News in Brief

Date: 09 November 2021 - 21:45

News ID: ۹۶۴۰۷

MADRID (Reuters) -- Spain has no plans to buy F35 fighter planes from the United States and remains committed to the European FCAS fighter program, a defense ministry spokeswoman said on Tuesday. A report on Nov. 4 in the French business magazine Challenges, citing an analyst at the defense specialist magazine Jane’s, suggested Spain may be interested in buying the F35 fighter from the United States. However, Spain said it was fully committed to the Franco-German-Spanish FCAS fighter plane project. “The Spanish government has no budget to enter into any other jet project in addition to the one that is already in place. We rule out entering the F35 project. Our investment commitment is in the FCAS,” the defense ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.

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TUNIS (Reuters) -- Tunisian protesters angered by an authority’s decision to reopen a controlled landfill in the southern town of Agareb‮ ‬set fire to a police station on Tuesday,‮ ‬witnesses said. The escalation of the protest came a day after the death of a man caused by asphyxiation from gas fired by the police, according to his family and witnesses. The interior ministry said the man was not involved in the protests and had died at his home, six kilometres away. Violent confrontations took place on the town’s streets as police fired tear gas to disperse protesters trying to block roads and throw stones at them. The incident is the first serious test facing Najla Boden’s government, appointed by president Kais Saied last month, in how to respond to protests over poor public services and fragile social and environmental conditions. The Agareb landfill, 20km from Sfax, was closed this year after residents complained about the spread of diseases in what they described as an environmental disaster.

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SANTIAGO (AFP) -- Chile’s lower house of congress approved the impeachment trial of President Sebastian Pinera on Tuesday over corruption allegations that appeared in the Pandora Papers leaks. Parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies gathered the 78 votes required to seek impeachment and advance proceedings to the Senate for Pinera’s involvement in the controversial sale of a mining company. The appeal for the impeachment of Pinera -- who is in the final stretch of his second term which began in March 2018 -- was presented in early October by members of the opposition, including socialist deputy Jaime Naranjo. Naranjo took 15 hours on the floor Monday to read from the 1,300-page accusation against the president, arguing that the Pinera’s “impunity” should end in the South American nation rattled by social unrest that broke out in 2019. The case grew as new details emerged about a deal revealed in the Pandora Papers document leak that showed offshore transactions involving political figures.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish riot police reinforced Poland’s eastern border on Tuesday, a day after hundreds of migrants tried to storm across the razor-wire border fence from Belarus. Thousands of migrants still remained on the Belarusian side and Polish authorities feared the tense standoff could escalate. Polish authorities reported that the situation on the border — which is also the eastern border for the 27-nation European Union and NATO — was calm overnight and Tuesday morning, but after Monday’s border scrum they said they were bracing for any possibility. Poland’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that a large group of Belarusian forces was moving toward the migrants, who were camping out on the border.

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PARIS (AFP) -- France urged Tuesday a “rapid solution” to a fishing dispute with Britain that has threatened to degenerate into a full-blown trade war, after new talks aimed at breaking weeks of deadlock. “France remains open to dialogue, but a rapid solution must be found for our fishermen, in line with the implementation of our agreements,” France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune wrote on Twitter after telephone talks with Britain’s Brexit minister, David Frost. The conversation came after a crunch face-to-face meeting between the two men in Paris on Thursday on a dispute that has severely exacerbated tensions between the Channel neighbors in the wake of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Beaune’s tweeted comment indicates that no breakthrough was found in the latest talks although dialogue is likely to continue. France had threatened to ban British boats from unloading their catches at French ports and to subject all British imports to inspections.

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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) -- Foreign envoys scrambled on Tuesday to end Ethiopia’s year-long war, hoping an African Union-led push can bring about a cessation of hostilities before a feared rebel march on the capital. Jeffrey Feltman, US special envoy for the Horn of Africa, returned to Ethiopia for a late-night meeting with his AU counterpart, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the State Department said. The UN has also tried to rally support for Obasanjo’s initiative to end a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced around two million, and inflicted atrocities and starvation on civilians. On Tuesday UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths called for peace following a visit to Tigray’s regional capital Mekele on Sunday during which he met with TPLF leaders. Briefing the AU’s 15-member security body on Monday, Obasanjo expressed optimism progress was in the offing.