World News
Collision between two buses in Senegal: 39 dead, three days of national mourning
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Sylvie Claire / January 9, 2023
Thirty-nine people were killed and a hundred injured in Senegal in a collision between two buses, leading President Macky Sall to declare a three-day national mourning and to announce immediate measures to improve safety.
The accident, the deadliest in this West African country in recent years, occurred on Saturday night around 3:00 a.m. local time near the town of Kaffrine, about 250 km southeast of the capital Dakar, according to the fire department and local authorities.
The government announced on Sunday evening that the latest death toll from the accident in the town of Sikilo was 39, with 53 injured in hospital and 42 more slightly injured being treated in local health centers. “The two buses would have contained 139 passengers at the time of the accident,” the government said in a statement. Ten of the injured are in “vital emergency”, said President Sall after visiting the injured at the hospital in Kaffrine with his Prime Minister Amadou Ba.
More than 20 bodies have already been identified and will soon be returned to their families,” he added. The head of state, who had previously decided on “a three-day national mourning period starting Monday“, promised swift measures to avoid the repetition of a new “tragedy” of this kind. “We can not expose the lives of our compatriots in a transport system that disregards respect for human life,” said Sall.
From Monday the Prime Minister will convene an interministerial council to take measures on the condition of vehicles, technical control, the issuance of driving licenses or transport schedules, he said. “We are ready, of course, as a state to accompany the transport sector for the renewal of the fleet and the limitation of the ages of public transport vehicles that come from abroad,” he continued, assuring that the necessary measures would be “taken tomorrow.
The mayor of Kaffrine, Abdoulaye Saydou Sow, who is also the Minister of Urban Planning and Housing, and the public prosecutor of the neighboring city of Kaolack blamed the collision on a burst tire on one of the two buses, which then veered off course.
The main Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, said on Twitter to postpone a fundraising operation because of the accident and called on the authorities to “give priority attention” to road insecurity, a “scourge with disastrous human, social and economic consequences for the country.
Bus accidents are common in Africa, due to poorly maintained vehicles, bad roads, and driving errors, with many motorists holding licenses purchased from corrupt inspectors without ever having attended driving school.
Twenty-one people died Saturday night in East Africa in a bus accident on the border between Kenya and Uganda, Ugandan police said Sunday. The majority of the dead are Kenyan nationals, but there are also eight Ugandans. According to the police, 49 people were injured.
According to the first elements of the investigation, the driver lost control of the vehicle due to excessive speed.
The Ugandan government is preparing new measures to improve road safety after an increase in fatal accidents during the holiday season. According to the Ugandan police, 104 road accidents were recorded in just three days, from December 30 to January 1, resulting in 35 deaths and 114 injuries.
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Sylvie Claire / July 21, 2024
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on the phone on Friday, with the former US president claiming to have promised the Ukrainian president to “end the war” between Ukraine and Russia should he return to the White House. “As your next president of the United States, I will bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives,” said the Republican presidential candidate.
Donald Trump frequently claims that he would be able to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine very quickly on his return to power, but never provides details of how he would achieve this. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the phone call, during which he congratulated the billionaire on his official nomination the previous day as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.
Donald Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of other Nato countries, is causing concern among Ukraine’s Western allies. In February, he threatened that, if he returned to the White House, he would no longer guarantee the protection of Atlantic Alliance countries against Russia if they did not pay their share, even claiming that he would “encourage” Moscow to attack them. The former American president also used his power over the Republicans to block a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev for months in Congress, which was finally adopted at the end of April.
In his posting on X on Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said he had “agreed with President Trump to discuss, in a face-to-face meeting, the steps to be taken towards a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
World News
Former Ukrainian far-right MP murdered in Lviv: “All leads are being investigated, including Russia”
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Steph Deschamps / July 21, 2024
In a message on Telegram, the Ukrainian National Police said she had succumbed to her injuries in hospital after being the target of an assassination attempt.
“I always say that no place is safe in Ukraine,” lamented Lviv mayor Andriï Sadovy, denouncing a ‘heinous murder’ and offering his condolences to the victim’s relatives.
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack took place on Friday evening, at around 7.30pm, when an unidentified individual fired at Irina Farion, seriously wounding her in the head. “All surveillance cameras are being checked, witnesses are being interviewed and several districts (of Lviv) are being examined. All leads are being investigated, including the one leading to Russia”, reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on X on Saturday.
Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told a briefing in Lviv on Friday evening that the suspected killer could have been lurking around Irina Farion’s home for several days.
According to him, investigators are currently focusing on the possibility of a murder motivated by a “personal grudge” linked to the victim’s activities, but are not ruling out a “commissioned assassination” either.
The 60-year-old language teacher and linguist was a member of parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party between 2012 and 2014.
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Sylvie Claire / July 18, 2024
At least six people died in a shopping mall fire on Wednesday in Zigong, southwest China, and thirty others were rescued, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said. “Rescue teams are continuing their search,” the media outlet added.
Images broadcast by the channel and others shared on social networks show thick black smoke rising from a building overlooking a shopping street in this city 1,600 kilometers from the capital Beijing, in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping mall at the foot of a 14-storey building, CCTV reported.
“At 8:20 pm, the fire was extinguished and 17 people were rescued. Others are still trapped, and rescue operations are continuing”, said the station in an initial report on the situation.
Fires and other fatal accidents are frequent in China, due to the sometimes lax application of safety standards. In January, at least 39 people perished in a store fire in central China. According to the authorities, the fire started in the basement of a store when workers “broke the rules” during construction work. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to prevent further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building claimed at least 15 lives.
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