News in Brief
Honduras will seek ties with China, spurning Taiwan
AP – Honduras President Xiomara Castro announced Tuesday that her government will seek to establish diplomatic relations with China, which would imply severing relations with Taiwan. The switch would leave Taiwan recognized by only 13 countries.
Castro said on her Twitter account that she instructed Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister Eduardo Reina to start negotiations with China and that her intention is to “expand frontiers freely in concert with the nations of the world.”
Thousands of Senegal opposition supporters begin 3-day protest
AL JAZEERA – About 5,000 supporters of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko gathered in the capital, Dakar, on Tuesday for a three-day protest to show support for the aspiring presidential candidate, who faces a libel case set to resume this week.
The demonstrations are the latest expression of growing tensions in Senegal in the run-up to a 2024 election that could see President Macky Sall vie for a controversial third term, which the opposition says is unconstitutional.
Sall, 61, has neither confirmed nor denied that he plans to run, amid widespread speculation.
Floods kill 11 in Turkish quake-hit provinces
AP – Floods caused by torrential rains hit two Turkish provinces that were devastated by last month’s catastrophic earthquake, killing at least 11 people and increasing the misery for thousands who were left homeless, officials and media reports said Wednesday. At least five other people were reported missing.
One person died in the town of Tut in southeastern Adiyaman province, where surging waters swept away a container home sheltering a family of earthquake survivors, Gov. Numan Hatipoglu said.
The governor of neighboring Sanliurfa province, Salih Ayhan, told HaberTurk television that four people were killed by the floods in his region. Later, rescuers found the bodies of five Syrian nationals inside a flooded basement apartment in Sanliurfa, and retrieved another body inside a van that was trapped at an underpass, the private DHA news agency reported.