World

BELFAST — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised a "bright future" for Northern Ireland on Monday as he visited Belfast to mark the reopening of its power-sharing devolved government after a three-year hiatus.

The British province has been run by officials since the two main parties, the pro-London Democratic Unionists (DUP) and the republican Sinn Fein, fell out in January 2017.

The power vacuum came at a critical time, as Northern Ireland faces uncertainty over its relationship with London and Dublin following Britain's looming exit from the European Union.

"Never mind the hand of history on my shoulder... I see the hand of the future beckoning us all forward," Johnson told reporters after meeting assembly members.

"And I hope that with goodwill and compromise and hard work on all sides it will be a very bright future indeed."

At its reopening on Saturday, the assembly chose DUP leader Arlene Foster to be first minister and effective head of the government, while Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill was made her deputy.

After meeting them both, Johnson hailed Northern Ireland's politicians for having "put aside their differences, stepped up to the plate and shown leadership".

He said Northern Ireland was "a place of fantastic potential", and that the UK government would work with Belfast to ensure this was delivered.

Johnson did not confirm reports that London would be giving at least £2 billion (2.34 billion euros, $2.60 billion) to the province.

But he said a priority would be investing in the health service, which has been hit by a wave of nurses' strikes.

Brexit checks 

Power-sharing was set up under the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland after decades of sectarian violence that killed thousands of people.

The devolved government collapsed in January 2017 over a scandal caused by the runaway costs of a renewable energy scheme championed by Foster.

After years of negotiations that led nowhere, the DUP and Sinn Fein last week approved an agreement drawn up by the British and Irish governments.

One factor in the breakthrough was the threat of elections if there was no deal.

In the UK-wide election last month, the DUP and Sinn Fein both lost votes to smaller parties, in part due to public frustration at the protracted stalemate.

The assembly will also have a future say over Brexit arrangements, which will see Northern Ireland take on a special trading status in order to avoid checks on its land border with EU member Ireland.

Johnson repeated Monday there was no need for checks on Northern Irish goods going to mainland Britain.

Equally, British goods going the other way would only be checked if they were destined for Ireland — and even then, only if London and Brussels failed to agree a free trade deal he was confident of getting later this year.

Legacy issues 

Although both sides have endorsed the new deal, some elements may still yet prove controversial, notably the issue of the legacy of Northern Ireland's past.

The accord includes a commitment to uphold a 2014 deal setting up a historical investigations unit to investigate deaths during the so-called Troubles.

Some in London are worried about prosecutions against British soldiers deployed to the region, and Johnson's Conservatives have promised to end "vexacious" legal claims against the armed forces.

In Belfast, Johnson said there was "a balance between giving people who are in search of the truth the confidence that they need" and in giving veterans "the confidence and certainty that they need".

Negotiations to revive Stormont had also been stuck on the use of the Irish language and a mechanism giving parties veto rights.

The deal would now give the Irish language official recognition and it eliminates the veto mechanism.

BARCELONA — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's new government took office on Monday facing the challenge of finding a solution to the Catalan crisis after controversially agreeing to start talks with the separatists.

Catalonia's oldest and largest separatist party, the ERC, demanded the negotiations over the region's place within Spain in exchange for its crucial abstention in a confidence vote last week that saw Sanchez sworn in for another term.

Under the deal, his Socialists agreed to open talks between the central and separatist governments to "unblock the political conflict over the future of Catalonia", and then put to a regional vote any agreements which these negotiations produce.

"The Catalan question has been Spain's main problem for the past five or six years and it is the first time that someone decides to tackle it through a negotiation," said Ernesto Pascual, professor of political science at the Open University of Catalonia.

The big question is what will be the scope of these talks, since the two parties have sharply opposing views over the independence issue.

Separatists want to discuss the possibility of holding a legally binding referendum in Catalonia, as well as an amnesty for their leaders who were sentenced in October to lengthy jail terms over a failed 2017 independence bid.

But the Socialists have already said that such a referendum would be impossible.

What agreement? 

The agreement between the Socialists and the ERC calls for an "open dialogue of all proposals" but stresses that the results of the talks must respect the "legal and democratic order".

"A self-determination referendum in Catalonia is not possible according to the Spanish constitution," said constitutional law professor Xavier Arbos.

Reforming the constitution to allow a region to hold a self-determination would require the support of a qualified majority in parliament, which looks unlikely since Spain's major parties, including the Socialists, are opposed.

What will most likely happen is that the talks will end in "an agreement to clarify and set in stone what are the region's powers, which would create a special position for Catalonia" within Spain, said historian Joan Esculies.

The wealthy northeastern region, which has its own distinct language and culture, already enjoys significant powers over health and education, and has its own police force.

But a significant part of the population of around 7.5 million people wants even more powers to protect the language and culture, and complains of a lack of investment by the central government in the region.

Catalans are divided over independence, with 47.9 per cent against and 43.7 per cent in favour, according to a recent poll by the regional government.

'Treason' 

Catalonia was rocked by protests which sometimes turned violent last year over the conviction of Catalan leaders, and against that backdrop any concession by Sanchez's government would be fiercely attacked by conservatives.

The main opposition Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox already accuse Sanchez of "treason" for having been sworn in for another term thanks to the abstention of the ERC.

An agreement which gives the region more powers would undoubtably be challenged in the courts by these parties just as the PP did in 2006 against a new autonomy statute for Catalonia.

Spain's constitutional court in 2010 struck down several of the statute's articles, causing support for separatism to soar.

"And if that were to be the case, it would cause similar frustration," said Arbos.

The talks are also opposed by Catalonia's other main separatist party, the more hardline Together for Catalonia of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont who was in power during the failed 2017 independence bid.

This negotiation "is a long process which will go through phases of reconciliation, estrangement or even rupture. But at least it is a first step", said Esculies.

GENEVA — The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed on Monday the first case in Thailand of a new virus from the same family as SARS that is behind a Chinese pneumonia outbreak.

The UN health agency said a person travelling from Wuhan, China, had been hospitalised in Thailand on January 8 after being diagnosed with mild pneumonia.

"Laboratory testing subsequently confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told AFP in an email, referring to the new virus.

WHO said it might soon host an emergency meeting on the spread of the new virus.

The case marks the first outside of China, where 41 people with pneumonia-like symptoms have so far been diagnosed with the new virus in the central city of Wuhan, with one of the victims dying last Thursday.

The episode has caused alarm due to the spectre of SARS, or Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which in 2002-2003 killed 349 people in mainland China and another 299 in Hong Kong, whose economy was hit hard by the epidemic's devastating impact on tourism.

The WHO has confirmed that the outbreak in China has been caused by a previously unknown type of corona virus, a broad family ranging from the common cold to more serious illnesses like SARS.

The agency said on Monday it had been informed by Thai health officials that the patient there was recovering from the illness.

It stressed that it was not surprising that the virus had spread beyond China.

"The possibility of cases being identified in other countries was not unexpected, and reinforces why WHO calls for on-going active monitoring and preparedness in other countries," it said in a statement.

It pointed out that it had issued guidance on how to detect and treat people who fall ill with the new virus, and stressed that China's decision to rapidly share the genetic sequencing of the virus made it possible to quickly diagnose patients.

WHO has not recommended any specific measures for travellers or restrictions on trade with China, but stressed Monday it was taking the situation seriously.

"Given developments, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will consult with emergency committee members and could call for a meeting of the committee on short notice," it said in a statement.

PAU, France — French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting on Monday counterparts from five Sahel countries to reassess their joint fight against a mounting revolt by extremist militants as France's military role is being questioned in the region. 

Tensions between France and officials from Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania could make for a tricky exchange at the talks in Pau, southwest France.

The city was home to seven of 13 soldiers killed in a helicopter collision in Mali last month, the deadliest one-day military loss for France in nearly four decades.

The leaders were due to attend a memorial service for the soldiers before beginning their talks at 4:30pm (15:30 GMT), to be attended by UN chief Antonio Guterres as well as the heads of the African Union and the EU Council.

A press conference is scheduled afterward.

Macron insists the Sahel leaders must use the occasion to publicly reiterate their support for France's military presence — by far the largest foreign contribution to the fight against extremists aligned with Al Qaeda and Daesh.

Visiting the region last month, Macron complained of a lack of "clear political condemnation of anti-French feelings" on the ground, saying he was loath to send soldiers to countries where their presence was not "clearly wanted".

On Saturday, Defence Minister Florence Parly was blunter: "We need to determine a clear position from political leaders on what they want or not," she told France Inter radio, noting that 41 French soldiers have been killed in the Sahel region since 2013.

Extremist fighters have recently stepped up their campaign against military and civilian targets, with Guterres warning this month that "terrorist groups are gaining ground".

On Thursday, 89 soldiers are killed in an attack on a military camp at Chinegodar in Niger, near the border with Mali, the worst militant attack in its history.

On Friday, hundreds of people gathered in the Malian capital Bamako to protest the presence of the 4,500 soldiers in France's Barkhane operation. 

Despite the French presence and a 13,000-member UN peacekeeping force in Mali dubbed MINUSMA, the conflict that erupted in the north of that country in 2012 has since spread to its neighbours, especially Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and more than a million displaced, with hundreds of troops dead, including dozens of French ones.

Macron has already called to clarify "political and strategic framework" of the Sahel fight in his talks with Mali's Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Burkina Faso's Roch Marc Christian Kabore, Niger's Mahamadou Issoufou, Mauritania's Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and Chad's Idriss Deby.

Mali's Keita has said the summit will be "decisive" and "will allow us to put on the table all the questions, all the grievances, all the solutions".

But he insisted the G-5 leaders would demand a "respectable and respectful relationship" with France — Kabore of Burkina Faso described Macron's recent insistences as "lacking in tact".

 'All options on the table' 

Macron ordered a review of the Barkhane operation after the Mali helicopter disaster, saying "all options are on the table", implying a potential drawdown of French troops.

France has long complained that only Britain and the US have provided support for the operation, deploring the lack of significant contributions from EU allies.

Last year, only $300 million (269 million euros) of $400 million pledged by the international community in cash and material support to the Sahel was delivered, according to the French presidency.

France may also be facing the prospect of losing American help, after The New York Times reported in December that the Pentagon would reduce troop levels in Africa, or even withdraw them completely.

NGOs on Friday urged that civilians caught in the crossfire not be forgotten at Monday's talks.

"The military response in the Sahel is part of the problem," said Maureen Magee of the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

"Last year, military operations in Mali have pushed more than 80,000 people to flee. Engagement in the Sahel must put the protection of the populations at the heart of the response." 

KINSHASA — Islamist rebels killed 30 soldiers and wounded another 70, some seriously, during fierce fighting last week in eastern DR Congo, army officials said.

They suffered the losses during the latest offensive Thursday against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), in North Kivu province, Major Mak Hazukai told journalists on Saturday.

The army captured the ADF's headquarters during the battle at Madina, and killed 40 rebel fighters, including five of their leaders, Hazukai added.

On Friday, the Cabinet posted a tweet on the prime minister's account congratulating the army on their capture of what they described as the one of the last bastions of the ADF.

North Kivu sits on the border with Uganda. The ADF, rebels originally from Uganda, has been waging a campaign of violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo for years.

Hazukai described them as "Islamist fundamentalists".

The army announced its campaign against the ADF on October 30. The rebels are accused of having killed more than a thousand people in the Beni region, in the northern part of North Kivu, since 2014.

ADF fighters killed at least 150 civilians over November and December in reprisal according to official sources and local groups. That rising toll has sparked anger over the authorities' response.

There have been demonstrations in the city of Beni, where local people accuse the UN peacekeeping force MONUSCO of failing to protect them. At the end of November, local people looted a MONUSCO base there.

Since then, the UN force and the army have announced joint patrols in the region.

The ADF began as an Islamist rebellion hostile to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

It fell back into eastern DRC in 1995 and appears to have halted raids inside Uganda. Its recruits today are people of various nationalities.

WASHINGTON — Top US Democrat Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she believes the impeachment hearings against Donald Trump produced "enough testimony to remove him from office" when the case moves to the Senate.

Speaker Pelosi will meet with the House Democratic caucus early Tuesday to prepare for the formal vote required to send the two articles of impeachment passed by the House on to the Senate, as early as this week.

The Senate trial is expected to be held quickly, with Republicans holding enough votes to easily dismiss the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Pelosi has withheld the articles since the House impeached Trump on December 18 over allegations that he improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden, and obstructed the subsequent congressional probe.

Pelosi had hoped to pressure Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to agree to allow witnesses and new evidence in the trial.

He has not budged, however.

Still, she said on Sunday that the delay had accomplished important things. "We wanted the public to see the need for witnesses," she told ABC.

"Now the ball is in their court to either do that or pay a price for not doing it."

During the interim, she added, new emails supporting the charges against Trump had emerged, and former national security adviser John Bolton had announced his willingness to testify if subpoenaed.

'There will be no haggling' 

If the Senate fails to subpoena Bolton — and Trump said Friday in an interview on Fox that he might invoke executive privilege to block Bolton's testimony — Pelosi said it was "not excluded" that the House might then move to subpoena him.

But McConnell made clear recently he had sufficient Republican votes to ignore the Democrats' demands on witnesses and evidence.

Trump, for his part, has said he expects rapid exoneration and wants to move past the trial as quickly as possible.

"Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did nothing wrong," the president tweeted on Sunday. "Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!"

He also renewed a call for Democrat Adam Schiff, who led the House impeachment probe, to be called as a witness — this time also demanding that Pelosi herself be made to testify.

The timing of the trial is critical, with political temperatures rapidly rising in this presidential election year.

The first vote of the Democratic nomination process, in Iowa, is just weeks away, on February 3.

Five of the candidates — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Michael Bennet — are US senators, and are required to sit as jurors during the impeachment trial, curtailing their campaigning efforts.

CARACAS — Venezuela’s opposition leader and self-declared acting President Juan Guaido said on Saturday it is unlikely he will resume negotiations with President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido this week survived dramatic attempts to remove him as head of the national assembly, and called new protests to try to drive out the leftist Maduro, who is overseeing an economy in free fall and accused of acting like a dictator.

“It’s not that we don’t want a negotiation. It’s that we see it as just so highly unlikely. We have been duped over and over,” Guaido said in a speech to supporters in Caracas.

Aides to Maduro and Guaido held negotiations last year under mediation by Norway but both sides accused each other of breaking terms, and the talks stopped in August.

Just on Friday, Guaido’s aides said a Norwegian government commission would arrive here within hours. But they also stressed that the negotiation process was over.

Guaido’s apparent refusal to resume dialogue followed a new US drive toward diplomacy, almost a year after the US declared Maduro illegitimate and recognised Guaido as interim president.

“Negotiations could open the path out of the crisis through a transitional government that will organise free and fair elections,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.

Maduro won a new term in 2018 in elections that were widely criticised internationally as fraudulent, and new presidential polls are not due until 2024.

But elections must take place in 2020 for the national assembly, the only institution controlled by the opposition — and which the United States and more than 50 other countries see as bringing legitimacy to Guaido.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled a collapsing economy, in which they are no longer able to find or afford basic staples.

But despite the humanitarian catastrophe and biting US sanctions, Maduro maintains power with the support of the military as well as Russia, China and Cuba.

After failing at ousting Maduro in 2019, claiming to have “tried everything”, Guaido’s popularity fell to 38.9 per cent in December after reaching a peak of 63 per cent, pollsters Datanalisis say.

KANO, Nigeria — Militants linked with the terror group Daesh killed five members of a militia in an offensive in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, militia sources told AFP.

Fighters from West Africa Province Daesh — travelling in pickup trucks fitted with machine guns — attacked Gajiram town, 80 kilometres from the state capital Maiduguri, on Friday.

They targeted hunters and vigilantes who were guarding the town against attacks, resident Mele Butari said.

“We lost five men in the attack,” militia leader Babakura Kolo said on Saturday.

The five men were buried in Maiduguri on Saturday, another militia member Ibrahim Liman said.

Nganzai district, where Gajiram is located, has been repeatedly attacked by militants in recent months, with troops and residents targeted.

In the past two months, the number of ambushes against troops and civilian abductions at fake highway checkpoints by ISWAP — which split from the Boko Haram militant group in 2016 — has increased.

The spike in attacks followed the creation of “super camps” by the Nigerian military in the northeast to stave off repeated militant raids.

Authorities in the state recruited hundreds of hunters and vigilantes to fill the void left by the withdrawal of troops from small camps, but they have been exposed to incessant militant attacks.

The decade-long conflict has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in northeast Nigeria.

The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition to fight the insurgents.

CONAKRY — The Guinean government warned it will respond vigorously to any violence at an opposition rally on Monday, the latest protest over fears that President Alpha Conde is changing the constitution to extend his mandate.

The West African country has been wracked by mass demonstrations since mid-October over constitutional reform.

At least 20 civilians and one gendarme have been killed in the protests, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people. Scores have been arrested.

In preparation for Monday, the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), an alliance of opposition groups, has called for a “huge” and “open-ended” protest, heightening fears of fresh violence.

While the FNDC also specified a peaceful demonstration, the government issued a statement on Sunday accusing the opposition leaders of seeking “to plunge Guinea into disorder”.

“State powers will be exercised in all their rigour against those who seek to upset public order and to deny other Guineans the free exercise of their fundamental rights,” the statement said.

Conde, 81, published a draft constitution last month, arguing that the colonial-era laws need to be changed. 

But adversaries are convinced he plans to use the reform to stay in office beyond the two presidential terms currently stipulated in the former French colony’s constitution. 

The president has neither confirmed nor denied that claim. 

Guinea, a mineral-rich but poor country of some 13 million, is facing a busy political year. 

Legislative elections are due in February and a presidential election is scheduled sometime this year, as well as a possible referendum on the constitution.

However, opposition political parties are boycotting the legislative elections and have vowed to prevent them. 

Conde, who was jailed under Guinea’s previous authoritarian regimes, became the first democratically elected president in 2010. 

Despite initial hopes of a new political dawn, critics say Conde’s rule has become increasingly authoritarian. 

The protests against his constitutional plans began in October, without any official authorisation.

More recently they have been authorised under strict conditions.

Human rights defenders have accused the government of using excessive force and arbitrary arrests.

Tensions were further heightened at the end of the past week by a teachers’ strike over salaries.

An 18-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man were shot dead during protests on Thursday.

Eleven union members were arrested on Saturday, according to a union official.

MANILA — Philippine authorities warned on Sunday an “explosive eruption” of a volcano south of Manila could be imminent, hours after it sent a massive column of ash skyward that forced officials to halt flights at the capital’s main airport until further notice. 

Thousands of people living near Taal volcano, a popular tourist attraction set in the centre of a picturesque lake, were evacuated from their homes as it spewed ash, rumbled with earthquakes and lightning exploded above its crest.

A “hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours to days”, the nation’s seismological agency warned, as locals weighed whether or not to flee the area.

“I’m afraid that it might erupt... but I’ll leave it to fate. I just have to pray,” Eduardo Carino, who works in a hotel near the volcano, told AFP.

After the ash cloud reached 15,000 metres into the atmosphere, aviation officials ordered a suspension of flights to and from the capital’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

Authorities initially halted operations at NAIA for a few hours, but later on Sunday announced that flights would be suspended “until further notice”.

Transport secretary Arthur Tugade had instructed aviation officials to “do whatever is necessary in the interest of public safety”, said a joint statement from air and transport authorities.

They said they planned to reassess the situation on Monday morning.

‘Dangerous to inhale’ 

Government seismologists recorded magma moving towards the crater of Taal, one of the country’s most active volcanoes located 65 kilometres south of Manila.

Taal’s last eruption was in 1977, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology chief Renato Solidum told AFP.

A column of ash was visible in the sky above Taal and several volcanic tremors were felt within the vicinity of the volcano, which is popular among tourists for its scenic view, seismologists said.

The local disaster office said it had evacuated over 2,000 residents living on the volcanic island, which lies inside a bigger lake formed by previous volcanic activity.

Solidum said officials will also order the evacuation of people living on another island nearby if the situation worsens.

“Ash has already reached Manila... it is dangerous to people if they inhale it,” he told AFP.

Social media users posted images of cars and porches coated in fine, dark-coloured grit and commented on where to buy dust masks.

Earthquakes and volcanic activity are not uncommon in the Philippines due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide deep below the Earth’s surface.

Two years ago, Mount Mayon displaced tens of thousands of people after spewing millions of tonnes of ash, rocks and lava in the central Bicol region.

The most powerful explosion in recent years was the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, about 100 kilometres northwest of Manila, which killed more than 800 people.

It spewed out an ash cloud that travelled thousands of kilometres in a matter of days and was blamed for damaging nearly two dozen aircraft.