BANGUI: At least three people were killed and hundreds forced to flee their homes in attacks by the “anti-balaka” militia in the capital of Central African Republic, officials said yesterday.
The violence erupted late on Tuesday in a district of Bangui near the banks of the Oubangi river, close to President Catherine Samba-Panza’s residence, as armed men ransacked homes.
Samba Panza’s transitional government said on Tuesday that a recent spike in violence in the capital — in which more than a dozen people have been killed — was part of a plot to destabilise her administration.
UK public sector workers strike over pay
LONDON: Thousands of public sector workers in British courts, job centres and museums went on strike for better pay yesterday, prompting an angry response from the government.
The Public and Commercial Services union said around 250,000 of its members would take part in the strike but the government said only 80,000 would join industrial action.
Striking workers protested outside the High Court in London and the National Gallery, where most rooms were closed except for the Rembrandt exhibition, which opened to the public for a four-month run yesterday. PCS leader Mark Serwotka said that pay cuts “have slashed living standards of public servants and their families”.
Chilean priest found guilty of child abuse
SANTIAGO: An Irish-born Chilean priest was found guilty yesterday of sexually abusing a child in his care at a religious school in the capital, Santiago. The court found that John O’Reilly, who moved to Chile from Ireland in 1985, had abused the pre-teen girl behind closed doors at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.
“The tribunal has established beyond all reasonable doubt that ... O’Reilly resolved to carry out actions of a sexual nature via body contact with a school student,” said Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos.
O’Reilly, who denied the charges, will be sentenced next month. Prosecutors have requested that he be sent to prison for 10 years.
The school where the abuse took place is part of the network of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order whose founder was revealed to be a fraud and pedophile who had fathered several children.
Nigeria tries 59 soldiers on mutiny charges
ABUJA: Fifty-nine Nigerian soldiers appeared before a military tribunal yesterday charged with mutiny and conspiracy to commit mutiny over claims that they refused to fight Boko Haram militants. The soldiers, all members of the 111th Special Forces Battalion, all pleaded not guilty at a general court martial sitting in the capital, Abuja. Last month, 12 Nigerian soldiers were sentenced to death for mutiny after shots were fired at their commanding officer in the restive northeast city of Maiduguri earlier this year. Agencies
