Waving palm tree fronds and screaming his name, thousands gave a hero's welcome Saturday to Gilchrist Olympio as Togo's exiled opposition leader came home to campaign for the first time since the death of the military ruler accused of assassinating his father.
"We've won [elections] already!" yelled Eveme Cudjoe from the throngs that lined the road from the Ghanaian border town of Aflao to Lome, Togo's capital.
"This is the only man that can save the country," people told reporters during the celebration that turned the five-minute drive from the border into a two-hour crawl.
The politician's father and Togo's first democratically elected leader, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in a 1963 coup led by Gnassingbe Eyadema, who openly took power four years later.
Eyadema died Feb. 5 and the military installed his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as his successor, but street protests at home and an outcry from abroad forced him to step down.
The Economic Community of West African States, which called Gnassingbe's succession a military coup, mediated and helped call elections scheduled April 24.
Olympio, who fled the country in 1997 after a series of assassination attempts, has made only occasional visits back. On Saturday, he called for dialogue and reconciliation with the military.
"Not all soldiers are enemies of change," he said at a news conference and political rally held later. "The armed forces will help us in the reconstruction effort of the new Togo."
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
A rash of unexplained drone sightings in the skies above New Jersey has left locals rattled and sent US officials scrambling for answers. Breathless local news reports have amplified the anxious sky-gazing and wild speculation — interspersing blurry, dark clips from social media with irate locals calling for action. For weeks now, the distinctive blinking lights and whirling rotors of large uncrewed aerial vehicles have been spotted across the state west of New York. However, military brass, elected representatives and investigators have been unable to explain the recurring UFO phenomenon. Sam Lugo, 23, who works in the Club Studio gym in New Jersey’s Bergen
RSS