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Japan votes in snow-hit snap polls as Takaichi eyes strong mandate

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By Kyoko Hasegawa and Caroline Gardin AFP Japan voted in snow-hit snap elections Sunday with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hoping to turn a honeymoon start into a resounding ballot box victory that could rile China and rattle financial markets. Opinion polls suggest that Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed almost non-stop for decades, will easily win more than the 233 seats needed to regain a majority in the powerful 465-member lower house. Heavy snowfall blanketed many parts of the country on election day, including Tokyo and other regions that rarely see winter snow. “I think it’s important to come, so that we can properly take part in politics as well,” a 50-year-old woman, who only disclosed her surname as Kondo, told AFP near a voting station in Tokyo. “Even if it snows more than it does now, I still plan to go,” she added. “I struggled to find a way to the ballot box as snow was accumulating around it, and it was a pain to arrive here with bad road...
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Thousands mourn 31 victims of Islamabad Shia mosque bombing in Pakistan

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By Asif Shahzad Reuters Thousands of mourners gathered in Islamabad on Saturday to start burying the 31 killed in a suicide bombing at a Shi’ite Muslim mosque, as residents expressed concern that there could be further attacks. A man opened fire at the Khadija Tul Kubra Imambargah compound on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital, then detonated a bomb that killed 31, as well as himself, and injured more than 170 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Telegram messaging app. Funeral prayers for some of the victims were held in an open area near the mosque on Saturday morning under tight security, with police and a unit of elite commandos standing guard. Mourners beat their chests before stooping to lift the coffins and carry them toward the burial grounds. “Whoever did this terrorism, may God burn them in hell and turn them to ash,” the prayer leader told mourners. While bombings are rare in heavily guarded Isla...
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Nigeria deploys army to Kwara state after deadly mass shootings

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By Muhammad Tanko Shittu AFP Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu deployed an army battalion to a troubled state after gunmen killed as many as 162 people in one of the country’s deadliest attacks in recent months. The attack late Tuesday on Woro village in Kwara State came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”. Gunmen burned shops and a traditional ruler’s home and wounded people fled into the bushes, Babaomo Ayodeji, Kwara State secretary of the Red Cross, told AFP. “Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” Ayodeji said. The attack was confirmed by police who did not give a casualty figure. Earlier, a local lawmaker Sa’idu Baba Ahmed gave an initial toll of 35-40 dead but said more bodies would be found as many wounded people had fled into the bush. The governor of the west-central state AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq gave a toll of 75 dead. Conflicting accounts o...
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Gunmen kill nearly 200 in Nigeria’s Kwara and Katsina attacks

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By TUNDE OMOLEHIN and DYEPKAZAH SHIBAYAN, Associated Press Armed extremists killed at least 162 people during attacks on two villages in western Nigeria, a lawmaker said Wednesday, in one of the deadliest assaults in recent months. One rights group estimated the death toll could be higher. The attacks targeted the villages of Woro and Nuku, in the state of Kwara, on Tuesday evening, Mohammed Omar Bio, a member of parliament representing the area, told The Associated Press. He said the attacks were carried out by the Lakurawa, an armed group affiliated with the Islamic State group. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ayodeji Emmanuel Babaomo, the Red Cross secretary in Kwara state, said the organization has been unable to reach the communities where “scores of people were killed” because they are in a remote area — about eight hours from the state capital and near Nigeria’s border with Benin. Footage from the scene on local television show bodies lying in blood on th...
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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of ex-Libyan leader, reportedly shot dead

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of late Libyan dictator Moamer Gaddafi, was killed on Tuesday, his political office has said. Saif al-Islam was killed in a “treacherous and cowardly” act, in which four masked men stormed his residence in the western Libyan city of Zintan, the office said. His lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi confirmed to dpa that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was “assassinated at his home.” The al-Arabiya news channel reported that the 53-year-old was shot dead in the garden of his residence in Zintan, citing sources close to the Gaddafi family. Saif al-Islam was the second-eldest son of the long-time Libyan leader, who ruled the North African country for more than four decades. Before his father’s overthrow and death in 2011, al-Islam led a reform project aimed at modernizing the country politically and bringing it closer to the West. Many of these efforts were soon reversed in order not to upset the balance of power in his father’s government. Gaddafi’s death followed months of m...
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Syrian state forces deploy in Kurdish-run city under ceasefire deal

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By Khalil Ashawi and Firas Makdesi Reuters Syrian government security forces deployed in a Kurdish-controlled city in the northeast on Monday, a first step towards implementing a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that foresees the Kurdish-run regions being merged with Damascus. The deal, declared on ​Friday, staved off the prospect of further confrontation between President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which lost swathes of ‌eastern and northern Syria to government troops in January. Reuters journalists saw a convoy of more than 30 interior ministry vehicles begin moving towards the ethnically-mixed city of Hasakah from its outskirts in the ‌early afternoon. Sources in the city said they entered shortly afterwards. Members of the Kurdish Asayish security force observed as the convoy entered the city. Government forces are expected to be stationed in Syrian state buildings in Hasakah’s so-called “security zone”, a Syrian official and a Kurdish...
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Russian drone strike kills 12 miners as Kyiv announces new talks

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By Dan Peleschuk Reuters A Russian drone strike on a bus carrying miners killed at least 12 people, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced new peace talks amid uncertainty over a Russian suspension of attacks on energy ​infrastructure. First Deputy Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the strike in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region was a “cynical and targeted” attack on energy workers. Their ‌employer DTEK said the victims were finishing a shift. Kyiv is under U.S. pressure to agree a peace deal in the nearly four-year war while grappling with a Russian campaign of airstrikes that ‌has ravaged its energy system during one of the coldest winters in years. UKRAINE READY FOR ‘SUBSTANTIVE TALKS’ The first round of U.S.-backed trilateral talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in late January, but led to no movement on the vital question of territory, with Moscow still demanding Kyiv cede more land in its war-torn east, which it re...
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