News in Brief

Date: 09 October 2023 - 21:44

News ID: ۱۲۰۱۱۷

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -- Denmark is working to “expand and deepen” a coalition of countries committed to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the NATO parliamentary assembly’s annual session in Copenhagen on Monday. The Netherlands and Denmark have led a push to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s and to later deliver fighter jets to Ukraine to help counter Russia’s air superiority. Norway at the end of August also committed to delivering F-16s to Ukraine, while 11 other nations, including the United States, have said they would help train Ukrainian pilots to fly the jets. The Danish prime minister also said on Monday that NATO and the EU must better coordinate their procurement of weapons and ammunition within the union and the military alliance.

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YAOUNDE (Reuters) -- A wave of water released by a burst dam has killed at least 23 people in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde following heavy rains, the army’s rescue unit said on Monday. A colonial-era dam gave way at around 16:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) local time on Sunday, releasing water from a small lake, said Assola Joseph, a local leader in the Mbankolo neighborhood. Residents and rescue workers were picking through the debris of rubble, broken timber, uprooted banana trees and corrugated sheeting on a steep hillside on Monday morning. A Reuters journalist at the scene said at least five bodies had been recovered, and at least 30 houses destroyed.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Five Indian states will elect new legislatures next month, independent election panel said on Monday, beginning a process of regional polls ahead of national elections due next year. The elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram are expected to give an indication of voter mood, especially in the heartland states which are key to the fortunes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Voters are unhappy with high inflation, unemployment and an uneven economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and a new alliance of 28 opposition parties called INDIA has been formed to jointly challenge BJP nationally. Modi and BJP remain popular after nearly a decade in power nationally and surveys suggest he is expected to win a third term in general elections due by May 2024. Congress, India’s main opposition party which leads the INDIA alliance, is in power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. BJP rules the central state of Madhya Pradesh and its ally is in power in the small northeastern state of Mizoram.

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WAD MADANI, Sudan (AFP) -- At least three civilians were killed on Monday in Sudan when shells struck a key hospital in the capital, a medical source said, as fighting between rival generals continued unabated. “Shells fell on the Al-Nau hospital,” in Omdurman, the twin city of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, a medical source told AFP by telephone. Omdurman has been the site of fierce battles between the regular army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo who have been at war since April. Rights groups have accused both sides of targeting health facilities since the conflict began on April 15.

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GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) -- Ecuador extended by a month a state of emergency in place since the August assassination of presidential candidate and anti-graft crusader Fernando Villavicencio, the presidency announced. The extension comes shortly after seven Colombians arrested over Villavicencio’s killing were found dead in prison. Six of the suspects were killed Friday in the Guayas 1 prison in the port city of Guayaquil, while a seventh was found dead Saturday in a prison in the capital Quito. The assassination of Villavicencio, a centrist who had been polling in second place, rocked Ecuador days ahead of the August 20 national elections in which corruption and the country’s declining security situation were major themes.

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MONROVIA (AFP) -- Violence marred the close of Liberian President George Weah’s re-election campaign on Sunday, with scuffles between his supporters and members of the opposition breaking out during a parade in capital Monrovia, an AFP journalist saw. No official toll was available on Sunday evening, but AFP counted at least five men with injuries, some with large gashes on their heads. Supporters of former football star Weah’s political group, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), and members from the opposition ALCOP, threw stones at each other, and in response, police fired tear gas. The main political parties have pledged peaceful polls, but the deaths of three people in clashes last month between rival political camps have fuelled fears of electoral violence in the country, which suffered back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003 that left more than 250,000 people dead.