Indoor Dining To Resume In England In Latest Covid Easing

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May 10, 2021

Fulham were relegated from the Premier League with a 2-0 loss at home to Burnley on Monday that assured the Clarets of their top-flight status.

London club Fulham will now join already-demoted West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United in the second-tier Championship next season.

Fulham had to avoid defeat at Craven Cottage on Monday to maintain their slim hopes of beating the drop.

But first-half goals from Burnley’s Ashley Westwood and Chris Wood put paid to their chances of staying up.

Fulham’s defeat also meant all three relegation places were decided with at least three games to go, ensuring there would be no last-day drama in the battle to beat the drop.

“It has been looming but it doesn’t hide the disappointment, hurt and sadness I feel tonight,” Fulham manager Scott Parker said.

“Tonight is how the season has gone at times. Between the two boxes we did very well. The difference was defensively the two goals we conceded were poor and in the final moment when you need to score and make good decisions we did not have that.”

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South Sudan President Announces New Parliament

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May 10, 2021

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir announced a new parliament on Monday including lawmakers from opposing sides of the country’s civil war as part of a 2018 peace accord, state television reported.

A new legislative body was a condition of the 2018 accord between signed by himself and Vice President Riek Machar, for years on opposition sides during the five-year civil war that left 380,000 people dead and four million displaced.

“Reconstituting” the country’s parliament had been due in February 2020, but had still not taken place, prompting the ire of the opposition.

Kiir dissolved the previous parliament on Saturday ahead of the change more than a year overdue.

A decree by Kiir was then read out on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) on Monday, including the names of the national assembly legislators.

In accordance with the accord, the new assembly will number 550 lawmakers, up from the previous 400.

Of these 332 deputies were chosen by Kiir, 128 by Machar, and 90 others by signatory parties, in line with the peace deal.

The decree did not mention the upper house state council which was also dissolved late Saturday.

The dissolution of parliament came on the eve of a visit to the capital Juba by US special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth.

The US State Department had voiced concern at “the slow implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, ongoing violence, and deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions.”

Kiir and Machar formed a coalition government in February 2020.

However few provisions of the truce have been honoured, and analysts have warned of the threat of a return to war.

The oil-rich country remains severely underdeveloped and poorly managed.

Despite the peace deal, brutal communal conflicts — often over cattle raiding — continue, with more than 1,000 killed in violence between rival communities in the last six months of 2020.

London Presents Masterpieces As Augmented Gallery Runs Till July 1

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May 10, 2021

Some of London’s biggest galleries have joined forces to bring their masterpieces onto the streets, through the lens of augmented reality.

By scanning the code, people get to see the art and hear the background and the history behind it for free.

A trail of 20 art pieces, including famous works by Vincent van Gogh and portraits of iconic sitters like William Shakespeare, have become part of the city’s landscape.

The Augmented Gallery will run until July 1st.

Southeast Asian Nations Officials To Visit Myanmar

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May 10, 2021

Top officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plan to be in Myanmar next week to see the continued military crackdown with their own eyes.

The organization says the ASEAN Chair and Secretary General are scheduled to sit down with the Myanmar military’s regime leader.

The visit comes amid calls for more assertive ASEAN action in implementing the five-point consensus seeking constructive dialogue to resolve the crisis.

South Korea’s President Moon Marks Start Of Final Year In Office

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May 10, 2021

President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in has vowed to revive peace process during his last year in office.

This comes ahead of his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington on May 21st.

“Through the South Korea-U.S. summit scheduled for late May, we will solidify the bilateral alliance and more closely coordinate our policies toward North Korea to find ways to restore dialogue between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the U.S. and step once again toward peaceful cooperation.”

The South Korean leader welcomed the U.S. policy review on North Korea calling it a flexible, gradual and practical approach that builds upon the foundations laid by the Singapore Declaration.

There have been no significant developments on the denuclearization front since the Hanoi summit between North Korea and the U.S. in 2019.

Moon said he will not be pressured by time or become impatient during the remainder of his term but said he will do everything he can if there is a chance to advance the peace process, and called for a positive response from North Korea.

Embattled Nepal PM Loses Vote Of Confidence

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May 10, 2021

Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli lost a confidence vote on Monday, triggering fresh political uncertainty just as the Himalayan nation reels from the pandemic.

Oli decided to seek a vote of confidence following months of feuding within his ruling communist party and coalition partners but was able to secure only 93 votes in the parliament instead of the 136 needed.

More than 120 parliamentarians voted against the former political prisoner and nearly two dozen leaders from Oli’s own party skipped the process. According to procedure, the president will now call for parties to propose a new candidate, backed by a majority.

Nepal has been roiled by months of turmoil after Oli dissolved parliament in December, accusing members of his Nepal Communist Party (NCP) of being uncooperative.

The NCP was formed in 2018 by a merger between Oli’s communist party CPN-UML and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) of former rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

In recent months, Oli has faced fierce criticism over his handling of the pandemic as the second wave sweeps over the country, with half of people tested now returning positive.

However it was more political infighting rather than his handling of the pandemic that caused him to lose the vote of confidence.

On Monday, Nepal reported 9,127 cases, the highest increase yet. Nearly 4,000 people have died since the pandemic began, according to official figures.

Sudan Says Ethiopian Peacekeepers Deported To Refugee Camp

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May 10, 2021

Sudanese authorities have deported around three dozen Ethiopian peacekeepers, working on the U.N. mission in Darfur, to a refugee camp, according to the state-run news agency.

Head of the refugee agency in North Darfur province, Al-Fateh Ibrahim Mohammed, said the troops are among 120 Ethiopian forces from the Tigrayan ethnic group, who have sought asylum in Sudan after their stay ended earlier this year.

He said the the troops, including 14 women, refused to return after being recalled by their home country, Ethiopia, for fear of being detained by the federal government in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has waged a devastating war since November against the regional government in Tigray, claiming that Tigray forces had attacked a military base.

The Tigray conflict has been marked by massacres, gang rapes, expulsions and forced starvation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted in March that “ethnic cleansing” has taken place in Tigray.

Federal authorities in Addis Ababa have also swept up thousands of Tigrayans including high-level military officials into detention centers across Ethiopia on accusations that they are traitors, according to an Associated Press report.

United Nations spokesman Farhan Haq said last month that a number of Ethiopians in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur were seeking international protection as several hundred troops are being repatriated.

Mohammed, the Sudanese refugee official, said Sudan deported at least 33 troops Sunday from North Darfur’s provincial capital of el-Fasher to a refugee camp in the eastern province of Kassala, on the borders with Ethiopia.

At Least 12 Killed In Burundi Roadside Ambush

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May 10, 2021

At least twelve people, including a senior army officer, were killed and several wounded Monday night in an ambush on vehicles in central Burundi, according to administrative sources.

The police had mentioned on Sunday evening on Twitter a death toll of eight during an “armed robbery on four vehicles” in Muramvya, a town located about fifty kilometers northeast of the economic capital Bujumbura.

Speaking on condition of anonymity the administrative source said ten people were killed on the spot and two others, including a little girl, succumbed to their injuries.

a medical source also said there are eleven bodies in the Muramvya morgue and a twelfth body, a woman who died while being transferred to a hospital in Bujumbura, is in a morgue there.

According to the administrative source and relatives, Burundian army officer, Colonel Onesphore Nizigiyimana, and one of his daughters are among the victims. He was returning from a family celebration with his wife and three daughters when the attack took place.

The ambush was reportedly carried out four kilometers from the center of Muramvya by a dozen heavily armed men who shot at the colonel’s car when it arrived there, then set it on fire.

Meanwhile, three other vehicles, including a bus, arrived at the scene and were also attacked with guns and grenades.

Such ambushes are increasingly common in Burundi. At least a dozen people were killed in several such attacks in late 2020.

In mid-April, seven people were also killed in the town of Rusaka, in the neighboring province of Mwaro, in an attack on a bar attributed by the police to armed bandits.

Algeria To Ban Unauthorised Protests In The Country

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May 10, 2021