Foreign News
Gas blast in Kenyan capital kills three and injures nearly 300
A huge gas blast in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has killed at least three people and injured nearly 300.
A lorry carrying gas cylinders exploded in Embakasi district at about 23:30 (20:30 GMT) on Thursday, “igniting a huge ball of fire”, an official said.
Housing, businesses and cars were damaged, with video showing a huge blaze raging close to blocks of flats.
An investigation has started and Kenya’s deputy president has said those responsible will be held accountable.
A child was among those who died, according Embakasi police chief Wesley Kimeto, who added that the death toll could rise. Some 271 people were taken to hospital, according to the authorities, including at least 25 children.
Nairobi county Governor Sakaja Johnson said many of these people had been treated and sent home, but at least 39 have been sent to other facilities – some with critical injuries. A further 27 people were treated on site for non-life-threatening injuries.
The government initially said the blast happened at a gas plant where workers were refilling gas cylinders, but the authorities later clarified that a truck had exploded in a parking yard.
According to government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura, a fireball from the blast “spread widely”. A flying gas cylinder hit a clothing and textiles warehouse, burning it down. “The inferno further damaged several vehicles and commercial properties, including many small and medium sized businesses,” he said in a statement. “Sadly, residential houses in the neighbourhood also caught fire, with a good number of residents still inside, as it was late at night.”
The fire has been contained and a search and rescue operation has been launched to find out if people are missing or have simply taken shelter elsewhere.
“There is still a search going on of whether there are bodies which have been burnt in various houses,” said Embakasi East MP Babu Owino.
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) said in a statement that the gas plant was illegal and that it had rejected three applications for construction permits to build a storage and filling facility at the site. Epra said the designs did not meet its safety standards and there was a high population around the proposed site. It is not clear how the facility was still able to operate.
Mr Mwaura, who visited the site, said the owners of the company involved must “compensate the victims” and take “full responsibility” for the explosion. “It is immoral to risk the lives of fellow Kenyans for profit,” he added. “Sometimes we have weak enforcement institutions and of course the element of corruption, which has now led to the death of three of us Kenyans.”
Kenyan Vice-President Rigathi Gachagua promised a tough government response. “As we call for caution and adherence to the rule of law, those culpable in this unacceptable occurrence will be held accountable,” he said.
About 10 trucks were completely burned inside the compound where the explosion occurred. One vehicle landed on top of a block of flats dozens of metres away, partially destroying the building’s front.
Witnesses told the BBC that the explosion sent objects including gas cylinders and a shipping container, flying into the air.
At the Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital, where many of the injured were initially treated, the BBC spoke to a man named Geoffrey. He said he and his family were woken by a big explosion and thought their building was collapsing.”When I saw that the fire was too much, I used my body to shield my child and sustained burns on my back in the process,” said Geoffrey.”My family members got minor injuries but I got the most severe burns”.
Isaac Mwaura, the government spokesperson, said a command centre has been set up to help co-ordinate rescue operations and humanitarian assistance is being given to those affected.
He also said the government plans to provide two months’ rent for survivors whose houses were razed in the explosion.
(BBC)
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has approved a law that abolishes the death penalty in the southern African state with immediate effect.
Rights group Amnesty hailed the decision as a “beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region”, but expressed regret that the death penalty could be reinstated during a state of emergency.
Mnangagwa’s move comes after Zimbabwe’s parliament voted earlier in December to scrap the death penalty.
Zimbabwe last carried out an execution by hanging in 2005, but its courts continued to hand down the death sentence for serious crimes like murder.
About 60 people were on death row at the end of 2023, according to Amnesty.
They will be re-sentenced by the courts, with judges ordered to consider the nature of their crime, the time they spent on death row and their personal circumstances, the state owned Herald newspaper reports.
Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said the abolition of the death penalty was “more than a legal reform; it is a statement of our commitment to justice and humanity”.
The death sentence was introduced in what is now Zimbabwe during British colonial rule.
Mnangagwa has been a long-standing critic of capital punishment, citing his own experience of being sentenced to death in the 1960s for blowing up a train during the guerrilla war for independence. His sentence was later commuted to 10 years in prison.
The Death Penalty Abolition Act was published in the government gazette on Tuesday after Mnangagwa signed it into law.
Amnesty said the move was not “just great progress” for Zimbabwe but also a “major milestone” in international efforts to end “this ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment”.
It urged the Zimbabwean authorities to “remove the clause included in the amendments to the Bill allowing for the use of the death penalty for the duration of any state of public emergency”.
Mnangagwa’s Zanu-PF party has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.
It has repeatedly been accused by opposition and rights groups of ruling with an iron fist in its bid to remain in power.
Globally, 113 countries, including 24 in Africa, have fully abolished the death penalty, according to Amnesty.
The five countries with the highest number of executions in 2023 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the US, the rights group added.
[BBC]
United States President-elect Donald Trump has lost an appeal to a jury’s 2023 finding that he was liable for sexual abuse and defamation related to an alleged attack on writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s.
On Monday, a federal appeals court upheld the 2023 verdict in the civil case, in which Trump was not found to have committed rape, but was ordered to pay Carroll $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defamation.
Carroll had accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in either 1995 or 1996. She detailed the alleged attack in a 2019 article, prompting a denial from then-President Trump via the White House spokesperson.
Carroll initially filed a defamation lawsuit in 2019 and a second, separate lawsuit alleging defamation and rape in November 2022. The second suit came after Trump called the lawsuits as “complete con job” and claimed he had “no idea” who Carroll was. He further derided the legal action as a “hoax”.
Monday’s decision relates to the second lawsuit that Carroll filed. In January of this year, Trump was separately ordered to pay $83.3m for the 2019 defemation case. Trump is also appealing that verdict.
Because both cases are civil, and not criminal, the jury technically found Trump “liable”, but not guilty of the claims.
The cases have continued despite Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election. He is set to begin his second four-year White House term on January 20, after previously serving as president from 2017 to 2021.
Trump was convicted earlier this year in a separate criminal trial in New York for falsifying business records in an attempt to cover up hush money payments to an adult film star. Following his victory, sentencing in that case was put on hold.
Trump’s win helped him to avoid two other federal criminal cases against him, including one connected to hiding and hoarding classified White House documents and another for his alleged role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results. Under longstanding US Department of Justice policy, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
A fourth criminal case in Georgia, related to alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the state, has also been thrown into uncertainty following Trump’s election win.
However, Trump is not protected from all legal actions.
In 1997, in a case involving former President Bill Clinton, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation in federal court over actions predating and unrelated to their official duties as president.
[Aljazeera]
Trinidad and Tobago has declared a state of emergency as gang violence in the Caribbean nation continues to escalate.
President Christine Carla Kangaloo issued the declaration on the advice of Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who had been under growing pressure to take action over worsening crime figures.
The twin-island republic has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a record murder tally of more than 620 this year so far in a population of 1.5 million people.
Organised crime is responsible for the majority of the murders, many of them linked to the international drug trade.
According to the US state department, the country’s close proximity to Venezuela, porous borders and direct transportation routes to Europe and North America make it “a prime location for narcotics trans-shipment”.
In the latest violent incident, five men were shot dead in a shop in the poverty-stricken Laventille area on Sunday. Police believe the killings were in reprisal for the murder of a prominent gang member the previous day.
Under the state of emergency, police will have the authority to arrest people on suspicion of involvement in crimes. They will also have the power to “search and enter both public and private premises as necessary”.
The prime minister’s office issued a statement saying the intention was to “address individuals who pose a threat to public safety, particularly those involved in criminal activities and the illegal use of firearms”.
However, it added that there were no plans to impose a curfew.
It is unclear how the state of emergency will affect Trinidad’s world-renowned Carnival, which is set to culminate in a massive street parade on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday in early March.
The event is a major tourist attraction which brings in tens of thousands of visitors from overseas, but heightened security measures could put a damper on the festivities.
The move comes as Trinidad and Tobago gears up for a general election, which must be held by August 2025.
Rowley’s governing People’s National Movement party, in power since September 2015, faces a strong challenge from the opposition United National Congress, led by former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
[BBC]
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