Tuesday, 16 August 2016
UPDATE: Protest In Kabala Getting out of hands.
BREAKING NEWS: Youth in Koinadugu District Came Under Fire By Police. Umaru Fofana Report
Young Anti-government demonstrators in the northern Koinadugu district say they've come under police fire. The district youth leader, Mohamed Marah says "police have just started firing teargas and live rounds at us". They are protesting against the government's decision to establish a skills-training Youth Village in another district which they say had been promised them in 2014. Police in the region are not responding to my calls.
The District Youth Chairman in Koinadugu, northern #SierraLeone says young men and women will embark on street protests today for the second time in a week. Mohamed Marah told me the move was "to demonstrate our frustration over the humiliating treatment by President [Ernest] Koroma and his APC party meted out to us over the promised construction of a Youth Village in the district which has now been moved to Tonkolili". He said the president had in December 2014 promised them the Village, a vocational institute to train the skills of young people and prepare them for entrepreneurship, with construction work to start in January 2015. "Now they've taken it to another district humiliating us as if we are less Sierra Leonean". The government is yet to comment, but sources say big hitters have been sent to the district.
Photos are of a previous protest.
Monday, 4 January 2016
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Sudan cut ties with Iran, stepping up dispute over executions
Saudi Arabia on Sunday cut ties with Iran, responding to the storming of its embassy in Tehran in an escalating row between the rival Middle East powers over Riyadh's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric.
On Monday, Bahrain and Sudan also cut diplomatic relations with Iran, and the UAE said it will reduce the number of Iranian diplomats it permits to be in its country.
Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh that the envoy of Shi'ite Iran had been asked to quit Saudi Arabia within 48 hours. The kingdom, he said, would not allow the Islamic republic to undermine its security.
Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran early on Sunday and Shi'ite Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted "divine vengeance" for the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken opponent of the ruling Al Saudi family.