KENYA
Building collapses in capital
At least one person was killed and several were injured on Sunday when a six-story residential building collapsed in Nairobi, officials said. They said 22 survivors had been pulled out of the rubble in the Haruma neighborhood, but added that it was unclear how many others were still trapped. The building collapsed at about 7pm, sparking a major rescue operation involving scores of police, city officials and medical workers, a photographer at the scene said. Speaking to Capital FM radio, county official Tom Odongo said the six floors of the building were occupied and a seventh was under construction. He also said the upper floors were built in quick succession, putting pressure on the lower floors, adding that the construction had not been permitted by local authorities. “The fault lies with the developer, not the county government, because responsibility starts with the individual,” Odongo said. Residents also swarmed to the site, although crowds were pushed away by police as heavy lifting machinery and official rescue teams were brought in.
EGYPT
Four officers hurt in blast
Four Egyptian policemen were wounded yesterday by a bomb in the volatile Sinai Peninsula, security sources said. The explosive was reportedly planted at the entrance of an apartment building in the provincial capital of Al-Arish, the sources said. Security forces face a Muslim extremist insurgency that has killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers since the army toppled former president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests. Most attacks have been in the Sinai region, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.
GAMBIA
Capital radio station closed
Authorities ordered the closure of a popular radio station as part of a crackdown following a failed attack on the presidential palace, a source close to the government said on Sunday. Security agents ordered Teranga radio station manager Alagie Ceesay: “To stop broadcasting with immediate effect,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The independent station, which translates news from English into local languages, was taken off air on Saturday. The police kept Ceesay for questioning that night. He was released on Sunday without charges, the source added. No explanation was given for the closure of the station, which was also shut temporarily in 2012 amid international outcry over the state’s execution of nine prisoners.
FRANCE
Firebrand filmmaker dies
Filmmaker Rene Vautier, who claimed to be the “most-censored director in France,” died on Sunday at age 86 in Brittany, his family said. A lifelong critic of French colonialism, Vautier is best-known for Avoir 20 ans dans les Aures (“To Be 20 in the Aures”), which depicted conscripts being turned into killing machines during the nation’s war in Algeria. It won him an international critics’ prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972, but like much of his work brought him into conflict with national authorities. Many of his films were banned or condemned by the establishment; one landed him in prison. He was sentenced to a year in jail for making Africa 50, which he shot when he was 20, and which is seen as the first French anticolonial film. He later went on to train the first generation of Algerian filmmakers.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in