{{Months of sectarian violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) has seen thousands flee their homes in terror, including a large number of the country’s market traders, farm workers, and cattle herders.
As a result, the country now finds itself facing on the verge of a food crisis, humanitarian agencies have warned. }}
{{Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced on Sunday that he had ordered the expulsion of three US consular officials who he accused of conspiring against his government.}}
Maduro did not identify the officials, but said the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry would give more details later.
“Go and do your (coup) plotting in Washington!” the president roared in a televised address, charging that the US diplomats had met with students involved in anti-government protests.
“It’s a group of US functionaries who are in the universities. We’ve been watching them having meetings in the private universities for two months. They work in visas,” Maduro said in a nationally televised broadcast.
Venezuela also accuses the United States of backing anti-government protesters who have marched against the leftist leader for two weeks and show no signs of backing down.
The demonstrations have developed into the biggest challenge to the country’s socialist rulers since the death of its longtime leader Hugo Chavez from cancer last year.
During a failed two-day coup against Maduro’s predecessor in 2002, the United States voiced support for a non-elected interim leader and not the elected president at the time, staunch US critic Chavez.
That move has deeply undermined Washington’s credibility in Latin America to this day.
France24
{{Florence mayor Matteo Renzi is to be nominated Italy’s youngest-ever premier Monday after a daring power grab which has been welcomed by investors but left analysts quizzing whether he has the political maturity to succeed.}}
As head of the leftist Democratic Party, Renzi engineered the ouster of his predecessor Enrico Letta — a member of his own party — accusing him of failing to live up to reform pledges in his stormy 10 months in government.
The 39-year-old will have to move quickly to form a new government once he gets the mandate from President Giorgio Napolitano as expected at 0930 GMT, and then deliver his promise to lead Italy “out of the quagmire”.
“He desperately needs figures of excellence (in the cabinet), new ones if possible,” editorialist Gian Antonio Stella wrote in the best-selling Corriere della Sera daily.
The previous coalition of the Democratic Party, the centrists and the New Centre-Right party is expected to remain intact even though the leader of the latter, Angelino Alfano, has warned this is “not a given”.
The New Centre-Right is a minor partner in the coalition but its votes would be critical for Renzi as he does not have a majority in parliament.
“Speed is part of Renzi’s personality” but “the creation of such a team is no easy task”, political watcher Federico Geremicca said in La Stampa, while the Corriere said the future PM may have underestimated “the nature and complexity of the problems to be resolved.”
If he succeeds in forming the government, Renzi would then have to return to Napolitano for his nomination to be confirmed and would then be sworn into office.
Analysts say the whole process could take a few days.
The energetic and web-savvy Renzi has no previous experience in national government or parliament and is seen by many as having the right kind of outsider credentials for the job.
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{{The man who hijacked an Ethiopian Airlines flight en route from Addis Ababa to Rome on Monday was the co-pilot, according to the Geneva airport where the plane was forced to land.}}
The co-pilot said he had seized his chance when the pilot went to the bathroom, Geneva police spokesman Eric Grandjean told reporters.
“He said he felt threatened in his country and wants to seek asylum in Switzerland,” he said.
The man, born in 1983 and an Ethiopian citizen, had contacted Geneva Airport and said “he needed to land to fill the tank. After that he announced the hijacking,” Grandjean said.
“At 6:02 am, the plane landed safely,” he said, adding that the co-pilot had left the plane by scaling down a rope he had thrown out of the cockpit window.
“He didn’t have a weapon with him,” he said, adding that the hijacker would go before a judge Monday.
Technically, he can be charged with “hostage-taking,” and could face up to 20 years in prison, Grandjean said.
{{Nepalese police on Monday discovered the wreckage of a plane carrying 18 people that had gone missing one day earlier in the country’s mountainous west, but no survivors have been found, an official said.}}
The Nepal Airlines plane with 15 passengers and three crew crashed into a forested hill in Arghakhanchi district, 226 kilometres (140 miles) west of the capital, with aircraft pieces found in a nearby village, an aviation official told reporters.
“The plane crashed into a hill, police have found its wreckage in a village, but no survivors,” Bimlesh Lal Karna, chief air traffic controller at the country’s largest airport in Kathmandu, told reporters.
“Most of the plane is completely broken into small pieces, no one could have survived the accident,” he added.
The plane, carrying locals and one passenger from Denmark, lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after taking off from the popular tourist town of Pokhara on Sunday afternoon.
The aircraft from the state-run carrier encountered heavy rain en route from Pokhara to the town of Jumla, 353 kilometres west of Kathmandu.
The downpour hampered Sunday’s efforts to locate the plane, with two helicopters forced to turn back because of bad weather.
Police resumed their search at first light on Monday, finally spotting scattered pieces of the wreckage during an aerial search of Arghakhanchi.
Steep terrain prevented the helicopter from landing in the forested area, prompting police to be dropped to the ground instead, aviation official Karna said.
The passengers included Manab Sejuwal, a local politician from the ruling Nepali Congress party.
{{- Police trace passengers’ phones -}}
More than 150 Nepalese soldiers and police had fanned out across the hilly region from Sunday afternoon, trekking uphill and using mobile phone signals to try to locate the aircraft, officials said.
“Some of the passengers’ mobiles are still on, so we used the help of phone companies to get a rough idea of the area where the planes might have crashed,” Karna said.
The incident again raises concerns about the Himalayan nation’s aviation sector, which has come under fire from international authorities after a series of fatal accidents.
The European Union in December banned all the country’s airlines from flying to the EU.
Nepal, which counts tourism as a major contributor to its economy, has suffered a number of air crashes in recent years, which have usually been attributed to inexperienced pilots, poor management and inadequate maintenance.
A Chinese tourist and a local pilot were killed when an ultra-light aircraft crashed into a hill in Pokhara last October.
Last May, 21 people including eight Japanese tourists were hurt when a small plane skidded off an airport runway in northern Nepal and plunged into a river.
Fifteen people were killed at the same airport in May 2012 when a plane carrying Indian pilgrims crashed into a mountain.
In September 2012, 19 people, including seven Britons and four Chinese, were killed after an Everest-bound plane crashed minutes after taking off from Kathmandu in an accident which the government blamed on a “panic-stricken” pilot.
At the time of the blacklisting last year, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said the country’s safety record “does not leave us any other choice”.
Government officials said the ban was “unfortunate” and came after months spent on upgrading safety and monitoring aircraft.
AFP
{{Senators have questioned the purpose of switching on road lights during day time saying its a misuse of resources at the expense of tax payers money.}}
The issue was raised by senators during a session when Minister of State for water and energy, Emma-Francoise Isumbingabo was presenting on use of Bio gas and energy saving bulbs.
Senator Bizimana Jean Damascene incquired; “citizens have been asking me why road lights are switched on during day especially along Kibagabaga road yet other homes lack electricity”.
However, Minister Isumbingabo explained that such lights are switched on during the day while technical control and maintenance are being conducted. “ For safety reasons, maintenance can’t be done during the night because it would cause accidents on roads”.
{{An International Non Governmental Organization has proposed that the Government of Rwanda should establish the Ministry of Peace in the Country.}}
The Ministry would be in charge of all peacekeeping missions as well as protecting and consolidating the level of Unity and reconciliation that Rwandans have achieved in 20 years after the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis.
The New Ministry which was proposed by Karen Barencsché, the coordinator of South African Peace Alliance can help in facilitating collaboration between Rwanda and other countries that have experience in the promotion of peace programs.
She added that the Ministry can also allow Rwanda to share knowledge among peace institutions, schools and many other organizations.
{{Police in Muhanga District is holding Ndagijimana Emerithe 17 for allegedly dumping her newborn baby in a pit latrine.}}
The incidence happened at Nyabinoni sector in Muhanga district. Ndagijimana was still living with her parents when she became pregnant but avoided being noticed and also denied being pregnant whenever her mother inquired.
However, one morning, the mother went to the latrine and heard a baby crying from the pit and suspected the daughter to have given birth.
She later went to the daughters bedroom and foundout that indeed she had given birth and later alerted neighbours that retrieved the body of the baby.
Ndagijimana was later rushed to Kabgayi hospital for urgent medical attention.
Police says, Ndagijimana will receive medical care and that after recovery she will be brought to justice to answer charges related to the crime.
The Police spokesperson for the South Province Chief Superintendent Hubert Gashagaza cautioned girls against unwanted pregnancies.
{{Burundi Police has used tear gas to disperse a crowd of members of UPRONA who were gathering to hold the special meeting that was scheduled on Sunday.}}
Reports say Burundi police brutally stopped UPRONA members from holding meeting at Kumugumya Party headquarters and arrested Tatien Sibomana who is the spokesperson of the Party.
Singing songs of UPRONA party, members who had come to attend the special meeting, were denied access to the meeting of their party.
The incidence lasted only a few minutes because Police did not take long to use tear gas to disperse them.
Apart from the use of tear gas, other supporters were beaten by the Police, and many others arrested.
Burundi’s junior coalition party accuses the President of undermining a delicate power-sharing deal, a constitutional requirement that has kept ethnic tensions in check since a 12-year civil war in the east African nation ended in 2005.
The Tutsi-led UPRONA party’s three ministers quit the coalition administration last week after President Pierre Nkurunziza, whose CNDD-FDD led by ethnic Hutus is the majority party, sacked his Tutsi vice president, also from Uprona.
The row has centered on constitutional amendments proposed by the president that could allow him a third term and change power-sharing arrangements. Opponents say the steps threaten to marginalize minorities, such as the Tutsis.
The turmoil has triggered the worst political crisis since rebels laid down their arms in Burundi – a landlocked country neighboring Rwanda where Hutu extremists targeted ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the 1994 genocide.
Burundi’s political standoff has also raised the specter of more unrest in a region already grappling with violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
Adding to tensions, the U.N. Security Council will decide on Thursday whether to renew the mandate of a U.N. mission tasked with supporting political reforms. That vote may test relations between the government, which wants the mission out, and donors, like the United States, that want it to stay.
The Uprona party said it was committed to staying in government, a step that could temper the crisis. But it says it will not be bullied before presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015.
“It is clear the party in power continues with its project to create tension and disorder within our own party,” Evariste Ngayimpenda, a senior Uprona official, told Reuters this week.
The presidency gave no comment despite several requests. But CNDD-FDD officials have said the existing constitution was for the transition and needs to be updated to reflect the changes.
Despite relative calm in recent years, rights groups have reported scores of political killings, intimidation of the opposition and a crackdown on media freedoms since Nkurunziza’s re-election in 2010.
“The ruling party underestimates the degree of frustration and anger over its authoritarian leadership within opposition parties and the population,” said Julien Nimubona, an Uprona government minister until 2013. “This situation risks plunging the country into fresh unrest or even the return to civil war.”
The president, an evangelical Christian popular among rural voters, has not publicly said he will run next year, although senior CNDD-FDD officials argue that he can stand again as his election by lawmakers in 2005 does not count as his first term.
{{Eleven men who became trapped in an illegal gold mine in South Africa were rescued on Sunday, but an unknown number remained underground fearing arrest.}}
The men, who were all uninjured, were immediately handed over to police. Rescue officials said many others were now able to leave the mine but had refused to come out while officials were present.
“We managed to retrieve 11 young men. We believe they are South Africans, they have been treated and handed over to the police,” municipal emergency and rescue services official Rogger Mamaila told media.
“Yes, there is a possibility that there could be more, but we don’t know and we are not going to send any of our rescuers down there.”
The number of people still down there remains unclear — around 30 miners who were trapped at a shallow level had earlier told rescuers from a private operator ER24 that there were 200 others stuck at a level underneath them.
That was never confirmed, however, with local municipal officials insisting there were only around 30 people trapped.