WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The United States had over 40,000 gun deaths during President Joe Biden’s first year of presidency, prompting gun violence survivors to call on the Democratic president to take bigger steps on gun control.
Student-led advocacy group March For Our Lives (M4OL), in a statement, said, “We are horrified by the escalating epidemic of gun violence that has continued under his watch.” “As a candidate, the president pledged to end the epidemic of gun violence, but as our leader in the White House, he has simply tinkered at the edges, rather than coordinating a whole-of-government response that treats this crisis like the emergency that it is,” said the group, which was created by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting. There were a total of 44,868 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2021 during Biden’s first year in the White House, according to the Gun Violence Archives (GVA). In comparison, the country saw 15,727 deaths in 2017 during former President Donald Trump’s first year as president. In 2019, GVA started to track suicide gun deaths, which account for nearly 24,000 deaths per year. Factoring in those figures, the total number of gun violence deaths in 2017 is likely to fall closer to 39,727, which means Biden’s first year in the White House saw a 12 percent rise in gun deaths in comparison to Trump’s. In its statement, M4OL urged Biden to appoint a cabinet-level Director of Gun Violence Prevention to lead the White House’s efforts to tackle gun violence. According to the latest data by the GVA, some 400 Americans were killed in gun violence only in the first four days of 2022. The United States saw a record high of 691 mass shootings in 2021 as gun violence surged within the year, according to reports.

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NICOSIA (AFP) – Turkish Cypriots cast their ballots on Sunday in a snap legislative election in the breakaway northern third of the Mediterranean island after a campaign dominated by an economic crisis. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) -- recognized only by Ankara -- has been hit hard by the Covid pandemic and the plummeting value of the Turkish lira. Analysts said there has been a lack of interest in the poll among the roughly 204,000 voters mainly concerned with health, safety and economic welfare. “Compared to the previous elections in northern Cyprus, there is much less energy and enthusiasm in the air,” political scientists Ahmet Sozen and Devrim Sahin wrote on the website of Italian think tank ISPI. Cyprus has been split since 1974 when Turkish forces captured the northern part of the island in response to a military coup sponsored by the junta in power in Greece at the time. Unlike in previous TRNC elections, campaigning this time have focused on the territory’s economic woes rather than any talk of a solution to the problem.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Armenian President Armen Sarkissian tendered his resignation on Sunday, according to a statement on his official website. Sarkissian was in a standoff with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan last year over a number of issues, including the dismissal of the head of the armed forces.

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BRUSSELS (AFP) – Thousands marched in Brussels on Sunday to protest the Belgian federal government’s COVID restrictions. Prime Minister Alexandre De Croo announced Friday, January 21, that people will need booster shots after five months to maintain COVID-19 passes giving access to bars or cinemas. That five-month limit is among the tightest in Europe. For neighboring France, it is seven months, while the EU-wide guide for travel within the bloc is set at nine. De Croo said that from March 1, the initial vaccination series would be valid only for five months with boosters required to keep COVID passes active, although they would still be valid with a test or recent recovery from infection. Protester Anneleen De Klerck, who works as an aide for elderly people, said the pass gives them a false sense of security and endangers them. “I work with elderly people and they say ‘oh I’m gonna go to that event because it’s safe because there’s a COVID safe ticket’. And then they are sick, the next week they are sick, from COVID,” she said. Caroline Van Landuyt said she was angry at the government, accusing authorities of blackmailing the youth with the vaccine. “I was very angry that my children had to do the vaccine... They want to travel, they want to do sports competitions, and they can’t do it without a vaccine but they did not want to, it’s just blackmail,” she added.

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LIMA (AFP) – Peru has declared an environmental emergency to battle an oil spill caused by freak waves from a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific. The stunningly powerful eruption last Saturday of an undersea volcano near Tonga unleashed tsunami waves around the Pacific and as far away as the United States. In Peru, the oil spill near Lima has fouled beaches, killed birds and harmed the fishing and tourism industries. With its 90-day decree, the government said it plans “sustainable management” of 21 beaches tarred by 6,000 barrels of oil that spilled from a tanker ship unloading at a refinery last Saturday. One aim of the decree is to better organize the various agencies and teams working in the aftermath of the disaster, said the environment ministry. Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister Roberto Sanchez estimated Saturday that economic losses total more than $50 million, all sectors combined. The government is demanding payment of damages from the Spanish energy giant Repsol which owns the refinery. The environment ministry said 174 hectares – equivalent to 270 football fields – of sea, beaches and natural reserves were affected by the spill. Crews have been working for days to clean up the spill. But the ministry said it issued the emergency decree because the crude still in the water was still spreading, reaching 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the spot of the original spill.

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YAOUNDÉ (AFP) – Cameroon’s government said Sunday that 16 people were killed in a fire caused by fireworks in a nightclub in the capital Yaounde, the tragedy occurring as the nation hosts the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.
“The initial report shows 16 dead and eight seriously injured” after the “accidental fire” broke out Saturday night, the communications ministry said in a statement. The fire engulfed the main room of Liv’s Night Club in the capital’s upmarket Bastos district, home to embassies and diplomat residences. “The tragedy, which was caused by explosions from the fireworks often used in these places, first consumed the building’s ceiling, resulting in two very loud explosions, causing panic and a stampede,” the ministry said. “When we arrived it was a panic, there was a strong fire with lots of smoke,” an official with the firefighters told AFP on condition of anonymity. “We counted 16 dead and five injured,” the official added. A security guard present for the fire said that “it happened very quickly”. “It was a little after 2:00 am and most customers arrive around 3:00 am... there are many victims,” the security guard said. There were some burnt objects out the front of the club that suggested a fire, but the building’s facade was not destroyed or charred, an AFP journalist said. Cameroon is hosting the AFCON tournament despite regular violence in the country’s west, where English-speaking militants declared independence from the majority French-speaking country in 2017.