News in Brief

Date: 14 December 2021 - 21:34

News ID: ۹۷۷۴۶

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – At least 50 people were killed when a gas tanker exploded in the Haitian city of Cap-Haitien on Tuesday morning, according to a local official, with overwhelmed local medics saying the toll was feared to rise. “I saw on the scene between 50 and 54 people burned alive,” Deputy Mayor Patrick Almonor said. “It is impossible to identify them.” Almonor also said “about 20” houses in the area were set ablaze by the explosion. Nearby Justinien University Hospital was overwhelmed with patients as the injured were transported to the facility. Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry declared three days of national mourning. According to Almonor, it appeared the truck driver lost control as it swerved to avoid a motorcycle taxi and the tanker flipped over. Almonor said fuel spilled onto the road and pedestrians rushed to collect the tanker’s gas, which is currently in short supply as Haiti grapples with a severe fuel shortage caused by the tightening grip of criminal gangs on the capital Port-au-Prince.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea on Tuesday marked its deadliest day of the pandemic as an unrelenting, delta-driven spread stretched thin hospitals and left people dying while waiting for beds. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said 94 virus patients died in the past 24 hours while a record 906 were in serious or critical condition. The 5,567 new infections were the highest yet for a Tuesday — daily tallies are usually smaller at the start of the week because of fewer tests on weekends – indicating the virus has continued to gain speed after the government moderately tightened social distancing last week. Park Hyang, a senior Health Ministry official, said medical resources are quickly running out in densely populated capital Seoul and nearby metropolitan areas, where around 86% of intensive care units designated for COVID-19 treatment were already occupied. More than 1,480 patients were still waiting to be admitted to hospitals or treatment shelters. At least 17 patients died last week at home or at facilities while waiting for beds.

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TUNIS (AFP) -- Tunisia’s President Kais Saeid extended his months-long suspension of parliament until new elections in December 2022, while calling for a July referendum on constitutional reforms. In a speech on national television, Saied announced a three-month “popular consultation” with the Tunisian people after which “draft constitutional and other reforms will be put forward to referendum on July 25”. That will mark a year since he sacked the government, suspended parliament and seized a string of powers, as the North African country wallowed in political and economic crises compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. He said that “parliament will remain suspended until new elections... on the basis of a new electoral law” on December 17 next year, the anniversary of the start of the 2011 revolution that chased dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power.

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MANILA (Reuters) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday withdrew his bid to become a senator, the same day his preferred successor quit the presidential race, adding to uncertainty about the mercurial leader’s political future and the scope of his influence. The president filed withdrawal papers at the election commission a few hours after longtime aide, Senator Christopher “Bong Go” did the same, a decision Duterte’s spokesman said was to enable him to better serve the country. The constitution bars Duterte, 76, from seeking reelection as president, but he was allowed to run for other positions in nationwide elections in May 2022. He had planned to pursue the vice presidency, but chose instead to seek a seat in the powerful senate. The withdrawal is the latest twist in a Philippine election race fraught with last-minute changes and surprises that have baffled political experts.

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SOFIA (Reuters) -- Bulgarian lawmakers voted in Kiril Petkov, a Harvard-educated entrepreneur, as prime minister and approved the lineup of his broad coalition government, ending months of political deadlock in the European Union’s poorest member state. Petkov, 41, whose new centrist faction We Continue The Change (PP) won Bulgaria’s third national election this year in November, secured a clear majority of 134 votes in the 240-member parliament to take over the reins of the Balkan country. He will lead an unprecedented ruling coalition with the leftist Socialists, anti-establishment ITN party and the centre-right Democratic Bulgaria, united under the motto “zero tolerance to corruption”, for a four-year term. The new government takes over following eight months of political impasse and two interim administrations after anger against high-level graft ended the decade-long rule of former centre-right premier Boyko Borissov.

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TIMBUKTU (AFP) -- French troops were preparing to leave the Malian city of Timbuktu on Tuesday, in a symbolic departure more than eight years after Paris first intervened in the conflict-torn Sahel state. It was there that then French president Francois Hollande formally declared the start of France’s military intervention, in February 2013. Since 2013, Paris has deployed around 5,100 troops across the Sahel region -- which includes Mali – purportedly helping to support local governments and their poorly equipped forces fight an ever-growing takfiri insurgency. However, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major drawdown of French troops in June, after a military takeover in Mali in August 2020 that ousted the elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. France’s military deployment in the Sahel is due to fall to about 3,000 troops by next year. French forces have already left bases in the northern Malian towns of Kidal and Tessalit.