ISTANBUL (AP) – Greece’s prime minister met with Turkey’s president over lunch in Istanbul Sunday, in a rare meeting between the neighbors who have been at odds over maritime and energy issues, the status of Aegean islands and migration. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were expected to discuss bilateral and international relations, the Turkish presidency’s communications directorate said. Greece and Turkey are nominal NATO allies but have strained relations over competing maritime boundary claims that affect energy exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean. Tensions flared in the summer of 2020 over exploratory drilling rights in areas in the Mediterranean where Greece and Cyprus claim their own exclusive economic zone, leading to a naval standoff. Turkey also claims Greece is violating international agreements by militarizing Aegean islands.

 

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BOGOTA (AFP) – Colombians voted Sunday to draw up a shortlist of candidates for presidential elections polls suggest may yield the country’s first-ever leftist leader. Nearly 39 million of Colombia’s 50 million inhabitants were eligible to cast their ballot in a complex but critical election in the country. On one part of the ballot, voters will determine the composition of the Senate and House of Representatives, currently in the hands of right-wing parties. But all eyes will really be on the outcome of the presidential primaries -- called inter-party “consultations” -- happening alongside the legislative vote. Outgoing President Ivan Duque has promised safety “guarantees” for the non-compulsory vote. It comes with the president and legislature both at rock-bottom levels of public opinion. Colombia has always been ruled by the political right, but polls show that former guerrilla, ex-Bogota mayor and senator Gustavo Petro, 61, on the left of the political spectrum, stands a real chance of winning. Also in the running is former FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who said in January she would vie to represent centrist parties as an alternative to both the ruling right and Petro.

 

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OUAGADOUGOU (Xinhua) – At least 10 people were killed on Saturday in an attack that targeted a gold mine in Burkina’s Sahel region, local media reported on Sunday. Around 20 unidentified armed individuals attacked the artisanal gold mining site of Baliata, in the Sahel region, killing at least 10 miners and injuring several others, reports said. Fourteen people were killed Thursday in a similar raid on a gold mining site in the region’s Seytenga.

Security in Burkina Faso has worsened since 2015, with terrorist attacks killing more than 1,000 people and displacing over one million others in the West African nation. 

 

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KUALA LUMPUR (AP) – Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri’s Malay party has defeated its allies in the ruling party and the opposition to score a landslide victory in a second state election that could presage early national polls. Saturday’s big win in southern Johor state by the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, mirrored its victory in another state election in November and will embolden supporters to escalate demands for early general elections, which are not due till July 2023. The UMNO-led National Front coalition governed Malaysia for 61 years until its shocking ouster in 2018 due to a multibillion-dollar financial scandal. But the reformist alliance that won those polls collapsed in 2020 due to defections and the National Front made a comeback as part of a new government. The new government, however, is plagued by infighting with the National Front, going up against some of its allies in both state elections. Although the parties have agreed to share power until the next general election, factions in UMNO are anxious to capitalize on its victories and revive its former rule. “This is a confirmation of recent trends. People voted strongly for the National Front because they want stability” following political turmoil in the past few years, said James Chin, an Asian expert at Australia’s University of Tasmania. A low voter turnout and a highly divided opposition were in UMNO’s favor, he said.

 

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Museum of Modern Art patron whose membership card was recently revoked for unruly behavior stabbed two MoMA employees on Saturday when they denied him admission to the famed midtown Manhattan site and then fled, police said. The two victims, both women, were rushed to a local hospital for treatment of multiple stab wounds to their upper bodies, but “we’re told they’re going to be OK,” John Miller, deputy New York City police commissioner, told a news briefing afterward. New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers launched a manhunt for the suspect, whom Miller said was familiar to MoMA staff as a museum “regular” and to police from previous “disorderly conduct” incidents, including at least one at MoMA, in recent days. NYPD was not aware of any record of arrests or other brushes with the law, Miller. A letter revoking the man’s MoMA membership card was sent to him on Friday, and he showed up late on Saturday afternoon “with the stated intention” of seeing a film being screened at the museum, Miller said. When he was told that his membership card had expired and was refused entrance, he became upset, jumped over the reception desk and stabbed the two employees, according to Miller.  Surveillance video footage showed him fleeing the museum moments afterward on foot.

 

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NAMPULA (AFP) – The death toll from a cyclone that struck Mozambique climbed to 12 on Sunday after devastating wind and rain lashed the southern African country. Cyclone Gombe has affected more than 30,000 people, injuring 40, and destroyed more than 3,000 homes since making landfall on Friday. Powerful winds reaching 170 kilometers per hour and torrential rainfall have hit the northern Nampula province by the Indian Ocean and neighboring Zambezia province particularly hard. In the port city of Nacala, houses were teetering on the edge of cliffs facing the ocean and walls had collapsed, an AFP photographer saw. Most thatched roofs were damaged and another made of sheet metal lay on the ground after the wind swept away the bricks, while uprooted trees also littered the ground. Eight shelters have opened in Nampula, Mozambique’s most populous province which suffered death and destruction when Tropical Storm Ana struck in January. Mozambique was devastated by Cyclone Idai in 2019, the most violent storm to ever hit the country.