AFP, Kinshasa
Efforts to force DR Congo President Joseph Kabila to quit face a key test on Sunday when protestors, backed by the Catholic church, return to the streets after two demonstrations that the authorities bloodily repressed.
Fifteen people were killed by security forces on New Year’s Eve and January 21 in peaceful protests that sought to heap pressure on Kabila to step down, according to a toll by the UN and organisers. The government says two people died.
38 killed in Mogadishu bombings
AFP, Mogadishu
Two car bombings killed 38 people in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday, the city’s main ambulance service told AFP on Saturday.
“We have seen at least 38 people dead,” said Abdukadir Abdurahman Aden of the Aamin Ambulance of the bombings that targeted the presidential palace and a hotel.
The first blast, followed by gunfire, occurred at a security checkpoint close to Villa Somalia, the name for the seat of government, while a second followed soon after at a hotel, according to police.
Philippine Catholics protest drug killings
Reuters, Manila
Around a thousand Catholics in the Philippines marched in Manila on Saturday to protest President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs and his efforts to reinstate the death penalty.
The protests come a day after students in the capital and provincial universities held demonstrations against Duterte, and a day before the 32nd anniversary of the “People Power” revolution that drove dictator Ferdinand Marcos into exile.
18 Afghan
soldiers killed
Reuters, Afghanistan
Taliban militants have attacked an Afghan army post and killed 18 government soldiers, the defense ministry said on Saturday, while a suicide bomber in the capital killed one person and wounded six.
Violence has intensified in Afghanistan since U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a more aggressive strategy in August with U.S.-led forces carrying out more air strikes and the Taliban responding with bombs, ambushes and raids.
3 environmentalists arrested
AFP, Tehran
Three environmentalists have been detained in Iran, a conservative-linked news website reported late Friday, the latest in a series of arrests of wildlife campaigners in the Islamic republic.
“Members of the Association for the Protection of Nature in Lavardin were arrested by a security agency. The allegations against them are unknown,” Tabnak reported.
It said they were arrested in Bandar Lengheh in the southern Hormuzgan province on the Gulf coast.
