Global News

By Lucía DIAZ AFP | Posted by TOE Madrid said on Thursday it would despatch soldiers to Ceuta to ensure security after hundreds of migrants entered Spain’s north African exclave from neighbouring Morocco and hundreds more headed there. The Spanish government’s delegation in the enclave told AFP that the bodies of nine migrants who died while trying to reach Ceuta by swimming had been recovered. Migration from Morocco into Spain’s two north African territories, Ceuta and Melilla, has long been a politically sensitive issue between the two countries, as thousands cross the border at times. Italy called on Thursday for Spain to be suspended from Europe’s open-borders Schengen zone, prompting a backlash from Spain, which summoned the Italian envoy to Madrid. AFP reporters saw a stream of adults and children, most of them soaked, entering the town of Ceuta after having swum there. Discarded flotation rings and clothes were discarded on the shore n...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE Congo said a Rwandan armed group operating in eastern Congo had signed a protocol committing to ‌disarmament, but Rwanda rejected the move as inconsistent with a U.S.-brokered ‌peace agreement between the two countries. • Congo’s government said the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of ​Rwanda (FDLR), a group founded by ethnic Hutu fighters including some linked to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, had signed a protocol on disarmament, demobilisation and cantonment. • The FDLR is a central issue in a peace deal signed by Congo ‌and Rwanda in Washington ⁠last year aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Congo. The agreement commits the parties to implement a plan providing for ⁠the neutralisation of the FDLR and the disengagement of Rwandan forces in eastern Congo, making progress on the group a key test of the deal. • Rwanda has ​long accused ​Congo of cooperating with the group, ​while Kinshasa accuses Kigali of backin...

BY RODNEY MUHUMUZA REUTERS | POSTED BY TOE Authorities in Uganda declared the East Africa nation free of  Ebola  on Tuesday following the discharge of the country’s last patient in mid-June, a delicate milestone as the virus continues to plague neighboring Congo. Uganda has maintained since the outset that its cases were linked to  the larger outbreak  in eastern Congo’s remote province of Ituri, which borders Uganda. The first cases in Uganda were  Congolese who crossed the border  to seek treatment for an unknown illness before it was known they had Ebola, health authorities have said. After what health officials believe was weeks of transmission, Congo announced its outbreak on May 15, the same day that Uganda confirmed two Ebola cases — including a man who had already died. While a total of 20 cases were reported in Uganda, health authorities say there is currently no indication of further spread within the country. The ...

By DYEPKAZAH SHIBAYAN, Associated Press Gunmen attacked a community in northwestern Nigeria, killing at least 30 people and injuring several others, residents said Monday, in the latest violence in the conflict-hit region. The attack occurred late Sunday night in the Naridon village in Kaduna state’s Kaura council area, said Derek Christopher, chairman of the civil society group Southern Kaduna Peace and Security Network. “The same community was attacked last year around this time,” Christopher said in a statement, suggesting that the government has abandoned any intention of protecting the area from attacks by armed groups. “I don’t know who these people have left to fight for them,” he said. Raphael Joshua, a resident who was helping the injured, told The Associated Press that bodies of the victims had been deposited at a nearby hospital and that arrangements were being made for their burials. The commissioner for home affairs and internal security in Kaduna Stat...

By Reuters | Posted by TOE Five Bosnian climbers died on Russia’s Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, ‌after being caught in a violent storm, but the ‌bodies of three people have not yet been evacuated due to bad ​weather, RIA Novosti reported on Sunday citing Russian authorities. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry has said rescuers evacuated the bodies of two dead climbers who were located on the mountain at an altitude of ‌5,350 metres (17,550 feet), after ⁠first saving two other climbers who were evacuated from the mountain and taken for medical ⁠care. The regional branch of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said rescuers had recovered the bodies of three more deceased ​climbers but ​that they have not yet ​been evacuated due to ‌bad weather, RIA Novosti reported. Though the Russian authorities did not specify their nationality, the regional law enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti the climbers who died on Elbrus came from Bosnia...

By AFP | Posted by TOE Iran passed another night without US airstrikes on Sunday, as Washington paused a war nearing its fifth month and reports emerged that concerns over dwindling munitions were restraining plans for further escalation. The lull has revived hopes of a return to negotiations after nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly US bombardments, although US media reported the pause could also reflect pressure on stockpiles of Patriot interceptors and other defensive weapons. Fighting over the strategic Strait of Hormuz derailed diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran, but the conflict then expanded beyond the vital energy corridor to include attacks on US bases, regional shipping and Gulf allies. Iran’s army warned on Sunday that the war would widen even further if the US chose to press ahead with attacks, ahead of a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington on Tuesday. “If the Americans once again fall for the Zi...