Guinea’s military junta appointed a veteran opposition leader as the country’s new prime minister, a crucial step that sets the stage for the military to cede power to civilians in elections within the next six months.
Jean-Marie Dore is an outspoken critic of junta leader Captain Moussa “Dadis” Camara and was brutally beaten by his soldiers when he helped lead a demonstration calling for an end to military rule.
The appointment on Tuesday came as General Sekouba Konate, who persuaded Camara to step aside and accept a transition to civilian rule, returned to Conakry amid extremely tight security.
Konate descended from a private jet and shook hands with members of Guinea’s junta before being whisked away in a convoy of around 30 pickup trucks packed with soldiers.
The general, who is the No. 2 in the West African country’s junta, had spent the past six days in Burkina Faso negotiating the departure of Guinea’s military strongman. At one point, Konate drafted a four-page resignation letter when it appeared that Camara would not step down.
Under intense pressure, Camara agreed to go into exile due to his failing health. He gave the go-ahead to the appointment of a civilian prime minister and the holding within six months of multiparty elections in which no member of the military would be allowed to run.
The elated opposition planned a hero’s welcome for Konate, and thousands of Guineans had been expected to go to the airport. But late Tuesday a government spokesman said only members of the government would be allowed to greet him.
Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers deployed around the airport hours before his arrival, blocking roads, turning back cars and forcing shops to close amid concerns that soldiers loyal to the exiled coup leader did not back the transition to civilian rule.
Junta loyalists chartered a private plane last week and flew to Burkina Faso, vowing not to return to Guinea without Camara, their 46-year-old chief, who was badly wounded in an assassination attempt. Some of them wept on Sunday when a gaunt Camara read a prepared statement, often losing his place as he announced that he supported the transition to democracy.
Idrissa Cherif, the information minister for the junta that seized power just over a year ago, said Camara and Konate had agreed on the choice of Dore for interim prime minister.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS