Somalia's security forces exchanged gunfire with militants holed up in a hotel in Mogadishu on Monday after Al-Shabaab stormed the popular venue near the presidential palace and laid siege overnight.. At least 21 people were killed in a siege on a Mogadishu hotel in August that lasted 30 hours before security forces could take control from the militants inside.
Overworked, underpaid and thoroughly fed up, Wang's troubles deepened even further when authorities abruptly locked down the delivery driver's Beijing apartment block earlier this month.. "Lots of delivery guys don't have anywhere to live at the moment," he told AFP outside a deserted office block on a cold winter afternoon last week.
Cubans voted Sunday in municipal elections amid a grave economic crisis that some feared would weaken turnout and with the opposition charging that several of its candidates faced unfair pressure.. Councilors elected Sunday will form municipal governments that will propose 50 percent of the candidates for provincial assemblies and the National Assembly, which in turn elects the Council of State and the Cuban president from among its members.
Stocks and oil prices sank Monday on concerns about protests across China at the government's hardline zero-Covid policy, fuelling uncertainty in the world's number two economy.. The prospect of a hit to demand in the world's biggest crude importer hammered oil prices, with both main contracts down more than two percent.
China's censors were working Monday to extinguish signs of rare, social media-driven protests that flared across major cities over the weekend calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns.. Sunday saw people take to the streets in several major cities across China to call for an end to lockdowns and greater political freedoms, in a wave of nationwide protests not seen since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed.
When a deadly fire broke out in China's northwest Xinjiang region, triggering a wave of public anger over the country's zero-Covid policy, Abdulhafiz Maimaitimin initially could not believe that it claimed five of his relatives' lives.. Much of Xinjiang has been locked down for three months, as the remote region battles an uptick in Covid cases that have also surged nationwide.
The roof is caved in, a wall has exploded and broken glass litters the floor at a base of the exiled Kurdish-Iranian opposition in mountainous northern Iraq.. As Iranians have vented their anger at the regime, Tehran has blamed outside forces, and exiled Kurdish groups on whose bases it has rained down missiles and so-called suicide drones.
The BBC said on Sunday one of its journalists in China had been arrested and beaten by police while covering protests against the country's zero-Covid policy.. "The BBC is extremely concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the protests in Shanghai," the broadcaster said in a statement.
A landslide in Cameroon's capital Yaounde killed at least 11 people attending a funeral on Sunday, a local official told state media.. "Some were sitting in a tent where there was a landslide early this evening," Paul Bea, governor of the Centre region that includes Yaounde, told state radio.
Canada on Sunday unveiled its new economic and diplomatic strategy for the Asia-Pacific region, allocating 2.3 billion Canadian dollars (US$1.7 billion) over the next five years to the plan aimed at mitigating risks posed by China.. She said the new strategy "sends a clear message to the region that Canada is here, and they can trust we are here to stay."
