News in Brief

Date: 13 January 2020 - 21:38

News ID: ۷۵۰۳۹

MADRID (AP) — Twenty-two Cabinet ministers took their oaths Monday to join Spain’s new coalition government, a first in a country dominated until recently by two main parties taking turns in power. King Felipe VI presided over the short ceremony, which marked the inauguration of an administration led by Socialist leader and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that ranges from the political center to the far left. Five ministers come from the anti-austerity United We Can party. The leader of that party, Pablo Iglesias, is one of four deputy prime ministers in the new, enlarged Cabinet. Sánchez has set as goals of the new administration achieving social reforms, sound economic growth and "dialogue” with separatists in northeastern Catalonia. One by one, the 22 ministers all promised to follow the Spanish Constitution and to be loyal to the monarch.

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MELBOURNE (AFP) -- Exhausted firefighters said they had finally brought Australia’s largest "megablaze” under control Monday, as wet weather promised to deliver much-needed respite for countryside ravaged by bushfires. New South Wales firefighters said they finally had the upper hand in the fight against the vast Gospers Mountain fire on Sydney’s northwestern outskirts, which has been burning for almost three months. Visiting the area on Monday, New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said there was a "small area of burning still to complete” but the "containment prognosis looks promising”. The fire seared an area of national park three times the size of Greater London and lit several connected blazes totalling over 800,000 hectares. As residents and authorities continued to come to grips with the sheer scale of the devastation, the Bureau of Meteorology forecast some firegrounds areas could get up to 50 millimeters (two inches) of rain in the next week, a relief after a prolonged drought.

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NIAMEY (Reuters) -- Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou has replaced the head of the army after two of the country’s deadliest attacks in living memory killed at least 160 soldiers and prompted a rethink in the battle against Takfiri groups, the government said. Ahmed Mohamed led the army for over two years, a period marked by a steep rise in attacks by militants linked to Daesh and Al-Qaeda that culminated in a daytime raid on a remote army base on Thursday that killed at least 89 soldiers. That attack came less than a month after another on an outpost that killed 71 soldiers and raised questions about Niger’s ability to contain the spread of Takfiri groups across its western border from Mali and Burkina Faso. Major General Salifou Modi was appointed Mohamed’s successor on Monday, the government announced after a cabinet meeting. Niger said it would launch a new military offensive against militants, but past campaigns have failed to curb violence despite the presence of French and American troops.

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LONDON (Reuters) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is not getting the time he needs with his legal team to discuss his fight against extradition to the United States, causing delays to the case, his lawyer told a British court on Monday. After skipping bail in Britain, Assange spent seven years holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London before he was dragged out by police in April last year. The United States wants him extradited to face 18 charges including conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law. He could spend decades in prison if convicted. The 48-year-old Australian appeared for Monday’s hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court wearing glasses and a dark blazer over a light top. He spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth to the judge and saluted his supporters in the public gallery at the beginning and end of the hearing. Assange’s lawyer Gareth Peirce said difficulty in getting time with Assange had delayed the case, telling the court: "This slippage in the timetable is extremely worrying.” Assange is being held in a British jail pending the U.S. extradition case, having served a sentence for skipping bail. He fled to Ecuador’s embassy in 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden to face sex crimes accusations that were dropped last year. He says the U.S. charges against him are a political attempt to silence journalists and publishers, and that the Swedish allegations were part of a plot to catch him.

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BERLIN (AFP) -- Two World War II-era bombs were made safe in the western German city of Dortmund after around 14,000 people were evacuated, the city said Sunday. Officials there warning on Saturday that unexploded bombs dropped by Allied forces during the war might be buried in four sites in a heavily populated part of the city centre. Workers had detected anomalies during construction work, they announced on the city’s official Twitter. Two unexploded bombs weighing 250 kilograms (550 pounds) each, one British and the other American, were found and made safe. Searches for another two suspected bombs turned up nothing. The precautions included the evacuation of two hospitals and the interruption of rail traffic. The discovery of World War II bombs is not uncommon in Germany. Last September a 250-kilo bomb was made safe in Hanover, with 15,000 people evacuated.