TUNIS (AFP) – Thousands protested deteriorating living standards outside the prime minister’s office in Tunis following a call from Tunisia’s main trade union confederation. “The economic and social situation continues to worsen,” the confederation’s head, Noureddine Taboubi, said in a speech to protesters. Taboubi said the state’s ability to service its foreign debt in 2023 had been “to the detriment of the people and resulted in shortages of basic products.” He criticized the implementation of “diktats from the International Monetary Fund” (IMF) at the expense of ordinary Tunisians. The Tunisian economy is at a standstill with growth of 0.4 percent and an unemployment rate of 16.4 percent in 2023, according to the National Institute of Statistics. Unemployment stood at 15.2 percent at the end of 2022. President Kais Saied has ruled by decree since a July 2021 power grab and last year rammed through a constitution that gave his office unlimited powers and neutered parliament.

 

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ISLAMABAD (AP) – At least 29 people have been killed and 50 others injured due to heavy rains that swept Pakistan, causing several houses to collapse and landslides to block roads, particularly in the northwest. At least 23 rain-related deaths were reported in various areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan since Thursday night, the provincial disaster management authority said in a statement on Sunday. Five people died in the southwestern Balochistan province after the coastal town of Gwadar got flooded, forcing authorities to use boats to evacuate some 10,000 people. Casualties and extensive damage were also reported in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the National Disaster Management Authority said in a separate statement. Emergency relief was being provided to people in affected areas and heavy machinery was being used to remove debris blocking highways, the agency added.

 

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OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – Around 170 people were “executed” in attacks on three villages in northern Burkina Faso a week ago, a regional public prosecutor said Sunday. Aly Benjamin Coulibaly said he received reports of the attacks on the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soroe in Yatenga province on February 25, with a provisional toll of “around 170 people executed”. The attacks left others wounded and caused material damage, the prosecutor for the northern town of Ouahigouya added in a statement. He said his office ordered an investigation and appealed to the public for information. Survivors of the attacks told AFP that dozens of women and young children were among the victims. Local security sources said the attacks were separate from deadly incidents at a mosque and a church in northern Burkina Faso that also happened a week ago. Authorities have yet to release an official death toll for those attacks. Burkina Faso has been grappling with an insurgency waged by rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Daesh terrorist group that spilled over from neighboring Mali in 2015.

 

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CALIFORNIA (CNN) – Blizzard conditions continued to slam Northern California over the weekend with damaging winds and heavy snow dumping on mountain ridges down to the valleys. Around 6.5 million people are under winter weather alerts across the Mountain West, with blizzard warnings still in effect for the Sierra Nevada. The most extreme conditions are unfolding at the highest elevations, with whiteout conditions and hurricane-force winds in the Sierra Nevada. The snow has closed a 70-mile stretch of Interstate 80 near the Nevada state line for more than a day after highway officials reported stranded drivers Friday night. “Extremely heavy snowfall rates of 2-6 inches an hour combined with very strong winds exceeding 100 mph at times will maintain impossible travel conditions in the Sierra Nevada,” the Weather Prediction Center said.

 

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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia is pushing for a renewed search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the transport minister said on Sunday, as the 10th anniversary of its disappearance in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries approaches. Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Malaysian investigators initially did not rule out the possibility that the aircraft had been deliberately taken off course, and debris, some confirmed and some believed to be from the aircraft, has washed up along the coast of Africa and on islands in the Indian Ocean. Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke said U.S. seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity had been invited to discuss its latest search proposal after two previous failed attempts. “The Malaysian government is committed to the search (for MH370) and the search must go on,” Loke said at a remembrance event on Sunday.

 

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BERLIN (RT) – Germany must improve its healthcare system to be able to swiftly respond to crisis situations, such as a new pandemic or a military conflict, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said. Legislation for reforms expected to be presented this summer will be “a turning point for the healthcare system,” the Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician told the newspaper Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung in an interview. Though the ruling ‘traffic light coalition’ has already pushed for reforms following the COVID-19 pandemic, the health minister said that with the Ukraine conflict, the challenges have become even more important. “In the event of a crisis, every doctor, every hospital, every health authority must know what to do. We need clear responsibilities – for example, for the distribution of a high number of injured people among the clinics in Germany,” Lauterbach explained. The minister said hospitals must also conduct drills to practice their response to disasters, dismissing accusations of scaremongering by arguing that “doing nothing is not an option.”