african countries 24

Thirteen French soldiers fighting jihadists in Mali were killed in an accident between two helicopters, the French presidency said on Tuesday, the single biggest loss of French troops in combat in the region since intervening there in 2013.

France has more than 4,500 troops countering Islamist insurgencies in the Sahel region, where violence by militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in the sparely-populated area has proliferated in recent years.

“The president announces with deep sadness the death of 13 French troops in Mali on the evening of Nov. 25, in an accident between their two helicopters during a combat mission against jihadists,” the statement from the president’s office said.

The militants use central and northern Mali as a launch pad for attacks across the largely desert region.

Hong Kong’s democrats scored a landslide majority in district council elections, which saw a record turnout after six months of anti-government protests, increasing pressure on the Chinese-ruled city’s leader on Monday to listen to calls for democracy.

Sunday’s elections marked a rare weekend lull in the sometimes violent unrest, with pro-democracy candidates securing nearly 90% of the 452 district council seats, broadcaster RTHK reported, despite a strongly resourced and mobilized pro-establishment opposition.

Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, Carrie Lam, said in a statement the government respected the results and wished “the peaceful, safe and orderly situation to continue”.

“There are various analyses and interpretations in the community in relation to the results, and quite a few are of the view that the results reflect people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society,” she said.

The government would “listen to the opinions of members of the public humbly and seriously reflect”, Lam said.

Results showed upset wins for democrats against heavyweight pro-Beijing opponents when they started trickling in after midnight on Sunday, causing some voting centers to erupt in loud cheers and chants of “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution Now” – a slogan used by many protesters over the past six months.

Pictures posted online showed people celebrating outside polling stations and on the streets of Central, the city’s business district, popping bottles of champagne.

Regina Ip, a member of the Hong Kong government’s leading advisory body and a former security chief, was loudly heckled in Central by lunchtime protesters.

“In general, I think the election results do reflect that the public is very dissatisfied with the government,” she told reporters.

The voting ended with no major disruptions across the city of 7.4 million people on a day that saw massive, though orderly, queues form outside voting centers.

“This is the power of democracy. This is a democratic tsunami,” said Tommy Cheung, a former student protest leader who won a seat in the Yuen Long district close to China’s border.

“This district election shows that the central government needs to face the demands of a democratic system,” Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai said. “Today’s result is the first step of our long way to democracy.”

In self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, the Presidential Office expressed “great admiration and support” for the election result.

“The election fully demonstrates Hong Kong people’s absolute will to pursue freedom and democracy,” it said.

The pro-democracy camp only secured around 100 seats at the previous polls four years ago. Almost three million people voted, a record turnout of more than 71% that appeared to have been spurred by the turmoil, almost double the number last time.

Starry Lee, chairwoman of the city’s largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, apologized for her party’s performance.

“For this major defeat, we do not want to find any excuses and reasons,” said Lee. She said the party rejected her offer to resign earlier on Monday.

‘PATH OF STRUGGLE’

Hong Kong’s district councils control some spending and decide a range of livelihood issues such as transport. They also serve as an important grassroots platform to radiate political influence.

“I believe this result is because there are a lot of voters who hope to use this election and their vote to show their support for the (protest) movement, and their five demands, and their dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong government,” said former student leader Lester Shum, who won a seat.

The protesters’ demands include full democracy, as well as an independent inquiry into perceived police brutality.

“The district council is just one very important path of struggle. In future, we must find other paths of struggle to keep fighting,” Shum said.

China’s foreign ministry, asked about the election, said stopping violence and restoring order in Hong Kong were the paramount tasks.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency announced the completion of the election, but did not say which side had won.

“Rioters, in concert with external forces, have continuously committed and escalated violence, resulting in social and political confrontation,” it said. “…Months of social unrest have seriously disrupted the electoral process.”

Demonstrators are angry at what they see as Chinese meddling in the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

China denies interfering and says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” formula for the autonomy of Hong Kong put in place in 1997. Police say they have shown restraint in the face of potentially deadly attacks.

Sophie Richardson, China Director of Human Rights Watch, said the results showed “a commitment to peaceful political participation” and called on Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to address “legitimate grievances”.

A passenger plane with about 17 passengers on board crashed on Sunday in the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing several people, the provincial governor’s office said.

The plane, operated by the local company Busy Bee, crashed during takeoff for a flight to the city of Beni, North Kivu Governor Carly Nzanzu Kasivita’s office said in a statement. The number of fatalities was not yet clear.

Air accidents are relatively frequent in Congo because of lax safety standards and poor maintenance. All Congolese commercial carriers, including Busy Bee, are banned from operating in the European Union.

A cargo plane departing from the same airport crashed an hour after take-off in October, killing all eight passengers.

The United States and France are boosting Saudi Arabia’s radar systems following crippling drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure in September, which Washington blames on Iran.

The chief of the US Central Command and France’s defense minister, whose countries have taken divergent approaches to Iran, also touted rival versions of maritime missions to protect Gulf waters at a Bahrain security forum on Saturday.

More than two months after the biggest assault on Saudi oil facilities, Riyadh and Washington have yet to provide concrete proof linking Iran to the attack while Saudi Arabia has provided few details about how it is addressing gaps in its air defenses.

Tehran denies involvement in the strikes that initially halved the crude output of the world’s top oil exporter and led the United States to send thousands of troops and military hardware to the kingdom.

“We continue to refine information on the attack against (Saudi state oil firm) Aramco and that will be released principally through the Saudis,” said General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees operations in the Middle East and South Asia.

“We are working with the Saudis to increase the networking of their systems. That will make them better able to defend against this type of threat,” he told reporters.

McKenzie said boosting the US military presence at Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh, in addition to large bases in Qatar and Bahrain, would “complicate an adversary’s ability to target you”.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly said Paris was separately sending Riyadh “a robust package of advanced warning”, including radars, to confront low-altitude attacks.

“It will be in Saudi Arabia in the coming days so it will be operational very, very rapidly. But there is an analysis to be done in order to better identify how to fill the gap,” she later told reporters.

“COOLING TEMPERS”

The September 14 strikes heightened regional tensions following attacks on tankers in Gulf waters and other Saudi energy assets in the summer that Washington also blamed on Iran, a charge Tehran denies.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir told the IISS Manama Dialogue that Riyadh was consulting with its allies about what measures would be taken against Iran after the investigation concluded. He gave no timeframe.

The event focused mostly on the Iranian threat but included no representatives from Tehran. It underscored differences between Western allies over how to deal with Iran since the United States quit a 2015 international nuclear pact.

France wants to salvage the agreement, which Saudi Arabia and other U.S.-allied Gulf states oppose for failing to address Iran’s ballistic missiles program and regional interference.

“We have seen a deliberate, gradual U.S. disengagement,” Parly said, citing also U.S. inaction over a 2013 chemical attack in Syria and this year’s downing of an American drone by Iran.

She said it was time to “reinvent deterrence”, mentioning France’s efforts to form a European-led maritime mission, unassociated with the U.S. maximum pressure campaign on Iran, to help “cool down tempers”.

Parly told reporters the initiative could start early next year and around 10 European and non-European governments would join pending parliamentary approval.

Only Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom have so far joined the US-led International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), which McKenzie said would “shine a spotlight on nefarious activity”.

International Relations say there is no confirmation that South African citizens are part of a ship’s crew that has been kidnapped off the coast of Equatorial Guinea.

In a statement the government of Equatorial Guinea says earlier this week a supply vessel called ‘ The Warden ‘, belonging to Exxon Mobil, was attacked by pirates.

The navy was deployed to assist and found seven of the 15 crew members hiding aboard the vessel.

Eight crew members had been kidnapped by the pirates.

The government says the crew consisted of citizens from South Africa, the Philippines, Serbia and Cameroon.

The statement did not confirm if any South Africans were among those kidnapped.

DIRCO spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele says: “I can confirm that as DIRCO we are aware of the incident that took place in the coast of Equatorial Guinea. We are working with the government of Equatorial Guinea to establish if indeed South Africans are involved so that we can be able to assist with the consular services.”

Bolivia’s interim government filed a criminal complaint on Friday against former President Evo Morales for alleged sedition and terrorism, the interior minister said, as authorities began probes of his allies that they accuse of corruption and fomenting unrest.

Interim President Jeanine Anez, a former senator and opponent of Morales, has faced a wave of demonstrations by his supporters since taking office in a power vacuum last week.

Morales and his vice president stepped down under pressure from security forces and anti-government protesters on Nov. 10,amid reports of irregularities in the Oct. 20 election.

Morales fled to Mexico and says he was toppled in a coup. At least 29 have been killed in clashes since he resigned.

Interior Minister Arturo Murillo said he asked the public prosecutor’s office to open an investigation into Morales, based on audio in which, from Mexico, Morales allegedly directed plans for road blockades in Bolivia to destabilize the interim government.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the audio,which was played to reporters at a news conference earlier this week.

Morales’ former health minister, Gabriela Montano, called the audio “fake.”

Murillo told journalists outside the prosecutors’ office in La Paz: “The evidence is clear. We’ve presented it.”

Morales could not immediately be reached for comment. He said on Twitter that authorities should be investigating the death of protesters instead of going after him on the basis of what he described as fake evidence. It was unclear if prosecutors would investigate Morales or eventually file charges.

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Blocking roads is a common form of protest in Bolivia and much of South America, though intense blockades by Morales supporters in the past week have cut off fuel and food to some cities.

Authorities have transported some 1 400 tonnes of food by plane in less than a week to the cities of La Paz, El Alto, Oruro and Sucre due to blockades, Productive Development Minister Wilfredo Rojo told journalists on Friday.

Anez pleaded with protesters to end an ongoing blockade at a natural gas plant that supplies La Paz. Eight people died in clashes after the military forcibly cleared access to it briefly on Tuesday.

“I ask for reflection from brothers who are carrying out this unnecessary blockade,” Anez said at the presidential palace on Friday.

“We’re all Bolivians. You can’t punish the city of LaPaz.” Anez reiterated that she will only stay in power long enough for there to be new elections.

But her critics say her cabinet have overstepped the bounds of a caretaker government by making changes to foreign policy and threatening to punish Morales’allies.

Under Anez, authorities have alleged that several of Morales’ allies have taken part in criminal activity, including the former culture minister, the former vice president’s brother, and the vice president of his Movement to Socialism (MAS) political party.

Murillo said on Friday that he was also asking prosecutors to investigate Morales’ former presidency minister, Juan Ramon Quintana, for sedition and terrorism for allegedly telling a news outlet that Bolivia would become a modern Vietnam.

Reuters could not verify the accuracy of his quoted comments or immediately reach him for a response.

A lawyer affiliated with opponents of Morales, Jorge Valda, said he planned to ask authorities to issue an arrest warrant for Morales’ 25-year-old daughter, Evaliz Morales, on Tuesday for alleged sedition and corruption.

Evaliz could not immediately be reached for comment.

Nigeria’s economic growth rose to an annual rate of 2.28% in the three months to the end of September after the production of its main export commodity, crude oil, rose to a more than three year high, the statistics office said on Friday.

The economy, Africa’s largest, expanded by 0.17% in the previous quarter and 0.47% in the same period a year earlier. The country has struggled to shake off the effects of a 2016 recession that ended the following year.

Growth rates in Nigeria have been bouncing back this year, though from a low base, after the oil sector, which accounts for around two-thirds of government revenue and 90% of foreign exchange, shrugged off its negative performance in the first quarter.

Crude production in the third quarter stood at 2.04 million barrels per day, its highest since the first quarter of 2016, the statistics office said.

Friday’s data release comes ahead of the central bank’s announcement of its main interest rate on Tuesday and days after the statistics office said annual inflation was at a 17-month high in October.

Nigeria recorded the highest quarterly growth in September since the last quarter of 2018 as the oil sector rose 6.49%. The non-oil sector rose 1.85% during the period.

Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered, welcomed the oil sector performance but added that it raises concerns that Nigeria could come under more pressure to adhere to its OPEC quota.

The non-oil sector is showing signs of recovery but is inadequate for Nigeria’s potential, Khan said.

“Given the hoped-for faster passage of the 2020 budget and efforts to boost private sector credit, we expect more of a recovery to emerge all-round in 2020,” Khan said.

The central bank has been trying to boost growth by forcing commercial banks to lend to stimulate the economy but it has also kept benchmark interest rates high and liquidity tight in a bid to support the currency and wade off inflation.

The central bank has forecast growth of 3% for 2019 while the IMF expects the year to finish off at 2.3%.