A knife attack occurred early on Wednesday at Paris’s international Gare du Nord station, leaving six people hurt, including one who is critically injured.
The man was stopped, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, by two police officers who were not on duty but were heading home after a shift.
He claimed that the alleged assailant had been shot three times and was taken to the hospital with serious wounds.
Authorities are attempting to determine whether the attack had a purpose.
The attack took place at 06:42 (05:42 GMT) – within one minute all six people were injured and the attacker was stopped.
Mr Darmanin thanked for police for their “brave and effective” intervention, which he said saved many lives.
He added that among the injured was one border force officer.
Police are yet to name the man, who did not have identity documents on him at the time he was taken to hospital.
Criminal investigators have taken control of the case for now, rather than anti-terror police, Mr Darmanin said.
The incident caused major delays to trains at the station in the early morning rush, with police cordoning off the station and setting up large white curtains around the attack scene.
Paris Gare du Nord is one of the busiest international railway stations in Europe – with about 700,000 travellers a day.
InCalifornia, where a powerful storm has caused flooding, strong winds, and torrential rains, at least 14 people have died.
While millions more are under severe weather warnings, thousands of people have evacuated their homes.
Data from Poweroutage.us show that nearly 188,000 homes and businesses were without electricity.
Much of the state is expected to experience heavy rain all day Tuesday, and some areas could experience hazardous mudslides as a result.
It has been referred to as “the most impressive storm since January 2005” by the National Weather Service (NWS).
The weather is expected to dump up to 7in (18cm) of rain in some parts by Wednesday and could produce additional flooding, mudslides and landslides. particularly in areas previously hardest hit by heavy rainfall, NWS officials warned.
“An enormous cyclone” is developing off the coast, officials said.
A five-year-old, who was swept away by floodwaters near Paso Robles on Monday, is still missing.
The boy and his mother were reportedly in a truck taking him to school when the vehicle was overcome by water. It sparked a seven-hour search that was called off when the conditions became too dangerous for divers. He has not been declared dead, local officials said, however details of when the search will resume have not been given.
Around 90% of Californians – some 34 million people in the most-populous US state – are under flood watch, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“This is not a day to be out doing anything you don’t have to,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told the Los Angeles Times.
An order issued on Monday afternoon by the Montecito Fire Department directed residents of the town and nearby canyons: “Leave now!”
Residents unable to flee were told to move to their innermost room or high ground.
Image caption, Creeks in Montecito, and around California, have flooded into roadways
The NWS reported that up to 14in (35.5cm) of rain was dumped in the last 24 hours in the region.
Across the state, average rainfall totals have hit between 400% and 600% above average values, the NWS said on Tuesday.
People living in the elite coastal enclave of Montecito were among those ordered to leave their homes.
Montecito is home to many Hollywood stars, including actor Rob Lowe, and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who posted a video from the banks of a flooded creek on Monday.
“This is crazy!” DeGeneres said. “This creek next to our house never flows, ever. It’s probably about nine feet up and is going to go another two feet up.”
The evacuation comes on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide in Montecito that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes.
This new round of severe weather will bring heavy rain onalready flooded rivers, damaging winds that are expected to topple trees and power lines, and heavy snow in the California mountains.
Image caption,A damaged road in the Santa Cruz mountains
The NWS forecasts the heaviest and most widespread rain to hit early Tuesday and into the afternoon. The agency issued a flood warning in areas around Los Angeles, including Orange County and the San Bernardino County Mountains.
Other evacuations have been ordered by officials, including in areas downstream of reservoirs that could overflow.
President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for California on Monday, which allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to provide disaster relief.
What are atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones?
In the last week, California has experienced two overlapping weather phenomena – an atmospheric river, where an airborne stream of dense moisture flows in from the ocean, and a bomb cyclone, a storm with a rapid drop in pressure that creates an explosive effect.
Watch: More perilous storms head to California and Oregon
Atmospheric rivers can cause extreme rainfall and floods. Bomb cyclones require a mix of high and low temperatures, rising and dropping air pressure, and moisture, often resulting in strong winds and severe storms.
Much of the area hit by heavy rain has been under extreme drought conditions. Last year, California capped how much water residents can use in an effort to conserve its depleting supply.
Despite the rain, much of the state remains under moderate to extreme drought warnings, according to the US Drought Monitor.
Experts have said that it would take many years of rain to reverse the two-decade drought that has hit the western US.
The passing of Afia Schwarzenegger’s brother, who died just days before their late father’sfirst anniversary, was reported on Tuesday.
On January 17, 2022, their father Augustine Agyei, who was 83 years old, passed away.
The well-known media personality pleaded with God in an Instagram post to show mercy and forgiveness if she had ever wronged him.
Her comment has received different interpretations from sympathizers. Friends and fans have sent their condolences to Afia Schwar and her bereaved family.
“God, forgive me if I have wronged you. Please God, please,” read the caption of the video that captured Afia and her late brother, Richard Osei Bonsu.
On January 10, the actress and media personality took to hersocial media pages to break the news by sharing some fond memories of her deceased brother.
“My brother Richard Osei Bonsu is dead. Just exactly 1 week to my father’s 1 year. Please, I beg everyone to give me and my family privacy in this difficult time. Thank you. It is well. Rest in peace Abban,” she wrote.
Popular media personality Nana Aba Anamoah has expressed her opinions on the Meek Mill saga, which has recently been a hot topic in the media.
Nana Aba contends that she is absolutely certain that the president was completely unaware of Meek Mill’s video shoot at the Jubilee House.
Following the release of Meek Mill’s video, in which he was seen getting cosy at some unauthorised locations at the Jubilee House, officials at the presidency, including President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, have experienced intense backlash on social media.
In the said video, the American rapper was spotted at different locations at the Jubilee House, from the frontage, through the main corridors, in the main conference hall, at a point positioned behind the presidential podium, and later in a sitting area rapping.
Some individuals who have been appalled by the development have since described it as a complete desecration of the seat of the president.
Others have launched a series of attacks on the president for enabling the act, while intermittently firing shots at Meek Mill.
But Nana Aba thinks that the government should be given some slack.
Wading into the discussion on Twitter, the popular broadcaster strongly believes that Meek Mill took those shots at the blind side of the presidency.
“I can bet my last coin that the President knew absolutely nothing about that shoot,” she wrote.
She did, however, insist that, while Meek Mill’s act is repugnant, the people who authorized it would not face any consequences.
“I however, doubt anything will happen to whoever authorized it (if they decide to investigate how Meek Mill desecrated the Jubilee House that way),” she added.
Rioters stormed key government buildings in Brasilia, prompting Brazilian judicial authorities to order the arrest of top public officials.
Local media has reported that, one official, the former commander of the military police, has been arrested.
According to the solicitor general’s office, the officials also include Brasilia’s former public security chief Anderson Torres and others “responsible for acts and omissions” that led to the riots.
Mr. Torres has denied any involvement in the riots.
Colonel Fábio Augusto, the police commander, was fired after ex-President Jair Bolsonaro supporters stormed Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court.
The rioting came a week after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, was sworn in.
The dramatic scenes saw thousands of protesters, some clad in yellow Brazil football shirts and waving flags, overrun police and ransack the heart of the Brazilian state.
Of the approximately 1,500 people arrested and brought to the police academy after the riot, officials say that nearly 600 have been taken to other facilities, where police officials have five days to formally charge them.
Image caption,Former Justice Minister Anderson Torres
Earlier on Tuesday, the federal intervenor in public security accused Mr Torres of “a structured sabotage operation”.
Ricardo Cappelli, who has been appointed to run security in Brasília, said there was a “lack of command” from Mr Torres before government buildings were stormed.
Lula’s inauguration on 1 January was “an extremely successful security operation,” Mr Cappelli told CNN.
What changed before Sunday was that, on 2 January, “Anderson Torres took over as Secretary of Security, dismissed the entire command and travelled”, he said.
“If this isn’t sabotage, I don’t know what is,” Mr Cappelli added.
Mr Torres said that he deeply regretted the “absurd hypotheses” that he played any part in the riots.
He said the scenes, which occurredduring his family holiday, were lamentable and said it was “the most bitter day” of his personal and professional life.
Lula has accused security forces of “neglecting” their duty in not halting the “terrorist acts” in Brasília.
Public prosecutors asked on Tuesday for a federal audit court to freeze Mr Bolsonaro’s assets in light of the riots.
The former president, who has condemned the riots, has not admitted defeat from October’s tight election that divided the nation, and flew to the US before the handover on 1 January.
On Monday, he was admitted to hospital in Florida with abdominal pain relating to a stabbing attack during his election campaign in 2018. Reports say he left the hospital on Tuesday.
Mr Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he intended to return to Brazil, telling CNN that he would bring forward his departure from the US, which was originally scheduled for the end of January.
A day after the riots, heavily armed officers started dismantling a camp of Mr Bolsonaro’s supporters in Brasília – one of a number that have been set up outside army barracks around the country since the presidential election.
Mr Torres, who previously served as Mr Bolsonaro’s justice minister, was fired from his role as Secretary of Public Security on Sunday by Brasília governor Ibaneis Rocha.
Mr Rocha was himself later removed from his post for 90 days by the Supreme Court.
Lula has also taken aim at the security forces, accusing them of “incompetence, bad faith or malice” for failing to stop demonstrators accessing Congress.
“You will see in the images that they [police officers] are guiding people on the walk to Praca dos Tres Powers,” he said. “We are going to find out who the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasília are and they will all pay with the force of law.”
Video shared by the Brazilian outlet O Globo showed some officers laughing and taking photos together as demonstrators occupied the congressional campus in the background.
Protesters had been gathering since the morning on the lawns in front of the parliament and up and down the kilometre of the Esplanada avenue, which is lined with government ministries and national monuments.
Despite the actions of the protesters, in the hours before the chaos, security had appeared tight, with the roads closed for about a block around the parliament area and armed police pairs guarding every entrance into the area.
The BBC had seen about 50 police officers around on Sunday morning local time and cars were turned away at entry points, while those entering on foot were frisked by police checking bags.
According to Katy Watson, the BBC’s South America correspondent, some protesters aren’t just angry that Mr Bolsonaro lost the election – they want President Lula to return to prison.
Mr Bolsonaro has gone very quiet since losing October’s elections, she said, adding that in not publicly conceding defeat, he’s allowed his most ardent supporters to remain angry over a democratic election that he legitimately lost.
The former president condemned the attack and denied responsibility for encouraging the rioters in a post on Twitter some six hours after violence broke out.
On Tuesday, his son, Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, said people should not try to link his father to the riots, stating that he has been silently “licking his wounds” since losing the election
The government of Rwanda has changed its position on President Paul Kagame’s stance that the nation will no longer provide asylum to individuals escaping conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Refugees crossing the border into Rwanda, according to Mr. Kagame, are “not Rwanda’s problem.”
“I am refusing that Rwanda should carry this burden,” the president said.
But in a statement on Tuesday night, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said Rwanda had no intention to expel or ban refugees.
She accused the media of misrepresenting President Kagame’s remarks.
“What the President addressed was the blatant hypocrisy in criticising Rwanda which simultaneously gets the blame for state failure in the DRC [DR Congo], and is then expected to accommodate those who seek refuge from the consequences of that failure,” she tweeted.
Rwanda has no intention to expel or ban refugees. We always welcome people fleeing insecurity, persecution and violence. We are asking for the international community to take responsibility for finding a durable solution for this forgotten group of refugees from the DRC. 4/4
Environmental activist Maria Marquez, who survived a 2019 assassination attempt, claims explosives were discovered close to her house.
The assassination attempt near Francia Marquez’s home was thwarted, according to the vice president of Colombia, who was elected on a historic ballot in August.
The nation’s first Afro-Colombian vice president, Marquez, announced on Twitter on Tuesday that her security had “deactivated and destroyed a high-capacity explosive device” in the road leading to her family’s home in the village of Yolombo in the country’s southwest.
Marquez said the device contained more than seven kilograms (15.4 lbs) of explosive devices and involved “a plastic bag containing a high-powered explosive substance made of ammonium nitrate, powdered aluminum, and… nails.”
She added that her security agents discovered the explosive after reports of suspicious behavior by “outside elements” in the area.
No further details were immediately available.
Integrantes de mi equipo de seguridad hallaron un artefacto con más de 7 kilos de material explosivo en la vía que conduce a mi residencia familiar en la vereda de Yolombó, en Suarez, Cauca. El mismo fue destruido de manera controlada por personal anti explosivos de la SIJIN. pic.twitter.com/gUpYQVOfFD
Marquez, a vaunted environmental activist, became part of Colombia’s first-ever left-wing government following her victory with President Gustavo Petro, a former mayor of Bogota and one-time rebel with the now-defunct M-19 movement.
The election underlined a drastic change in presidential politics in Colombia, a country that has long approached leftist candidates warily for their perceived association with decades of armed conflict.
Petro has attempted to end the continuing violence in the country by negotiating with left-wing rebels and armed groups such as drug traffickers, drawing criticism from right-wing factions.
‘Another attempt’
In her tweet on Tuesday, Marquez noted the incident represented “another attempt on my life”.
In 2019, following a series of death threats, Marquez was attacked in her conflict-wracked home region of Cauca by men wielding guns and grenades during a meeting with community leaders. She was not harmed.
Activists are often targeted in Colombia, where armed groups and criminal gangs remain active despite a 2016 peace deal between the government and the FARC rebel group. At least 138 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, accounting for more than a third of the global total.
Shortly after the swearing-in in August, a vehicle in Petro’s presidential motorcade also came under gunfire in the northeast of the country. The government said no one was hurt in the attack, which occurred at an illegal checkpoint.
Pell passed away at the age of 81. TheCatholic Church was shocked by Cardinal George Pell’s conviction on child abuse charges, which was later overturned.
The former Vatican treasurer is the highest-ranking Catholic priest ever imprisoned in Australia and the most senior Church official ever.
Church officials claim that he passed away from heart issues following hip surgery.
Before becoming one of the Pope’s top advisors, Cardinal Pell served as both the Archbishop of Melbourne and the Archbishop of Sydney.
He was summoned to Rome in 2014 to clean up the Vatican’s finances, and was often described as the Church’s third-ranked official.
But the cleric left his post in 2017, returning to Australia to face trial on child sex abuse charges.
A jury in 2018 found he had abused two boys while Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
Cardinal Pell, who always maintained his innocence, spent 13 months in prison before the High Court of Australia quashed the verdict in 2020.
However a civil lawsuit – launched by the father of a choirboy that prosecutors alleged Cardinal Pell abused – is still under way.
Meanwhile a landmark inquiry found that he knew of child sexual abuse by priests in Australia as early as the 1970s but failed to take action.
The Child Abuse Royal Commission ran for several years, interviewing thousands of people, and its findings relating to Cardinal Pell were released after his acquittal. Cardinal Pell denied the allegation, insisting it was “not supported by evidence”.
Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli paid tribute to Cardinal Pell as “a very significant and influential Church leader” while Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his death would be a “shock to many”.
Image caption,Cardinal George Pell was Australia’s highest ranking Catholic cleric
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott – a Catholic – praised the cleric as a “saint for our times” and “an inspiration for the ages”, saying the charges he’d faced were “a modern form of crucifixion”.
But Steve Dimopoulos – a government minister in Cardinal Pell’s home state of Victoria – was among those who voiced mixed feelings.
“Today would be a very difficult day for the cardinal’s family and loved ones, but also very difficult for survivors and victims of child sexual abuse and their families and my thoughts are with them,” he said.
The cardinal was a polarising figure, both in Australia and abroad, something he himself conceded.
He rose to prominence in theChurch as a strong supporter of traditional Catholic values, often taking conservative views and advocating for priestly celibacy.
Speaking to the BBC in 2020, Cardinal Pell said there was “no doubt” that his “direct” style and traditional approach to issues such as abortion had driven parts of the public against him.
“The fact that I defend Christian teachings is irritating to a lot of people,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme.
The revised Electronic Transaction Levy (e-levy) rate of 1.0% is expected to take effect today, January 11, 2022, as announced by the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications.
A statement from the chamber confirming the implementation noted that “as captured in the Electronic Transfer Levy (Amendment) Act, 2022, Act 1089 which has been passed by parliament and assented to by the President, the levy on electronic transfers has been reduced from 1.5% to 1%, while the GH₵100 threshold remains unchanged.”
The directive is in line with policies outlined by the Finance Minister in the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy.
Reading the Budget Statement, Mr Ofori-Atta noted the E-Levy Act will be reviewed “and more specifically, the headline rate will be reduced from 1.5% to 1% of the transaction value.”
He also announced the removal of the daily threshold of GH₵100, however, after debating the matter, Parliament approved only the revised rate.
The E-levy since its implementation has been greeted with mixed reactions from the public. While it’s implementers believed it was the surest way to raise revenue for the state, the tax measure was highly criticised by another section of the public who argued that it was not only a way of double taxing citizens or Mobile Money (MoMo) users, but also, it had the tendency of collapsing the MoMo business.
Nonetheless, the levy was approved by Parliament in a dramatic way, after which its implementation took effect on May 1, 2022.
Fews months later, the government disclosed that the tax did not rake in the expected revenue and a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Otchere-Darko, stated that the levy generated only 10% of the expected revenue.
“After 5 months of stalemate and bashing, the e-levy, after implementation, is delivering only 10% of estimated revenues; our revenues remain very low as compared to the rest of the world; debt levels dangerously high, cedi, like most currencies, struggling against the US dollar,” he wrote in tweet.
Meanwhile, the Chamber has given the public the assurance that its members are working feverishly with theGhana Revenue Authority and other crucial institutions to ensure a smooth implementation of the updated electronic transfer levy.
Accusations that Prince Harry boasted about killing 25 Taliban fighters while on duty in Afghanistan have been called a “dangerous lie,” according to Prince Harry.
Several military leaders criticized the prince for bringing up murders in Spare, claiming it was improper to refer to the deceased as “chess pieces.”
Harry, however, claimed on US television that the media misinterpreted what he said and threatened his family with the misinterpretation.
He also defended his remarks by saying that his goal was to lower veteran suicide.
Spare, which was published on Tuesday, has become the fastest-selling non-fiction book ever in the UK.
Some 400,000 copies of the memoir have been bought, despite many excerpts being leaked in the press ahead of its official release.
In a wide-ranging interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show – the first conducted after details from the book were published – Harry suggested there had been attempts to undermine his book, spoke of his fractured relationship with his brother, and attacked the “bigoted” British press.
Harry said writing the book had been a “cathartic” experience and the “most vulnerable I have ever been in my life”, while also leaving him feeling stronger.
But he added: “The last few days have been hurtful and challenging, not being able to do anything about those leaks.”
In his condemnation of the media coverage, Harry claimed outlets had intentionally chosen to “strip away the context” of his account.
“Without a doubt, the most dangerous lie that they have told, is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan,” he said.
“If I heard anyone boasting about that kind of thing, I would be angry. But it’s a lie.
“It’s really troubling and very disturbing that they can get away with it… My words are not dangerous – but the spin of my words are very dangerous to my family. That is a choice they’ve made.”
He said he had wanted to be honest about his experience inAfghanistan, and to give veterans the space to share theirs “without any shame”.
“My whole goal and my attempt with sharing that detail is to reduce the number of [veteran] suicides,” he added.
Harry also claimed Buckingham Palace attempted to undermine the stories told in his memoir, assisted by the British press.
No names were mentioned but host Colbert asked if there had been attempts by the palace to undermine the book.
“Of course, and mainly by the British press,” he replied, without going into more detail.
In lighter moments during the interview, Harry drank Tequila with Colbert, joked that it felt like “group therapy” and performed a skit introducing the show with Hollywood actor Tom Hanks.
Image caption,Harry served as an Apache helicopter pilot in 2012-13
In Spare, Prince Harry reveals for the first time that he killed 25 enemy fighters during two tours in the Helmand region of Afghanistan.
“It wasn’t a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it make me ashamed,” he writes.
“When I was plunged into the heat and confusion of battle, I didn’t think about those as 25 people. You can’t kill people if you see them as people.
“In truth, you can’t hurt people if you see them as people. They were chess pieces taken off the board, bad guys eliminated before they kill good guys.”
Subsequent media coverage of the comments, which were leaked to the press ahead of the book’s publication, drew criticism from figures in the military.
Ex-army officer Col Richard Kemp, who oversaw forces in Afghanistan, told the BBC he was concerned at references to dead Taliban insurgents as chess pieces, saying such descriptions could give “propaganda to the enemy”.
And Ex-colonel Tim Collins, who gained worldwide fame for an eve-of battle speech to troops in Iraq, said: “He has badly let the side down. We don’t do notches on the rifle butt. We never did.”
Going into ‘Three Amigos’ summit, the US, Canada, and Mexico will also pledge new cooperation on migration, climate change, and drugs, the White House says.
The White House has announced a series of pledges made withMexico and Canada ahead of the “Three Amigos” summit, and cooperation on bolstering the supply of semiconductors, a market currently dominated by Asia, topped the list.
The announcement on Tuesday came hours before US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to meet for the 10th North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City. It also included a new agreement on addressing climate change, an updated strategy for dealing with drug smuggling and modest new measures aimed at stemming the region’s worsening migrant crisis.
Hours before Tuesday’s summit, Biden met one-on-one with Trudeau. On Monday, Biden and Lopez Obrador held talks, in which they discussed strengthening economic ties, fighting the illegal drug trade and reducing migration, the White House said.
“This is a relationship which is a fraternal relationship of friendship between our two peoples,” Lopez Obrador said ahead of the meeting on Monday, striking a warm tone despite the left-wing leader’s generally cool approach to Mexico’s northern neighbours since taking office in 2018.
After hailing Biden as a “humanistic president, a visionary president”, Lopez Obrador called on him to “turn away from this abandonment, this disdain and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean”. He added that Biden holds the key to greater “economic, social integration” and a wider pivot away from a regional reliance on Asian manufacturing.
Biden, meanwhile, said the duo would address “strengthening our supply chains” while stressing the need to combat fentanyl smuggling, which has fuelled an addiction crisis in the US, and an increase in migrants and asylum seekers crossing the US-Mexico boder. Both are politically fraught issues in the US.
In turn, the US leader also pointed to the billions of dollars that Washington spends in foreign aid around the world, saying that “unfortunately, our responsibility just doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.”
In joint statements before their bilateral meeting, Trudeau and Biden also said the North American leaders will also focus on efforts to stabilise crisis-hit Haiti during the meeting.
“As we talk about issues, whether it’s Haiti, whether it’s some of the challenges in South America, whether we talk about critical minerals and energy, and how we’re going to move forward to create those efficient and resilient supply chains that we need, there’s a lot that we’re going to be able to do together,” Trudeau said.
Pledges on semiconductors, drug smuggling, migration
Among the early joint pledges announced by the White House on Tuesday was an agreement to hold a “first-ever trilateral semiconductor forum”, aimed at strengthening investment in the semiconductor supply chain.
Semiconductors are used in nearly all forms of modern technology and computing. The strategically significant industry has emerged as a top economic and security priority for all three countries due to supply-chain shortages in recent years that have stoked concerns of an over-reliance on Asia.
The three countries also pledged to adopt an “updated strategic framework” to address threats posed by illegal drug trafficking, including, among other measures, “increased information sharing” on the chemicals used to make fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.
On migration, the trio announced only modest pledges aimed at building on previous development agreements and increasing the availability of information for migrants and asylum seekers.
Those agreements were made after Lopez Obrador signalled on Monday that he was open to considering accepting more migrants and asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela who are expelled by the US. It now takes in 30,000 a month under a previous agreement with the Biden administration. US officials later said no increase had been agreed to.
Human rights groups have criticised the US policy for expelling asylum seekers who attempt to cross the border without offering them the opportunity to seek protection and instead sending them to an unfamiliar country. In return, under the Biden administration policy, 30,000 people per month from those four nations are eligible to work legally in the US for two years, granted they have sponsorship, pass background checks and take an airline flight to the country.
On climate change, the trio committed to reducing methane emissions from solid waste and wastewater by at least 15 percent from 2020 levels by 2030, the White House said.
The North American Leaders Summit is the second to be held since Biden took office in 2021 and resumed the gatherings, which were discontinued for four years under former President Donald Trump.
After the 2021 meeting in Washington, DC, the leaders hailed their reinvigorated partnership.
Still, relations have continued to chafe in some areas, notably over Mexico’s decision to give control of the country’s energy market to cash-strapped state energy companies, which Ottawa and Washington say undermines the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal. Mexico and Canada have also voiced concerns over Biden administration policies that encourage the use of domestic manufacturers for public infrastructure projects.
Biden is the first US president to travel to Mexico since former President Barack Obama made the trip in 2014.
The sale of electric cars is growing. Globally, some 2 million electric vehicles were sold in the first quarter of 2022 – 75% more than in the first three months of 2021. Most, though, are sold in high income countries.
As transport electrification takes hold in rich countries to reduce emissions that lead to climate change and air pollution, increasing numbers of internal combustion engine vehicles are likely to land in used vehicle markets.
Africa is already one of the main destinations for used vehicles. Between 2015 and 2018, the European Union, Japan, and the United States exported 14 million used vehicles worldwide. Forty percent of these went to African countries.
Used vehicles serve real needs in the continent by supporting mobility and generating livelihoods for millions of people, including mechanics, sprayers, and other garage operators. But they also contribute to its public health and environmental problems through crashes and pollution.
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This is largely because the vehicles that are exported to African countries run mainly on fossil fuel and tend to be over-aged, highly polluting and prone to malfunctioning. Sometimes, modifications to these vehicles – such as the removal of catalytic converters to source precious metals – make them even more polluting.
Africa’s dependency on used vehicles is often attributed to low incomes and weak regulation. The cost of new vehicles and limited access to loans put new vehicles beyond the financial reach of the majority. Environmental and public health protection standards against used vehicle harms are weak and poorly enforced in many African countries. The cost of repairing old vehicles, too, is relatively low.
Together, these factors tend to elevate demand for used vehicles. And supply is ready because wealthy countries have stringent recycling policies. However, this is not the full picture.
Our recent paper explores Ghana’s dependence on used vehicles. We found that low incomes and poor regulation tell us only so much about it. This explanation also tends to limit the policy tools to bans and import restrictions. We argue that a more holistic view reveals more at play and opens up more policy options.
Used vehicles in Ghana
Ghana has revised some planning laws inherited from its colonial experience. Nevertheless, as with their counterparts in other African countries, the attitudes and practices of Ghanaian politicians and professionals around planning, transport and land use still reflect colonial frameworks and mentalities.
These practices continue to promote the spatial separation of work and other activities like shopping for food far from home. This compels or encourages people to travel more. Road construction gets priority over public transport provision. Roads have huge political value in Ghana. Voters love roads, and constructing them generates great opportunities for kickbacks and profiteering.
These dynamics create incentives for investing ever more in roads. Indeed, the Ghanaian Ministry of Transport reports that over 80% of the government’s annual transport budget goes into road projects. Roads induce more spread-out land use – requiring more travel.
The roads are primarily designed for cars – they often lack pedestrian pathways, crossovers and bicycle lanes.
The construction of more and more roads, coupled with under-investment in public and non-motorised transport and the high social status attached to car ownership, encourages higher income individuals to import vehicles for their personal use.
The demand for private vehicles is easily met by importers focused on the cheaper used vehicles in abundant supply. Well-documented corruption in the Customs Service also undermines effective enforcement of regulations for importing used vehicles. Benefits accrue to powerful actors connected to the sector, and this is a very regressive approach.
The minibus (popularly called “tro-tro”) sector has stepped in to meet the high public transport demand. Some studies suggest that the sector serves about 60% of Ghana’s travelling public. The operators, however, remain highly fragmented and largely focused on individual short-term profits. Service improvements – like more efficient operations, fleet renewal or electrification – that require more capital are neglected.
The government of Ghana and its “development partners” direct their high quality bus investments into Bus Rapid Transit projects which do not always work as planned, leaving gaps. These conditions encourage the continuing purchase and use of second-hand minibuses, which are often poorly maintained and kept on the roads even as they get older and more dangerous. Their regular use means that large numbers of people are exposed to discomfort, air pollution, poor safety and other problems. Research shows that poor minibus (tro-tro) transport experience adds to the factors that push people towards used private car consumption in Ghana.
Big picture view of the problem
Currently, a focus on weak regulation and poverty leads to bans and penalties on used vehicle imports as the primary policy response to Africa’s used vehicle dependency. A broader view, incorporating land-use patterns, and investment in public transport, provides new policy options for reducing used vehicle and vehicle consumption generally.
The options could include:
changing town and city planning to allow people to live, work and shop in the same area and therefore travel less
investments to make public transport as well as walking and cycling cleaner, safer, efficient, affordable and attractive
investments in public transport infrastructure like dedicated bus lanes and proper bus stops, stations and passenger information
tax relief and financial support for new public transport vehicles – minibus recapitalisation programmes like South Africa’s can introduce higher occupancy, low emissions and safer vehicles
minibus electrification and investment in emerging local electrification initiatives.
Overall, there is a need for policy shifts from just banning used vehicle imports, and building more and more expensive roads. A broader range of interventions exists that can shift Ghana and other countries away from automobile dependency and all the socio-environmental harms that this brings.
DISCLAIMER: Independent Ghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
In response to criticism of military failures, top Russian generals promise to strengthen the Russian army.
After a string of defeats on the battlefield in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin’s defence minister promised to expand Russia’s arsenal of weapons, advance aviation technology to better evade air defences, and increase drone production.
The smaller Ukrainian army, which is backed by the United States and its European allies, has repeatedly outwitted and outmanoeuvred the once-mighty army of a former superpower since Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.
The conflict has turned into a grinding war of attrition that has killed and wounded tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, as well as Ukrainian civilians, though there is no end in sight, and both sides are re-arming as fast as they can.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu told top generals that to renew the army, they would have to take account of the experience of fighting in the Syrian civil war – where Russia intervened on the side of President Bashar al-Assad – and in Ukraine.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu speaks during a meeting with Russian high-level officers in Moscow, Russia [Russian Defence Ministry Press Service via AP]
“We need to constantly analyse and systematise the experience of our groups’ actions in Ukraine and Syria, and on that basis to draw up training programmes for personnel and plans for the supply of military equipment,” Shoigu said.
Putin, after meeting the mothers of dead soldiers, ordered Shoigu on January 2 to prepare a report on how military units are supplied, with details about weapons and equipment as well as proposals on how to improve the defence ministry’s work.
Russian troops take part in drills at an unspecified location in Belarus, December 28, 2022 [File: Russian Defence Ministry Press Service via AP]
Nuclear guarantee
Shoigu said Russia would continue to develop its nuclear triad of ballistic missiles, submarines and strategic bombers because such weapons were “the main guarantee of its sovereignty”.
On conventional weapons, Shoigu gave a remarkably frank analysis of where Russia needed to improve.
Nationalist critics of Shoigu have repeatedly asked why Russia failed to establish air superiority in Ukraine, why top generals made such grave tactical mistakes and why Russian soldiers were sent into battle without the right equipment, intelligence or even medical kits.
Shoigu said Russia would pay particular attention to the air force, build up its overall attack capabilities and improve command, communication and training.
Russia will “increase the combat capabilities of the aerospace forces – both in terms of the work of fighters and bombers in areas where modern air defence systems are in operation, and in terms of improving unmanned aerial vehicles”.
“Our immediate plans are to expand the arsenals of modern strike weapons,” he said. “We need to improve the management and communication system.”
Shoigu also said the military commissariats, which are responsible for drafting soldiers, needed to be modernised.
After Putin ordered on September 21 what he cast as a “partial mobilisation”, Russia’s first since World War II, about 300,000 additional men were drafted, though several hundred thousand more Russian men fled abroad to avoid being called up.
“It is necessary to digitalise databases, establish interaction with local and regional authorities, as well as industry,” Shoigu said of the commissariats.
Pashinyan is growing more and more angry atRussia for not securing free passage along a corridor connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a move that reflects growing hostility between Yerevan and Moscow, Armenia has announced that it will not host military exercises by the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), an alliance of post-Soviet nations led by Russia.
Russian officials announced earlier this year that the group, which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, would hold its annual exercises in Armenia.
“The Armenian defence minister has informed the CSTO Joint Staff that in the current situation, we consider it unreasonable to hold CSTO exercises on the territory of Armenia. At least, such exercises will not take place in Armenia this year,” Interfax news agency reported Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying.
From left: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, President of the European Council Charles Michel, and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev [File: François Walscherts/AFP]
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about the cancelled military drill, said Moscow would ask Yerevan to clarify its position.
“In any case, Armenia is our close ally, and we will continue our dialogue, including the most complex issues,” he told reporters.
Pashinyan’s move followed his refusal in 2022 to sign a concluding document from a meeting of the leaders of CSTO member nations in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.
Nagorno-Karabakh
The tensions are rooted in Armenia’s conflicts with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The two ex-Soviet states maintain good relations with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine; Armenia hosts a Russian military base and the Kremlin wants to maintain ties with oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That conflict left not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself but large chunks of surrounding lands in Armenian hands.
In 44 days of heavy fighting that began in September 2020, the Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces, forcing Yerevan to accept a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw the return of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
The agreement also required Armenia to hand over swaths of land it held outside the separatist region.
Pashinyan has repeatedly criticised Russian peacekeepers for failure to secure free transit along a corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Lachin province, which lies between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, was the last of three areas on the region’s rim that Armenian forces surrendered in December 2020.
Russia deployed nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to ensure safe transit across the region and monitor the peace deal.
But travel across the Lachin province has been blocked since December 12 by Azerbaijanis identifying themselves as environmental activists who say that Armenia has unlawful mining sites in the region.
Armenia has called on Russian peacekeepers unblock the road, but Moscow has adopted a backseat approach to the dispute, which has angered the Armenian government.
“Russia’s military presence in Armenia not only fails to guarantee its security, but it raises security threats for Armenia,” Pashinyan said on Tuesday.
He added that the blockade of the Lachin corridor is intended to “break the will of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh”, and that Armenia will also seek support from the US and the European Union to help ease the tensions with Azerbaijan.
Beijing halts the issuance of visas to citizens ofSouth Korea and Japan in what appears to be retaliation for the COVID-19 restrictions placed on Chinese travelers.
China has reportedly stopped issuing short-term visas to citizens of South Korea and Japan, according to its embassies in Seoul and Tokyo, in what appears to be retaliation for COVID-19 travel restrictions put in place for Chinese citizens following a rise in coronavirus cases in the nation.
After Beijing changed its strict “Zero COVID” policy last month in response to widespread protests, Seoul and Tokyo joined more than a dozen other nations in imposing new travel restrictions on travellers arriving from China due to worries about rising infection rates.
Beijing claims that the limitations imposed on its citizens are unjust and not supported by science.
“Chinese embassies and consulates in Korea will suspend the issuance of short-term visas for Korean citizens,” Beijing’s embassy in Seoul said, adding that the measures would be “adjusted again in line with South Korea’s removal of the discriminatory entry restrictions on China”.
Beijing’s embassy in Tokyo announced in a brief statement late on Tuesday that the issuing of visas for Japanese citizens would also be halted, giving no specific reason or indication of how long the measure would last.
The move came soon after Japan toughened COVID-19 rules for travellers coming directly from China, requiring a negative result for a PCR test taken less than 72 hours before departure, as well as a negative test on arrival in Japan.
Seoul introduced a host of measures for visitors from China last month, including visa restrictions and testing requirements.
Hospitals in China have been overwhelmed by cases since Beijing began opening up after nationwide protests fuelled by growing frustration at three years of harsh controls that failed to eliminate the virus.
But the virus is spreading among its 1.4 billion people, and worries over the scale and impact of its outbreak have prompted Japan, South Korea, France, the United States and other countries to require negative COVID-19 tests from travellers from China.
“China seems to be using South Korea and Japan to send a message to other countries, which have imposed restrictions on Chinese travellers in hopes that they will roll [them] back and it also wants these nations that are considering restrictions to think twice about it,” said Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing.
China currently issues no tourist visas and requires a negative COVID-19 test for all arrivals.
South Korea is also capping flights from China, and travellers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau have to test negative before departure – measures Seoul’s foreign minister has defended as being “in accordance with scientific evidence”.
Mainland visitors are also being tested on arrival and are required to quarantine for a week if they test positive, authorities have said.
China has stopped publishing daily infection tallies despite the facing worst outbreak in three years. It has been reporting five or fewer deaths a day since the policy U-turn, figures that have been disputed by the World Health Organization and are inconsistent with funeral providers reporting surging demand.
The WHO has called the precautionary measures “understandable” in light of the lack of information and urged Beijing to share more data on genetic sequencing, as well as figures on hospitalisations, deaths and vaccinations.
Some governments have raised concerns about Beijing’s data transparency as international experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year. Washington has also raised concerns about future potential mutations of the virus.
China dismisses criticism over its data as politically-motivated attempts to smear its “success” in handling the pandemic and said any future mutations are likely to be more infectious but less harmful.
“Since the outbreak, China has had an open and transparent attitude,” said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin.
But as infections surge across China’s vast rural hinterland, many, including elderly victims, are not getting tested.
Al Jazeera’s Yu said the move is going to impact all parties involved, given that China is South Korea and Japan’s biggest trading partner.
“There are plenty of Japanese and South Korean businesses with operations here and they will no longer be able to send their business people here to tend to those in person,” she said. “This will also impact China’s foreign economic bottom line. But Beijing says it has the right to impose countermeasures on these countries.”
The activist daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been given a five-year jail term.
The charges against Faezeh Hashemi were not specifically stated by the attorney. However, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency, Hashemi was charged with “propaganda against the system” by Tehran’s public prosecutor last year.
She was detained in Tehran during protests after a young Kurdish woman died while in police custody, according to state media reports from September. The arrest was for “inciting riots.”
Since the 1979 revolution, the demonstrations have presented one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical leadership.
“Following the arrest of Ms. Faezeh Hashemi, she was sentenced to five years in prison but the sentence is not final,” defence lawyer Neda Shams wrote on her Twitter account.
In 2012, Faezeh Hashemi was sentenced to jail and banned from political activities for “anti state propaganda” dating back to the 2009 disputed presidential election.
Her father died in 2017.
Former president Rafsanjani’s pragmatic policies of economic liberalisation and better relations with the West attracted fierce supporters and equally fierce critics during his life. He was one of the founders of the Islamic Republic.
According to the UN human rights chief, the spate of death sentences issued in Iran after the start of civil unrest constitutes “state sanctioned killing,” with executions being used to terrorise the populace and quell dissent.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday that “the weaponization of criminal procedures to punish people for exercising their basic rights – such as those who participate in or organise demonstrations – amounts to state sanctioned killing.”
Such executions, he continued, were against international human rights law.
On Saturday, Iran hanged two men convicted of killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody in September.
The UN Human Rights office has received information that two further executions are imminent, the statement said.
As part of the ongoing crackdown, Iranian activist Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, received a preliminary sentence of five years in prison for spreading “propaganda” and acts against national security, her lawyer, Neda Shams, said on Monday.
Hashemi was arrested in the capital Tehran on September 27 for encouraging residents to demonstrate. The 60-year-old former lawmaker and women’s rights activist was charged with “collusion against national security, propaganda against the Islamic republic and disturbing public order by participating in illegal gatherings”, Shams said.
Hashemi will be able to appeal the sentence.
The Islamic Republic has been rocked by a wave of protests since Amini’s death. The 22-year-old had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
Iranian authorities said hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed and thousands arrested in connection with the protests, which they generally describe as “riots”.
Despite months of popular unrest, authorities have signalled an increased crackdown since the start of the year, with police warning that women must wear headscarves even in cars. Iran’s judiciary on Tuesday ordered police to “firmly punish” people who violate the country’s hijab law.
“Courts must sentence the violators, as well as fine them, to additional penalties such as exile, bans on practicing certain professions and closing workplaces,” Mehr news agency quoted the judiciary as saying.
Executions spark international concern
Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on Monday that at least 109 protesters now in detention have been sentenced to death or face charges that can carry capital punishment.
In an updated death toll, IHR said 481 protesters have been killed, including 64 minors, since the unrest began.
The UN human rights chief’s statement is the latest reprimand from the international community.
The White House on Monday condemned Saturday’s executions, saying the United States stood with other countries demanding a halt to the death sentences.
“We condemn the executions of Mohammad Mehdi Karami & Mohammad Hosseini and the additional executions announced today,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan tweeted.
“We join with partners around the world calling for an immediate cessation of these abuses. Iran will be held accountable.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly announced a new round of sanctions over Iran’s “brutal repression of brave Iranian voices.”
The European Union and several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway summoned Iranian diplomats in protest.
On Monday,Pope Francis denounced recourse to the death penalty, saying it “only fuels the thirst for vengeance.”
He stressed that everyone had a “right to life” and “demanded greater respect for the dignity of women.”
Iran has blamed the unrest on hostile foreign forces, and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Monday that authorities had been dealing “seriously and justly” with those implicated in the “riots.”
For decades, Mexican leaders have promised more humane migration policies, only to wage a brutal war on migrants on behalf of the US.
For his first international foray of 2023, United States President Joe Biden has swung down to Mexico City to attend the latest iteration of the North American Leaders’ Summit, charmingly dubbed the “Three Amigos Summit”.
The meeting is kicking off on January 9 with a bilateral encounter between Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also known as AMLO. The third “amigo” is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
One major topic for friendly discussion between Biden and AMLO will inevitably be migration, as the US continues to battle a “migrant crisis” of unprecedented proportions – a crisis that would hardly be so critical if the US simply refrained from messing up other people’s countries in the first place.
As of the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2022, there had been no fewer than 2.38 million apprehensions of undocumented people on the US-Mexico border, an increase of 37 percent from the previous year. Between September 2021 and June 2022, meanwhile, Mexico detained a record 345,584 people transiting its territory, most of them en route to the US.
As the long-dead Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz is said to have once observed: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States” – a proximity that in recent decades has meant that Mexico gets to perform the anti-migrant dirty work of its northern neighbour, self-appointed proprietor of the world’s number-one Very Important Border.
In 2021, I had the opportunity to witness just how dirty this work can be in Tapachula, the notorious “jail-city” in the Mexican state of Chiapas near the border with Guatemala which effectively serves as a trap for countless northbound asylum seekers from Central and South America as well as Asia and Africa. I was detained for one night in Tapachula’s Siglo XXI, Mexico’s largest immigration detention centre whose name means “21st century” in Spanish.
At the inauguration of the prison in 2006, then-Mexican President (and former Coca-Cola Mexico CEO) Vicente Fox had assured everyone that detainees would enjoy “all the comforts” – including human rights – in keeping with Mexico’s “humanist policy” vis-à-vis undocumented people on the move.
Fifteen years later, I got to experience firsthand the “comforts” of Siglo XXI for visa-related transgressions – the subject of my new book, Inside Siglo XXI. Needless to say, this is not something that normally happens to US citizens; a friend in Tapachula would later refer to me as the “gringa collateral damage” of imperial anti-migrant policy. My bags were confiscated at the door and affixed with premade printed tags, on which the word “CONGO” was crossed out in purple marker and replaced with “ESTADOS UNIDOS” (United States).
Inside the prison, the only real comforts were the compassion and solidarity exhibited by my fellow detainees, who unlike me had undergone arduous and often traumatising journeys to reach Mexico and were now only being further traumatised. There is a good reason that journalists are not allowed inside the overcrowded, abuse-ridden complex – except when, as in my case, they accidentally are.
AMLO, who before assuming office in 2018 had promised a more humane approach to migration, has been only too eager to go back on his word in order to kiss the gringos’ derriere, even while pretending that what he is really doing is upholding Mexican national sovereignty. In spite of his ostensibly left-wing orientation, AMLO managed to be pretty good amigos with Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump – a right-wing tyrant and source of the idea that Mexicans are drug dealers, criminals, and rapists.
In his book A la mitad del camino (Halfway There), the self-declaredly “post-neoliberal” AMLO jubilantly recalls his July 2020 summoning to Washington by the “gentleman” Trump for the signing of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), otherwise known as NAFTA 2.0 and the updated version of neoliberal punishment of Mexico under the guise of free trade.
As journalist Garry Leech has pointed out in the book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry, the USMCA might “be more accurately called the United States Migrant Control Agreement”, thwarting as it does the free movement of Mexican and other labourers across borders while rolling out the red carpet for corporate capital.
Recounting his excursion to Washington, AMLO proposes a preposterous revision of that old phrase from Porfirio Díaz: “Blessed Mexico, so close to God and not so far from the United States”. He also pats himself on the back for reducing the movement of people trying to cross into the US by 75 percent over three months in 2019 after Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican imports (how is that for free trade?).
And Biden has only made it more fun to be “not so far from theUnited States”. In April 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reported that, thanks to bilateral discussions, the Mexican government had “made the decision to maintain 10,000 troops at its southern border, resulting in twice as many daily migrant interdictions”.
Indeed, under AMLO, migration policy in Mexico has undergone unprecedented militarisation. Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) has been increasingly populated with current and former members of the armed forces, notwithstanding the military’s track record of torture and extrajudicial killings.
Behind all the dehumanised talk of “border security” and “interdictions”, of course, is the fact that this is an all-out war on extremely vulnerable people criminalised for their vulnerability.
The casualties of this war on migrants include a young Honduran woman named Kimberly, whom I met in Siglo XXI and who had fled Honduras after her two sisters were killed. They include the countless asylum seekers who have disappeared while transiting Mexico towards perceived safety. They include those subjected to a novel experiment in 2021, which entailed being flown from northern to southern Mexico and then expelled into the Guatemalan jungle.
In the end, this is not Mexico’s war. But by taking migration enforcement orders from the US and replicating the brutality of a US border security regime, Mexico is reinforcing a militarised US border that discriminates against Mexicans themselves – who regularly risk their own lives to cross it.
Whatever else happens at the Three Amigos Summit, Porfirio Díaz was right about one thing: the US is a terrible amigo.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
The men, aged 28 to 48, were doing volunteer work and were last seen onFriday on their way to Soledar, where fighting has been fierce in recent days.
There has been no contact with them since then.
A Foreign Office spokesman said it was “supporting the families of two British men who have gone missing in Ukraine”.
The police department in the city of Bakhmut said they received a missing person’s report at 17:15 local time on Saturday, while appealing for any information that could help locate the two men.
Security forces have reportedly freed six people, including children, who were abducted by gunmen at atrain station in Igueben, according to authorities in Nigeria’s southern Edo state.
The police claimed that the victims were waiting to board a train when they were attacked and abducted by alleged criminal gangs, as we previously reported.
The train station has been closed indefinitely, and more than 20 additional hostages are still unaccounted for.
A suspect has been detained in relation to the kidnappings, according to the Edo State Spokesman.
Eyewitnesses of the Saturday incident said some of the passengers sustained gunshot injuries.
The Nigerian government has condemned the kidnapping of the passengers describing it as despicable and utterly barbaric.
The attack comes less than two months before Nigeria’s general election.
In March last year gunmen attacked a Kaduna-bound train in northern Nigeria, killing some passengers and kidnapping dozens of others.
Dozens of people showed up outside a prison in Iran overnight amid reports that the government was getting ready to execute two more anti-government protesters.
Videos of protesters yelling slogans in front of Karaj’s Rajai Shahr jail were posted online by opposition activists.
At the gathering, the mother of Mohammad Ghobadlou—one of the two men facing execution—made a clemency request.
On Saturday, two protesters were hanged, drawing condemnation from around the world.
The UN human rights office deplored the “shocking” executions of Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, which it said followed “unfair trials based on forced confessions”.
A Revolutionary Court found the men guilty of “corruption on Earth” over their alleged involvement in the killing of a member of the paramilitary Basij force in Karaj in November. Both denied the charge and said they were tortured.
They were the third and fourth people to be executed in connection with the protests that erupted in September following the death in custody of a woman detained by morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.
Authorities have portrayed them as “riots” and responded with lethal force.
It says that another 19,290 protesters have been arrested and that 111 of them are believed to “under the impending threat of a death sentence”, having been convicted of, or charged with, capital offences.
People gathered outside Rajai Shahr prison on Sunday night after activists warned that Mohammad Ghobadlou and Mohammad Boroughani had been transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for execution.
Opposition activist collective 1500 Tasvir published videos showing a crowd chanting slogans warning authorities against proceeding with the executions. Shouts included “I will kill who has killed my brother” and “This is the last warning. If you execute [them] there will be an uprising/revolt.”
Ghobadlou’s mother, who has previously said her son has bipolar disorder, was filmed telling the crowd that 50 doctors had signed a petition calling on the judiciary chief to establish a committee to review her son’s mental health.
“If he believed in God, he would have responded to these 50 doctors,” she said, asserting that her son is “ill”.
She also claimed that the policeman who he is accused of killing was “martyred somewhere else”.
1500 Tasvir also posted videos purportedly from the area around the prison in which gunshots could be heard.
The activist collective declared later on Monday that the protest had stopped the executions “at least up to this moment”.
Image caption,Mohammad Ghobadlou’s mother urged Iran’s judiciary chief to review evidence about his mental health problems
Ghobadlou, 22, had his death sentence upheld by the Supreme Court on 24 December. He was convicted of “enmity against God” after being accused of driving into a group of policemen during a protest in Tehran in September, killing one of them and injuring others.
He stood trial without his chosen lawyer, who said the prosecution had relied other flawed evidence.Amnesty International also said it was concerned that he was subjected to torture or ill-treatment in custody, citing a forensic report that pointed to bruising and injuries on his arm, elbow and shoulder blade.
Mohammad Boroughani, 19, was tried alongside Ghobadlou and was also convicted of “enmity against God”.
He was accused of allegedly wielding a machete, setting fire to a provincial government building and injuring a security officer. He was also accused of “encouraging” others to participate in protests via social media.
Amnesty International said he was found guilty after proceedings that “bore no resemblance to a meaningful judicial trial”.
In a separate development on Monday, the judiciary announced that a court in Isfahan had sentenced to death three people over an attack during protests in the city on 16 November in which three security personnel were shot dead.
Saleh Mirbasheri Boltaqi, Majid Kazemi Sheikh-Shabani, and Saeed Yaqoubi Kordsofla were convicted of “enmity against God”.
Two other defendants were sentenced to prison over their alleged involvement in the attack, including professional footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani. Nasr-Azadani, 26, was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of three charges including “assisting in enmity against God”.
The trip came after the announcement of a new immigration policy that rights groups say could endanger the lives of asylum seekers.
US President Joe Biden visited the US-Mexico border for the first time since taking office in January 2022.
The hours-long visit on Sunday followed the Biden administration’s recently announced policy initiative to address an increase in undocumented border crossings.
The politically charged issue has dogged the Democratic president since he took office, with Republican critics accusing the administration of being too lenient and rights groups alleging that the newly announced measures will endanger the lives of asylum seekers.
The stop in the city of El Paso, Texas, took place as Biden travelled to Mexico, where he is set to meet President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday before attending a three-way summit with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the following day in Mexico City.
“They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them,” Biden told reporters in Texas, where he met border agents at the Bridge of the Americas, which connects El Paso to the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, and is one of the busiest ports of entry between the two countries.
During the visit, Biden watched as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. He later inspected a section of the tall fencing along the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
Meanwhile, in a sign of the deep political tensions over immigration, Republican Governor Greg Abbott handed Biden a letter on his arrival that said the alleged “chaos” at the border was the “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws.
Controversial asylum policies
Last week, the Biden administration unveiled new immigration rules it anticipates will “substantially reduce” the number of people seeking to cross the southern border, Biden told reporters at the time.
The rules create a new programme that allows a legal pathway for as many as 30,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals to enter the US a month and receive two-year work permits, provided they have sponsors in the US and pass background checks.
In turn, the policy allows US authorities to expel to Mexico residents of those four countries who irregularly cross the border and bar them from accessing the programme. Mexico has agreed to accept 30,000 expelled residents of the four countries in a month, according to the administration.
Rights groups say the policy is harmful to individuals who have no other choice but to irregularly cross the border to seek asylum. They charge the new policy is an extension of the former President Donald Trump-era Title 42, which allows authorities to rapidly expel adult asylum seekers crossing the border, citing COVID-19 health concerns.
After a lengthy court battle, a US federal judge in November ordered Title 42 be lifted, but the US Supreme Court late last month agreed to consider whether Republican-led states can challenge the end of the policy, leaving it in place for the time being.
In the wake of last week’s announcement, Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, accused the Biden administration of “openly rejecting” US law, which “clearly says it is legal to arrive at the border & seek asylum”.
On board Air Force One on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the administration was trying to “incentivise a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organisations”.
He said the policy was “not a ban at all”, but an attempt to protect migrants and refugees from the trauma smuggling can create.
Drugs, economy top Mexico visit
Following the border visit, Biden was set to continue on to Mexico, where the increase in crossings, as well as efforts to fight the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs that have fuelled a deadly addiction crisis in the US, were set to top the agenda of the bilateral meeting with Lopez Obrador.
On Saturday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Washington was “making strides” with its partners to seize illicit opioids and other drugs, calling it an “ongoing effort”.
Mexico has long been plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 340,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in its war on drugs in 2006. On the campaign trail, Lopez Obrador promised to move away from the militarised approach, but critics say he has made only superficial changes. Still, he has said that Mexico City is seeking investment in regional economic development from Washington.
Days before Biden’s visit, Mexican security forces captured a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
On Tuesday, efforts to strengthen economic ties are set to dominate a trilateral summit of the leaders of the US, Mexico, and Canada.
The meeting comes amid an ongoing Mexican energy dispute with the US and Canada, with Washington and Ottawa arguing that Lopez Obrador’s efforts to give control of the market to his cash-strapped state energy companies breach the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.
The US and Canada have launched dispute resolution proceedings against Mexico, casting a pall over hopes of supporting cooperation in jobs and investment.
Checking vaccinations is inconvenient, according to the health minister, and a panel of health experts has agreed to withdraw the new rule.
Thailand has revoked an entry policy announced two days ago that required visitors to show proof of aCOVID-19 vaccination, according to the country’s health minister, citing adequate immunization levels in China and globally.
Anutin Charnvirakul said on Monday that checking evidence of vaccinations was inconvenient, and that a panel of health experts had agreed to withdraw the new rule, which was announced on Saturday by aviation authorities ahead of an expected influx of visitors from China, where COVID cases have surged.
Charnvirakul said those not vaccinated would also be granted entry without restriction.
“Showing proof of vaccination would be cumbersome and inconvenient, and so the group’s decision is that it is unnecessary,” Anutin told reporters.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said there had been discussions over entry requirements but the issue had been resolved.
One of Asia’s most popular travel destinations, Thailand is enjoying an influx of visitors during its first peak season since the removal last year of tight entry restrictions that had caused its tourism sector to collapse.
In November, it recorded 1.75 million visitors, quadruple the number for the whole of last year when flights and foreign arrivals were limited.
Visitors from China
Chinese visitors have been crucial for Thailand, accounting for about a quarter of its annual visitors before the pandemic. Anutin said the government was now expecting seven to 10 million Chinese visitors, compared with an earlier estimate of five million.
The first flight from China arrived in Thailand on Monday, the first of a group of 3,465 passengers expected on the first day.
“We’re very excited to come back toThailand. We have been waiting for three years already,” said Wang Zhenyin.
“Before the start of COVID, we came here every year. And this time I take my family to come here.”
Thailand’s tourism authority is expecting arrival numbers for last year to have exceeded 11.5 million [Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]
On Sunday, Beijing lifted a mandatory quarantine for arrivals from abroad imposed when the pandemic began three years ago. The move is expected to unleash large pent-up demand for outbound travel.
But so far, few flights have been restored. On Monday, a check of arrivals at regional airports found only a handful of flights coming from China. The largest share was travelling to South Korea.
The about-face on the vaccine rule follows similar policy U-turns by Thailand during the pandemic that have caused widespread confusion among travellers about its entry requirements.
Thailand will still require foreigners to show evidence of health insurance coverage forCOVID if their next destination requires a negative pre-entry test, Charnvirakul said.
Thailand’s tourism authority is expecting arrival numbers for last year to have exceeded 11.5 million, just over a quarter of the record of nearly 40 million in pre-pandemic 2019, who spent about 1.91 trillion baht ($55.2bn).
Waving the Palestinian flag, according to far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is an endorsement of “terrorism.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s new far-right Minister of National Security, has ordered police to remove Palestinian flags from public areas because they constitute “terrorism.”
Israeli law does not forbid Palestinian flags, but police and soldiers are allowed to take them down if they pose a threat to the peace.
Sunday’s directive from Ben-Gvir, who heads the ultranationalist Jewish Power party in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government and as national security minister oversees the police, appears to signal a hardline and uncompromising attitude towards Palestinian expressions of identity and free speech and pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The display of the Palestinian flag in Israel has, in practice, long been clamped down on by Israeli authorities, with Palestinians regarding such moves as an attempt to suppress Palestinian identity.
Ben-Gvir’s orders came after a mass anti-government protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday, where some demonstrators waved the Palestinian flag.
Protesters labelled the recently sworn-in government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “fascist” and advocated for equality and coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.
Writing on Twitter, Netanyahu on Sunday said the presence of the Palestinian flag at the Tel Aviv protest was “wild incitement”.
Ben-Gvir’s directive also follows the release last week of a long-serving Palestinian prisoner, convicted of kidnapping and killing an Israeli soldier in 1983, who waved a Palestinian flag while receiving a hero’s welcome in his village in northern Israel.
Younis was convicted in 1983 for the killing three years earlier of an Israeli soldier, Avraham Bromberg, in the occupied Golan Heights [Ammar Awad/Reuters]
Ben-Gvir, in a statement, said waving the Palestinian flag is an act in support of “terrorism”.
“It cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags, incite and encourage terrorism, so I ordered the removal of flags supporting terrorism from the public space and to stop the incitement against Israel,” Ben-Gvir said.
Palestinian citizens of Israel account for about one-fifth of the population and most are descendants of Palestinians who remained within the state after its formation in 1948, an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The majority of the population of pre-1948 historic Palestine had been Palestinians.
They have long debated their place in Israel’s politics, balancing their Palestinian heritage with their Israeli citizenship, with the vast majority identifying as or with the Palestinians.
Many Palestinians, both in Israel and in the occupied territory, are fearful of the new government’s policies towards them, in light of the strong presence of far-right settler groups within it, with Ben-Gvir in particular previously convicted of inciting racism towards Arabs.
In some of its first moves over the past few days, the Israeli government rescinded the travel permit of the Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki on Sunday and decided to withhold $39m in revenues from the Palestinian Authority on Friday.
The decisions were part of an effort to penalise Palestinians for asking the International Court of Justice to give an opinion on the Israeli occupation, which is illegal under international law.
Local health officials say, nearly 90% of people in Henan, China’s third most populous province, are now infected with Covid.
Kan Quancheng, a provincial official, revealed the figure, which amounts to approximately 88.5 million people, at a press conference.
After abandoning zero-Covid policies in December, China is dealing with an unprecedented surge in cases.
The move came in response to rare protests against lockdowns, quarantines, and mass testing.
Mr Kan did not provide a timeline for when all of the infections occurred, but given that China’s previous zero-Covid policy kept cases to a minimum, the vast majority of Henan’s infections are likely to have occurred in the last few weeks.
He said visits to fever clinics in Henan province peaked on 19 December “after which it showed a continuous downward trend”.
The Henan provincial figures are in stark contrast to Covid figures from the central government
According to official data, just 120,000 people in the country of 1.4 billion have been infected and 30 died since the shift in Covid policy.
Meanwhile on Sunday, authorities reported three Covid deaths in mainland China, one more than the day before.
However, with the definition of Covid deaths narrowed and mass testing no longer compulsory, government data is no longer reflective of the true scale of the outbreak.
Other local and provincial officials have also been providing very different data to that from the central government. On Christmas Eve, a senior health official in the port city of Qingdao reported that half a million people were being infected each day. Those case figures were swiftly removed from news reports.
Meanwhile Chinese health officials said they would not include Pfizer’s antiviral Covid medicine Paxlovid in its basic medical insurance schemes as a result of the high price quoted by the US firm.
The drug, temporarily covered byChina’s broad healthcare insurance scheme until 31 March, has seen a sharp increase in demand since China’s Covid cases surged last month.
Pfizer would continue to collaborate with the Chinese government and all relevant stakeholders to “secure and adequate supply” of the medicine in China, the company said in a statement.
On Sunday, Beijing also lifted mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals and opened its border with Hong Kong.
In the first wave of pre-holiday travel, official data showed that 34.7 million people travelled domestically on Saturday. This represented an increase of more than a third compared to last year, according to state media.
Infections are expected to soar as the country celebrates Lunar New Year later this month, with millions expected to travel from big cities to visit older relatives in the countryside.
Overall, more than two billion individual journeys are expected to take place, officials have said.
Dozens of families were evacuated from Joshimath in India’s Uttarakhand state after large cracks appeared in their homes and on the roads.
The area has been designated as “disaster-prone,” according to a district official.
So far, over 600 houses have developed cracks as a result of gradual land subsidence, which refers to the ground gradually sinking.
Officials stated that dry ration supplies and financial assistance were being provided to affected families.
According to Himanshu Khurana, the magistrate of Chamoli district, where Joshimath is located, two federal government teams are on their way to the town to assess the situation.
Around 68 families have been moved so far to temporary shelters that have been set up in hotels and guest houses in safer areas. More people will be evacuated today and in the coming days, officials said.
Residents of Joshimath, which is situated in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region, had been raising the alarm for months, but the issue only got widespread media attention recently after the cracks began widening.
Last week, local officials stopped several construction projects after thousands of protesters blocked a national highway. The protesters blamed rampant construction for the crisis.
A team of experts visited Joshimath last week and submitted a report to the government. The report has not been made public yet, but The Times of India newspaper, which accessed a copy, reported that the panel had recommended that the houses that had sustained the “maximum damage” be demolished.
It also quoted an unnamed senior official saying that that at least 25% of the area of Joshimath seemed to be affected by land subsidence. The BBC has not independently confirmed this.
Image caption,Around 68 families have been moved to temporary shelters so far
The problem of subsidence goes back decades; in 1976, a government committee flagged the risks of land sinking in Joshimath after residents complained of cracks in their houses. In its report, the panel also warned against allowing heavy construction work in the area.
But in the decades since, construction activity has only shot up in Uttarakhand, which is situated in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region. The state is home to a number of revered Hindu shrines that draw millions of pilgrims every year.
Experts have said that the rampant construction is damaging the ecological balance of the region, which is vulnerable to earthquakes and landslides.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said that federal agencies were working with the Uttarakhand government to deal with the situation and ensure the safety of residents.
A Hindu religious leader has also approached the Supreme Court, asking it to urgently intervene and declare the crisis in Joshimath a “national disaster.” The matter was mentioned in court on Monday, legal website LiveLaw reported, adding that the Chief Justice had asked for it to be brought up on Tuesday.
In October, the BBC’s Vineet Khare had visited Joshimath and spoke to several residents who were living in fear.
“We leave the house the moment it starts raining because we’re scared,” Sumedha Bhatt, who lives in Ravigram village, told him.
On that visit, the BBC found that many people had already begun leaving their houses as the cracks had started widening after heavy rains. Some families had also resorted to makeshift measures, such as using polyethylene sheets to prevent seepage and wooden planks to offer additional support to their houses.
The government has confirmed that single-use items such as plastic cutlery, plates, and trays will be banned in England.
It is unclear when the ban will take effect, but it follows similar measures taken by Scotland and Wales.
Thérèse Coffey, theEnvironment Secretary, said the move would help protect the environment for future generations.
Campaigners applauded the ban but called for a more comprehensive plastic reduction strategy.
Government figures suggest that 1.1 billion single-use plates and more than four billion pieces of plastic cutlery are used in England every year.
Plastic waste often does not decompose and can last in landfill for many years.
Although it might be useful in terms of food hygiene, it can also end up as litter, in turn polluting soil and water.
The confirmation of the move from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) follows a long consultation, which will be published on Saturday, January 14.
Each person in England uses an average of 18 single-use plastic plates and 37 items of plastic cutlery every year, according to Defra, while just 10% of those are recycled.
Ms Coffey is set to ban a range of single-use plastic items mainly relating to takeaway food and drink.
“I am determined to drive action forward to tackle this issue head on. We’ve already taken major steps in recent years, but we know there is more to do, and we have again listened to the public’s calls,” she said.
“This new ban will have a huge impact on stopping the pollution of billions of pieces of plastic and helping to protect the natural environment for future generations.”
Similar bans have already been made in Scotland, while single-use plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds were already banned in England in 2020.
Scotland introduced a ban on businesses using a range of single-use plastic goods in June last year. Laws for a similar ban in Wales were approved in December and will come into force later in 2023.
This latest measure does not, however, cover items found in supermarkets or shops. The government said it would address those by other means.
Megan Randles, a political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said that the organization welcomed the ban but that further action was needed.
She said: “We’re dealing with a plastic flood, and this is like reaching for a mop instead of turning off the tap.”
She called on the government to deliver a “meaningful” strategy on how to reduce plastic use, which would also include stringent targets and “a proper reuse and refill scheme.”
Interpol has apprehended a Mozambican man accused of masterminding kidnappings for ransom in South Africa.
Esmael Malude Ramos Nangy is suspected of masterminding kidnappings for ransom worth millions of dollars over the last two decades.
South African police said he was apprehended during a raid on an upscale housing estate in Centurion, near Pretoria.
Over the weekend, police in Mozambique confirmed the arrest of the wanted man.
The news of the arrest of the 50-year-old Mozambican citizen was first issued by the international police. It followed an international arrest warrant issued in July last year by the Mozambican authorities.
A statement by the South African police said among the items seized at the home were a firearm, cartridges, five mobile phones and banks cards.
He is due in court on Monday.
Mozambique is seeking his extradition. A Mozambican police source said Mr Nangy was a suspect in a kidnapping that took place last year in the capital, Maputo.
Kidnapping for ransom is common mainly in Mozambican major cities and towns and the key targets have been business people of Asian origin or their relatives.
According to Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic), the country recorded 13 kidnappings in 2022 and 33 arrests linked to the crimes.
Gunmen wielding AK-47 rifles kidnapped at least 32 people from a train station in Nigeria’s southernEdo state on Sunday, according to the governor’s office.
The majority of the victims were people waiting to board a train from Igueben to Warri in neighbouring Delta state.
According to reports, the gunmen shot sporadically into the air during the attack on Saturday evening before seizing the hostages and transporting them to a nearby forest.
The train station has been closed, according to state spokesperson Chris Osa Nehikhare, as security forces and local hunters search for the hostages.
Eyewitnesses say some of those who escaped from the attackers sustained bullet wounds. The gunmen are also said to have released two children.
A woman with a baby also reportedly escaped from the attackers and found her way to a neighbouring community where she was rescued.
The incident comes as Nigeria prepares for next month’s general elections where rising insecurity has become a big campaign topic.
Last month, the rail service between the capital, Abuja, and the northern city of Kaduna resumed operations after being closed for nine months.
It followed an audacious hijacking of a high-speed train that left at least eight passengers dead and dozens of others kidnapped. The hostages were released months later.
Beginning on Monday, the streets of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will undergo renovations in preparation for Pope Francis’ visit at the end of the month.
The main city center will be cleaned up, according to Kinshasa Governor Gentiny Ngobila, and street vendors and abandoned vehicles will be removed from roads leading to the airport.
More than 120 people died as a result of the city’s worst floods in years last month.
This is the first time that the city of at least 14 million residents will be hosting Pope Francis.
A previous pope, the late John Paul II, visited the country twice, in 1980 and 1985, during the rule of former strongman Mobutu Sese Seko.
Catholics make up the majority of the country’s population.
A cargo ship that became stranded in the Suez Canal has been raised to the surface byEgyptian authorities.
Leth Agencies, a shipping company, had earlier reported that the MV Glory had grounded close to the northeastern city of El-Qantarah.
Later, it announced that 21 vessels would resume transiting the Suez Canal with only minor delays after being refloated by tugboats from the authority.
The vessel was listed as carrying over 65,000 metric tonnes of grain from Ukraine bound for China, the Associated Press agency reports.
In 2021 a giant container ship, the Ever Given, blocked the canal, disrupting global trade.
The Suez Canal is a vital waterway that connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, providing an avenue for vessels to pass between Asia and the Middle East and Europe.
Oil has been discovered in the Sallahey area of theMarodi-Jeh region, the self-declared republic of Somaliland has announced, according to a statement on Facebook from its ministry of energy and mineral resources.
After a black liquid leaked from a nearby waterwell drilling site, the ministry claimed it had launched scientific investigations, and the findings had supported the oil discovery.
The region’s first verified oil discovery was made here.
The statement added thatUK firm Genel Energy would start further oil exploration and production.
The discovery comes two weeks after the Somali federal government warned Genel Energy against oil exploration in Somaliland without authorisation from Mogadishu, saying the firm was undermining its sovereignty.
Somaliland, which declared independence from the south in 1991 and has since been unsuccessfully seeking international recognition, said thestatement from Mogadishu was meaningless.
This comes after a video that appeared to show a gang questioning and assaulting individuals holding an opposition meeting was widely shared on social media.
The incident has increased worries that some of the violence that has marred previousZimbabwean elections will reoccur during this year’s election.
The video purports to have been shot in Murehwa, northeast of Harare, and shows a woman questioning a group of people while criticising them for siding with the opposition.
After that, men beat an elderly man repeatedly with wooden poles while holding him down on the ground.
The punishment is carried out in front of a young child.
The opposition Citizens Coalition For Change says this is one of many pieces of evidence that show the governing Zanu-PF party has unleashed vigilante groups ahead of elections.
A Zanu-PF official in the area has distanced his party from the attack.
Rights groups have often accused the governing party of using systematic violence as a tool to win elections.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has threatened to punish supporters of the country’s former leader, Jair Bolsonaro, who stormed Congress.
Supporters of the deposed far-right leader also surrounded the presidential palace and stormed the Supreme Court.
However, after hours of fighting, police reclaimed control of the buildings in Brasilia’s capital on Sunday evening.
Lula visited the Supreme Court building upon his arrival in the city to inspect the damage.
According to the Civil Police of Brasilia, 300 people have been arrested.
The city’s governor, Ibaneis Rocha, has been removed from his post for 90 days by theSupreme Court. Justice Alexandre de Moraes accused him of failing to prevent the riot and of being “painfully silent” in the face of the attack. Mr Rocha has apologised for Sunday’s events.
Pro-democracy rallies are being called by leftist leaders and groups across Brazil.
The dramatic scenes – which saw thousands of protesters clad in yellow Brazil football shirts and flags overrun police and ransack the heart of the Brazilian state – come just a week after Lula’s inauguration.
The veteran left-wing leader was forced to declare emergency powers before dispatching the national guard into the capital to restore order.
He also ordered the closure of the centre of the capital, including the main avenue where governmental buildings are – for 24 hours.
Justice Minister Flavio Dino said some 40 buses that had been used to transport protesters to the capital had been seized, and he called the invasion an “absurd attempt to impose [the protesters’] will by force.”
Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly refused to accept that he lost October’s election and last week left the country instead of taking part in inaugural ceremonies, which would have seen him hand over the iconic presidential sash.
The 67-year-old – who is believed to be in Florida – condemned the attack and denied responsibility for encouraging the rioters in a post on Twitter some six hours after violence broke out.
Speaking before he arrived in Brasilia, Lula said there was “no precedent in the history of our country” for the scenes in Brasilia and called the violence the “acts of vandals and fascists”.
And he took aim at security forces whom he accused of “incompetence, bad faith or malice” for failing to stop demonstrators accessing Congress.
“You will see in the images that they [police officers] are guiding people on the walk to Praca dos Tres Powers,” he said. “We are going to find out who the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasilia are and they will all pay with the force of law.”
Video shared by the Brazilian outlet O Globo showed some officers laughing and taking photos together as demonstrators occupied the congressional campus in the background.
Brazilian President Lula says Congress invaders will be punished
Some protesters smashed windows, while others reached the Senate chamber, where they jumped on to seats and used benches as slides.
Videos on social media show protesters pulling a police officer from his horse and attacking him outside the building.
Footage broadcast by national media show police detaining dozens of protesters in their yellow jerseys outside the presidential palace.
Other suspects – whose hands were bound behind their backs – are also seen being led out of the building.
Protesters had been gathering since the morning on the lawns in front of the parliament and up and down the kilometre of the Esplanada avenue, which is lined with government ministries and national monuments.
Despite the actions of the protesters, in the hours before the chaos, security had appeared tight, with the roads closed for about a block around the parliament area and armed police pairs guarding every entrance into the area.
The BBC had seen about 50 police officers around on Sunday morning local time and cars were turned away at entry points, while those entering on foot were frisked by police checking bags.
Image caption,Vandals inside a room in the presidential palace
Demonstrators were quick to defend their actions when approached by reporters.
Lima, a 27-year-old production engineer, said: “We need to re-establish order after this fraudulent election.”
“I’m here for history, for my daughters,” she told AFP news agency.
Others in the capital expressed outrage at the violence and said the attack marked a sad day for the country.
“I voted for Bolsanaro but I don’t agree with what they’re doing,” Daniel Lacerda, 21, told the BBC. “If you don’t agree with the president you should just say it and move on, you shouldn’t go hold protests and commit all the violence like they’re doing.”
And many are drawing comparisons with the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump, an ally of Mr Bolsonaro.
Image caption,Bolsonaro supporters vandalising the interior of the presidential palace
Bolsonaro supporters created camps in cities across Brazil, some of them outside the military barracks. That is because his most ardent supporters want the military to intervene and make good elections that they say were stolen.
It looked like their movement had been curbed by Lula’s inauguration – the camps in Brasilia had been dismantled and there was no disruption on the day he was sworn in.
But Sunday’s scenes show that those predictions were premature.
According to Katy Watson, the BBC’s South America correspondent, some protesters aren’t just angry that Jair Bolsonaro lost the election – they want President Lula to return to prison. He spent 18 months in jail after being found guilty of corruption in 2017 and his convictions were later annulled, initially he had been sentenced to more than nine years.
Image caption,Police used tear gas in an attempt to repel protesters
Leaders from Latin America have condemned the violence:
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Brazil had his country’s “full support in the face of this cowardly and vile attack on democracy”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said “fascism [had] decided to stage a coup”.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico expressed “full support for President Lula’s administration, elected by popular will”.
US President Joe Biden tweeted: “I condemn the assault on democracy and the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazil’s democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined.”
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on social media that “the violent attacks on democratic institutions are an attack on democracy that cannot be tolerated,” while French President Emmanuel Macron said the “will of the Brazilian people and the democratic institutions must be respected”. Both have pledged their support to Lula.
“I condemn any attempt to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and the democratic will of the people of Brazil,” saidBritish Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
. “President Lula and his government have the United Kingdom’s full support, and I look forward to building on our countries’ close ties in the years ahead.”
John Deere has agreed to allow its customers in the United States to repair their own equipment.
Farmers were previously only permitted to use authorised parts and service facilities rather than cheaper independent repair options.
Deere and Company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of agricultural equipment.
For years, consumer groups have urged businesses to allow customers to repair everything from smartphones to tractors.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and Deere & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday.
“It addresses a long-running issue for farmers and ranchers when it comes to accessing tools, information and resources, while protecting John Deere’s intellectual property rights and ensuring equipment safety,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said.
Under the agreement, equipment owners and independent technicians will not be allowed to “divulge trade secrets” or “override safety features or emissions controls or to adjust Agricultural Equipment power levels.”
The firm looks forward to working with the AFBF and “our customers in the months and years ahead to ensure farmers continue to have the tools and resources to diagnose, maintain and repair their equipment,” Dave Gilmore, a senior vice president at Deere & Co. said.
Farmers are part of a grassroots right-to-repair movement that has been putting pressure on manufacturers to allow customers and independent repair shops to fix their devices.
In 2022, Apple launched a “self-service repair” scheme giving customers the ability to replace their own batteries, screens and cameras of recent iPhones.
The UK and European Union have policies enforcing manufacturers to make spare parts available to customers and independent companies for some electronics.
“Consumers have long been complaining that products not only tend to break down faster than they used to, but that repairing them is often too costly, difficult to arrange for lack of spare parts, and sometimes impossible,” according to the European Parliamentary Research Service.
Some US states like New York and Massachusetts and have passed similar measures. President Biden signed an executive order in 2021 calling on the Federal Trade Commission to draw up a countrywide policy allowing customers to repair their own products, particularly in the technology and agriculture sectors.
Reports indicate that, the man was intoxicated at the time of the alleged incident on the trip from New York to New Delhi and may spend up to three years in prison if found guilty of insulting the woman’s modesty.
After reportedly urinating on an elderly woman in the business class section of a plane, a “drunk” man was detained.
According to Indian authorities, the 34-year-old man was arrested in Bengaluru, in the country’s south, after the incident on the Air India aircraft from New York to New Delhi.
The man, who faces an allegation of outraging the modesty of the woman, was transported to the Indian capital on Saturday, where he was put in custody for 14 days while police investigate.
If convicted the man, who was fired from his job at a high-profile banking firm following the allegations, faces up to three years in prison.
The Times of India newspaper reported the suspect saying that he was drunk at the time of the alleged incident and that he could not believe what he had done.
One passenger on the flight told the newspaper that he saw the man consuming excessivealcohol at the time of the alleged incident and that he was talking incoherently.
Meanwhile, the man’s father, talking to the Hindustan Times, described the allegations as a “totally false case”.
He also claimed his son “had not slept for 30-35 hours” and fell asleep after having a drink.
The alleged incident is said to have taken place in November last year, though Air India only filed a police complaint this week.
The company said the crew did not summon police upon landing in New Delhi as they believed that the two people involved had sorted out the issue between them.
Meanwhile, Air India said it had issued written notices and grounded one pilot and four cabin crew in relation to the incident.
The company had faced criticism on social media over its decision to prevent the man from flying with them for 30 days – a ban which activists said was not long enough.
The airline’s CEO and managing director, Campbell Wilson, said in a statement: “Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground and is committed to taking action.”
Anna Netrebko, an opera soprano from Vienna, is among the 118 people on the list.
According to a proclamation released by the president’s office, Ukraine has added dozens of Russian artists and other public personalities to a list of those subject to sanctions.
In light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the announcement on Saturday features prominent figures from the opera, film, and pop music industries.
One of the most well-known names is that of Vienna-based opera singer Anna Netrebko, who has come under fire for being too close to the Kremlin and too uncritical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In February last year, Netrebko said she was “opposed” to the war.
“I am Russian and I love my country but I have many friends in Ukraine and the pain and suffering right now breaks my heart.”
She added that forcing artists and other public personalities to give their “political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland” was not right.
The sanctions list also includes Russian pop star Philipp Kirkorov and actor and director Nikita Mikhalkov, winner of awards from film festivals including Cannes and Venice.
Netrebko and 118 others, including three Ukrainians, will have any assets in Ukraine frozen. The sanctions will be in effect for 10 years, the TASS news agency reported.
Ukrainian media also reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of 13 clergy members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the end of December. It was not known who the individuals are.
Traditionally, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has had close ties with Russia and only broke away completely from Moscow after the Russian invasion started last February.
The deaths of two males were found at the airport in Bogota, and authorities said they are looking into their nationalities and place of origin.
According to a statement released by Avianca on Saturday, “upon its arrival at the El Dorado airport in Bogota, staff from the airline discovered the bodies of two passengers who flew irregularly [stowaways] in the undercarriage of the plane.”
Avianca offered condolences to the two victims’ families and stated that, while it inspects aircraft before every flight, authorities are in charge of ensuring the security of airports and their restricted areas.
“The technical investigation body of the attorney general’s office is carrying out urgent actions to identify the nationality and origin of the bodies aged between 15 and 20, Afro-descendent, which were found inside the airplane,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Not identified
Although no identification documents were found with the bodies, one was carrying currency from the Dominican Republic and a suitcase found with the men had paperwork from that country, suggesting the men may have been in that country.
Those discoveries “infer that the men could have been on the plane since January 3”, when it was last in the Dominican Republic, the office said.
The plane was last given regular maintenance on December 27, the attorney general’s office added, and has since travelled to Bogota, Guarulhos, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Santiago.
Thebodies had been frozen and were partially thawed, the statement added, and one had burns.
The accident took place near Kaffrine in central Senegal, emergency services said.
Two buses crashed in Kaffrine in central Senegal, resulting in at least 40 fatalities and 87 injuries.
At 3:15 a.m. on Sunday (03:15 GMT), the accident happened on the Number 1 national highway.
The “grave” disaster claimed the lives of 40 individuals, according to President Macky Sall, who also declared a three-day national mourning period.
The bus, with a 60-seat capacity, was heading to Rosso near the border with Mauritania, the fire brigade said, adding that the number of people onboard was unknown.
“It was a serious accident,” Colonel Cheikh Fall, head of operations at the National Fire Brigade, told AFP news agency, adding that 87 people were injured in the incident.
Victims were taken to a hospital and medical centre in Kaffrine, he said. The wreckage and demolished buses have since been cleared and normal traffic has resumed, said Fall.
Public prosecutor, Cheikh Dieng, said early investigations suggested that the accident happened when “a bus assigned to the public transport of passengers, following the bursting of a tyre, left its trajectory before colliding head-on with another bus coming in the opposite direction”.
Suite au grave accident de ce jour à Gniby ayant causé 40 morts, j’ai décidé d’un deuil national de 3 jours à compter du 9 janvier. Un conseil interministériel se tiendra à la même date pour la prise de mesures fermes sur la sécurité routière et le transport public des voyageurs.
“I am deeply saddened by the tragic road accident,” President Sall said on Twitter. “I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” he added.
This is one of the heaviest death tolls from a single incident in recent years in a country where road accidents are common largely because of a lack of driver discipline, poor roads and decrepit vehicles, according to experts.
In October 2020, at least 16 people were killed and 15 more injured when a bus collided with a refrigerated lorry in western Senegal. Local media said at the time that the lorry was hauling fish toDakar.
In the midst of various punitive measures by the new right-wing government, theIsraeli entrance permits for the Palestinian foreign minister and three Fatah officials have been revoked.
As part of a series of sanctions against the Palestinians that Israel’s new hardline government declared days ago, the Palestinian foreign minister claims that Israel has withdrawn his travel authorization.
According to a spokesperson for the Israeli defense ministry, the action is part of the implementation of a cabinet decision made on Friday to punish the Palestinians for pressuring the world body with the highest authority on justice to express its position on the Israeli occupation.
On Saturday, Israel said it had revoked entry permits for three senior officials fromPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party after they visited a Palestinian citizen of Israel recently released from prison.
Mahmud al-Alul, Azzam al-Ahmad and Rawhi Fattouh had visited Karim Younis in his home village of Ara in northern Israel following his release on Thursday after serving a 40-year sentence for killing an Israeli soldier.
“The three men took advantage of their status and entered Israel this morning [Saturday] to travel to the home of the terrorist Karim Younis,” the office of defence minister Yoav Galant said in a statement later on Saturday. Galant ordered their Israeli entry permits be revoked in response, it said.
The moves follow a decision on Friday by Israel’s security cabinet to withhold $39m in revenues from the Palestinian Authority and impose a moratorium on Palestinian construction projects in most of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that decision was in response to the UN General Assembly’s recent vote to refer Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory to the International Court of Justice at the PA’s request.
Israel’s Security Cabinet also said it would further deduct revenue it typically transfers to the cash-strapped PA – a sum equal to the amount the authority paid last year to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including those implicated in attacks against Israelis.
The Palestinian leadership describes the payments as necessary social welfare, while Israel says the so-called Martyrs’ Fund incentivises violence. Israel’s withholding of the funds threatens to exacerbate the PA’s fiscal woes.
“Israeli blackmailing of our tax revenues will not stop us from continuing our political and diplomatic struggle,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. He added that the Israeli measures will deepen the Palestinian financial crisis and budget shortfall.
Netanyahu took office late last month at the head of a coalition with far-right and Jewish ultra-Orthodox parties that is regarded as the most right-wing in Israeli history.
Some of the satellite’s 2,450kg (5,400lb) mass is projected to survive re-entry but the majority will burn up in the atmosphere.
A defunct NASA satellite that has spent nearly 40 years in orbit is poised to hit the ground.
According to a statement released by NASA on Saturday, the likelihood of a risk to “anyone on Earth” from falling satellite debris is extremely low.
According to NASA, some components of the 2,450kg (5,400lb) satellite are anticipated to survive the re-entry but the most will burn up.
The United States space agency put the odds of injury from falling debris at about one-in-9,400. The science satellite is expected to come down on Sunday night at approximately 18:40 EST (23:40 GMT), give or take 17 hours, according to the US defence department.
The California-based Aerospace Corporation, however, has predicted Monday morning, US time, for the satellite’s re-entry, give or take 13 hours, along a track that passes over Africa, Asia the Middle East and the westernmost areas of North and South America.
The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, known as ERBS, was launched in 1984 on board the space shuttle Challenger.
Although its expected working lifetime was two years, the satellite kept making ozone and other atmospheric measurements until its retirement in 2005. The satellite studied how Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the sun.
“ERBS far exceeded its expected two-year service life, operating until its retirement in 2005,” NASA said in a statement.
“Its observations helped researchers measure the effects of human activities on Earth’s radiation balance,” NASA said.
The satellite got a special send-off when it was launched from the Challenger 38 years ago.
The first woman in space, US astronaut Sally Ride, released the satellite into orbit using the shuttle’s robot arm.
That same mission also featured the first spacewalk by a US woman Kathryn Sullivan. It was the first time two female astronauts flew in space together.
The election is seen as a test of democracy because opposition candidates are allowed to run after a four-year absence.
Voters inBenin will go to the polls for a parliamentary election seen as a test of democracy, with opposition parties returning to the ballot after boycotting or being barred from the most recent presidential and legislative elections.
Benin’s image as a bastion of democracy and stability in West Africa has suffered under President Patrice Talon, who broke a pledge not to run for re-election and oversaw a crackdown on the opposition since taking office in 2016.
Seven parties are competing in the vote, including the Les Democrates party linked to Talon’s predecessor and rival Thomas Boni Yayi.
Boni Yayi’s supporters led protests in 2019 after opposition parties were blocked from the legislative vote for failing to meet strict new eligibility criteria.
“I will vote for this party [Les Democrates] for the rebalance of power,” civil society activist Isidore Odountan, 31, told Reuters news agency in the largest city Cotonou.
Preliminary results, which are expected on January 11, may also be an indicator of the strength of the various political forces jostling to succeed Talon. The next presidential election is due in 2026 when the next parliamentary vote will also be held.
Talon does not belong to any party but is supported by the two parties currently in power in parliament – the Bloc Republicain and Union Progressiste le Renouveau.
There is no immediate sign the vote will see protests like in 2019 or those that broke out in 2021 against Talon’s decision to seek re-election, said political analyst Expedit Ologou, head of Beninois think tank Civic Academy for Africa’s Future.
“The atmosphere seems calm, peaceful, friendly, fraternal in most areas of the country,” he told Reuters.
Under Talon, the political protests have been met with deadly police violence, while politicised prosecutions and other legal tactics have been used to stifle the opposition, US democracy watchdog Freedom House said in its 2022 report.
Talon has denied targeting political opponents or violating human rights.
With more parties on the ballot, turnout should return to normal levels of about 60 percent after slumping to just 27 percent in 2019, Ologou said.
Regional security may be higher up in voters’ concerns in this election as Benin, alongside neighbouring Togo and Ivory Coast, has seen increasing attacks from armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) as violence creeps south from the Sahel countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The insecurity and higher living costs linked to the war in Ukraine pose a threat to Benin’s recent economic gains, the International Monetary Fund warned last July.
Benin’s agriculture-dependent economy has rebounded since the coronavirus pandemic, growing more than 7 percent in 2021 and the first half of 2022. But the country of 12 million remains one of the poorest in the world with one-fifth of the population living on less than $1.90 per day, according to the World Bank.
Beyond the opposition’s drive to reclaim seats in parliament, Sunday’s election will affect the future of some of the other institutions in the small country, which sits between Nigeria and Togo.
The mandate of the Constitutional Court ends this year and, three years before the 2026 presidential ballot, the court’s composition is crucial as it oversees decisions on elections.
Four judges are appointed by lawmakers while the other three are chosen by the president.
Talon, a wealthy businessman, was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2021.
The return of 46 soldiers signals resolution of a bitter diplomatic standoff between the Ivory Coast and Mali.
Forty-six Ivorian soldiers accused by Mali of being mercenaries have returned home after six months in captivity.
The troops arrived at Ivory Coast’s Abidjan airport late on Saturday, a day after receiving a pardon from Mali’s military ruler.
Their arrest in the Malian capital of Bamako in July of last year had triggered a bitter diplomatic fight between the neighbouring countries.
Mali accused them of being mercenaries, while Ivory Coast said they were flown in to provide routine backup security for the German contingent of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Emerging from their plane home on Saturday, each soldier held a small Ivorian flag and smiled as they shook hands with Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, who was waiting to greet them at the airport.
“Now that this crisis is behind us, we can resume normal relations with the brother country of Mali,” Ouattara said once they were all on Ivorian soil.
A spokesperson for the soldiers thanked Ouattara, and “the Ivorian people for their support and active solidarity”.
“We are happy and relieved to return to the motherland,” he said.
Their release comes days after a court in Bamako sentenced them to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiring against the Malian government and seeking to undermine state security. Three women, who had been among the original 49 arrested at the airport and released earlier, received death sentences in absentia.
As part of a significant reorganization that would also hasten the development of new locations,McDonald‘s CEO has warned employees to expect job layoffs.
The company’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, said that a “outdated and self-limiting” structure was harming the fast food juggernaut.
“We are trying to solve the same problems multiple times, aren’t always sharing ideas,” he said.
In a letter sent to employees globally, it said it would review corporate staffing levels by April.
“There will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” the memo said.
McDonald’s employs about 200,000 people in corporate roles and its owned restaurants, with 75% of them outside located outside of the US.
Its chief executive also announced that certain projects will be stopped altogether.
“This will help us move faster as an organization, while reducing our global costs and freeing up resources to invest in our growth,” he wrote in to the letter to staff, which was shared with investors.
The firm did not provide details about the scope of the job cuts being looked at, or say which projects might be affected.
But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal newspaper, Mr Kempczinski said he did not have a fixed goal for the number of cuts.
“Some jobs that are existing today are either going to get moved or those jobs may go away,” he said.
Pandemic boost
As part of the new strategy, Mr Kempczinski said the company wants to push to open more restaurants “to fully capture the increased demand we’ve driven over the past few years”.
Although dining generally suffered during the pandemic, McDonald’s has benefited from investments the firm made in online ordering and home deliveries.
In the first nine months of the year, McDonald’s saw sales rise 6%, helped by price increases to items like its cheeseburgers.
But its profits overseas have been hurt by the rise of the dollar and the exit fromUkraine.
During its most recent update to investors in October, the firm said rising prices were also posing challenges, noting that at many of its restaurants – which are operated by franchisees – there was “increasing uncertainty and unease about the economic environment”.
The Chicago-based company operates in more than 160 countries around the world.
It said earlier this week it would be pulling out of Kazakhstan, which borders Russia, pointing to supply chain issues sparked by the war in Ukraine.
McDonald’s pledged to leave Russia in May after setting up there 32 years ago – the latest change after several years of upheaval in the restaurant industry.
In response to the passing of his mother, Diana, the Princess of Wales, in 1997, Prince Harry has disclosed he cried just once.
Prince Harry describes how he and Prince William were unable to express any emotion as they visited mourners in public in a new interview clip to promote the release of his autobiography Spare.
He admitted to crying during his mother’s funeral to Tom Bradby of ITV.
The Duke of Sussex said he had felt “some guilt” walking among crowds who left flowers outside Kensington Palace.
The book is not due to be published until 10 January, but extracts were leaked after some copies went on sale early in Spain. BBC News has obtained a copy and has been translating it.
In the ITV interview, due to be broadcast on Sunday evening, Prince Harry said “everyone knows where they were” when his mother died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.He said he had looked back on the footage of him and his brother meeting mourners a few days later.
“I cried once, at the burial, and you know I go into detail [in Spare] about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt as well, by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace,” he said.
“There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking people’s hands, smiling…
“And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn’t understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away.”
Prince Harry adds: “Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mum, and the two closest people to her, the two most loved people by her, were unable to show any emotion in that moment.”
Spare includes details of Prince Harry’s walk behind his mother’s coffin at her funeral, where crowds reached out to him and how he felt unable to cry in public.
He also writes about getting a driver to take him through the road tunnel in Paris where his mother died, hoping for closure from a “decade of unrelenting pain”.
And he says his father did not hug him when he broke the news Princess Diana had died, sitting on his bed in Balmoral.
Image caption, A number of sensational claims from Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare have leaked out ahead of its publication
Prince Harry’s ITV interview will be the first of four broadcast appearances to be aired over the coming days to promote Spare. He also spoke to three US TV networks – Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes on CBS News on Sunday night, Michael Strahan of Good Morning America on Monday and Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on CBS on Tuesday.
Among the other revelations in Spare are a claim by Prince Harry that he was physically attacked by his brother; information on how Harry lost his virginity; details about drug taking; and a claim he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving in Afghanistan.
A number of high-profile military veterans have criticised his claim of killing Taliban fighters.
Ex-colonel Tim Collins, best known for delivering the Eve-of-Battle speech during the Iraq War in which he called on his officers to “show respect”, said Prince Harry had “badly let the side down” and “we don’t do notches on the rifle butt”.
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have both said they will not comment on the contents of the book.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they would be stepping back from their senior royal duties in 2020, saying they intended to become financially independent.
In February last year, they spoke to Oprah Winfrey about their difficult relationship with other members of the royal family, and a Netflix documentary.
Economist, Dr. Patrick Asuming is of the view that businesses may delay in investing in the first quarter of the year to observe the conclusions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme before increasing financial inflows.
This, he said could slow economic activities if government does not move quickly to boost investor confidence.
Speaking to Joy Business, Dr. Asuming stated that financial institutions may also react by tightening financing to the private sector.
He explained that the phenomenon should be expected as businesses always look at government projections to plan.
“I think overall, businesses will probably want to put on hold any major investment that requires financing from the banks because of the ongoing discussions about the Debt Exchange Pogramme”, he said.
He is of the view that the programme will change the strength and lending pattern of the banks.
Dr. Asuming stated that it will be normal to see banks tighten financing to the private sector until financial sector players assess the impact of the programme on their operations.
He cautioned that businesses that wish to overcome financial challenges must be moderate in their expansion drive to avert challenges.
“It is important for them to plan carefully and then maybe minimize their planned expansions and the business investment for the mean time”, he said.
A Member of Parliament (MP) for the North Tongu Constituency has expressed concern about the appointment of the Finance Minister as caretaker.
Ken Ofori-Atta and his spouse are allegedly involved in some shady deals with the National Cathedral project, according to documents that the MP alleges to have in his possession.
“Fresh Cathedral documents in my possession reveal that Enterprise Insurance, a company Ken Ofori-Atta is intimately associated with & where his wife serves as a director was granted a sweetheart deal to insure the entire cathedral construction site,” he said.
This, the MP believes is a cause for worry.
Taking to his social media handle on Friday, Mr Ablakwa said with Ofori-Atta’s new appointment, only God can save the Trade Ministry.
“God save the Trade Ministry,” he said.
The North Tongu MP’s post comes hours after a statement from the office of the President announced that Mr Ofori-Atta will act as caretaker minister of the Ministry of Trade and Industry until a substantive replacement is made.
The Finance Minister’s caretaker appointment follows the resignation of the Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen on Thursday.
The man popularly called ‘Alan Cash’ has long been rumoured to be nursing the ambition to contest the flagbearership slot of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2024 general election.
His resignation some have claimed, is to afford him time to pursue his presidential ambition.
Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, the general secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has refuted allegations that the party will hold its legislative and presidential primaries on a specific day.
Earlier reports noted that a schedule saying that the political party will hold its primaries on Saturday, May 6, 2023, was made available to the media.
Mr. Fiavi Kwetey, debunking the false date, said an official timetable for the election will be communicated at an appropriate time.
He urged the public to disregard the dates circulating in the media until official communication from his office has been projected.
“We will be coming out with a formal announcement in due time. Disregard everything until my office comes out with a formal announcement. So everything that you see, disregard until an official communication is out,” he said.
Meanwhile, some decisions reached at the NEC meeting included; preparation towards a ‘Thank You’ programme before the end of January and an agreement to hold both the presidential and parliamentary primaries concurrently.
Opening of nomination for Presidential and Parliamentary primaries according to NEC spans two days beginning on February 22nd to 24th, 2023.
On January 6, 2023, the NDC also disclosed amounts for filing and picking of nomination forms for aspirants.
Individuals interested in leading the party as presidential candidate ahead of the 2024 elections have been directed to pay a sum of Gh¢500,000.00 as filing fee and Gh¢30,000.00 as nomination fee.
Again, party members interested in assuming parliamentary duties have been directed to pay Gh¢5,000.00 as nomination fee and Gh¢40,000.00 as filing fee.
According to NEC, vetting of aspirants will be held between March 27 and March 29, 2023.
An Accra High Court has ordered the management of the University of Ghana to refrain from revoking the residential status of continuing students in both Commonwealth and Mensah Sarbah halls.
This comes after a group of disgruntled students filed an interlocutory injunction on January 6,2023.
The university’s administration issued an order intending to remove all continuing male students from the halls due to a violent altercation that had taken place between the two parties on August 15, 2022.
According to UG’s management, they chose to implement the directive as a disciplinary step after fights between certain students from the two halls resulted in the destruction of John Mensah Sarbah’s statue, which was located at the Mensah Sarbah hall.
Per the administration’s announcement to the members of the university, starting from the 2022/2023 academic year, “Level 100 and graduate students (Masters and PhD level) will be assigned to Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth Halls.”
“All continuing students of Commonwealth hall and continuing male students of Mensah Sarbah hall will not return to these halls, or to any of the traditional halls.
They are to be randomly assigned to available rooms in any of the UGEL and private hostel,” the directive added.But in accordance with the court’s judgment from January 6, the current residential arrangement of students must be maintained as it was before UG’s directive on October 26, 2022.“It is hereby ordered that the Defendant herein is hereby restrained either by itself or its officers, assigns, privies, agents, workmen or anybody working under the Defendant’s instructions from going ahead to implement the decision of the Defendant, dated 26th October 2022 in respect of the residential policy decision affecting continuing students of Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana,” the court ruled.
A political scientist with theUniversity of Ghana has lauded the resigned Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyeremanten’s decision to step down.
praised for his actions by a political scientist at the University of Ghana.
Dr. Asah Asante, who appeared on Joy FM’s Midday News on Friday, praised Mr. Kyerematen’s decision.
This, he believes, will allow the Minister to concentrate on his political ambitions.
“It is right for the Minister because he wants to first of all have political space to operate. And also, he wants to be faithful to his government by not undermining the work of government while he has his eyes on this position and still occupying office, his attention will be divided. So if he has taken this decision to hop out so a new person comes in to continue from where he is leaving off and that is a good one,” he told Blessed Sogah.
The Trade Minister, Mr Alan Kyerematen on Thursday, January 5, 2023, tendered his resignation letter to President Akufo-Addo.
Although there have been persistent rumors that the Minister intends to run as the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) flagbearer, it is unclear if his resignation is to meet that purpose.
The political scientist further advised other ministers to also follow suit.
According to him, if they vacate their positions to concentrate on their political ambitions, it will pave way for others to fill the vacuum.
“Straight away because you don’t waste everybody’s time by being there, one would expect that you are working but here you are, you are doing other things – campaigning underground and all that,” he said.
Meanwhile, former Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah has described the resignation of Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen, as ‘too late’.
Reacting to the news of the Minister’s resignation, the formerNDC appointee said the move is behind time, given that Mr Kyerematen has already contributed to the deterioration of Ghana’s economy.
According to him, Alan and other members of the country’s Economic Management Team have collectively sunk the country, hence it is too late for him to exit the scene.
He, therefore, charged the Minister to rather stay at post and apologise to Ghanaians for the harm caused.
“Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen it’s tooooooooooooooo laaaaaaaaaaattttte, just toooooooo laaaaaaaaaaattttte to resign from this sinking ship.
“This NPP government is in its 7th year, and you’ve been part of the “SOLID TEAM” that has mismanaged the economy.
“Embrace the responsibilities and apologise to Ghanaians for collectively failing us: as a government and as an Economic (mis)Management Team”, portions of his Facebook post on Friday read.
