Burkina Faso’s Christian Kabore sworn in as president
Burkina Faso’s Christian Kabore sworn in as president Burkina Faso’s Christian Kabore sworn in as president Burkina Faso’s new president was sworn-in on Tuesday in front of thousands of cheering supporters. Roch Marc Christian Kabore won elections last month, the first since long-serving ruler Blaise Compaore was ousted in a popular uprising last year. Mr […]
Burkina Faso’s Christian Kabore sworn in as president
Burkina Faso’s Christian Kabore sworn in as president
Burkina Faso’s new president was sworn-in on Tuesday in front of thousands of cheering supporters.
Roch Marc Christian Kabore won elections last month, the first since long-serving ruler Blaise Compaore was ousted in a popular uprising last year.
Mr Kabore was an ally of Mr Compaore before the two fell out.
About 20 soldiers were detained recently for plotting to free the jailed leader of September’s short-lived coup, Gen Gilbert Diendere, officials said.
Several African heads of state attended Mr Kabore’s inauguration in the capital, Ouagadougou. Mr Kabore said he would defend the constitution and “ensure justice for all”.
He once served as Mr Compoare’s prime minister, but gained popularity after opposing his bid to change the constitution and run for a third term.
Mr Compaore fled to Ivory Coast after being forced out of office.
Gen Diendere, a powerful ally of the ousted president, staged a coup in September. He was forced to return power to a transitional government seven days later, after the army sided with protesters opposed to the coup.
Former Rwandan Mayor sentenced to life over role in genocide
A German court sentenced a Rwandan mayor already behind bars for his role in a 1994 massacre to life in prison on Tuesday after finding him guilty of the more serious crime of actively participating in genocide.
Onesphore Rwabukombe, who has lived in Germany since 2002, was a mayor in Rwanda at the time of the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by dominant Hutu forces in 100 days.
Last year a court in Frankfurt ruled that Rwabukombe, a 58-year old ethnic Hutu, had overseen and assisted in the murder of at least 450 men, women and children at the Kiziguro church compound in east Rwanda, and sentenced him to 14 years in jail.
In that trial, he was not found guilty of killing anyone himself.
However, in May, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said he had also been actively involved in the killings in the central African state and, citing evidence from the original three-year trial, referred the case back to Frankfurt.
The evidence had included testimony from more than 100 witnesses who described scenes of slaughter with attackers using machetes, sticks and hatchets and directed in part by Rwabukombe.
They described him driving militia men to the site of the massacre in his own pick-up truck and ordering the attackers to “get to work”.
On Tuesday, the Frankfurt court said it agreed with the Federal Court.
“He knowingly and deliberately prepared, organized, commanded and carried out the massacre with the other authorities,” said the court in a statement, adding Rwabukombe disputed even being at the site of the massacre.
Syria, France most deadly countries for journalists – CPJ
By Abdullateef Salau
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 2015 was one of the deadliest years on record for members of the press worldwide, with 69 journalists killed in line of duty between January 1 and December 23. 61 were killed in 2014.
In a report published yesterday, the CPJ said of 69 journalists killed in 2015, 28 journalists (about 40%) died at the hands of Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Nine were killed in France, which was second only to Syria as the most dangerous country for the press in 2015.
The death toll among journalists in Syria topped CPJ’s 2015 list with the current figure standing at 13 – a sharp decline from previous years; 31 journalists were killed in Syria in 2012; 29 and 17 were killed in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
In 2012, 2013, and 2014, deaths in Syria far outnumbered those in the rest of the world. The report said the declining number of deaths in Syria “reflects in part the reduced number of journalists working there, after many major international news organizations chose not to send staff to the country and local journalists fled into exile.”
For the death of journalists in France, CPJ said eight of the killings took place at the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, and one (43-year-old freelance journalist Guillaume B. Decherf) who was reporting on a concert at the Bataclan Theater in Paris when gunmen attacked on November 13.
Unlike in the past three years, the deaths were widely distributed across countries. France is followed by Brazil where six journalists in connection with their work. Five were killed in each Iraq, Bangladesh, South Sudan, and Yemen.
In addition, CPJ findings showed that at least 28 of the 47 murder victims received threats before they were killed. 17 were killed in combat or crossfire, five on a dangerous assignment. The most common beat topics covered by victim journalists were politics, war, and human rights.
Meanwhile, CPJ says investigation on the deaths of at least 26 more journalists during the year in on-going to determine whether they were work-related.
Scandals see Australia ministers Mal Brough and Jamie Briggs resign
Two Australian cabinet ministers have resigned over unrelated scandals.
Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Jamie Briggs quit after a public servant complained about his behaviour at a Hong Kong bar.
Special Minister of State Mal Brough quit pending a police inquiry into his role in another politician’s downfall.
With two front bench cabinet positions to fill in a day, this is the first major setback to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull since he took office.
Mr Briggs said at a press conference that he had spoken to Mr Turnbull, and that the prime minister felt Mr Briggs had not met the standard of behaviour required of ministers.
He refused to comment on the specific nature of the incident and did not name the public servant who made the allegations.
Mr Brough, who is also Minister for Defence Materiel and Science, is being investigated by police over the alleged illegal procurement of another politician’s diary.
He is accused of illegally obtaining copies of former speaker Peter Slipper’s diary in 2012 at a time when Mr Slipper was embroiled in a sexual harassment case, which was later dropped. Mr Brough denies wrongdoing.
Iraqi PM visits Ramadi after capture from IS
Iraq’s prime minister visited the city of Ramadi on Tuesday, a day after claiming its capture from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) after a months-long siege by the armed group.
Haider al-Abadi arrived by helicopter with the province’s top military commander at the Anbar University complex in the city’s southern outskirts, military sources told the Reuters news agency.
Iraqi forces on Monday raised the national flag above the main government complex in Ramadi after days of deadly fighting against ISIL. But there were still pockets of resistance in and around the city, the army said.
“The prime minister and the head of the armed forces Dr Haider al-Abadi visits the liberated city of Ramadi,” Abadi posted on his Twitter account.
Abadi congratulated the security forces who were still sweeping streets and buildings for roadside bombs, booby traps, and holed up fighters.
“2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when [ISIL’s] presence in Iraq will be terminated,” Abadi said. “We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to [ISIL].”
Guinea Declared Free of Ebola
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, two years after the epidemic began there.
Guineans are expected to celebrate the landmark with concerts and fireworks.
The disease killed more than 2,500 people in the West African state, and a further 9,000 in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Liberia was declared Ebola-free by the WHO in September, and Sierra Leone in November.
In a statement, the WHO congratulated the Guinean government and people for showing “extraordinary leadership in fighting the epidemic”.
But it also noted that there had been 10 new small outbreaks of the virus between March and November.
“The coming months will be absolutely critical,” said Dr Bruce Aylward from the WHO’s Ebola response team.
“This is the period when the countries need to be sure that they are fully prepared to prevent, detect and respond to any new cases.”
The WHO will maintain surveillance and outbreak response teams in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia throughout 2016, Dr Aylward added.
Pakistan suicide bombing kills ‘at least 22’ in Mardan
A suspected suicide attack at a government office in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 22 people, police say. The bomb went off outside the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) office in the town of Mardan.
A faction of the Pakistani Taliban said it carried out the attack, which left more than 30 others wounded.
The bomber in Mardan reportedly arrived on a motorbike and blew himself up when stopped by a security guard outside the Nadra building. The office is usually crowded with people lining up to get ID cards.
The Bacha Khan Medical complex has received at least 16 dead bodies and dozens of injured people, Reuters reports.
US military: Paris attacks suspect killed in Syria
A French suspect in the deadly Paris attacks claimed by ISIL has been killed by US coalition forces in Syria, the US military said on Tuesday.
Charaffe al-Mouadan, 27, a native of the St Denis suburb of Paris, was among 10 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leaders allegedly killed in recent air strikes targeting ISIL’s leadership.
Colonel Steve Warren said Mouadan had direct links to the “Paris attack cell leader”, and others targeted were “actively planning additional attacks against the West”.
“Over the past month we’ve killed 10 ISIL leaders in air strikes. We will hunt ISIL members who want to recruit and attack the West,” Warren said.
Mouadan is believed to have fled to Syria in November 2015. It was unclear if he travelled there before or after the November 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people.