Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland has executed twenty-one men after they were convicted of being members of the Islamist militant group al-Shabab. They were sentenced by a military court in Galkayo and shot by a firing squad.
State radio said 18 of the men had carried out assassinations and bombings over more than a decade.
Similar death sentences have been handed down by courts in other parts of Somalia before but this is reported to be the largest number of executions of al-Shabab members ever in Puntland.
The authorities in Puntland had vowed to bring to justice any members of al-Shabab or people found assisting the group in its attacks.
As the executions were being carried out on Sunday, al-Shabab fighters stormed the town of Wisil in the Mudug region. There are some reports that some soldiers were killed when an army base was attacked.
War On Terrorism: Somalia’s Puntland Region Executes 21 al-Shabab Fighters
Louisiana Governor Vetoes Bill Allowing Concealed Carry Without Permit
Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards (D.) has vetoed a bill that would allow state residents to carry concealed handguns without a permit.
Under the new bill, all residents age 21 or older would be allowed to carry a concealed gun without a permit provided that a resident is not prohibited from obtaining a handgun under any other state or federal law.
Edwards, however, said he believes current law allows for “reasonable” permit practices.
Edwards said in a statement on Friday following the veto that he cannot support carrying a concealed-carry firearm without proper education and safety training.
He said it is not too much to ask that a person who wishes to carry a concealed weapon in public be required to attend basic marksmanship and safety training so they understand the regulations associated with such an action.
State Senator Jay Morris, the Republican sponsor of the bill, indicated that he hoped the Louisiana legislature would override Edwards’s veto.
Mississippi has allowed permit-less carry since 2016, while Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a law last week allowing permit-less carry in his state.
Belarus Dictator Floods EU With Migrants In Retaliation
The embattled Belarusian dictator has made good on his threat to flood the European Union with migrants by sending hundreds of Iraqis on ‘package holidays’ to neighbouring Lithuania in retaliation for sanctions.
Lithuania, an EU nation which shares a 700-kilometre border with Belarus, felt the pain days after Alexander Lukashenko issued the threat in late May.
Local border guards, who used to catch a few dozen trespassers a year, started to stumble upon groups of several dozen people every day, who would surrender and say they were looking for refuge in the European Union.
Lithuania this year received over 507 migrants, mostly Iraqi men, from Belarus, six times higher than last year’s number. Most of them arrived over the last three weeks.
Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania’s deputy foreign minister said they see that this flow of migrants is regulated by Belarusian authorities as a tool of political pressure, a means of hostile hybrid warfare.
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said they are dealing with a dictator who is increasingly on the edge of madness and is prepared to do absolutely unspeakable and unpredictable things.”
Mr Lukashenko was re-elected last year in a rigged vote that triggered months of unprecedented protests in the former Soviet country.
His crackdown on the opposition reached a new low at the end of May when Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair flight to land in Minsk, arresting a dissident journalist who was on board.
Europe responded with tough sanctions, including banning Belarusian flights from EU airspace. Lukashenko said he would have his revenge.
Authorities in Lithuania had to pitch dozens of heated tents in a makeshift migrant processing centre to accommodate the asylum seekers and are now considering building a wall with Belarus which will cost about €15 million.
Florida Building Collapse: Search Operations Continue, Survivors Say It’s A Miracle
More bodies pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida building.
Confirmed death toll rises to nine as search continues at site of a partially collapsed 12-storey building near Miami.
Search and rescue personnel with a rescue dog continue searching for victims days after a residential building partially collapsed in Surfside near Miami Beach, Florida.
More bodies have been pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed 12-storey building near Miami, Florida, as the death toll from the incident increased to at least nine on Sunday and more than 150 people remain unaccounted for.
Emergency crews continue to search for potential survivors since the condominium collapsed in the early hours of Thursday in Surfside, a community near Miami.
Expert teams from Israel and Mexico also have joined the search.
“We were able to recover four additional bodies in the rubble as well as additional human remains. As of today, one victim passed away in the hospital, and we’ve recovered eight … victims on site,” she said during a news conference.
“So, I am confirming today that the death toll is at nine. We’ve identified four of the victims and notified the next of kin.”
As emergency responders continue to sift through the rubble – a process that was hampered on Saturday by a fire burning amid the debris – questions continue to swirl over what caused the collapse of the condominium.
On Saturday, US media reported that a 2018 engineering report had warned the building was resting on a concrete slab that had “major structural damage” and needed to be extensively repaired.
That same report also found “abundant cracking and spalling” of concrete columns, beams and walls in the parking garage.
But it remains unclear what caused the collapse.
Meanwhile, families and loved ones of the building’s missing residents continue to anxiously await news.
Some families of those missing have provided DNA samples to officials while others recounted narrow escapes.
Police released the names of four victims who ranged in age from 54 to 83.
Building resident Erick de Moura was supposed to be home when the tower collapsed, but his girlfriend persuaded him to spend the night at her place less than 3km (2 miles) away in Miami Beach, likely saving his life.
“Only by God. To me this is a miracle,” the 40-year-old Brazil native said.
UK Health Minister Resigns After Breaching Coronavirus Rules
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, resigned Saturday, a day after apologizing for breaching social distancing rules with an aide with whom he was allegedly having an affair.
Hancock who has led the country’s response to the coronavirus, had been under growing pressure since the tabloid Sun newspaper published images showing him and senior aide Gina Coladangelo kissing in an office at the Department of Health.
The Sun said the closed circuit television images were taken May 6 — 11 days before lockdown rules were eased to allow hugs and other physical contact with people outside one’s own household.
In a resignation letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Hancock said the government owed it “to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down.”
Johnson said he was sorry to receive Hancock’s resignation and that he “should leave office very proud of what you have achieved — not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before COVID-19 struck us.”
Johnson had earlier expressed confidence in Hancock despite widespread calls to fire him.
Jonathan Ashworth, health spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, said “it is right that Matt Hancock has resigned. But why didn’t Boris Johnson have the guts to sack him and why did he say the matter was closed?”
Some lawmakers from the governing Conservatives had also called on Hancock to quit because he wasn’t practicing what he has been preaching during the pandemic.
Colombia Offers Reward After Presidential Helicopter Shooting
Colombia has offered a reward of three billion pesos, that’s about $796,000 for information about an attack on the president’s helicopter.
Iván Duque was nearing Cúcuta airport near the border with Venezuela when his aircraft was hit by gunfire on Friday.
Photos released later showed bullet holes in the rotor and tail of the helicopter. The UN, EU and US have all condemned the attack but nobody on board was injured.
Defence Minister Diego Molano – who was also on board the aircraft – offered the reward for any information leading to the culprits on Saturday.
National police meanwhile announced that they had found two rifles in a Cúcuta neighbourhood – an AK-47, and a 7.62 calibre rifle, which they say were used in the attack.
The 7.62 calibre rifle had “the marks of the Armed Forces of Venezuela”, national police chief General Jorge Vargas.
It is not yet known who carried out the attack.
Before the shooting Mr Duque had been attending an event in the Catatumbo region. The area spans the Colombian-Venezuelan border and is one of the main regions in the country for growing coca, the key ingredient in the drug cocaine.
Colombia has accused Venezuela of harbouring rebel fighters in the past, a claim the country denies. The nations broke off diplomatic relations after Mr Duque came to power in 2018.
The leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s largest rebel group, operates in the Catatumbo region.
Earlier this month the ELN denied any involvement in a car bomb attack on a military base in Cúcuta. The attack injured 36 people, including two US military advisers.
Mali Protesters Call For French Troops To Leave
Activists in Mali have staged a protest against French military presence in Bamako, calling for the total withdrawal of French troops from the country with some waving Russian flags and holding banners, calling for greater cooperation between Mali and Russia.
The demonstration organised by political fringe group ‘Yerewolo Debouts sur les remparts’ was relatively subdued. Numbers were lower than organisers had hoped for after heavy rains earlier in the day.
The demonstration came as Germany’s defence minister announced that 12 German troops and a soldier from another country were wounded following an attack on soldiers taking part in a United Nations mission in Mali.
The U.N. mission in the country, MINUSMA, had earlier said that 15 peacekeepers were wounded when a temporary operational base in the Gao region was targeted with a vehicle bomb.
German y has hundreds of troops taking part in U.N. stabilization and European Union training missions in the West African nation.
according toPape Diallo, spokesman for protest platform ‘Yerewolo – Debout sur Les Remparts’, Germany is being manipulated by the French, adding that they came with good intentions but now find themselves inside the Machiavellian schemes of France,”.
Mali has been trying to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012.
A military coup last year in Mali has complicated matters further, and the junta’s leaders have faced criticism from France and the African Union
Sudan Agrees To Hand Over Darfur War Crimes Accused
Sudan says it will surrender former officials who are wanted for alleged war crimes in the Darfur region to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Sudan’s decision comes weeks after the ICC’s outgoing chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, visited the country and urged its leaders to surrender all those wanted including Bashir who was the first person to be charged by the international court for the crime of genocide.
Other former officials wanted by the ICC are Former Defence Minister Abdelraheem Muhammad Hussein and former Minister of the Interior Ahmad Harun.
Federal government minister Bothaina Dinar said on Saturday the cabinet’s decision was unanimous and aimed at establishing peace and stability in the country.
For now, Sudan has not named the individuals being handed over, but the country’s rulers had already promised to surrender former President Omar al-Bashir who was in power during the conflict, although this has not yet happened.
Omar Al Bashir was ousted by the military after mass protests in 2019 and is now serving a jail sentence for corruption.
The war in Darfur caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises of recent years.
At least 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict between rebels and government forces that began in 2003. Millions of others were forced from their homes and into displacement camps.
Operation Zero Potholes Gets Underway In Akwa Ibom State
As part of the Completion Agenda of the Udom Emmanuel administration, His Excellency, Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel has mobilized for the massive enforcement of “Operation Zero Potholes” on roads in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria’s South-south.
To this end, AKROIMA has resumed work in earnest, as operation zero potholes begins on Four Lanes by PHEDC head office in Uyo, the State capital.
ABOUT AKROIMA
Akwa Ibom State Road and Other Infrastructures Maintenance Agency was established to bring to the grassroots, the much-expected democratic dividends in terms of providing quality roads for evacuation of farm produce from the rural areas to the urban Centre’s.
From inception of Dr. Ntuk Udeh’s led management of Akroima, he commenced actions aimed at ensuring full rehabilitation of state roads in the shortest possible time.
To underscore this, he launched “Operation Zero Pot Holes” The pace in which the agency is approaching the rehabilitation works in the state evidences this.
The Agency’s equipment few weeks ago were seen demarcating areas around pot holes in Uyo metropolis for the purpose of repairs while other trucks were on standby for supply stone base and asphalt for subsequent tarring process.
Medical Charity Suspends Work in Libyan Detention Centers in Protest Over Violence
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has issued a statement where it announced it would suspend its medical care at two Libyan detention centres due to the unacceptable level of violence, and will not return until conditions improve.
MSF’s head of mission in Libya, Beatrice Lau, said the persistent pattern of violent incidents and serious harm to refugees and migrants, as well as the risk to the safety of their staff, has reached an unacceptable level, adding that it was not an easy decision to make.
MSF documented acts of violence committed by the guards at the Mabani ‘Collection and Return’ detention centre 10 days ago, witnessing guards indiscriminately beating people who attempted to leave their cells to be consulted by MSF doctors.
The previous night, the overcrowded detention centre erupted in mass violence as migrants, refugees and guards suffered multiple fractures, cuts and abrasions, including one unaccompanied child who was left unable to walk after suffering serious wounds to the ankles, according to their statement.
Increased interceptions at sea and forcible return of vulnerable people to Libya and into detention has caused severe overcrowding in detention centres and a deterioration of already desperate conditions inside.
The medical charity said that the rise in violence in 2021 goes hand-in-hand with the rise in the number of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers intercepted at sea by the EU-funded Libyan coast guard.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 14,000 people have been intercepted and forcibly returned to Libya since the beginning of 2021.
This exceeds the total number of forced returns for all of 2020–from 13 June to 19 June, nearly 1,600 people were picked up and returned.
