MOZAMBIQUE
Protesters dispute election
The capital, Maputo, on Friday experienced a mobile Internet blackout after protests against the re-election of the ruling Frelimo party descended into violence. Protests erupted on Thursday with hundreds of opposition supporters rejecting what they called a ballot “stolen” by a “corrupt” electoral commission in favor of the party that has ruled since 1975. The commission on Thursday had announced Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo as the winner of the Oct. 9 election with 71 percent of the vote, sparking a furious reaction from the opposition. Further sporadic demonstrations sprang up on Friday in the capital, where streets were littered with broken glass, burnt tires and other debris. Internet outages across various mobile carriers struck Maputo, although home access was not affected.
UNITED KINGDOM
Hunt on for cheese swindler
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on Saturday urged cheese lovers to help police catch scammers who conned a London dairy out of 22 tonnes of English and Welsh cheddar. Oliver described the theft as a “brazen heist of shocking proportions.” He told followers on Instagram to be alert if they heard anything about “lorry loads of very posh cheese” being offered “for cheap,” adding that the cheddar would have originally been worth about ￡300,000 (US$388,830). The appeal comes after Neal’s Yard Dairy said it delivered more than 950 wheels of cheddar to the alleged fraudster posing as a wholesale distributor for a major French retailer before realizing it had been duped. The Metropolitan Police in a statement on Friday said it was investigating a “report of the theft of a large quantity of cheese.”
UNITED STATES
G7 to boost sanction efforts
Finance ministers of the G7 nations on Saturday vowed to step up efforts to prevent Russia from evading sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine. “We remain committed to taking further initiatives in response to oil price cap violations,” the group said in a statement following a meeting in Washington. Those further steps were not spelled out in detail. In December 2022, the G7 together with the EU and Australia agreed to pressure purchasers of Russian oil to not go above a certain price ceiling. However, some countries, notably China, have continued to import Russian crude oil without observing the price ceiling. The G7 finance ministers also said they would take additional measures aimed at “increasing the costs to Russia of using the shadow fleet to evade sanctions.” The group on Friday announced it had reached an agreement to provide a loan of about US$50 billion to Ukraine. The loan would be repaid with the interest — about US$3 billion a year — generated by Russian assets seized and frozen after the war began in February 2022.
BULGARIA
Borisov likely to top poll
Bulgarians began voting yesterday in their seventh election in less than four years, with dim hope of an end to political turmoil that has favoured the country’s far right. The EU’s poorest member state has been at a standstill since 2020, when massive anti-corruption protests brought down the Cabinet of conservative three-time prime minister Boyko Borisov. Six consecutive votes so far have failed to yield a stable government. Borisov’s GERB party once again looks set to top the vote, but chances are high that GERB would struggle to find partners to govern. Voter turnout is also expected to be low, amid fears of electoral fraud.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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