Foreign News
Zambian ex-president to be buried in South Africa after funeral row
The family of Zambia’s former President Edgar Lungu says he will be buried in South Africa in a private ceremony following a row with the government over the funeral arrangements.
Late on Thursday, President Hakainde Hichilema cut short a period of national mourning after Lungu’s family refused to allow his body to be repatriated from South Africa as planned. His funeral had been set for Sunday in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.
The family now says it will announce later when Lungu will be buried in Johannesburg in “dignity and peace”.
It will be the first time a former head of state of another country is buried in South Africa.
In his will, Lungu said that Hichilema, his long-time rival, should not attend his funeral.
The government and his family later agreed he would have a state funeral before relations broke down over the precise arrangements.
“We wish to announce that the funeral and burial of our beloved Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu will take place here in South Africa, in accordance with the family’s wishes for a private ceremony,” family spokesperson Makebi Zulu said in a statement.
Mr Zulu thanked the South African government for “non-interference” and honouring the family’s decision and desire during “this deeply emotional period”.
In his address on Thursday, President Hichilema said that Lungu, as a former president, “belongs to the nation of Zambia” and his body should therefore “be buried in Zambia with full honours, and not in any other nation”.
However, because of the row, he announced an immediate end to the mourning period, saying the country needed to “resume normal life”.
“The government has done everything possible to engage with the family of our departed sixth president,” he said.
The national mourning period initially ran from 8 to 14 June but was later extended until 23 June, with flags flying at half-mast and radio stations playing solemn music.
President Hichilema and senior officials had been prepared to receive Lungu’s coffin with full military honours on Wednesday.
However, Lungu’s family blocked the repatriation of his remains at the last minute, saying the government had reneged on its agreement over the funeral plans.
The opposition Patriotic Front (PF), the party Lungu led until his death, has stood with the family over the funeral plans.
“The government has turned a solemn occasion into a political game,” said PF acting president Given Lubinda. “This is not how we treat a former head of state.”
Civil society groups have called for an urgent resolution of the matter, with a section of religious leaders saying the stand-off was “hurting the dignity of our country”.
“We appeal for humility, dialogue, and a resolution that honours the memory of the former president while keeping the nation united,” said Emmanuel Chikoya, head of the Council of Churches in Zambia.
Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died earlier this month in South Africa where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.
After six years as head of state, Lungu lost the 2021 election to Hichilema by a large margin. He stepped back from politics but later returned to the fray.
He had ambitions to vie for the presidency again but at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.
Despite his disqualification from the presidential election, he remained hugely influential in Zambian politics and did not hold back in his criticism of his successor.
[BBC]
At least 21 people have been killed after a bus overturned in the south of Iran, state media has reported.
Masoud Abed, the head of Fars province’s emergency organisation, said 34 other people were injured in the accident on Saturday south of Shiraz, the province’s capital.
Abed said rescue operations are ongoing, and additional information and final figures will be released to the public after the operation is complete and detailed investigations have been carried out.
The cause of the incident is under investigation.
With nearly 17,000 casualties annually, Iran is among the countries most affected by road and street accidents. The high toll is attributed to lax application of safety measures, the widespread use of old vehicles and depleted emergency services.
[Aljazeera]
Sectarian clashes have continued in southern Syria despite an “immediate ceasefire” announced by the country’s president.
Over the past week fighters from the minority Druze community have been battling armed Bedouins in Suweida Province, with both sides accused of atrocities.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa deployed troops but the government forces were accused of joining in attacks on the Druze. More than 900 people are reported to have been killed in the violence.
Israel declared support for the Druze earlier this week and intervened, hitting government forces and the defence ministry in the capital Damascus.
Sharaa announced the ceasefire on Saturday as Syrian security forces were deployed to Suweida to end the clashes. The deal included a halt to Israeli military strikes and was approved by Israel as part of US-brokered pact, as long as the Druze citizens were protected.
Government troops have set up checkpoints to try to prevent more people joining the fighting. But gunfire was reported from inside the city of Suweida later on Saturday.
A correspondent for AFP news agency said they had seen armed men looting shops and setting fire to them.
Also on Saturday, Israel’s foreign minister cast doubt on the renewed pledge by the president to protect minorities and all Syrians.
Suweida’s Druze community follows a secretive, unique faith derived from Shia Islam, and distrusts the current government in Damascus. They are a minority in Syria, as well as in neighbouring Israel and Lebanon.
In a social media post, Gideon Saar said it was “very dangerous” to be part of a minority in Syria, and “this has been proven time and again over the past six months”.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to prevent harm to the Druze in Syria because of their ties to those living in Israel.
Long-running tensions between Druze and Bedouin tribes in Suweida erupted into deadly sectarian clashes last Sunday Sunday, following the abduction of a Druze merchant on the highway to the capital, Damascus.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), 940 people have been killed since then.
The ceasefire between Israel and Syria on Friday was announced by US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack on Friday.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbours,” he said.
The BBC’s Middle East correspondent Lina Sinjab, reporting from Syria, said violence towards the Druze has been spreading across the country.
Earlier this week, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said his office had received credible reports indicating widespread violations and abuses during clashes, including summary executions and arbitrary killings in Suweida.
Among the alleged perpetrators were members of the security forces and individuals affiliated with the interim government, as well as local Druze and Bedouin armed elements, Türk said in a statement. “This bloodshed and the violence must stop,” he warned, adding that “those responsible must be held to account”.
In his comments on Saturday morning, the Syrian leader said that his government “is committed to protecting all minorities and sects in the country and is proceeding to hold all violators accountable from any party. No-one will escape accountability.”
[BBC]
Indian tax authorities and market regulator are considering widening their probe of United States trading giant Jane Street Group to investigate it for tax evasion in addition to an earlier charge of price rigging in the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark Sensex, according to media reports.
The tax evasion charge comes on the heels of market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), seizing 48.43 billion rupees ($570m) and banning four Jane Street-related entities from operating in the market for alleged price manipulation in the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
SEBI’s order has roiled the Indian markets, raising questions about regulator surveillance and investor protection in the world’s largest options trading market. Trading in India’s weekly equity index options has slumped by a third on the ban on Jane Street, the Reuters news agency reported on Thursday.
Trading of equity options lets investors buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price and date. As the Indian market rapidly grew to handle more than half of all global options trades, retail investors entered the market too.
Questions of price manipulation have dogged this rapid rise but remained vacuous until a New York court case in April 2024, where Jane Street alleged that its rival, Millennium Partners, had stolen its algorithms that helped it make in the Indian options market. A whistleblower, Mayank Bansal, then made presentations to SEBI showing Jane Street’s trading patterns. Bansal had agreed to speak to Al Jazeera about his interaction with SEBI on the matter, but then backtracked.
On July 3, in a detailed interim order, the regulator said that “by preponderance of probability, there is no economic rationale that can account for this sudden burst of large and aggressive activity, other than the intent to manipulate the price of securities and index benchmark”.
SEBI has alleged that Jane Street accumulated large long positions in stocks that are a part of the NSE’s Bank Index and built large short positions in index options at the start of trade. Around market closing time, it would reverse its trades in the cash and futures segments, pushing down the index and earning large profits in the options segment.
This activity was blurred by its offshore entities making some of these trades.
“Lawyers [can] push back with SEBI on jurisdiction-related issues, but when underlying [Indian] securities are issued, SEBI can take action,” Joby Mathew, managing partner at the law firm Joby Mathew and Associates and a former legal officer at SEBI, told Al Jazeera.
Jane Street has disputed SEBI’s findings and has hired lawyers to represent it before SEBI in the case. It has deposited the 48.43 billion rupees ($563m) of allegedly ill-gotten gains in an account pending the investigation and final report.
[Aljazeera]
Bus crash in southern Iran kills at least 21, injures 34
The goal is to limit the number of students in a classroom to 25 or 30- Prime Minister
Navy rescue three fishermen 2 nautical miles off Palliyawatta, Wattala
Showers above 75 mm are likely at some places in the Sabaragamuwa province and in Nuwara-Eliya, Kandy, Galle and Matara districts
CaFFE tells Prez: Hold provincial council polls or abolish PC system
GI pipe case against Rambuweklla, others: Examination of witnesses to resume
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