Rescued migrants OK'd to dock in Malta
MADRID -- Eleven migrants rescued by a trawler last week have been handed over to the Maltese coast guard and will soon reach port in Malta, a Spanish aid group said Sunday.
Proactiva Open Arms said on Twitter that the Spanish trawler Nuestra Madre de Loreto radioed them to say the migrants had been transferred.
Earlier Sunday, the Spanish government told the trawler that it had permission to dock in Malta, putting an end to its weeklong wait in the open sea.
Malta, along with Italy, had initially refused to accept the boat because it had rescued the migrants in Libyan waters. The trawler rescued 12 migrants last week. One migrant was evacuated for health reasons on Friday.
European Union countries have been sharply at odds over who should take in migrants from North Africa. So far this year the International Organization for Migration says 107,216 migrants have arrived in Europe and 2,123 others have died or vanished in their dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea.
Strike killed 10 civilians, Afghans say
KABUL, Afghanistan -- At least 10 civilians were killed in an airstrike in the eastern Paktia province bordering Pakistan, Afghan officials said Sunday.
Shausta Jan Ahady, a former provincial council member, said that women and children were among those killed in the strike carried out a day earlier. He said local residents displayed the bodies and protested on Sunday. Provincial government spokesman Abdullah Hsrat said the airstrike killed four insurgents and that an investigation has been launched into the allegations of civilian casualties.
"We are aware of the reports of civilian casualties, but can't confirm it right now, as an investigation is ongoing," said Hsrat.
In a separate incident in the southern Helmand province, an airstrike killed the Taliban's shadow governor and two of his guards, according to the provincial government spokesman, Omar Zwak.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's spokesman, in a statement said that Mullah Abdul Manan Akhand, a powerful military commander in the southern region, was among those killed in Saturday's airstrike.
Manan was a military commander and the Taliban's shadow governor responsible for Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Nimroz provinces, according to local officials in Helmand.
It was not immediately clear who carried out either airstrike.
Burundian denies assassination role
KIGALI, Rwanda -- Pierre Buyoya, Burundi's former president, on Sunday dismissed as politically motivated an arrest warrant issued against him that alleges participation in the assassination of his country's first democratically elected leader.
On Friday, Burundi's attorney general issued 17 international arrest warrants for Buyoya and former senior military and civilian officials suspected of involvement in the assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye in 1993.
Attorney General Sylvestre Nyandwi said the suspects were involved in the planning and killing of Ndadaye. His death sparked a civil war between the East African nation's two dominant ethnic groups, the Hutu and Tutsi, in which an estimated 300,000 people died.
Buyoya, a Tutsi who came to power in 1987 with the help of Burundi's army, ruled Burundi from 1987 to 1993 and from 1996 to 2005 and has repeatedly denied any role in the killing.
"Everything they are saying is political manipulation," Buyoya said in a statement issued Sunday. He said the arrest warrant against him is an attempt to divert attention from Burundi's ongoing crisis that the current leadership has failed to resolve.
He said in his statement that Burundi's courts have already convicted the officers who played a role in the killing of Ndadaye.
Burundi remains in political turmoil over current President Pierre Nkurunziza's election to a third term, which many criticize as illegal.
Pope lights a candle for Syria's children
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis lit a candle decorated with the faces of Syrian children suffering from war from his balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square on Sunday, launching a global campaign calling for peace in the country "martyred by a war that has lasted for nearly eight years."
Francis told believers gathered in St. Peter's Square on the first Sunday of the Advent season leading up to Christmas that "Advent is a time of hope."
Lifting the candle to the window, Francis prayed that "These flames, and many flames of hope, disperse the darkness of war."
"Let's pray and help the Christians to remain in Syria and the Middle East as witnesses of mercy, of forgiveness and of reconciliation. May the flames of hope also reach those who are enduring conflict and war in these days in other parts of the world, near and far," the pope said.
The lighting of the candle with the images of some 40 Syrian children, mostly from Aleppo, launched a global campaign for Syria, which the organization Aid to the Church in Need said involved over 50,000 children of different religions from war-torn Syrian cities.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 12/03/2018