Two powerful militias that back Libya’s UN-supported government have clashed in the capital, Tripoli, killing 55 people and injuring 146 others, medics say.
Libya remains in political chaos after long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011.
Fighting has left many people trapped in their homes as battles took place in several districts of the capital, including Ain Zara in the south-east.
The latest violence was between brigades that operate in Tripoli, where Prime Minster Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah heads a government.
According to Libya’s Emergency Medicine and Support Center, 234 families had to be evacuated from frontline areas with 60 ambulances deployed and three field hospitals set up to deal with the causalities.
The prime minister intervened and managed to get the commander released to a “neutral party”, the AFP news agency reports.
A week ago, her Construye party’s presidential candidate in the Ecuadorean election this Sunday, Fernando Villavicencio, was shot three times in the head after a campaign rally in the capital, Quito.
Mr Villavicencio, 59, a journalist and member of Ecuador’s national assembly, was shot as he left a campaign rally in the capital last Wednesday - 11 days before the presidential election.
His death shocked a nation that has largely escaped the decades of drug-gang violence, cartel wars and corruption that has blighted many of its neighbours.
Mr Villavicencio’s campaign focused on corruption and gangs, and he was one of only a few candidates to allege links between organised crime and government officials in Ecuador.
Ms González, whose career has mainly focused on environmental issues, said that these levels of violence had become normalised in Ecuadorean politics.
Pedro Briones, a local leader of the left-wing Citizen Revolution Party in Esmeraldas, was shot dead by gunmen on a motorcycle at his home on Monday.
Former Ukrainian captives say they were subjected to torture, including frequent beatings and electric shocks, while in custody at a detention facility in south-western Russia, in what would be serious violations of international humanitarian law.
In interviews with the BBC, a dozen ex-detainees released in prisoner exchanges alleged physical and psychological abuse by Russian officers and guards at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility Number Two, in the city of Taganrog.
The testimonies, gathered during a weeks-long investigation, describe a consistent pattern of extreme violence and ill-treatment at the facility, one of the locations where Ukrainian prisoners of war have been held in Russia.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman and one of the officials involved in exchange negotiations with Moscow, said nine in every 10 former detainees claimed they had been tortured while in Russian captivity.
Denys Haiduk, a military surgeon, said guards forced him and the other captives to run with their heads down while under blows during their “reception”, with detainees being hit even after they were on the ground, unable to stand up.
The Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian organisation, recorded allegations of at least three deaths at the Taganrog prison, apparently because of torture and lack of food and health care.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has found himself at the centre of a new conflict - this time in the vitally important Amhara region that marshalled its troops to help him thwart an attempt by rival Tigrayan forces to topple him.
The conflict is the latest sign that Mr Abiy is battling to live up to his Nobel laureateship - an honour bestowed on him in 2019 for ending long-running hostilities with Eritrea and setting Ethiopia on the path of democracy after almost three-decades of iron-fist rule.
The crisis is so serious that many people say the Amhara state government - controlled by Mr Abiy’s ruling Prosperity Party (PP) - is on the brink of collapse, with key officials having fled to the federal capital, Addis Ababa, for fear of being attacked.
The agreement - brokered by the African Union (AU), with the backing of the US - was widely welcomed as an attempt to restore stability in Ethiopia - a vast country that has long been regarded as a lynchpin for security in the Horn of Africa and as the birthplace of pan-African unity.
Some analysts point out that there is also conflict in other parts of Ethiopia - including in Mr Abiy’s political heartland of Oromia, where the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebel group is fighting for what it calls “self-determination”.
When he took office, Mr Abiy championed his vision of Mademer, or “coming together”, and ended state repression by unbanning opposition groups, freeing political prisoners and allowing exiles to return.
If Javier Milei, the front-runner in the campaign for the presidency, wins the election scheduled for later this year, the country’s own currency could be abolished and replaced with the US dollar.
Anecdotal stories abound of people keeping money buried in the garden, hidden in the walls or even secreted in heating systems - occasionally with disastrous consequences if there is an unexpected cold snap and the cash isn’t retrieved before it goes up in smoke.
During that time, uncontrolled price rises eroded the value of wages and made a mockery of savings, to the point where people lost faith in their own currency.
And yet the public’s hunger for dollars continues, while everyone from taxi drivers to restaurateurs happily accepts the greenback as payment for goods and services.
But showing the eternal Brazilian ability to bend the rules, they gave themselves some wiggle-room, allowing the real’s value to fluctuate, within limits, against the dollar.
And it might be easier to achieve than the idea recently mooted by the Argentine and Brazilian presidents - a common currency for the two countries, possibly to be called the “sur” or even the “gaucho”.
bbc.co.uk
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