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.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
U-TURN? Trami was moving northwest toward Vietnam yesterday, but high-pressure winds and other factors could force it to turn back toward the Philippines Tropical Storm Trami blew away from the northwestern Philippines yesterday, leaving at least 65 people dead in landslides and extensive flooding that forced authorities to scramble for more rescue boats to save thousands of terrified people, who were trapped, some on their roofs. However, the onslaught might not be over: State forecasters raised the rare possibility that the storm — the 11th and one of the deadliest to hit the Philippines this year — could make a U-turn next week as it is pushed back by high-pressure winds in the South China Sea. A Philippine provincial police chief yesterday said that 33
PROPAGANDA: The leaflets attacked the South Korean president and first lady with phrases such as: ‘It’s fortunate that President Yoon and his wife have no children’ North Korean propaganda leaflets apparently carried by balloons were found scattered on the streets of the South Korean capital, Seoul, yesterday, including some making personal attacks on the country’s president and first lady. The leaflets attacking South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee found in the capital appear to be the first instance of the North Korean government directly sending anti-South propaganda material across the border. They included graphic messages accusing the Yoon government of failures that had left his people living in despair, and describing the first couple as immoral and mentally unstable. The leaflets included photographs of the
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