SPURNED BY WASHINGTON, NORTH KOREA’S KIM SEEKS A FRIEND IN PUTIN
25 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday at a summit designed to show that Washington is not the only power able to set the agenda on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The two men embarked on a day of talks on an island off the Russian Pacific…
EGYPT VOTERS APPROVE REFERENDUM EXTENDING PRESIDENT’S RULE
24 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: AP) -Voters in Egypt approved constitutional amendments allowing President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to remain in power until 2030, election officials said Tuesday, a move that critics fear will cement his authoritarian rule eight years after a pro-democracy uprising. El-Sissi led the military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president amid mass…
SRI LANKA ARRESTS 40 SUSPECTS AFTER BOMBINGS, TOLL UP TO 310
23 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: AP) – As a state of emergency took effect Tuesday giving the Sri Lankan military war-time powers, police arrested 40 suspects, including the driver of a van allegedly used by suicide bombers involved in deadly Easter bombings and the owner of a house where some of them lived, officials said. Sri Lanka’s…
EASTER TERROR ATTACKS TARGET CHURCHES AND HOTELS IN SRI LANKA
21 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: THE DAILY MAIL) – At least 156 people are dead in an Easter Sunday terrorist attack targeting Christians in Sri Lanka after eight explosions ripped through high-end hotels and churches as suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up. The initial six explosions injured as many as 500 people, including Japanese and British citizens, and…
13 DEAD IN KZN CHURCH COLLAPSE AS HEAVY STORMS LASH THE PROVINCE
19 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: THE SOWETAN) – Thirteen people died and 16 were injured when a church roof collapsed in northern KwaZulu-Natal as heavy storms lashed the province on Thursday night. According to Jonty Ndlazi, a senior manager at the KZN disaster management centre, a Pentecostal church building collapsed during a “Passover session”. The building is in…
INDONESIAN PRESIDENT WIDODO LEADS IN EARLY ELECTION RETURNS
18 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: THE MERCURY NEWS) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo appeared on track Wednesday to win a second term, according to early vote counts, holding a 10 percentage-point lead over a retired general who had courted nationalist and conservative Islamic forces in a campaign waged on the country’s fault lines. Widodo’s apparent victory over Prabowo…
FIRST RED CROSS AID DISTRIBUTED IN CRISIS-TORN VENEZUELA
17 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: AP) – Red Cross volunteers distributed the first shipment of badly needed emergency supplies in Venezuela on Tuesday after months of feuding between the government, which has denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis, and opponents who have been seeking to use the delivery of aid to force President Nicolás Maduro…
CHRISTIANITY GROWS IN SYRIAN TOWN ONCE BESIEGED BY ISLAMIC STATE
16 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – A community of Syrians who converted to Christianity from Islam is growing in Kobani, a town besieged by Islamic State for months, and where the tide turned against the militants four years ago. The converts say the experience of war and the onslaught of a group claiming to fight for…
121 KILLED, NEARLY 600 WOUNDED IN LIBYA FIGHTING
15 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: IOL) – Fighting near Tripoli has killed 121 people and wounded 561 since strongman Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive earlier this month to take the Libyan capital, the World Health Organization said Sunday. WHO’s Libya account said on Twitter the organisation was sending medical supplies and more staff to Tripoli, and…
SUDAN’S BASHIR OUSTED BY MILITARY; PROTESTERS DEMAND CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT
12 APRIL 2019 (SOURCE: REUTERS) – President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan in autocratic style for 30 years, was overthrown and arrested in a coup by the armed forces on Thursday, but protesters took to the streets demanding the military hand over power to civilians. The ouster of Bashir, 75, followed months of demonstrations against his…