Foreign News
At least eight dead after major rioting and unrest in Papua New Guinea
At least eight people have died after major rioting and unrest hit Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby.
Shops and cars were set on fire and supermarkets looted after police went on strike over a pay dispute. Hundreds had taken to the streets on Wednesday.
In the aftermath, Prime Minister James Marape addressed the nation saying lawlessness would not be tolerated. “Breaking the law does not achieve certain outcomes,” he told the public on Thursday.
The army has been deployed to restore order and while most of the the riots had died down by Wednesday night, Marape acknowledged: “It’s still tense out there”.
A local official had earlier said that the looting had largely been carried out by “opportunists”.
“We have seen unprecedented level of strife in our city, something that has never happened before in the history of our city and our country,” National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said in a radio address on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report. He had confirmed that “some people sadly lost their life today” though he did not give a number of dead.
The Port Moresby General Hospital had confirmed eight deaths, regional media reported.
The violence had also spread outside the capital – another seven people died in the city of Lae, local police said. The extent of violence in the second-largest city of Papua New Guinea was unclear.
The unrest was triggered after police and other public servants staged a protest strike outside parliament on Wednesday, after discovering their pay had been reduced by up to 50%.
Prime Minister James Marape said up to about $100 (£78) had been deducted from the pay-checks of public servants because of a computer glitch, and the government was not raising taxes as claimed by some protesters. “Social media picked up on this wrong information, misinformation,” said Mr Marape, according to the New York Times, adding that people had taken advantage of police being off the streets.
TV footage showed large crowds and looting across the city. A large shopping centre was among the buildings set on fire.
Ambulance officials said they had attended to several shooting injuries, while the US embassy reported shots near its compound.
The Chinese embassy has also lodged a complaint with the PNG government, saying several Chinese businesses were attacked and a number of Chinese nationals injured – though they did not specify how many. “The Chinese Embassy in Papua New Guinea has lodged solemn representations with the Papua New Guinea side over the attacks on the Chinese shops,” the embassy said on WeChat.
Australia, a neighbouring and major security partner for PNG, on Thursday called for calm in the country. Mr Marape, who met with Australia’s leader last month, has yet to ask for peacekeeping help from the country.
Amid an economic slump in his country that has seen higher inflation and unemployment rates, the prime minister has faced increased pressure. The opposition been working to cast a place a vote of no confidence against him.
Analysts say the unhappiness among the population had led to Wednesday’s unrest in the capital, home to about 400,000 people.
“The events of today in Port Moresby are manifesting and revealing the inner social and economic pains and suffering of police, military and other public servants of PNG, as well as all workers and ordinary people,” PNG Think Tank analyst Samson Komati told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
(BBC)
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
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