Russian culture center head wounded in Central African Republic assassination attempt

Russian culture center head wounded in Central African Republic assassination attempt
A UN armored personnel carrier patrols on a supposedly safe road in the northwest of the Central African Republic. (AFP)
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Updated 16 December 2022
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Russian culture center head wounded in Central African Republic assassination attempt

Russian culture center head wounded in Central African Republic assassination attempt
  • Russian embassy tightens its own security measures following the attack

The head of a Russian cultural center in the Central African Republic was taken to hospital in the capital Bangui on Friday after an assassination attempt, the Russian Embassy said.

A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy said Dmitry Syty, head of the “Russian House” culture center, had opened a mail bomb addressed to him on Friday morning.

The package from an anonymous sender exploded, injuring him seriously.

The embassy said it had tightened its own security measures following the attack, TASS reported.

Meanwhile, the founder of the Russian private military company Wagner accused France of being behind an assassination attempt on the Russian official.

“Before losing consciousness, Dmitry Syty managed to say: ‘I saw a note: This is for you from all the French, the Russians will get out of Africa’,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement posted on Telegram.

“I have already applied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to initiate the procedure for declaring France a state sponsor of terrorism, as well as a thorough investigation of the terrorist methods of France and its Western allies – the United States and others,” Prigozhin said.


Nobel in medicine goes to 2 scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19

Nobel in medicine goes to 2 scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19
Updated 14 sec ago
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Nobel in medicine goes to 2 scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19

Nobel in medicine goes to 2 scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19
  • The secretary of the Nobel Assembly announced the award Monday in Stockholm
  • The Nobel Prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor
STOCKHOLM: Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the panel that awarded the prize said.
Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the award and said both scientists were “overwhelmed” by news of the prize when he contacted them shortly before the announcement.
The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won last year by Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA which provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19.
The award was the second in the family. Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1982.
Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 9.
The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
The prize money was raised by 1 million kronor this year because of the plunging value of the Swedish currency.
The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The prestigious peace prize is handed out in Oslo, according to his wishes, while the other award ceremony is held in Stockholm.

Court rules against Italian PM over Tunisian migrant detention

Court rules against Italian PM over Tunisian migrant detention
Updated 6 min 43 sec ago
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Court rules against Italian PM over Tunisian migrant detention

Court rules against Italian PM over Tunisian migrant detention
  • 3 asylum-seekers who applied for international protection must be ‘immediately released’
  • Use of detention a breach of Italian and EU law but Interior Ministry will appeal

London: Italy’s detention of three Tunisian migrants awaiting asylum decisions has been ruled illegal under domestic and EU law by a Sicilian court, The Times reported on Monday.

The ruling is viewed as a rebuke to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is seeking to tighten controls on refugee intake. The Interior Ministry said it will appeal the court’s decision.

The three Tunisian asylum-seekers entered Italy on Sept. 20 and applied for international protection but were sent to a detention center in Sicily, in a move that a Catania court has deemed illegal.

A fourth Tunisian who withdrew his asylum request was not included in the court order, which called for the “immediate release” of the trio.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party recently launched measures to stem the flow of migrants from the Mediterranean, with 133,171 people reaching Italian shores since the start of the year.

The detention of the three migrants, given their pending asylum applications, was determined to be in breach of Italy’s constitution and EU law.

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, accused the Catania court of political bias. “Serious reform of the justice system is required,” he said on X.

The court’s findings come amid heightened tensions between EU member states over migration, and as the Italian government seeks to boost the number of detention centers nationwide.


Bangladesh dengue deaths top 1,000 in worst outbreak on record

Bangladesh dengue deaths top 1,000 in worst outbreak on record
Updated 02 October 2023
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Bangladesh dengue deaths top 1,000 in worst outbreak on record

Bangladesh dengue deaths top 1,000 in worst outbreak on record
  • Number of deaths so far this year was higher than every previous year combined from 2000
  • WHO has warned that dengue and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses are spreading faster

DHAKA: More than 1,000 people in Bangladesh have died of dengue fever since the start of the year, official figures showed, in the country’s worst recorded outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease.
Figures from the country’s Directorate General of Health Services published on Sunday night said 1,006 people had died, among more than 200,000 confirmed cases.
The agency’s former director Be-Nazir Ahmed said that the number of deaths so far this year was higher than every previous year combined from 2000, when Bangladesh recorded its first dengue outbreak.
“It’s a massive health event, both in Bangladesh and in the world,” he added.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month the outbreak was “putting huge pressure on the health system” in Bangladesh.
Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can lead to death.
The WHO has warned that dengue — and other diseases caused by mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika — are spreading faster and further due to climate change.


Donald Trump to appear in New York court for civil fraud trial

Donald Trump to appear in New York court for civil fraud trial
Updated 02 October 2023
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Donald Trump to appear in New York court for civil fraud trial

Donald Trump to appear in New York court for civil fraud trial
  • Former president lashes at New York state Attorney General Letitia James and the judge in the case
  • Calls them ‘unfair, unhinged, and vicious in his pursuit of me’

Donald Trump said he will appear in a New York court on Monday at the beginning of a civil fraud trial in which the former president will face what he said was a “sham” accusation that he fraudulently inflated the value of properties and other assets.
“I’m going to Court tomorrow morning to fight for my name and reputation,” Trump said on his Truth Social account on Sunday.
Trump lashed out in his post at New York state Attorney General Letitia James and the judge in the case, who Trump called “unfair, unhinged, and vicious in his pursuit of me.”
In a decision last week, New York state Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump and his family business fraudulently inflated the value of his properties and other assets to suit their business needs.
Trump and the other defendants have argued that they never committed fraud.
“He values Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, at 18 Million Dollars, when it is worth 50 to 100 times that amount. His valuations are FRAUDULENT in pursuit of Election Interference, and worse. THIS WHOLE CASE IS SHAM!!! See you in Court — Monday morning,” Trump said in his post, referring to the judge and the case.
Trump had been sued in September 2022 by state attorney James, who accused him, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others of “staggering fraud” in how they valued properties.
James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban on Trump and his sons, Donald Jr and Eric, from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.
The case is unrelated to the four criminal indictments that Trump faces, including for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.


Top House Republican McCarthy vows to survive ouster threat for avoiding shutdown

Top House Republican McCarthy vows to survive ouster threat for avoiding shutdown
Updated 02 October 2023
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Top House Republican McCarthy vows to survive ouster threat for avoiding shutdown

Top House Republican McCarthy vows to survive ouster threat for avoiding shutdown
  • Hardline Republicans threatened to file a “motion to vacate” against McCarthy for helping push the stopgap funding bill to avoid a US government shutdown
  • "I will survive," US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says as he dares fellow Republican Matt Gaetz to file a motion ousting him from the top post

WASHINGTON: Top US House Republican Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday he expected to survive a threat to his speakership after a hard-line critic within his party called for his ouster following the passage of a stopgap government funding bill that drew more support from Democrats than Republicans.

Hard-line Republican Representative Matt Gaetz told multiple US media outlets he would file a “motion to vacate,” a call for a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker of the House of Representatives, which his party controls by a narrow 221-212 margin.
“I’ll survive,” McCarthy said on CBS. “This is personal with Gaetz.”
Former President Donald Trump, who had encouraged Republicans in Congress to work for a government shutdown unless their budget demands were met, on Sunday said. “Republicans got very little” out of the temporary government-funding deal reached this weekend and that they needed to “get tougher.”
Asked at a campaign stop in Ottumwa, Iowa, whether he would support a move by Gaetz to strip McCarthy of his speakership, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about those efforts but I like both of them very much.” Trump added that McCarthy has said some “very great things about me.”
Gaetz is one of a group of about two dozen hard-liners who forced McCarthy to endure a withering 15 rounds of voting in January before he was elected speaker, during which they squeezed out concessions, including a rule change to allow any one House member to call for a vote to oust the speaker.
It was not clear how much support McCarthy would have in such a vote, or whether any Democrats would back him. McCarthy angered Democrats last month by launching an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden.
“If at this time next week Kevin McCarthy is still speaker of the House, it will be because Democrats bailed him out,” Gaetz said in an interview on ABC. “I am relentless and I will continue to pursue this objective.”
McCarthy stunned Washington on Saturday when he backed a bill to fund the government through Nov. 17, averting a partial shutdown but not imposing any of the spending cuts or changes to border security that his hard-line colleagues had called for.
The bill, which was approved by the Senate on a broad bipartisan basis and signed into law by Biden, is meant to give lawmakers more time to agree on a deal to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2024.
An ouster of the speaker would complicate that process.
“It is destructive to the country to put forth this motion to vacate,” Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican, said on ABC. “By putting this motion to vacate on the floor, you know what Matt Gaetz is going to do? He is going to delay the ability to complete that work over the next 45 days.”
Gaetz had been threatening to move against McCarthy for weeks.
Republican Representative Byron Donalds, a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus who had been nominated to challenge McCarthy for speaker in January, declined to say how he would vote.
“I don’t know right now,” Donalds said in an interview on Fox. “I gotta really think about that because there’s a lot of stuff going on.”

‘Go ahead and try’
McCarthy decided to bring a vote on a measure that could win Democratic support, knowing full well that it could jeopardize his job. One of his advisers told Reuters the speaker believed some hard-liners would try to oust him under any circumstances.
“Go ahead and try,” McCarthy said in comments directed at his opponents on Saturday. “You know what? If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”
The bipartisan measure succeeded a day after Republican Representative Andy Biggs, a leading hard-liner, and 20 others blocked a Republican stopgap bill that contained sharp spending cuts and immigration and border restrictions, all of which hard-liners favor.
The bill’s failure ended Republican hopes of moving a conservative measure and opened the door to the bipartisan measure that was backed by 209 House Democrats and 126 Republicans. Ninety Republicans opposed the stopgap.
Hard-liners complained that the measure, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, left in place policies favored by Democrats, including Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Democratic response unclear
It was not clear what action Democrats might take if a Republican moved to vacate the chair and the House voted on the measure.
Some Democrats have suggested they could support McCarthy if an ouster attempt occurred at a turbulent time. Others have suggested they could back a moderate Republican willing to share the gavel with them and allow power sharing within House committees. Others have shown no interest in helping any speaker candidate aside from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
US Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a leading progressive Democrat, said her party was unlikely to help McCarthy keep his job without receiving concessions from Republicans.
“I don’t think we give up votes for free,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s State of the Union.
Asked if she would vote on a measure to oust McCarthy, Ocasio-Cortez said: “Would I cast that vote? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak Speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus.”