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(Reuters)The head of Burundi's army said on Thursday that an attempted coup had failed and forces loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza were in control. Army Chief of Staff General Prime Niyongabo's announcement came a day after another general said he had sacked Nkurunziza for seeking an unconstitutional third term in office. Gunfire could still be heard in the capital, Bujumbura, and whether the government had regained control was not clear.

The president, who was in Tanzania for an African leaders meeting on Wednesday when the attempt to topple him was announced, called on Burundians to "remain calm" in a message delivered via the presidential website and his Twitter feed. There was no official confirmation about the whereabouts of the president, who sparked more than two weeks of protests by saying he would seek another five years in office. Two Tanzanian sources said he was in Dar es Salaam. One said he was at a "secure location".

"The coup attempt failed, loyal forces are still controlling all strategic points," Niyongabo said in a statement broadcast on state radio. In Burundi's civil war that ended in 2005, the army was commanded by minority Tutsis who fought against rebel groups of the majority Hutus, including one led by Nkurunziza. The military has since been reformed to absorb rival factions, but fault lines in its ranks have remained.

It was not immediately clear if the government was now fully back in control, although police had returned to some streets which they had left on Wednesday. In one suburb, which had been a protest flashpoint, a group of young men who tried to walk to the center of the city were blocked by police officers, a Reuters witness said. In another location, policemen were seen beating up a youth.

A journalist at the state broadcaster said heavy gunfire being was heard around the state television and radio station in the capital on Thursday morning, a Reuters witness said. Another reported loud blasts in the city.

 RADIO STATIONS ATTACKED

The Reuters witness said two private radio stations and a television station were attacked by unknown men in police uniforms. The two stations were among those that carried Major General Godefroid Niyombare's announcement on Wednesday that he had sacked Nkurunziza. Neither Niyombare nor his spokesmen were immediately available to comment. While Nkurunziza was in Tanzania, the presidency dismissed the declaration by Niyombare, who was fired as Nkurunziza's intelligence chief in February, saying the coup had been "foiled".

Niyombare had said on Wednesday the capital's airport and all border crossings were closed. It was not immediately clear if that was still the case. The East African leaders condemned the takeover attempt. "East African leaders are determined to find a lasting solution to Burundi's crisis," Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe told reporters. "Africa does not want the leadership of any country to be assumed by the barrel of a gun." A protester, who is against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term, gestures in front of a burning barricade in Bujumbura, Burundi May 14, 2015.

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Migrants in Libya are being tortured, gang-raped and abused even before risking the world’s deadliest sea crossing, a human rights group claims.

The abuse is being carried out by armed criminal groups and traffickers, as well as within immigration detention centres, according to a new dossier by Amnesty International.

It says recent moves by the European Union to ‘destroy’ vessels used to take migrants across the Mediterranean could trap refugees and asylum seekers within Libya, worsening their suffering.

Clamour for the EU to act intensified last month after a boat of migrants capsized en route from Libya to Europe, killing around 800.

The flow of migrants fleeing war in the Middle East and Africa has continued since last November, when Italy’s search-and-rescue operation was replaced with a cheaper EU version.

The EU announced a series of measures last month, including more funding for its search-and-rescue operation and a crackdown on smugglers.

Amnesty’s report comes ahead of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini’s address to the UN Security Council today (May 11), where she hopes to win backing for international intervention in Libya.

Libya has been in chaos since former leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.

Fifty-three people have died around the Libyan city of Benghazi in the last five weeks, according to medics, as forces loyal to Libya’s government fight Islamist groups.

Amnesty International interviewed migrants that had crossed the Mediterranean Sea between August 2014 and March 2015.

Here is a small selection of their stories.

Torture

Mohamed, a Somali refugee, was held captive by smugglers in the Libyan desert.

He said: “I entered Libya through the Sahara. It was very dangerous, many died. In the desert, Libyan men were forcing, torturing us, beating us with swords, guns, stones, Kalashnikovs. They would beat us every day. They broke my finger, a friend had broken arm. We couldn’t escape. My friend Mohamed tried to escape and was shot dead. Another man was hit on the head with a stone and died. You didn’t eat or drink. Only very little once per day. I stayed one month, then paid. My mother’s brother is in Holland; he paid.”

Gang rape

One Nigerian woman said she was gang-raped on her first day in Sabha. She told Amnesty: “Five Asma boys [gangs of young armed robbers] stopped in front of us and forced me and my husband into their car. They took us to a far place outside the city in the desert; tied my husband’s hands and legs to a pole and gang-raped me in front of his eyes. There were 11 men in total– the five men who forced us into the car and another six who joined them later in the desert.”

Extortion

One boy from the Ivory Coast, 17 at the time, says his smugglers had handed him over to a criminal group shortly after arriving in Libya. He was kept in a house for four months and fed just once a day.

He said: “They tortured us to force us to call our relatives to extort money from them. If you don’t pay, you don’t go out. The next morning, the head of the prison came to speak to us, telling us that our family members needed to wire the money immediately to his brother in Ghana. Once he received the money, we would be set free. I told him that I did not have any family members, that all of them had died. He answered: ‘You will join them in death if you don’t pay.’ I started crying, and so they started beating me with a belt and a broomstick. Other detainees tried to intervene, but they were also beaten. The prison is run by Libyans but they have Ghanaians working for them.”

Rape in immigration detention centres

One Nigerian woman told Amnesty of her time at an immigration detention centre in Sabratah: “I stayed in prison for two months. It was a women’s prison but all the guards were male.

“At night, they would come to our rooms and tried to sleep with us. Some of the women were raped. One woman even got pregnant after she was raped. No one touched me because I was pregnant. This is why I decided to go to Europe. I suffered too much in prison.

“One of the pregnant women died there – they took away her body, but we don’t know what exactly happened to her. They hit her on the stomach – she was seven to eight months pregnant and died.

“During the day, they would force us to come out of our rooms to clean or cook. They used to touch our breasts when we were working. They would beat us if we dared to shout.”

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North Korea's defence minister has been executed by anti-aircraft weapons in front of an audience of hundreds, according to a South Korean intelligence report. Hyon Yong-chol was reportedly charged with treason for disobeying orders, falling asleep at a military event and being disloyal to Kim Jong-un, the latest in long line of purges carried out by the North Korean regime.  He was an unknown when he was promoted to the North Korean elite in 2012 and had been in his position for less than a year. However, he regularly accompanied Kim on public events. He was arrested late last month and executed three days later without trial.

As head of the country's military, Hyon was "as close to Kim Jong-un as it is possible to get," says the BBC's Stephen Evans. "Such a public and brutal method of execution as obliteration by anti-aircraft gun would emphasise the cost of disloyalty." This is not believed to be the first time an official has been publically executed in such an extreme manner. Last month, a human rights group released satellite images taken of heavy machine guns on a small arms firing range at an army training centre near Pyongyang in 2014. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea said the "most plausible explanation" for the image was a "gruesome public execution" by anti-aircraft fire.

Earlier this week, South Korea's intelligence agency revealed the extent of political murders being carried out in Pyongyang, estimating that senior officials were being executed at a rate of one per week. "It all adds up to a picture of a leader in Pyongyang who feels very insecure and who is dangerous in his insecurity," says Evans. "Every time we hear rumours of more executions, we have to wonder whether it's a sign of authority or an inability to keep things under control," Victor Cha, former White House adviser on Asia under George W Bush, told the Financial Times. The most notable purge was of Kim's uncle and most senior advisor in 2013. Jang Song-thaek was executed on charges that ranged from distributing pornography to plotting a coup. He was also condemned for "half-hearted clapping" during a ceremony for his nephew. 

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it will open an investigation into the crimes committed by the militants affiliated with Takfiri ISIL terrorists in Libya. ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that a UNSC resolution approved unanimously in March 2011, which referred the situation in Libya to the ICC, extends the court’s jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by ISIL-aligned militant groups in Libya.  Bensouda also said she was “actively considering the investigation and prosecution of further cases,” including alleged crimes against civilians and civilian institutions by extremist groups. The insecurity in Libya hampers the investigation and prosecution of new cases, she noted. ISIL terrorists have been behind a number of crimes in Libya, including the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in February and 28 Ethiopian Christians in April.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Bensouda called on all parties involved in the fighting in Libya to stop targeting civilians and civilian institutions “or committing any other crime that may fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction.” Libya has been the scene of violence and unrest since the 2011 uprising against long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The ouster of Gaddafi gave rise to a patchwork of heavily-armed militias and deep political divisions. The North African country has slid deeper into crisis with two separate governments and parliaments battling for power in recent months. The two rival camps vying for control over the resource-rich country, one controlling the capital city of Tripoli, and the other, Libya’s internationally recognized government ruling the eastern cities of Bayda and Tobruk, have not been able to stabilize the situation despite intervention and aid from international brokers, including the UN. Libya’s government and elected parliament moved to Tobruk after Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) militants seized Tripoli and most government institutions in August 2014 and set up its own government and parliament. The UN is facilitating negotiations between Libya’s warring sides on forming a unity government in the country.

 

 

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British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to announce a new anti-terrorism bill due for introduction in the UK Queen’s upcoming speech. The PM will tell the National Security Council a counter-extremism bill will be in the Queen's speech on 27 of May, the state-run BBC reported Wednesday. The premier is reportedly due to introduce a raft of new powers against radicalization, saying the UK has been a "passively tolerant society" for too long.

The bill will include new immigration rules, powers to close down premises used by extremists and "extremism disruption orders." Cameron will say a "poisonous" extremist ideology must be confronted, the report added. The ideas were initially put forth by Home Secretary Theresa May at the parliament before the May 7 general election. British Conservatives have so far been unable to secure the backing of their previous coalition partners (Liberal Democrats) for the measures.

But now that a full-Tory government is in place, the bill might face less friction at Westminster. The measures are also expected to introduce banning orders for ‘extremist organizations who use hate speech in public places,’ but whose activities fall short of it being proscribed as a terror group. This is while the UK’s terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe last August in response to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The bill has already created controversy, with campaigners accusing the government of infringing on human rights and civil liberties.

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The Former head of the intelligence service of Burundi, General Godefroid Nyombare, has announced the removal of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who is presently en route to Dar es Salaam for a summit on the Burundi crisis. Godefroid Nyombare, a former senior Burundian army officer said on Wednesday that he ousted President Pierre Nkurunziza because his candidacy for a third term has caused nearly three weeks of a bloody political crisis in Burundi.

President Pierre Nkurunziza has now been removed from office and the government dissolved. General Nyombare who was sacked in February by the head of state after having recommended that President Nkurunziza should not seek a third mandate is now in charge. Soldiers have taken up positions around state radio and television.  President Nkurunziza is currently in Tanzania for a summit on the crisis in Burundi.

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