Month: November 2021

French Convoy Faces New Protests Crossing Into Niger From Burkina Faso

Protesters in Niger blocked a French military convoy  Saturday shortly after it crossed the border from Burkina Faso, where it had been stuck for a week due to demonstrations against the former colonial ruler there, France’s army said.   French soldiers and Nigerien military police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from approaching their vehicles, before the convoy was able to continue on its way toward the capital Niamey, said army spokesperson Colonel Pascal Ianni.     Anger about France’s military presence in its former colonies has been rising in Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries in West Africa’s Sahel …

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France Says it is Willing to Discuss Autonomy for Guadeloupe

France is willing to discuss autonomy for the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe if it is in the interests of the people who live there, government minister Sebastien Lecornu said. Guadeloupe and the nearby French island of Martinique have seen several days of protests against COVID-19 measures that have spilled over into violence. Lecornu, the minister for France’s overseas territories, said in a YouTube video issued late on Friday that certain elected officials in Guadeloupe had raised the question of autonomy, changing its status as an overseas region. “The government is ready to talk about this. There are no bad …

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Iraqi Kurds Cite Work, Graft as Reasons that Belarus Beckons

The smuggler had said the car would come in 10 minutes, but Zaid Ramadan had been waiting in the dense forest straddling the Poland-Belarus border for three hours, desperate for signs of headlights in the mist – and a new life in Europe. His pregnant wife Delin shivered under a blanket. She had been against leaving their life in Dohuk, a mountainous province in the northern Kurdish-run region of Iraq. The journey was perilous, expensive and the change too drastic, she told him. “But I convinced her to leave. In Dohuk, we can’t live a real life; there is corruption, …

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51 Presumed Dead in Russia Coal Mine Accident; ‘Miracle’ Survivor Found 

Russian authorities on Friday released the names of 51 people presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion in a coal mine in Siberia, believed to be the deadliest since 2010. The list with the names of 46 miners and five rescuers was published online by the government of the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia, where the mine is located. Authorities had initially reported 52 possible fatalities, but search teams on Friday found a survivor in what officials described as a miracle.  A total of 285 miners were in the Listvyazhnaya mine at the time of an explosion on Thursday morning …

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EU to Suspend Travel From Southern Africa Over New COVID Variant 

European Union states have agreed to suspend travel from southern Africa after the detection of a new COVID-19 variant, the presidency of the EU said Friday. A committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter.    Restrictions will apply to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said on Twitter. An EU official said that EU governments have also been asked to …

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WHO Names New COVID Variant Omicron, Cautions Against Travel Measures

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday classified the B.1.1.529 variant detected in South Africa as a SARS-CoV-2 “variant of concern,” saying it may spread more quickly than other forms. Preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection and there had been a “detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology,” it said in a statement after a closed meeting of independent experts who reviewed the data. Infections in South Africa had risen steeply in recent weeks, coinciding with detection of the variant now designated as omicron, WHO said. “This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are …

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Global Stocks Tumble, FTSE 100 Suffers Year’s Worst Session on Virus Scare

Britain’s blue-chip share index slumped Friday, suffering its biggest drop in more than a year as fears over a newly detected and possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant gripped stock markets around the world.   The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index closed down 3.7% at its lowest in more than seven weeks, with commodity, travel, and banking stocks leading the sell-off.   Britain said the virus variant spreading in South Africa was considered by scientists to be the most significant one found yet and it needed to ascertain whether it rendered vaccines ineffective.   Tourism group TUI fell almost 10%, while …

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US State Department: ‘All Options’ on Table Over Russian Troop Build-Up Near Ukraine

All options are on the table in how to respond to Russia’s ‘large and unusual’ troop build-up near Ukraine’s border, and the NATO alliance will decide what the next move will be following consultations next week, the top U.S. diplomat for European affairs said Friday.   “As you can appreciate, all options are on the table, and there’s a toolkit that includes a whole range of options,” Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried told reporters in a telephone briefing.   “It’s now for the alliance to decide what are the next moves that NATO wants …

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Survivor Found in Coal Mine Accident in Russia’s Siberia

Rescuers have found a survivor in a Siberian coal mine where dozens of miners are presumed dead after a devastating methane explosion, a top local official announced Friday. Sergei Tsivilyov, governor of the Kemerovo region where the mine is located, said on the messaging app Telegram that the survivor was found in the Listvyazhnaya mine in southwestern Siberia, and “he is being taken to the hospital.”  Acting Emergency Minister Alexander Chupriyan said the man found in the mine was rescuer Alexander Zakovryashin who had been presumed dead. “I can consider it a miracle,” Chupriyan said. Zakovryashin was conscious when rescuers …

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Furious France Scraps UK Migrants Meeting After Johnson Letter

France on Friday scrapped planned talks with the UK about migrant crossings in anger at a letter by Britain’s prime minister over the crisis, pushing relations to new lows following the deaths of 27 people in the Channel this week. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told UK counterpart Priti Patel she was no longer invited to talks at the weekend about the migrant crisis in the Channel with other European ministers. The meeting was set to go ahead without any UK presence, prompting London to demand France reconsider the snub. The row puts London and Paris at odds when they are …

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