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page 30 S/AFRICA South Africa President Zuma survives no-confidence vote South Africa’s parliament has voted down a no-confidence motion in President Jacob Zuma, while a court is hearing a case to reinstate 738 corruption charges against him. Governing party MPs defeated the motion, while Mr Zuma’s office said he would oppose the court case. The […]
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S/AFRICA
South Africa President Zuma survives no-confidence vote
South Africa’s parliament has voted down a no-confidence motion in President Jacob Zuma, while a court is hearing a case to reinstate 738 corruption charges against him.
Governing party MPs defeated the motion, while Mr Zuma’s office said he would oppose the court case. The opposition was behind both actions, accusing him of taking a bribe.
Mr Zuma has denied the allegation, linked to a multi-billion dollar arms deal negotiated over a decade ago.
He was first charged in 2005, and fired as deputy president by then-President Thabo Mbeki. After much legal and political wrangling, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) dropped the case in April 2009, and Mr Zuma went on to become president a month later.
During a noisy parliamentary session, DA leader Mmusi Maimane described Mr Zuma as a sell-out whose main aim was self-enrichment.
South Africa was “spiralling downward, and doing so at an alarmingly fast rate” under his presidency, the party added in a statement.
CAR
CAR’s constitutional court confirms Touadera elected president
Central African Republic’s constitutional court confirmed former mathematics professor Faustin-Archange Touadera, has been elected president, national radio reported on Tuesday, setting the stage for Touadera to be sworn in later this month.
About 62 percent of voters in the Central African Republic chose Touadera, once a prime minister under ousted leader Francois Bozize, in a run-off that could cap nearly three years of political, communal and religious conflict.
The country suffered the worst crisis in its history in early 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters toppled Bozize. Christian so-called anti-Balaka militias responded by attacking the Muslim minority. A fifth of the population have fled their homes to escape the violence.
“Since the majority of votes were obtained by Faustin- Archange Touadera, the court proclaims Faustin-Archange as president of the Central African Republic,” said Zacharie Ndouba, the president of the court.
UNITES STATES
Trump, Clinton expected to dominate Super Tuesday elections
Candidates bidding for their party’s nomination in the US presidential election face their biggest test yet in the “Super Tuesday” primary polls.
Eleven states cast votes for candidates from either the Republican or Democratic parties or both in a contest seen as make-or-break for the hopefuls. Contests stretch from Vermont in the east to Texas and Georgia in the south.
Political surveys suggest that Donald Trump, who has never held public office, could win 10 of the 11 states in Tuesday’s balloting, all except the southwestern state of Texas, where one of his challengers, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, is hoping to win on his home turf.
Polls also favour Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, in most of the 11 states over her lone challenger in the Democratic race, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Nearly a quarter of the delegates to national party nominating conventions in July are at stake in the single biggest day so far in the months-long presidential campaign.
UNITES STATES
Bin Laden left $29m inheritance for jihad
Osama Bin Laden left a personal wealth of around $29m (£21m) after his death in a raid in 2011, his will shows.
The will is among a trove of documents released to US media on Tuesday. It was seized in the US assault in Abbotabad, Pakistan.
He urged his family to “obey my will” and to spend his inheritance on “jihad, for the sake of Allah”.
In another letter, he urged his father to take care of his wife and children in the event of his death.
That message made it clear that the risk of being killed was present in his mind.
“If I am to be killed, pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home,” he wrote.
Although Bin Laden referred to the money as being in Sudan, it is not clear whether it was in the form of cash or assets, or whether any of it made its way to his heirs.
ZIMBABWE
Zimbabwe’s ex-VP launches party to challenge veteran Mugabe
Zimbabwe’s former vice president Joice Mujuru launched a new party to challenge her ally-turned-adversary Robert Mugabe, promising to revive the economy and repair strained relations with the West.
Mujuru was Mugabe’s deputy for a decade and seen as the veteran president’s likely successor until he fired her in 2014, accusing her of leading a plot to oust him.
In her first public address since then, she told reporters on Tuesday the new Zimbabwe People First party would bring jobs and review the ruling ZANU-PF party’s divisive black economic empowerment laws, which critics say have scared off investors.
She said she was open to alliances with other opposition groups before 2018 presidential elections.
“We are not fighting one man but a system, that system which is unjust,” she told an audience including reporters, Western diplomats and four former cabinet ministers fired by Mugabe.
MALI
Mali rebel accused of destroying Timbuktu shrines
An alleged Islamic radical appeared before the International Criminal Court Tuesday to answer charges that he helped destroy historic religious shrines in the Malian city of Timbuktu.
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, who spoke only briefly during the pretrial hearing in The Hague, is accused of organizing the destruction of 14 mausoleums and a mosque – “irreplaceable historical monuments,” according to a prosecutor.
Al-Mahdi was a member of Ansar Dine, an al-Qaida-affiliated group that ruled parts of northern Mali from early 2012 until it was ousted a year later by French military forces.
Al-Mahdi rose briefly during the hearing to confirm that he understood the charges, but he was not required to enter a plea. During two days of testimony, prosecutors are asking judges to confirm there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial.
EU
UN says Europe is ‘on cusp of self-induced crisis’
Europe is “on the cusp of a largely self-induced humanitarian crisis” because of a rapid build-up of migrants on Greece’s borders, the UN has warned.
“The crowded conditions are leading to shortages of food, shelter, water and sanitation,” UN refugee agency (UNHCR) spokesman Adrian Edwards said.
Close to 24,000 migrants in Greece are in need of housing.
Some 8,500 of them are stuck in worsening conditions on the Greece-Macedonia border.
The crossing at Idomeni is now closed following protests by migrants desperate to continue their journey to Western European countries.
Some migrants have been stranded at the overburdened camp for more than a week. “At least 1,500 had spent the previous night in the open,” Mr Edwards said on Tuesday.
“Tensions have been building, fuelling violence and playing into the hands of people smugglers,” the spokesman added.
IRAQ
ISIL suicide bombers kill dozens of Iraqi soldiers
Dozens of Iraqi soldiers and a general have been killed in separate suicide bombing attacks in Baghdad and Fallujah.
Two consecutive suicide bombers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group killed at least 25 Iraqi soldiers and popular mobilisation force fighters when they targeted their convoy in the village of Jumailah in northern Fallujah, military sources said.
Late on Monday night, those bombers struck a regimental headquarters in the Haditha area of Anbar province, killing Staff Brigadier General Ali Aboud, Lieutenant Colonel Farhan Ibrahim and four others, the sources said.
INDIA
Former UN Climate Chief Charged with Sexual Harassment
Police in India Tuesday charged the former head of the United Nations climate change panel with sexual harassment following a complaint by a woman he worked with at an environmental research institution.
The 75-year-old Rajendra Pachauri is also accused of stalking and criminal intimidation of the woman, a former colleague at The Energy and Resources Institute, or TERI, based in New Delhi.
Pachauri denies the allegations.
Last year, however, he resigned from both the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and from TERI after the researcher’s allegations were published in Indian media.
ISRAEL
Lost Israel troops stray into camp, sparking bloody clashes
Two Israeli soldiers said to be using a traffic app mistakenly entered a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank overnight, sparking clashes that killed one Palestinian and wounded 15 people, officials said Tuesday.
The two soldiers travelling in a jeep entered the Qalandiya refugee camp and were targeted with rocks and Molotov cocktails, Israeli officials said.
Israeli reinforcements were then deployed to the camp between Jerusalem and Ramallah to rescue them, provoking further clashes that lasted hours. The two soldiers were later rescued unharmed.
Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said the soldiers “apparently used Waze,” the Israeli-developed navigation app now owned by Google.