couple of days." She also laid into political opponents, saying the alternatives they favor to tackle a key stumbling block -- the issue of how to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit -- wouldn't resolve the problem.
"People say 'If you could only just do something slightly different, have a Norway model or a Canada model, this backstop issue would go away.' It would not. That issue is still going to be there," she said in the interview, published Saturday.
***
HELSINKI (Reuters) -- Russia's Ambassador to Finland Pavel Kuznetsov has been summoned to a meeting on Monday with Finnish state secretary Matti Anttonen over the disruption of Finland's global positioning system (GPS) signal during recent NATO war games.
"We don't have anything to hide here. Disruption is a serious matter which disturbs civil aviation. We will act towards Russia, we will discuss this and we expect answers," Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini said in a statement to public broadcaster Yle while on a state visit to the United States.
The Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday that the disruption of Finland's GPS signal during recent NATO war games came from Russian territory.
The Kremlin on Monday dismissed an earlier allegation from Finland that Russia may have intentionally disrupted the signal during the war games.
Earlier in November, Finland's air navigation services issued a warning for air traffic due to a large-scale GPS interruption in the north of the country. Russia was also recently accused by Norway, which had posted a similar warning in its own airspace.
***
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- An unmanned rocket carrying cargo blasted off into space on Friday in the first launch of a Russian-made Soyuz-FG rocket from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome since a dramatic aborted launch in October.
The rocket took off with a Progress MS-10 spacecraft at 18:14 GMT (00:14 local time) carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Progress MS-10 is expected to dock at the ISS on Nov. 18, Russia’s space agency said.
The last manned mission to the ISS was abruptly cut short on Oct. 11 two minutes after liftoff when the Soyuz-FG rocket failed, forcing a Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut to perform an emergency landing.
The rocket failure was caused by a sensor that was damaged during assembly at the Soviet era-cosmodrome at Baikonur, according to Russian investigators.
The first manned mission to the ISS since the failure is due to take off at the beginning of December.
***
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Archaeologists say they found tombs at a Bolivian quarry containing remains from more than 500 years ago that give an insight into the interaction of various peoples with the expanding Inca empire.
The remains, which were found about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from La Paz, belong to more than 100 individuals from an indigenous civilization and were buried with more than 30 vessels used by the Incas for performing death rites, said an archaeologist involved in the excavation.
"The vessels are whole and are Incan," said Jedu Sagarnaga, an archaeology professor at Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz who led the investigation.
The site near the modern-day town of Viacha also contained elongated skulls that may have been stretched to differentiate the social rank of individuals, he said.
***
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AFP) -- Central African Republic (CAR) lawmaker and former militia leader Alfred Yekatom was extradited to The Hague Saturday to stand trial in the International Criminal Court probing war crimes and crimes against humanity, a government source said.
The source said the charges against Yekatom, a former militia leader of a faction of the anti-balaka movement involved in sectarian bloodletting, were not specified.
It was the first extradition from CAR to the court.
The ICC launched an investigation in September 2014 into crimes committed in the country since 2012.