Global News

By AFP and Posted by TOE Tigray rebels were abandoning their regional capital in northern Ethiopia on Saturday, a local journalist and residents told AFP, as pro-government forces advanced on the city. Fighting erupted on September 23 in northern Ethiopia as the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) launched attacks into neighbouring states, raising fears of a return to the devastating 2020-2022 civil war. But federal forces and pro-government militias have pushed them back in recent days and were heading north towards the regional capital, Mekelle. “TPLF militants and leaders are leaving Mekelle,” the journalist said, adding that federal forces had not yet been seen inside the city. He said government offices and police stations had been left without security personnel. “I am concerned that government and public property could be exposed to looting because there are no security forces in the city,” a local resident told AFP...

By Frédéric Bourigault and Stuart Williams AFP | Posted by TOE French high school students lit fires outside schools and faced off with police on Friday as a protest movement that has forced the closure of some 400 establishments showed no sign of abating. The movement, which began last week in the Paris region and rapidly spread nationwide, has seen teenage pupils at lycees in their final years of schooling block access to buildings and clash with police. The students say their school hours are excessively long, conditions inadequate including overheated classrooms, and that there are too many staff absences. The government says the grievances are legitimate but has condemned what it has described as “urban violence”. Students have accused police of using excessive force and causing injuries by regularly firing tear gas canisters to disperse the protests. In Paris on Friday, fire damaged the entrances of two high schools — Leonard de Vinci in ...

By Emma Farge and Clement Bonnerot Reuters | Posted by TOE Thousands of displaced residents at an Ebola-hit camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have fled after soldiers entered ​the site, UN and Congolese officials said on Thursday, raising concern about ‌the disease’s spread. Security forces went to the Kigonze camp looking for weapons and clashes ensued, causing camp residents to flee over the last week, according to Congolese and health officials The camp for ​some 19,000 displaced residents in Ituri province now lies abandoned, UN Senior ​Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis said in a statement Reuters reported in June ⁠that more than 30 people had died in the camp in just over a ​month, many from Ebola Two health officials with knowledge of the situation said that about ​1,000 Ebola contacts were resident in the camp. Only about a fifth of those have since been traced, one of the sources added “The enormous challenge of halting the spread...

By Lili Bayer and Mark Trevelyan Reuters | Posted by TOE Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea. In a document sent to NATO and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the ‌alliance of a “dangerous and reckless course” that entailed “high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict”. The document said this included the possibility of “Russian strikes against decision-making centers ‌in the alliance’s member states right from the outset”. “Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed ​at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,” the diplomatic note said. The warning highlighted Moscow’s urgent concern at...

By Nir Kafri AFP | Posted By TOE Israel’s leader credited the Indian pilot of a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight, as well as the aircraft’s passengers, with averting catastrophe Wednesday after the man was attacked by his co-pilot, sparking a fight for control of the aircraft and forcing an emergency landing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot of the flydubai jet had been trying to crash it and kill all its passengers, with Israel’s foreign ministry denouncing the incident as “an attempted terrorist attack” aimed at damaging the country’s relationship with one of its key Middle Eastern partners. Passengers gave a similar account of the incident, describing rushing the cockpit after the plane suddenly plummeted, losing around 17,000 feet of altitude in the span of a minute, according to the Flightradar24 website. Flydubai said all the passengers — of whom 166 out of 174 were Israeli, according to media reports — were ...

By Reuters | Posted By TOE Somali pirates killed five crew members of the hijacked MT Honour 25 petroleum products tanker before it was rescued by security ‌forces, Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland said on Tuesday. Puntland’s authorities said they also ‌rescued a second vessel on Tuesday that had been hijacked in May. The deaths aboard the Palau-flagged ship appear ​to be the first at the hands of Somali pirates in over a decade. The ship with 17 crew members was seized by pirates in April during a resurgence of Somali piracy that experts have attributed, in part, to impacts of the Iran war, including elevated oil prices ‌that make tankers more attractive targets. Puntland’s ⁠information ministry said in a statement that a rescue mission had successfully freed the ship and captured 16 pirates. “Before the operation begun, the ⁠pirates on board the ship killed five of the crew. Among those killed were three from Pakistan, one fr...