SOUTH AFRICA
Union boss accused of rape
An employee has accused the leader of powerful trade union federation COSTATU of rape, but the politician shot down the allegation as a plot on Saturday. COSTATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said the sex was consensual and that his accuser tried to blackmail him into paying 2 million rand (US$204,000). The 26-year-old woman told the Weekend Post that Vavi overpowered her on Jan. 25 in her office at the union’s Johannesburg headquarters. “He put me on the floor and forced himself on me. The general secretary raped me,” she said in an internal complaint, according to the paper. Vavi slammed the complaint as a plot to topple him. “I vehemently deny the allegations made against me by the staff member concerned,” he said in a statement on Saturday. “I have engaged lawyers, and I am ready and willing to appear before any legitimate body to clear my name.”
BULGARIA
Poll highlights discontent
Almost three-quarters of the population consider their country “intolerable,” according to a new survey released on Saturday by the Open Society Institute, following weeks of protest against the government and a worsening economy. The survey of 1,155 people by the public policy charity found that 72 percent thought the political situation was “intolerable,” with 22 percent judging it was just “bearable.” Only 2 percent of those surveyed described the current state of the nation as normal. The 72 percent of respondents denouncing the nation’s political quagmire is at a six-year high, and up 15 percentage points from July last year. The survey also found that almost 40 percent of the population wanted the immediate resignation of the government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski, whose minority Cabinet took office in late May.
IRAN
Man self-immolates: report
A semi-official news agency is reporting that a member of a small religious minority set himself on fire next to the country’s parliament building. ISNA’s late Saturday report says the man, a member of the Ahl Al-Haq, suddenly poured a bottle of fuel on his body and lit it. It said he was taken to hospital. Opposition Web sites have reported two other such self-immolations since last month by Ahl Al-Haq adherents, following the alleged abuse of a group member in prison. Tehran recognizes some non-Muslim minorities such as Zoroastrians, but others like the Baha’i complain of exclusion from state jobs, vilification in the media and other pressures. The Ahl Al-Haq faith is found mostly among ethnic Kurds in both western Iran and Iraq.
MALI
Voters head to polls
Voters were heading to the polls yesterday in the nation’s first election since last year’s coup, despite massive technical glitches which have resulted in tens of thousands of registered voters being dropped from the voter list. In the contested region of Kidal yesterday, only a trickle of voters made their way past checkpoints manned by UN peacekeepers. The majority that came could not find their name on the lists posted outside their polling station. Kidal was the birthplace of last year’s uprising by Tuareg separatists, a rebellion which set in motion a sequence of events that led to the coup in the capital. Officials are worried that low voter turnout, combined with the technical lapses that are preventing people from voting will undermine the legitimacy of the election.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
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