Ukrainian court finds ex-president guilty of treason
AP, Minsk
A court in the Ukrainian capital Kiev has found former President Viktor Yanukovych guilty of treason.
Yanukovych fled Ukraine in 2014 as tensions in Kiev flared up following a deadly police crackdown on protesters calling for the president to follow through with an association agreement with the European Union. Yanukovych, who eventually surfaced in Russia and was tried in absentia, faced charges of treason, along with complicity in a war against Ukraine and premeditated actions to alter Ukraine’s borders.
Overflowing dam kills at least 30
in Indonesia
Reuters, Jakarta
An overflowing dam has killed at least 30 people in Indonesia and forced thousands to flee their villages, authorities said on Thursday. Twenty-five people are missing.
Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency has set up temporary shelters and field kitchens for residents fleeing floodwaters over a meter high that inundated riverside settlements in South Sulawesi province, including in the provincial capital Makassar, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Congo to inaugurate new president from opposition
AP, Kinshasa
Congo is set to inaugurate an opposition leader as its unexpected new president in the Central African country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence nearly 60 years ago.
The 55-year-old Felix Tshisekedi, son of the late opposition icon Etienne, will be sworn into office on Thursday at the Peoples’ Palace, the seat of the national legislature in the capital, Kinshasa.
Togo elects first female head of National Assembly
AFP, Lome
Togo has elected its first female head of the National Assembly, following parliamentary elections that saw the ruling party maintain its majority. Yawa Djigbodi Tsegan, from President Faure Gnassingbe’s Union for the Republic party, was chosen on Wednesday in a vote by her fellow lawmakers. The 47-year-old Tsegan, a tax inspector who previously held the position of parliamentary administrator, won 88 nominations from the 89 members of parliament who voted, an AFP reporter said.
DR Congo set for historic political transition
AFP, Kinshasa
Felix Tshisekedi is to be sworn in on Thursday as president of Democratic Republic of Congo, marking the country’s first-ever peaceful handover of power after chaotic and bitterly-disputed elections.
At 55, opposition leader Tshisekedi takes over from Joseph Kabila who is stepping aside after 18 years at the helm of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest country.
The inauguration will take place at the Palace of the Nation, the seat of the presidency, at noon (1100 GMT), aides to Tshisekedi and Kabila said on Wednesday.
