Tunisia’s 92-year-old president has been taken to a military hospital after falling seriously ill.
President Beji Caid Essebsi’s office announced the hospitalization on Thursday. Essebsi had been briefly hospitalized last week as well.
Tunisia’s first freely elected president, Essebsi won office in 2014. He recently announced he wouldn’t run again in elections this November, saying a younger person should lead the country.
The first group of 10 Democratic candidates running for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination gathered on stage in Miami, Florida for a two hour debate Wednesday. As is typical in many debates of this kind, each candidate hoped to break through the crowded filed with a memorable phrase or lengthy quote that would resonate with both voters and political commentators. VOA’s Richard Green has some key quotes on a variety of issues from each of the candidates.
Twin suicide attacks targeting security forces struck Tunisia’s capital on Thursday, killing a patrol officer and injuring at least eight people.
One attacker detonated explosives in a busy commercial district near the French embassy shortly before 11 a.m., apparently targeting a police patrol. One of the officers died from his injuries, and another was injured along with three bystanders.
At nearly the same time, a second bomber struck at an entrance to the anti-terrorism brigade on the outskirts of the city. Four officers were hospitalized with injuries.
Tunisia has been struck repeatedly by terror attacks. In October a female suicide bomber struck the city center, killing only herself.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared unsteady and was seen shaking for the second time in just over a week at a ceremony in Berlin on Thursday.
Merkel, 64, folded her arms across her chest while her body trembled for around two minutes as she stood alongside President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at an indoor event where Germany’s new justice minister was being formally appointed.
The chancellor was handed a glass of water but rejected it. She appeared fine when she arrived in parliament half an hour later.
Merkel set off to Japan a few hours later for the annual summit of the Group of 20 global powers.
Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told news agency dpa that “everything is going ahead as planned. The chancellor is fine.”
Merkel’s office wouldn’t comment on the cause or otherwise elaborate. It is not publicly known if Merkel has any health problems. German privacy laws are very strict on that type of information.
On Tuesday last week, Merkel’s whole body shook as she stood outside in hot weather alongside Ukraine’s president. Merkel said afterward that she was fine after drinking three glasses of water, which she “apparently needed.”
Hot weather in Germany has continued this week, though outdoor temperatures in Berlin dropped significantly overnight after peaking at around 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday.
Merkel has been German leader since 2005.
Last week, dpa reported that Merkel had previously been seen shaking under similar circumstances in the hot sun. It did not give a date for that incident, but said it was also ascribed to Merkel not drinking enough water.
The chancellor has a reputation for stamina garnered in years of late-night domestic and European negotiating marathons.
On Wednesday, she was on her feet in public for around two hours _ first answering lawmakers’ questions in parliament, then giving a speech across town. There was no sign then of any health issues.
Merkel has rarely had to cut back her work schedule significantly – though she did so for a few weeks in 2014 when she cracked her pelvis while cross-country skiing in Switzerland during a winter vacation.
Merkel said last year that she won’t seek a fifth term as chancellor and won’t seek any other political job after her current term ends in 2021.
She gave up the leadership of her center-right party after a pair of poor state election performances that followed a rocky start to her fourth-term government. She has shown no sign since of wanting to give up the chancellorship before her term is up.
At least sixteen people were facing the death penalty in a trial that started Thursday over the gruesome death of a young Bangladeshi woman that sparked protests and government promises of tough action.
Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, was set on fire in April after allegedly refusing to withdraw claims of sexual harassment against the head teacher of the Islamic seminary she attended.
She was lured onto the seminary rooftop in the southeastern town of Sonagazi, doused in kerosene and set alight, prosecutors say. She died five days later, triggering countrywide outrage.
The 16 people indicted — including the teacher — could face the death penalty if convicted. All defendants pleaded not guilty, while eight of the accused told the court that police forced them to sign written statements confessing involvement in the murder.
A special tribunal opened the trial Thursday at a crowded courtroom in the southeastern Feni district, with the first testimony by Rafi’s elder brother Mahmudul Hasan Noman who filed the case.
Noman — one of 92 people due to testify — described the killing in the court, saying the murder could have been avoided if police had acted upon Rafi’s harassment complaint.
The trial is expected to finish in six months, but Noman has urged the court to fast-track the hearings.
“Several defendants have alleged they were tortured and given electric shocks to sign confessional statements,” defence lawyer Giasuddin Ahmed told AFP, adding the case has become “politically motivated”.
Rafi had gone to police in March to report the alleged harassment. A leaked video shows the then district police chief registering her complaint but dismissing it as “not a big deal”.
The police official was later dismissed and arrested early this month for failing to properly investigate her allegations.
Police said at least five people — including three of Rafi’s classmates — tied her up with a scarf before setting her on fire. The plan was to stage the incident as a suicide case.
Rafi suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and died on April 10. But she recorded a video before her death, repeating her allegations against the head teacher.
Rights groups are closely monitoring the case as it came amid a spike in the number of rape and sexual assaults reported in Bangladesh.
They have said “a culture of impunity” is partly to blame for rise in sexual violence in the country.
According to Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, a women’s rights group, only three percent of rape cases end in convictions.
It said about 950 women were raped in Bangladesh last year.