OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian police shot dead two men during a gunfight at a bank in British Columbia which left six officers injured, and nearby homes were evacuated after the discovery of a possible explosive device, police said. Emergency response team members arrived on the scene at the Bank of Montreal in Saanich, on Vancouver Island, near the border with the U.S. state of Washington, around 11am local time, law enforcement said. “This remains an ongoing police incident with a heavy police presence in the area,” according to a statement posted by police in Saanich. “Homes and businesses in close proximity to the scene of the incident have been evacuated due to the presence of a potential explosive device in a vehicle associated to the suspects.” The pair were heavily armed and initial reports suggest they were wearing body armor, Saanich police chief Dean Duthie told a press conference, saying he did not have any further information about them. Six officers were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds.

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) – Former U.S. president Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential limousine on Jan. 6, 2021, when his security detail declined to take him to the U.S. Capitol where his supporters were rioting, a former aide testified on Tuesday.  The then-president dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with metal-detecting magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, the aide testified. “Take the effing mags away; they’re not here to hurt me,” Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump’s then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, quoted Trump as saying that morning. Hutchinson, in testimony on the sixth day of House of Representatives hearings into the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol assault by Trump’s followers, said the conversation was relayed to her by Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official who was Trump’s deputy chief of staff for operations.

 

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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – The head of the African Union Commission voiced concern on Wednesday over “escalating military tension” between Ethiopia and Sudan, calling for restraint and dialogue. The comments by Moussa Faki Mahamat follow claims by Khartoum that the Ethiopian army had executed seven Sudanese soldiers and a civilian in an incident in a volatile border region last week -- allegations denied by Addis Ababa. Faki “is following with deep concern the escalating military tension between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Republic of Sudan and deeply regrets the loss of life at their common border,” the AU said in a statement. “The chairperson appeals for complete refrain from any military action whatever its origin and calls for dialogue between the two brotherly countries to solve any dispute.” Sudan accused Ethiopia of capturing the soldiers on June 22 in al-Fashaqa, a fertile strip at the center of a bitter border dispute between the two neighbors. Khartoum recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa on Monday and vowed to lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council and regional organizations.

 

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GENEVA/CAIRO (Arab News) – Migrants detained in Libya face horrific abuse, with women especially facing sexual violence, and often forced to submit to rape in exchange for food, UN investigators said Wednesday. In a fresh report, the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya reiterated that the worst crimes under international law were likely being committed in the war-ravaged country, with migrant women suffering some of the worst abuse. “The mission has reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, imprisonment, rape, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts have been committed in several places of detention in Libya since 2016,” it said. Migrants are routinely detained by authorities, human traffickers and others in Libya — a key departure point for tens of thousands of people mainly from sub-Saharan Africa hoping to reach Europe. Human traffickers have profited from the chaos that has raged since the 2011 toppling and killing of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Talks between rival Libyan governments are being held in Geneva this week over the rules for long-awaited elections, with an aim to end the chaos.

 

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ACCARA (Al Jazeera) – Demonstrators in Ghana’s capital gathered for a second day of protests on Wednesday against spiraling inflation and other economic woes after the first day ended in clashes with police and 29 arrests. Wednesday’s protests kicked off at about noon amid a heavy police presence. Hundreds had taken to the streets on Tuesday to denounce price hikes, a tax on electronic payments and other levies amid an economic downturn. Police dispersed the authorized march with tear gas and water cannon after demonstrators turned violent and wounded a dozen officers, according to a statement. They arrested 29 demonstrators for “attacks and damage to public property” and were reviewing footage of the event to identify more participants. A senior member of the local “Arise Ghana” lobby group that organized the protest, Sammy Gyamfi, told Reuters that police had agreed to provide security for demonstrations on the second day. Ghana, one of West Africa’s largest economies and the continent’s second-biggest gold producer, saw growth slow to 3.3 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2022 and inflation hit a record of 27.6 percent in May.

 

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BEIJING (Reuters) – An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported on Wednesday. China’s Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February 2021 on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has since been deployed on the surface as an orbiter surveyed the planet from space. Among the images taken from space were China’s first photographs of the Martian south pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are locked. In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European Space Agency had discovered water under the ice of the planet’s south pole.  Locating subsurface water is key to determining the planet’s potential for life, as well as providing a permanent resource for any human exploration there.