SUVA (Al Jazeera) – Final results show Fiji’s general elections deadlocked, with neither incumbent Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama nor his political rival Sitiveni Rabuka heading for a majority of seats in parliament. Bainimarama’s Fiji First party and a coalition led by his rival Rabuka are projected to secure 26 seats each in the 55-seat parliament, according to a Fijian Election Office tally posted online on Sunday. The dead heat result caps a tumultuous election campaign marked by allegations of fraud and calls for military intervention. Drama unfolded when opposition leader and two-time coup plotter Rabuka claimed the vote-counting process was “clouded in secrecy”. He was then questioned by police after appealing to the military to intervene. Fiji’s military chief said on Friday his forces would not intervene. International election observers also said on Friday they had not seen any significant voting irregularities, adding that an initial anomaly with an app showing the results had been rectified. The government will now be formed through what could be a drawn-out negotiation process, with both Rabuka and Bainimarama – who seized power through a 2006 putsch and then legitimized his government with outright election wins in 2014 and 2018 – already courting the Social Democratic party, which holds three seats and now the balance of power. The Social Democrats are led by the deeply religious Viliame Gavoka, a former chairman of the Fijian Rugby Union who had fallen out with both Bainimarama and Rabuka. Fiji is a small country of just 900,000 people but the result has regional significance. Bainimarama has grown close to China, while Rabuka and Gavoka have suggested loosening ties with Beijing.

 

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PESHAWAR (AP) – Four Pakistani police officers were killed and four others were critically wounded Sunday when suspected militants attacked a police station in the country’s volatile northwest, police said. The suspects used grenades and automatic weapons on the station in Lakki Marwat district before fleeing the scene, said Nawaz Khan, an officer of the targeted police station. Khan said police on duty retaliated and called for reinforcement before the attackers, their ammunition apparently exhausted, fled the scene before help arrived. Police were searching for the attackers. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but previous attacks on police in the district have been claimed by Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP. Last month, militants ambushed a routine police patrol, killing all six policemen in the vehicle in the Dadewala area of the Lakki Marwat district. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the Dadewala ambush. The militant group is separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban. A bomber blew himself up near a truck carrying police officers on their way to protect polio workers near Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan late last month, killing a police officer and three family members traveling in a car nearby. The bombing wounded 23 others, mostly police. 

 

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VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis revealed for the first time in an interview Sunday that he had signed a resignation letter nearly a decade ago should poor health prevent him from carrying out his duties. Francis — who turned 86 on Saturday — has said in the past that he would step down from the papacy should health problems keep him from his duties. In Spanish newspaper ABC, the pontiff said he signed his resignation letter and handed it over to the Vatican’s secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone, before that cardinal’s retirement in 2013. “I signed the resignation and I told him, ‘In case of medical impediment or whatever, here’s my resignation. You have it’,” the pope said. Asked by the interviewer whether he wanted that fact to be known, Francis replied: “That’s why I’m telling you.” He added that he didn’t know what Bertone subsequently did with the letter. Francis has been limited in his ability to walk by an inoperable knee condition which has forced him to rely on a wheelchair in recent months. The pope has had to cancel or curtail activities several times over the past year because of pain and in an interview in July he acknowledged that he needed to slow down.

 

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BERLIN (Anadolu) – The German army’s military equipment problems and technical issues may impede the fulfillment of the country’s NATO obligations, newsweekly Der Spiegel reported. The Bundeswehr’s Puma armored vehicles suffered technical problems during a recent military exercise, leaving 18 of them currently inoperable, according to the report. These armored vehicles of the 10th Panzer Division were planned to be deployed to the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) next month. German Chief of Defense Gen. Eberhard Zorn on Sunday acknowledged the military equipment problems, but promised that the German army will take necessary measures to meet its commitments to NATO. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that the Puma armored vehicles will be ready for duty again,” he said on Twitter, adding that the Bundeswehr is in contact with defense industry specialists on this issue. “We will fulfill our obligations to NATO from Jan. 1, 2023,” he stressed. According to local media reports, the armed forces are working on an alternative plan to deploy older Marder infantry fighting vehicles to NATO’s rapid response force next year.

 

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DURBAN (Al Jazeera) – A freak wave has killed three swimmers and injured many others at a popular beach in South Africa’s southeastern city of Durban, according to officials. Robert Mckenzie, a spokesman for KwaZulu-Natal Emergency Medical Services, said the wave washed swimmers at the Bay of Plenty out to sea, drowning at least three of them. At least 17 others were injured and were “in serious or critical condition”, he added. The eThekwini municipality said 35 lifeguards were involved in the “mass rescue effort” and that paramedics attended to more than 100 people caught in the incident. The dead included a teenager, it said. The incident took place as Durban has gradually been reopening its beaches after closure due to high levels of E. coli bacteria coming from the city’s sewer system, which was badly damaged by deadly floods earlier in the year. The floods, the worst in living memory, killed more than 400 people in April.

 

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MEXICO CITY (AP) – The deadliest year in at least three decades for Mexican journalists and media workers is nearing a close, with 15 slayings — a perilous situation underlined by a brazen near-miss attack this week on one of the country’s most prominent journalists. Two gunmen astride a motorcycle shot up radio and television journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva’s armored vehicle 200 yards from his home Thursday night. The journalist described the attack and posted photos of his vehicle to social media. Solidarity has grown among Mexico’s press corps amid the carnage, and its members are making increasing noise after each killing. They also have pushed back against a longtime government narrative that the victims weren’t real journalists or were corrupt. Still, the killings — 15 counted by The Associated Press — have continued to rise. This year, many of the dead were small town reporters running their own outlets on a shoestring. Others were freelancers, including for national publications, in big cities like Tijuana.