News in Brief

Date: 25 January 2022 - 21:49

News ID: ۹۹۲۸۹

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) -- More than 1,000 people gathered in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday in support of a military coup that a day earlier ousted President Roch Kabore, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution. The fifth coup in West and Central Africa this decade comes amid an increasingly bloody Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel region, eroding faith in democratic leaders to combat the problem. On Monday, soldiers announced they had overthrown Kabore, who came to power in 2015, a move condemned internationally but welcomed by some at home tired of widespread insecurity, alleged corruption and deep poverty. The putchists, called the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR), presented Kabore with a hand-written resignation letter on Monday, which he signed, according to numerous sources who shared the letter with Reuters and verified its authenticity.

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SAN JUAN (Puerto Rico) (AFP) – Puerto Rican authorities hastily reinstalled a statue of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon that was toppled earlier Monday in the capital San Juan, just hours before a visit to the Caribbean island by Spain’s King Felipe VI. Local media reported that a group known as the Boriken Libertarian Forces has claimed responsibility. “Faced with the... visit of the King of Spain, Felipe VI, to Puerto Rico and the escalation of ‘gringo’ invaders taking over our lands, we want to send a clear message: Neither kings nor ‘gringo’ invaders,” the group wrote in a statement. Before the statue was reinstalled, Rafael Capo, a 35-year-old history teacher, decided to climb the empty pedestal in protest. For him, there is a direct link between the veneration of the Spanish colonial past, and Puerto Rico’s current political relationship with the United States. “Five hundred years later, history continues to repeat itself... They keep importing people from outside to get rid of the locals,” he said, referring to current government policies that offer tax benefits to foreigners, mostly wealthy Americans.

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MOSCOW (Dispatches) — Russian authorities have added imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and some of his top allies to the registry of terrorists and extremists. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, and eight of his allies — including top aides Lyubov Sobol and Georgy Alburov — were on Tuesday added to the registry by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service. The law requires that the bank accounts of those on the list be frozen. The move comes just over a year after Navalny’s arrest. The politician was detained upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied any involvement.

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BERLIN (Dispatches) -- A mosque in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt province has been targeted in an assault rifle attack, in a latest case of anti-Muslim violence in Western Europe. A report in Anadolu Agency, citing a police statement, said two individuals heard shots being fired near the Islamic Cultural Center in Halle, a city in central Germany. The police discovered three bullets on the ground, the report stated, but no casualties took place. The suspect was identified as a 55-year old-man living in an apartment across the mosque. Eyewitnesses had seen him opening fire on the mosque from his home. Two weapons – a long gun and a gas pistol – were recovered from his possession by the police. The Central Council of Muslims, a leading Islamic organization in Germany, condemned the shooting incident in a statement on Monday.

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MAPUTO (Reuters) -- A tropical storm that made landfall in Mozambique on Monday has killed two people and injured 66, the southern African country’s disaster institute said, citing preliminary information. The storm, called Ana, partially destroyed 546 homes and completely destroyed another 115, the National Institute for Management and Disaster Risk Reduction said in a statement. It said six provinces were affected: Nampula, Zambezia, Tete, Niassa, Sofala and Manica. Mozambique has been repeatedly struck by severe storms and cyclones in recent years that have destroyed infrastructure and displaced large numbers of people. Experts say the storms have become stronger as waters have warmed due to climate change, while rising sea levels have made low-lying coastal areas vulnerable.

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JAKARTA (Reuters) -- At least 19 people have died after a karaoke bar in Indonesia’s West Papua was set ablaze following a brawl between rival gangs of youths in the area, police in the provincial capital of Sorong said on Tuesday. One person was fatally stabbed in the fight early on Tuesday before the venue was set on fire with 18 people trapped inside, a police official said. “Fights among youths in cities are normal, but that it has caused so many deaths, that is a first,” Adam Erwini, a spokesman for West Papua police, told Metro TV. Adam said the deadly incident at the entertainment venue in Sorong was still under investigation, and it was unclear if the death toll would rise. Separately, Dedi Prasetyo, a spokesman for Indonesia’s national police said the brawl was between two rival gangs from the neighboring island of Maluku.