World

Sri Lankan protesters set the prime minister’s private home on fire, hours after chasing the president from his residence, as months of frustration over an unprecedented economic crisis boiled over on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of people massed in the capital Colombo through the morning to demand the government take responsibility for mismanaging the nation’s finances, and for months of crippling food and fuel shortages.

After storming the gates of the presidential palace, hundreds of people could be seen in live broadcasts on social media walking through its rooms, with some among the boisterous crowd jumping into the compound’s pool.

Others were seen laughing and lounging in the stately bedrooms of the residence, with one pulling out what he claimed was a pair of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s underwear.

Shortly beforehand, troops guarding the residence fired in the air to hold the crowd back until Rajapaksa was safely removed.

“The president was escorted to safety,” a top defence source told AFP on condition of anonymity. “He is still the president, he is being protected by the navy.”

He said the president had boarded a naval craft at the Colombo port, which later moved to the southern waters of the island.

The colonial-era mansion he left is one of Sri Lanka’s key symbols of state power, and officials said Rajapaksa’s departure raised questions as to whether he intended to remain in office.

Soon after the crowd stormed the presidential palace, Rajapaksa’s nearby seafront office also fell into the hands of protesters.

Security forces attempted to disperse the huge crowds that had mobbed Colombo’s administrative district.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the first person in line to succeed Rajapaksa, called a meeting with political leaders and said he was willing to step down to pave the way for a unity government.

But that failed to placate protesters, who stormed the premier’s private residence and set it alight after night fell. 

Footage shared on social media showed a crowd cheering the blaze, which broke out shortly after a security detachment guarding Wickremesinghe attacked several journalists outside the home. 

No casualties have been reported in the fire so far, and police said Wickremesinghe and his family were away at the time.

Earlier, a spokeswoman for Colombo’s main hospital said three people were being treated for gunshot wounds, along with 36 others suffering breathing difficulties after being caught up in tear gas barrages.

– ‘Not a deterrent’ –

Sri Lanka has suffered through months of shortages of basic goods, lengthy blackouts and galloping inflation after running out of foreign currency to import necessities.

The government has defaulted on its $51 billion external debt and is seeking an International Monetary Fund bailout.

Thousands of people had poured into the capital for Saturday’s demonstration, the latest outbreak of unrest sparked by the crisis.

Police had withdrawn a curfew issued on Friday after opposition parties, rights activists and the bar association threatened to sue the police chief.

Thousands of anti-government protesters ignored the stay-home order and even forced railway authorities to operate trains to take them to Colombo for Saturday’s rally, officials said.

“The curfew was not a deterrent. In fact, it encouraged more people to get on the streets in defiance,” the defence official said.

Sri Lanka has nearly exhausted its already scarce supplies of petrol, and people unable to travel to the capital held protests in other cities across the island. 

Demonstrators had already maintained a months-long protest camp outside Rajapaksa’s seafront office demanding his resignation. 

The camp was the scene of clashes in May when a gang of Rajapaksa loyalists attacked peaceful protesters gathered there. 

Nine people were killed and hundreds were wounded after the violence sparked reprisals against pro-government mobs and arson attacks on the homes of lawmakers. 

– Cricket goes on –

The unrest comes at the tail end of Australia’s ongoing cricket tour of Sri Lanka, with Pakistan’s squad also on the island for their upcoming series. 

Cricket officials said there were no plans to change their schedules, adding that the sport was unaffected by the political turmoil.

“The Australian Test is coming to an end and we are due to start the Pakistan series,” a cricket board official told AFP. 

“There is no opposition to having the games. In fact, fans are supportive and we have no reason to reschedule.”

Former Mexican president Luis Echeverria Alvarez, known for brutal repression of political opponents, has died at the age of 100, the government said Saturday.

Echeverria, who belonged to the once dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, died Friday in the city of Cuernavaca, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote in a message of condolence.

A lawyer by trade, Echeverria was accused of ordering massacres of students in 1968 when he was interior minister and again in 1971 when he was president, both times in Mexico City.

He stood trial over the death of some 200 student protesters in the 1968 violence in the Tlatelolco district of the Mexican capital right before the Olympic Games.

It was the first time a former president was indicted in Mexico.

A house arrest warrant was issued for Echeverria in 2006 but the charges were eventually dropped on grounds there was a lack of evidence that he had ordered the killings by an elite police unit.

He was also accused of being behind forced disappearances of dissidents during a so-called “dirty war” from 1960 to 1980.

His death comes two weeks after the government gave relatives of people who disappeared during the 1970s access to military archives to try to learn what happened to their loved ones.

On the diplomatic front, after president Salvador Allende was ousted in a military coup in 1974 in Chile, Echeverria severed relations with that country and allowed Mexico to take in Chilean refugees.

After he left the presidency, Echeverria, a father of eight, served as Mexico’s ambassador to UNESCO in Paris, among other diplomatic postings.

Russian troops shelled Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday as Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of preparing further attacks and Washington promised new military aid to Kyiv.

Having endured long battles to capture cities in the neighbouring Lugansk region, Russia is now seeking to push deeper into Donetsk to consolidate its hold over the entire Donbas region in the east.

Four and a half months into the war, residents in the town of Druzhkivka, in northern Donetsk, woke up Saturday to a suspected missile attack which ripped apart a supermarket and gouged a crater into the ground.

Five people were killed in the Donetsk region in the past 24 hours while seven were injured, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.

Sergiy Gaiday, the governor of Lugansk, said the Russians were attacking Donetsk from bases in his region.

“We are trying to contain their armed formations along the entire frontline… Where it is inconvenient for them to go forward, they create real hell, shelling the territories on the horizon,” he said.

Oleksandr Vilkul, mayor of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, said Russia had attacked the city with cluster munitions, killing at least one person and injuring two.

Russia’s defence ministry said Saturday it had inflicted heavy losses in the Mykolaiv and Dnepropetrovsk regions, in southern and central Ukraine respectively, and claimed strikes on Donetsk and the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian emergency services said six civilians were wounded, four of whom were taken to hospital, in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, when a rocket tore through a two-storey residential building on Saturday.

– ‘Massive fighting’ –

“The eyes of all aggressive political movements and regimes in the world are now focused on what Russia is doing against us, against Ukraine,” Zelensky said in an Instagram post.

“Will the world be able to bring real war criminals to justice?” he asked, warning failure to do so would lead to “hundreds of other aggressions”.

Away from the Donbas, the mayor of Mykolaiv begged citizens not to leave shelters, as he said explosions were heard throughout the night. 

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk was quoted by Ukrainian media as urging civilians in occupied areas to evacuate by any means possible. 

“Massive fighting is going to happen,” she said.

“The entire frontline is under relentless shelling,” Donetsk military administration chief Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram message late Friday. 

He accused Russian troops of shelling “day and night” the city of Sloviansk and of torching agricultural fields in a bid to “destroy the harvest by all means”.

Kyrylenko warned the Russians were in the process of replenishing troops in the region to prepare for further assaults.

In a boost to Kyiv, Washington announced $400 million of further military aid, including a type of artillery ammunition with “greater precision”, and that has previously not been sent. 

– Recruits train in England –

“It’s a further evolution in our support for Ukraine in this battle in the Donbas,” a senior defence official was quoted by the US Department of Defense as saying. 

Also included in the aid package are four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to add to eight already in place. 

Britain’s defence ministry on Saturday said the first group of up to 10,000 inexperienced Ukrainian military recruits began training in England as part of a UK-led programme.

The United States also put pressure on Russia at a meeting of Group of 20 foreign ministers in Indonesia. 

Washington and allies condemned Russia’s assault ahead of the gathering before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov faced what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a barrage of Western criticism at the closed-door talks.

Blinken on Saturday called for China to distance itself from Russia after talks with his Chinese counterpart in Indonesia.

Blinken said he told Wang Yi: “This really is a moment where we all have to stand up, as we heard country after country in the G20 do, to condemn the aggression, to demand among other things that Russia allow access to food that is stuck in Ukraine”.

He added there were “no signs” Moscow was willing to engage after the G20 talks.

“If there is an opportunity for diplomacy, we will seize it,” he said.

burs-jm/imm

Britain’s defence secretary, among the favourites in polls to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson, announced Saturday he will not run in the already acrimonious leadership race set to feature a raft of contenders from the ruling Conservatives.

Ben Wallace, who has impressed in his role amid the war in Ukraine and been among the frontrunners in several recent surveys of Tory members, said he would not stand after discussing a bid with colleagues and family.

“It has not been an easy choice to make, but my focus is on my current job and keeping this great country safe,” he added on Twitter.

The likely months-long campaign, potentially pitting more than a dozen Tory lawmakers and multiple factions of the ruling party against each another, is set to be formalised Monday when a committee of backbenchers will meet to agree the timetable and rules.

Four contenders have so far declared they are standing. The early frontrunner is former finance minister Rishi Sunak, who helped kickstart the cabinet revolt that led to Johnson’s forced resignation on Thursday.

Sunak resigned late Tuesday, triggering dozens of more junior colleagues to follow suit and forcing his ex-boss to then quit as Tory leader 36 hours later.

But Johnson, whose three-year premiership has been defined by scandal, the country’s departure from the European Union and Covid, said he would stay on until his successor is selected.

– ‘Huge anger’ –

A summer of rancorous campaigning now looms. 

Party members will eventually choose their new leader — from a two-person shortlist whittled down in multiple rounds of voting by all 358 Tory MPs — before the Conservatives’ annual conference in early October.

Taxation is set to be a key feature of the race, alongside candidates’ Brexit credentials, as Britain faces the toxic combination of high inflation and rampant cost-of-living increases alongside stagnant growth and relatively high tax rates.

Alongside Sunak, attorney general and arch-Brexiteer Suella Braverman, the relatively unknown former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and backbench Tory MP Tom Tugendhat have announced their candidacies.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and new finance minister Nadhim Zahawi — who replaced Sunak in the treasury on Tuesday — are expected to join the crowded field.

Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who was runner-up to Boris Johnson in 2019, is also “virtually certain” to run again, allies told UK media.

Former finance and health minister Sajid Javid, who also quit Johnson’s government Tuesday, may also stand but had been asked by Sunak’s allies to step aside to give him a clear run at the leadership, The Times reported.

Sunak, narrowly ahead of Truss atop the latest poll of party members, drew immediate support from several senior MPs after declaring he was standing in a slick video on social media late Friday.

He was also swiftly attacked by Johnson loyalists in a sign of the acrimony that could blight the contest.

Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg denounced him as a “high tax” finance minister who had failed to curb inflation, amid reports of a coordinated push to derail his bid for the top job.

The Financial Times said Saturday there was “huge anger” within the outgoing prime minister’s team at Sunak over his resignation, with a senior official calling him “a treacherous bastard”.

– Voting rounds –

Following the nearly 60 resignations that triggered his decision to quit, Johnson assembled a new team to govern in the interim, announcing a flurry of junior appointments late Friday.

At a first meeting of his hastily convened top ministers, the 58-year-old conceded Thursday that “major fiscal decisions should be left for the next prime minister”, Downing Street said.

The Conservatives have declined to say how many eligible members they have but note it will be more than the 160,000 who voted at the last leadership contest in 2019.

As the list of candidates grows, some senior lawmakers have warned that the field will need to narrow quickly.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the 1922 Committee which manages the contest, predicted to Times Radio that the final two-person shortlist to put to members could be decided within weeks, before parliament’s summer recess starting after July 21.

After months of angry demands for Sri Lanka’s president to stand down, protesters laughed, took selfies and treated themselves to a swim as they suddenly found themselves inside his home.

The presidential palace in Colombo was overrun by hundreds of people on Saturday, capping months of public discontent over the island nation’s crippling economic crisis. 

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had fled just moments earlier, assisted by troops who fired into the air to clear his escape. 

Once he had left, the mood inside the compound was festive, as the crowd set aside the frustrations of long-running food and fuel shortages, as well as a tense confrontation with security forces earlier in the day. 

“We are in Gotabaya’s room, this is the underwear he left behind,” one young man said while holding up black briefs on a live video shared on multiple social media channels. 

“He has left his shoes behind too.”

On the grounds of the compound, dozens of men shed their shirts and jumped into the presidential pool, with some doing summersaults and frolicking in the water.

Hundreds of others sat down on carefully manicured lawns for a break from the morning’s confrontation with police officers, who had fired barrages of tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators. 

The crowd had managed to work their way into the compound after dismantling barricades and scaling its high gates with the help of a captured police truck.

As the protesters surged forwards, the police officers and army troops guarding the residence melted away.

Elite police officers remained stationed inside but made no attempt to remove the intruders roaming leisurely through the mansion.

Some of the crowd took turns lounging on Rajapaksa’s king-size bed and the comfortable sofas. 

Protesters also helped themselves to the presidential pantry, with snacks and soft drinks seen spread out on counter tops. 

“I was surprised to see that an air conditioner was working in his bathroom. We have to put up with endless blackouts,” a man who entered the palace told AFP by telephone.

– ‘We should not be thieves’ –

As they marched in, a university student climbed a gate post and loudly urged the throng not to vandalise or loot the state residence, which is home to a repository of priceless artefacts. 

“We called Gota a thief and got him out, please do not remove anything from the palace,” he said. 

“We should not be thieves like the Rajapaksas.” 

The presidential palace was formerly known as the “Queen’s House”, and was the official residence of British governors until Sri Lanka won independence in 1948. 

Since then, it has been the official residence of Sri Lanka’s heads of state — but many past leaders have believed it to be haunted. 

Only one president had lived there briefly in recent years, while all others had used it only to receive visiting dignitaries. 

Rajapaksa moved there in April, soon after thousands of protesters attempted to invade his private home during a major demonstration. 

That residence was not overrun, but he moved to the presidential palace in the ultimately futile hope that it would be safer.

A massive fire that ravaged 650 hectares (1,600 acres) and forced people to evacuate in southern France has been brought under control, the fire service said Saturday.

Up to 950 fire fighters backed by aircraft had deployed in the southern Gard region but the “critical phase” has now passed, said fire service spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Eric Agrinier. 

“For the moment, the fire is contained. This means that we don’t think it can spread anymore,” he added.

Around 520 fire fighters remain on the ground in the area, he said,  90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Montpellier and the Mediterranean coast.

The spokesman said units would continue treating the edges of the fire, metre by metre, and were monitoring to avoid any risk of the blaze worsening with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), winds and low humidity as risk factors.

Described by emergency responders as a “mega-fire”, the blaze started near the village of Bordezac and forced evacuations from nearby Besseges and other settlements on Thursday night.

The local prefect’s office had said around 100 people were put up in holiday homes and restaurants in the area.

Like large swathes of the country, southeast France has suffered from drought this year, increasing the risk of fires.

During an unseasonable heatwave last month, around 600 hectares were burned in a fire started by shelling on an army artillery training range near the Mediterranean port city Marseille.

French civil security services recommended that citizens remain very careful until Sunday in all “the Mediterranean zone”, “because of a very high danger of fires”.

Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled his official residence on Saturday shortly before protesters, angered by an unprecedented economic crisis, overran the compound and stormed his nearby office.

Hundreds of thousands of people massed on the streets around the leader’s home, according to police estimates, to demand he step down over the government’s mismanagement of the unprecedented downturn.

After storming the gates of the presidential palace, hundreds of people could be seen in live broadcasts on social media walking through its rooms, with some among the boisterous crowd jumping into the compound’s pool.

Some were seen laughing and lounging in the stately bedrooms of the residence with one pulling out what he claimed was a pair of the president’s underwear.

Not long earlier, troops guarding the residence fired in the air to hold the crowd back until Rajapaksa was safely removed.

“The president was escorted to safety,” a top defence source told AFP on condition of anonymity. “He is still the president, he is being protected by a military unit.”

The colonial-era mansion he left is one of Sri Lanka’s key symbols of state power, and officials said Rajapaksa’s departure raised questions as to whether he intended to remain in office.

“We are awaiting instructions,” a top civil servant told AFP. “We still don’t know where he is, but we know he is with the Sri Lanka navy and is safe.”

Soon after the crowd stormed the presidential palace, Rajapaksa’s nearby seafront office also fell into the hands of protesters.

Security forces attempted to disperse the huge crowds that had mobbed Colombo’s administrative district.

Three people were hospitalised after being shot along with 36 others who suffered breathing difficulties following intense tear gas barrages, a spokeswoman for the main hospital in Colombo said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the first person in line to succeed Rajapaksa, called a meeting with political leaders and said he was willing to step down to pave the way for a unity government.

– ‘Not a deterrent’ –

Sri Lanka has suffered through months of food and fuel shortages, lengthy blackouts and galloping inflation after running out of foreign currency to import vital goods.

The government has defaulted on its $51 billion external debt and is seeking an International Monetary Fund bailout.

Thousands of people had poured into the capital for Saturday’s demonstration, the latest outbreak of unrest sparked by the crisis.

Police had withdrawn a curfew issued on Friday after opposition parties, rights activists and the bar association threatened to sue the police chief.

Thousands of anti-government protesters ignored the stay-home order and even forced railway authorities to operate trains to take them to Colombo for Saturday’s rally, officials said.

“The curfew was not a deterrent, in fact it encouraged more people to get on the streets in defiance,” the defence official said.

Sri Lanka has nearly exhausted already scarce supplies of petrol, but protesters backed by the main opposition parties hired private buses to travel to the capital.

Other Sri Lankans unable to travel to the capital held protests in cities across the island. 

Demonstrators had already maintained a months-long protest camp outside Rajapaksa’s seafront office demanding his resignation. 

The camp was the scene of clashes in May when a gang of Rajapaksa loyalists attacked peaceful protesters gathered there. 

Nine people were killed and hundreds were wounded after the violence sparked reprisals against pro-government mobs and arson attacks on the homes of lawmakers. 

– Cricket goes on –

The unrest comes at the tail end of Australia’s ongoing cricket tour of Sri Lanka, with Pakistan’s squad also on the island for their upcoming series. 

Cricket officials said there were no plans to change their schedules, adding that the sport was unaffected by the political turmoil.

“The Australian Test is coming to an end and we are due to start the Pakistan series,” a cricket board official told AFP. 

“There is no opposition to having the games. In fact, fans are supportive and we have no reason to reschedule.”

The number of people killed in an avalanche in the Italian Dolomites rose to 11 on Saturday, which was expected to be the final death toll, police said.

A section of Italy’s biggest Alpine glacier gave way last Sunday, sending ice and rock hurtling down the mountain, in a disaster blamed by officials on climate change.

“We have identified all the victims,” said Colonel Giampietro Lago, from the police scientific department.

“We’ve reached a toll of 11. As of today, we have no indications to make us think more people could be involved,” he said.

The search operation continued, however, and further materials were found on Saturday around the Marmolada glacier, said Maurizio Fugatti, president of the northern autonomous province of Trentino.

“The search goes on with drones and we will do the same thing tomorrow,” he said.

The public prosecutor’s office in Trentino has launched an inquiry into the cause of the disaster with some families accusing the authorities of leaving the glacier open despite clearly dangerous climbing conditions.

The avalanche struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the summit of Marmolada.