Burundi cameraman, family shot dead by security forces

Residents however accused the security forces of killing at least seven civilians, including the journalist and his family/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 15 – A Burundian journalist, his wife and their two children were shot dead by security forces in a flashpoint district of the capital Bujumbura amid tensions following the re-election of President Pierre Nkurunziza, residents said Wednesday. Burundian police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said at least six people, including an officer, were killed on Tuesday in violence in the anti-Nkurunziza neighbourhood of Ngagara.
Residents however accused the security forces of killing at least seven civilians, including the journalist and his family.
In a statement on Twitter, Nkurikiye said two police officers had been kidnapped by “insurgents” in Ngagara.
One officer was killed and one was severely wounded by gunfire, the spokesman said, adding that five other people were killed in clashes that erupted when the police intervened.

A third police officer who had also allegedly been kidnapped was later found safe and sound, Nkurikiye said.
Several residents however gave a different version of events.
They said members of the presidential guard (API) “executed” at least seven civilians by shooting them in the head or the chest.
Among the dead was RTNB cameraman Christophe Nkezabahizi, his wife and two of their children – a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy.
The journalist, who was in his sixties, and his family were shot at close range in their home, their neighbours told AFP.
Burundi has been gripped by unrest since Nkurunziza announced he was running for a controversial third term, which the opposition, civil society and even sections of his own party said violated the constitution as well as the Arusha peace deal that ended the central African country’s civil war in 2006.
The crisis has intensified since Nkurunziza’s re-election in July, with assassinations targeting figures on both sides of the divide, attacks against the police and summary executions.

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Pope apologises for recent Rome, Vatican scandals

Pope Francis/FILE

VATICAN CITY, Oct 14 – Pope Francis on Wednesday offered a rare public apology from the Catholic Church for a series of scandals which have recently shaken the city of Rome and the Vatican. The Vatican has been the focus of several controversies including the coming out of a gay priest and the leak of a controversial letter, while the pontiff himself ended up in the headlines for a gaffe which helped oust Rome’s mayor.
“I want, in the name of the Church, to ask forgiveness for the scandals which have recently hit Rome and the Vatican. I ask you for forgiveness,” Francis said at the start of his weekly general audience on Saint Peter’s Square.
“It is inevitable that scandals happen, but ‘woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!'” he said, quoting a passage from the Bible.
The 78-year-old has been presiding over a three-week global council of cardinals and bishops, where debates over the Church’s teachings on the family have been overshadowed by tales of Machivellian plots and betrayal.

The leak of a private letter from rebellious cardinals has revived a cloak-and-dagger atmosphere likened Tuesday to the “Vatileaks” scandal in 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI’s butler revealed fierce infighting in the highest echelons of the Church and allegations of serious fraud in the running of the city.
The council was overshadowed from the start by the surprise declaration of a Polish priest employed as a senior official at the Vatican that he was a practising homosexual.
Krzystof Charamsa was immediately fired but the coming out added fuel to a fire already raging between conservative and liberal wings of the Church over the divisive issue of its relationship to gay believers.
The pontiff was also drawn into the murky world of Italian politics this month after pointedly denying Rome’s mayor Ignazio Marino had been invited on a papal trip to the states.
The perceived put-down was seen by many to have contributed to Marino’s forced resignation last week

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Trump, Carson threaten Republican debate boycott

Republican US presidential frontrunner Donald Trump/FILE

Washington, Oct 16 – Republican US presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and the candidate who is hot on his heels on Thursday threatened to boycott their party’s next televised debate over its “ridiculous” format. Trump and Ben Carson wrote to cable broadcaster CNBC, host of the October 28 showdown, to say they were displeased with an agenda recently sent to their campaign teams that explained the debate would last two hours plus four commercial breaks that would add 16 minutes to the format.
In another major change, candidates’ opening and closing statements will not be included in the show.
Trump took to Twitter to blast the “ridiculous” format as a way for CNBC to sell more ads.
“Why is the GOP being asked to do a debate that is so much longer than the just-aired and very boring #DemDebate?”

In their letter published by NBC News — NBC Universal owns CNBC — Trump and Carson wrote that neither of the changes were acceptable.
“Neither Mr. Trump or Dr. Carson will participate in your debate if it is longer than 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements.”
Trump has dominated the broad Republican field. He leads with 23.4 percent, according to a RealClearPolitics poll average. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is second at 19.1 percent.
A boycott by Trump, the brash billionaire largely responsible for drawing record viewership to the Republican Party’s first two debates, would spell trouble for CNBC — and for the Republicans — because it could risk driving away viewers.
The Democrats, led by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, held their first debate of the 2016 cycle Tuesday, with a party record 15.8 million tuning in.
But that was well shy of the Republican debut in August, which drew 24 million viewers, the largest-ever audience for a primary debate.
A CNBC spokesman said the channel would take the candidates’ views “into consideration,” NBC reported.

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Mother of Saudi youth facing beheading urges Obama to intervene

US President Barack Obama/FILE

SAUDI, Oct 15 – The mother of a youth facing beheading for taking part in protests in Saudi Arabia has pleaded with US President Barack Obama to “rescue my son” in an interview published by the British daily the Guardian Thursday. The sentence against Shiite Ali al-Nimr, only 17 when he was arrested in February 2012, has drawn international condemnation over his young age and allegations that he was tortured into making a confession.
“When I visited my son for the first time I didn’t recognise him,” Nusra al-Ahmed told the newspaper.
“I could clearly see a wound on his forehead. Another wound on his nose. They disfigured it. Even his body, he was too thin.
“For a month he was peeing blood,” she added. “He said he felt like a mass of pain, his body was no more.”

In an interview with AFP last month, his father Mohammed al-Nimr said he hoped the king would save his son and warned that if his son is put to death the minority Shiite community could react violently.
Mother Nusra al-Ahmed called the sentence — which she said would involve her son being crucified after he is decapitated — “backwards in the extreme”.
“No sane and normal human being would rule against a child of 17 years old using such a sentence. And why? He didn’t shed any blood, he didn’t steal any property.”
She called on Obama to exert his influence on the Saudi authorities.
“He is the head of this world and he can interfere and rescue my son,” she said.
“If he carried out this act, I feel it would raise his esteem in the eyes of the world. He would be rescuing us from a great tragedy.”
The youth is a nephew of Nimr al-Nimr, a Shiite religious leader who is also on death row having been identified by Saudi authorities as a driving force behind demonstrations that began four years ago in Eastern Province.
Most of Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia’s Shiites live in the east, and have complained of marginalisation.
Ali al-Nimr’s father admitted that his son, then a high school student, had joined thousands of other people in the protests.
But he insisted that Ali was innocent on numerous other charges including burglary, attacking police and using a Molotov cocktail.
The court sentenced Ali al-Nimr to death but gave no further details.
Execution in the kingdom is usually carried out by the sword, sometimes in public.

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