LIBYA
Tripoli goes on strike
Residents of Tripoli went on strike yesterday over the deaths of 43 people killed on Friday during a shootout at an anti-militia protest rose to 43. The government has appealed for restraint. More than 450 people were wounded when Friday’s protest sparked clashes in the capital between militias that continued into Saturday, Minister of Justice Salah al-Marghani said. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who was briefly abducted by militiamen last month in an incident that underscored growing instability, appealed for “restraint and a halt to the clashes,” warning that “the coming hours and days will be decisive for the history of Libya.” Late on Saturday, local authorities in Tripoli announced a “three-day general strike in all public and private sectors starting Sunday” in response to the violence.
SUDAN
Tribal fight kills 100 in Darfur
Heavy fighting in a border region of Darfur has killed 100 people, state radio reported on Saturday, while another source said Chadian soldiers were among the recent dead. “The number of casualties has grown to 100” after battles between the Misseriya and Salamat tribes, Radio Omdurman said in a brief bulletin sent by SMS. The dispatch did not say what time period its toll covered, but intense battles between the two groups have flared again this month in southwestern Darfur. Radio Omdurman said fighting had stopped, but a Misseriya leader said battles continued on Saturday around southwest Darfur’s Umm Dukhun town, with more than 50 killed on both sides. Chadian troops in a joint force with local forces were among those killed in recent fighting, a humanitarian source said on Saturday.
TURKEY
Coma teen protest broken up
Police broke up a demonstration on Saturday in Istanbul in the latest unrest over a teenager who was left in a coma during anti-government protests in June. The demonstrators gathered outside Istanbul’s law courts to pay homage to 14-year-old Berkin Elvan in a gathering organized by the umbrella group Taksim Solidarity. Police took in several people for questioning. Berkin was hit by a tear gas cannister fired by police, according to rights groups, having ventured out to buy bread as violent demonstrations swept the city. A lawyer for the teenager filed a complaint on Friday for “attempted murder” against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Minister of the Interior Muammer Guler, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu and Istanbul Chief of Police Huseyin Capkin, the news agency Dogon reported.
GUINEA
Poll challenges rejected
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected all the complaints lodged against the result of the Sept. 28 parliamentary election in which President Alpha Conde’s RPG party won the most seats. The RPG took 53 seats, defeating its rivals, but falling short of an absolute majority in the 114-seat parliament. A few dozen young opposition activists gathered on a main street in the capital, Conakry, on Saturday to protest against the decision, a witness said. Police sources said they were quickly scattered after police arrived with batons and tear gas. Aboubacar Sylla, a spokesman for the umbrella group of opposition parties, said they were disappointed by the result and called the court “incompetent.” “We are asking our members to consult with their bases and come back to us on Tuesday,” he said. Before the court ruling, the opposition threatened to resume mass street protests that killed at least 50 in the run-up to voting.
UNITED STATES
Suspect blames twin
A judge says an army officer linked by DNA to a string of sexual assaults on young girls will be allowed to blame his twin brother at trial. The judge on Friday ruled that it would be “inappropriate” to bar Aaron Lucas’ attorneys from presenting his identical twin as an alternate suspect given the siblings’ shared DNA, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. In an Oct. 22 filing, Lucas’ attorneys said investigators picked the wrong sibling after discovering a DNA link to an unsolved attack on a young girl in Alabama in 2007 and another in Texas in 2009. Lucas has denied luring or trying to lure 11 girls into his vehicle in Colorado between 2009 and last year. His attorneys have said the Alabama and Texas cases involve his twin brother, Brian Lucas, who the defense says has lived in both states. Investigators say Brian Lucas has denied involvement in the alleged crimes.
MEXICO
Vigilantes take over town
Vigilantes belonging to a “self-defense” movement have taken over town in Michoacan state amid confrontations that left two people dead and three wounded. State prosecutor’s spokeswoman Magdalena Guzman says the clash took place in a hamlet near the town of Tancitaro, which vigilantes from two nearby towns took over on Saturday in a bid to kick out the state’s dominant drug cartel. Investigators are trying to determine whether the dead are vigilantes or gunmen of the Knights Templar cartel.
FINLAND
Dogs tamed in Europe first
Humans first made dogs their best friends in prehistoric Europe, where groups of hunter-gathers learned to tame dangerous wolves into companions between 19,000 and 32,000 years ago, scientists said on Thursday. The new research, based on analysis of DNA fragments from fossils of ancient wolves and dogs, confounds earlier theories that dogs were originally domesticated in the Middle East or East Asia. Olaf Thalmann, from the University of Turku, and colleagues believe they have placed initial doggy taming firmly in Europe after finding that modern dogs’ DNA most closely matches that of either ancient European canines or modern European wolves, but not wolves outside Europe. “We’re pretty sure that Europe played a major role in the domestication of the dog,” Thalmann, whose research was published on Thursday in the journal Science, said in an interview.
UNITED STATES
Boy chained to dead chicken
A North Carolina social worker has been arrested after her foster child was found chained to the porch of her home with a dead chicken around his neck, police said. The 11-year-old boy was discovered, shivering and alone, restrained by a handcuff around his ankle, a Monroe deputy sheriff said in a statement. The officer was responding to a complaint next door when he noticed the child and initiated an investigation, ultimately removing five children from the home. Dorian Lee Harper, 57, was arrested at the scene, and Wanda Sue Larson, 57, who also lived there, was charged later. The couple had adopted four of the children, aged from eight to 14, and were serving as foster parents for the 11-year-old. They have both been charged with “intentional child abuse — inflicting serious injury, false imprisonment, and cruelty to animals,” the statement said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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