Guess this is what a Military Coup looks like? PHOTO: Tanks deployed on Gam3a Bridge in #Giza #Egypt pic.twitter.com/UZFmdnHWKT ht @saramsalem
— Ahmed Shihab-Eldin (@ASE) July 3, 2013
At least five people have been killed in clashes between Democratic Republic of Congo's army and soldiers loyal to a renegade general wanted by the International Criminal court for war crimes, U.N. and military sources said on Monday.
The fighting in the Masisi region of North Kivu began late on Sunday and forced thousands of residents to flee their homes, some of them into neighbouring Rwanda, said aid groups.
General Bosco Ntaganda fought the government as a rebel before he was integrated into the army alongside other insurgents as part of a 2009 peace deal.
But clashes erupted again after President Joseph Kabila announced in mid April that he would try to arrest Ntaganda, a divise figure who has been at the heart of the region's instability, "because the whole country wants peace".
Mali's junta said Tuesday the group still controls the state broadcaster, the airport and a military base after a countercoup attempt.
Soldiers loyal to coup leader Capt. Amadou Sanogo appeared on state television early Tuesday and said the important installations remained in their hands after Monday's attempt.
But heavy gunfire could still be heard in Bamako Tuesday, suggesting that the junta did not yet have total control over the capital.
Anti-junta forces on Monday took over the country's state broadcaster and attacked the airport and the junta's main military base.
A Pacific delegation, including foreign ministers from Australia and New Zealand, on Tuesday reported Fiji's military regime was making "positive progress" towards holding elections in 2014.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and his New Zealand counterpart Murray McCully, two of the harshest critics of Fiji's military dictatorship, travelled to Suva as part of a Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) delegation.
The regime, which seized power in a 2006 coup, reneged on a promise to hold elections in 2009 but the PIF group said there were signs it intended to honour its promise to hold a ballot in 2014.
"Ministers said they were encouraged by the steps taken by Fiji on election planning, as well as by information provided about Fiji's intentions," they said in a statement.
"These gave Ministers a sense that Fiji was a country in transition, moving to put in place processes required for elections."
Soldiers have taken control of much of the capital of the Guinea-Bissau in what appears to be a coup attempt.
Heavy gunfire was heard in the city of Bissau and at the residence of outgoing Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior.
Troops also took control of the national radio station and ruling party's headquarters.
Mr Gomes came first in an inconclusive presidential election last month, but failed to win outright. His whereabouts are not known.
West African regional organisation Ecowas condemned what it described as an attempted coup.
Two Indian army units that moved towards New Delhi on a January night without notifying the government raised alarm in the capital, the Indian Express newspaper reported on Wednesday, but the Defense Ministry and army quickly denied the report.
The infantry unit of the 33rd Armored Division based 150 km (90 miles) from Delhi and a unit of the airborne 50 Para brigade based in Agra to the south reached the outskirts of Delhi before being ordered back, the newspaper said.
The army and Defense Ministry said the units were engaged in routine exercises to test mobility in fog and did not need to warn the government in advance. Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar told Reuters it was not true the maneuvers had caused alarm.
President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, widely credited with bringing democracy to the hideaway resort islands, resigned on Tuesday after weeks of opposition protests erupted into a police mutiny and what an aide said amounted to a coup.
Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, handed power over the Indian Ocean archipelago to Vice-President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, explaining that continuing in office would result in his having to use force against the people.
"I resign because I am not a person who wishes to rule with the use of power," he said in a televised address. "I believe that if the government were to remain in power it would require the use of force which would harm many citizens.
"I resign because I believe that if the government continues to stay in power, it is very likely that we may face foreign influences."
It was not immediately clear to what influences he was referring. India helped foil a coup on the islands in 1988 by sending a battalion of soldiers to back the government.
Pakistan's powerful army is fed up with unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari and wants him out of office, but through legal means and without a repeat of the coups that are a hallmark of the country's 64 years of independence, military sources said.
Tensions are rising between Pakistan's civilian leaders and its generals over a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup after the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
"Who isn't fed up with Zardari? It's not just the opposition and the man on the street but people within the government too," said one military source who asked not to be named.
"But there has to be a proper way. No action is being planned by the army. Even if we tried, it would be very unpopular and not just with the government and the opposition but most Pakistanis too."
The Pakistani military spokesman declined comment.
General Ashfaq Kayani has pledged to keep the military out of Pakistani politics since taking over as army chief in 2007.
Any coup -- Pakistan has had three since independence in 1947 -- could further tarnish the military's public image which has already taken a battering after the bin Laden operation, widely seen in Pakistan as a violation of sovereignty.
Heavy gunfire broke out in Tripoli as forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi tightened their grip on the Libyan capital while anti-government protesters claimed control of many cities elsewhere and top government officials and diplomats turn against the longtime leader.
While residents of cities in the eastern half of the country celebrated, raising the flags of the old monarchy, the mood in Tripoli was bleak. Residents were afraid to leave their houses, saying pro-Gadhafi forces were opening fire randomly in the streets.
International outrage mounted a day after Gadhafi vowed to defend his rule and called on supporters to crack down on anti-government protesters. Gadhafi's retaliation has already been the harshest in the Arab world to the wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East.
A defiant Muammar Gaddafi said on Tuesday he was ready to die "a martyr" in Libya, vowing to crush a growing revolt which has seen eastern regions break free of his 41-year rule and brought deadly unrest to the capital.
Swathed in brown robes, Gaddafi seethed with anger and banged the podium outside one of his residences that was damaged in a 1986 U.S. bombing raid that attempted to kill him. Next to him stood a monument of a fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet.
"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," Gaddafi said on state television, refusing to bow to calls from his own diplomats, soldiers and protesters who braved a fierce crackdown to clamour in streets for him to go.
Huge popular protests in Libya's neighbors Egypt and Tunisia have toppled entrenched leaders, but Gaddafi said he would not be forced out by the rebellion sweeping through his vast oil producing nation of just 7 million people, which stretches from the Mediterranean into the Sahara.
"I shall remain here defiant," said Gaddafi, who has ruled the mainly desert country with a mixture of populism and tight control since taking power in a military coup in 1969.
Ecuador teetered on the verge of a government collapse Thursday, as national police took to the streets of Quito, the capital, and physically attacked the president over what police say was the cancellation of bonuses and promotions.
The government declared a one-week state of emergency Thursday afternoon and put the military in charge of security. The military said it will support the president and the nation's democratic institutions.
"This is a coup attempt," President Rafael Correa said in a TV interview a couple of hours after police lobbed tear gas at him.
Correa, who was forced to flee to a nearby hospital, said police were trying to get at him.
"They're trying to get into my room, maybe to attack me. I don't know," he said in a telephone interview with state-run Ecuador TV. "But, forget it. I won't relent. If something happens to me, remember my infinite love for my country, and to my family I say that I will love them anywhere I end up."
A video by CNN affiliate Ecuavisa later showed a defiant Correa standing at an upper floor window, shouting to a crowd of supporters, "If they want me, here I am," and then rapidly ripping his necktie loose.
The Pakistani military, angered by the inept handling of the country’s devastating floods and alarmed by a collapse of the economy, is pushing for a shake-up of the elected government, and in the longer term, even the removal of President Asif Ali Zardari and his top lieutenants.
The military, preoccupied by a war against militants and reluctant to assume direct responsibility for the economic crisis, has made clear it is not eager to take over the government, as it has many times before, military officials and politicians said.
But the government’s performance since the floods, which have left 20 million people homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, has laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders.
American officials, too, say it has left them increasingly disillusioned with Mr. Zardari, a deeply unpopular president who was elected two and a half years ago on a wave of sympathy after the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir apparent Kim Jong-un was elected as a deputy to the 12th Supreme People's Assembly in March last year, a North Korean source in a Western country said on Monday. He has not so far been known to have been given any official post as the regime maneuvers him into position to succeed his father.
The source quoted a North Korean official as saying that Kim Jong-un was nominally elected from Constituency No. 216. At the time, his name was not on the list of new deputies because the North tried to conceal his election, the source added.
In March last year, defectors organizations said it seemed Jong-un was elected from this electoral district given that Kim Jong-il's birthday is Feb. 16 and that the published name of the deputy-elect from the district was 'Kim Jong.'
The source said the North is effectively under a collective leadership, and the "military-first" ideology shows that it no longer is a one-man dictatorship. "After Kim Jong-il's death, there will emerge a collective military leadership, which will probably put up Kim Jong-un as a figurehead," the source added.
Israel has fined an Israeli security consulting firm for negotiating a deal to provide arms and military training to Guinea's military junta without the state's prior approval, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
The spokesman, Shlomo Dror, said the ministry fined Global CST for dealing with the West African nation's military government last year. He would not disclose the sum of the fine but said Israel intervened before any deal was concluded.
Global CST is run by Yisrael Ziv, a retired Israeli general whose career included commanding the Gaza Strip area and heading the military's powerful operations branch. Since retiring, he has worked as a consultant in Colombia and Georgia, according to reports in the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Israel has a long history of sending mercenaries to African countries, dating back to the 1950s. But today, Israel's Defense Ministry says it closely supervises military exports, including training by private contractors, and denies permits to operate in nations with questionable human rights records.
he Thai army has designated an area of Bangkok as a "live firing zone" in a warning to protesters on a third day of violence that has killed at least 16.
"No entry" signs have been put up near a barricaded camp where the protesters, who want the prime minister to resign, have been based since March.
Some 150 people have been injured since the violence broke out, and three more deaths were reported on Saturday.
Authorities have ruled out negotiations with the red-shirt protesters.
Thai troops fired bullets and tear gas at anti-government protesters rioting near the U.S. and Japanese embassies Friday as an army push to clear the streets sparked deadly clashes and turned central Bangkok into a virtual war zone.
Violence escalated after a rogue army general regarded as a military advisor to the Red Shirt protesters was shot in the head on Thursday evening, possibly by a sniper, leaving him in critical condition. Ensuing street clashes have killed two people and wounded at least 13 others, including a Thai photographer and a foreign journalist.
With security deteriorating and hopes of a peaceful resolution to the two-month standoff fading, unrest plunged Thailand deeper into political uncertainty, threatening the country's stability, economy and already-decimated tourism industry.
Friday's violence was initially centered on a small area home to several foreign embassies, but by midafternoon had spread to other areas around the protest zone.
Soldiers crouched behind a raised road divider in one area and fired rubber bullets, live ammunition and tear gas shells. Army vehicles were seen speeding on deserted streets littered with stones and debris. Protesters retreated and hurled rocks and insults.
Gunfire erupted in Kyrgyzstan when thousands of interim government supporters attempted to retake a regional government building occupied by backers of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, injuring more than 30 people Friday, officials and witnesses said.
The clashes broke out at the compound of the regional government headquarters in Jalal-Abad. Around 200 Bakiyev supporters, some with automatic rifles, holed up in the government building overnight after capturing it Thursday evening.
Elsewhere, hundreds of people ejected a crowd that had occupied the regional government offices in Osh, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) from Jalal-Abad.
Both cities are in Kyrgyzstan's south, the power base for Bakiyev, who was ousted April 7 amid clashes in the capital between government forces and protesters that left at least 85 people dead.
Indonesian police announced Friday they had uncovered and foiled a plot to assassinate the president and other top officials, massacre foreigners in Mumbai-style attacks and declare an Islamic state.
The attackers planned to launch their assault during this year's Independence Day ceremony to be attended Aug. 17 by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the country's top dignitaries, national police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters.
The plot also included taking over hotels and killing foreigners, especially Americans, in violence that would have been reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he said. The plot was revealed during interrogations of dozens of suspects arrested since a February raid on a terrorist training camp in the western province of Aceh, Danuri said.
"They were confident that all state officials and dignitaries would be there," Danuri said. "Killing all the state officials would have accelerated the transition from a democracy to a state controlled by Islamic Shariah law."
Some of the newest information on the plot came from a series of raids this week on militant hideouts in and around the capital that yielded 20 arrests as well as a supply of assault rifles, ammunition, telescopes and jihadist literature. Five suspected militants were killed in those raids.
Thai security forces and anti-government protesters clashed Wednesday on the outskirts of Bangkok, with troops firing both over and then directly into a crowd of Red Shirts to keep them from expanding their demonstrations. At least 16 protesters were wounded and one soldier was killed.
It was not immediately clear if the troops were shooting live ammunition or rubber bullets in the confrontation along a major road connecting Bangkok with its northern suburbs that security forces had blocked with razor wire.
There were conflicting reports about the shooting of the Thai soldier. Thai sources told NBC that the incident was likely a friendly fire accident.
Kyrgyzstan's ousted president said Friday from exile in Belarus that he does not intend to return to his homeland as its leader, but said his resignation was invalid because he signed it under pressure.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed in an April 7 uprising that left 85 people dead in the Kyrgyz capital. He fled last week to neighboring Kazakhstan and arrived in the Belarusian capital earlier this week.
Bakiyev said his resignation, signed before he left Kyrgyzstan, was not in force because interim officials reneged on a promise to protect his relatives.
"I don't intend to return to Kyrgyzstan as president," he told reporters in Minsk, but added that "the other side has not fulfilled its conditions. They guaranteed the safety of my family, but my family is being persecuted, therefore I do not recognize my resignation."
Paraguay's leftist president wants to impose military rule in the northern half of the country to help soldiers put an end to attacks by a group of leftist guerrillas.
Fernando Lugo is asking Congress to declare a state of emergency in five of Paraguay's 17 departments.
The request comes a day after the so-called Paraguayan People's Army allegedly killed a police officer and three workers while attacking a farm to steal animals.
Lugo said Thursday that a state of emergency will free the military to take actions that will bring the criminals to justice and return peace to the northern countryside.
Critics have accused Lugo of being too soft on the rebel group.
The 27th ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff (CCDS) meeting has ended in Cotonou, Benin Republic with a resolution that "enough is enough with regards to military intervention in the politics of member nations."
Towards giving teeth to the resolution, the ECOWAS Defence Chiefs decided to send the Chiefs of Defence Staff of Ghana, Liberia, Togo and Cape Verde to Guinea Bissau, which has been having continuing disruption of democratic governance by its military, "to express our unhappiness and misgivings at the consistent military interventions in the country."
The body stressed that "any further disrespect for political authority must be condemned in the strongest terms” “military government is no longer in vogue and we must move ahead with the times."
Addressing newsmen at the end of the meeting, the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Paul Dike, who is the chairman of the CCDS, announced that the next quarterly meeting of the body would be held in Guinea Bissau "to make collective strong representation to the military so that they fall in line as other militaries in the region."
He also said that the body resolved that "pro-active steps will be taken to counter the activities of extreme religious groups prevalent in the Sahel region of West Africa."
It therefore tasked the Chiefs of Defence Staff of Mali and Niger to study the problem of religious extremists and ways to tackle them and report to the next meeting of the body.
A small team from the newly formed Liberian Coast Guard successfully launched, for the first time, a Zodiac boat off of Bushrod Island, the historic home of the Liberian maritime forces, March 25, 2010.
The event was historic for the unit of 49 men and one woman, which was activated just more than a month earlier at Liberia's 53rd Annual Armed Forces Day in Monrovia.
At the activation ceremony, coast guard members marched in formation onto Monrovia's Barclay Training Center parade field. Standing at attention in their new white uniforms, a strong contrast to the sea of green fatigues worn by soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), the coast guard received its charge from Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and its guidon.
After a decade's long absence from the water, the coast guard's activation signaled Liberia's commitment to reestablish its presence on its territorial waters.
"What is especially significant this Armed Forces Day is the reactivation of the Liberian National Coast Guard…," Sirleaf said during the ceremony. "Under the 2008 National Defense Act, we are obliged to develop and re-establish our capacity to man our territorial waters. The coast guard has a mandate to improve the security of our coastline and control smuggling and illegal fishing. I congratulate you, the members of the coast guard, who have pledged to safeguard Liberia's territorial waters."
Watching from the stands that day, and also looking on with pride the day of the boat launch, was U.S. Coast Guard Commander Jennifer Ketchum, who works out of U.S. Africa Command's (AFRICOM) Monrovia Office of Security Cooperation, responsible for coordinating all security cooperation engagements between the U.S. and Liberia.
"This is a great job," she said, "being able to see and measure success and help the Liberians."
"This is the first we've had the boat out and I'm so excited I just can't tell you," said Ketchum. "A lot of training has come before this and I'm just really proud of the guys today for getting out here and launching the boat."
The first four SA National Defence Force (SANDF) companies to take over border security from the SA Police Service (Saps) on the northern borders, held a farewell parade in Bloemfontein on Monday.
SANDF chief Lieutenant General Solly Shoke said the troop deployment would work closely with other law enforcement agencies along South Africa's borders, as they had done in the past.
The group of soldiers is part of the first phase of the South African Border Management Agency (BMA) approved by Cabinet in October 2009.
The four companies, of about 130 soldiers each, would be deployed on South Africa's north-eastern borders with Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
The soldiers would conduct foot and mobile patrols, monitor the border fence and supply reaction capabilities.
Shoke said advance teams of SANDF engineers were already deployed to the areas, including bases at Musina and Pontdrif, to prepare the facilities for the troops.
A coup attempt was foiled on Sunday in Madagascar after the minister of armed forces in the Indian Ocean island country was sacked early in the month, according to the military.
Seven military officers and civilians planning to attack the leadership between Sunday night and Monday morning were arrested in the afternoon, announced colonel Rene Lilison, who heads the force of special intervention of the presidency.
The arrestees were captured around 1 p. m., Lilison told a press conference. They were shown to journalists before being transferred to a brigade of the gendarmerie stationed at Betongolo near the Defense Ministry.
Army chief Andre Ndriarijaona said the armed forces were still united, adding the suspects had recruited ex-military personnel, reservists and soldiers for peaceful purposes, proving that they had no control of the armed forces in service, who remain united.
Supporters of Kyrgyzstan's toppled president put up fresh resistance against the country's new rulers on Monday, gathering hundreds in the south to rally against the self-proclaimed government.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled in a violent revolt on April 7 and went into exile after days of turmoil that disrupted flights from a U.S. air base supporting operations in Afghanistan.
The interim government, which came to power after Bakiyev's overthrow, says its forces now control the entire nation, but a surge of unrest in the south -- Bakiyev's tribal stronghold -- has threatened its authority.
Trying to consolidate, the new government unveiled a reform plan on Monday including shifting powers from the president to parliament and holding free parliamentary and presidential elections in late September or early October.
But in the southern city of Jalalabad, Bakiyev loyalists seized a regional government office over the weekend and about 1,500 supporters rallied in the city square on Monday morning.
"Bakiyev is our legitimate president!" shouted the crowd, some holding banners reading "The opposition spilled blood to grab power." Others gave out leaflets calling for Bakiyev's comeback.
A Reuters reporter in Jalalabad said there were no police and Bakiyev supporters walked in and out of the government building freely, but the overall mood was peaceful.
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