Top Story: French police raid homes of suspected Islamists.
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Accessed on 19 October 2020, 1554 UTC, Post 651.
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Featured Contents
French police raid homes of suspected Islamists
Muslim organisations are being investigated too after the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty.
Has the pandemic really peaked in India?
Top scientists believe it has, but warn of a massive uptick if people let down their guard.
Belgium facing 'tsunami' of Covid cases
The country is close to being overwhelmed as the number of cases soars, the health minister warns.
China continues to bounce back from virus slump
The world's second-biggest economy saw growth of almost 5% in the third quarter of the year.
Germany plans ventilation blow to coronavirus
Public buildings receive €500m of German state cash to improve ventilation systems.
Thailand to block Telegram amid student protests
Internet providers have been ordered to block the secure messaging app used by activists.
Chinese zoo visitors see worker killed by bears
The fatal attack in Shanghai Wild Animal Park's "wild beast area" is under investigation.
Features & Analysis
Latest Updates
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has dressed downed members of the house of representatives about their sartorial choices, saying his locally-made suit was "superior" to what the MPs were wearing.
"This fabric I am wearing is from the Konta area [south western Ethiopia]," Mr Abiy has said.
"I belief this clothing if not superior to the suits you are wearing, it is at least not inferior. It’s handmade. Its quality is high. If I don’t respect and show it, who will?" he said.
He told them to value products made in Ethiopia.
The prime minister was answering questions from MPs, which also included growing tension between the federal government and the regional authorities in Tigray region, which he said "will be resolved by the law."
He also addressed the recurring violence in the western Ethiopian state of Benishangul-Gumuz where dozens of people have been killed in ethically motivated violence since September.
Mr Abiy said the violence is likely being sparked by efforts to undermine the country's mega dam project which is being built in the region.
South Sudan's health ministry says that more than 3,000 people who arrived from abroad defied its Covid-19 safety measures, including self-isolation.
The country reopened its airspace for international flights in July, four months after suspending flights to help limit the spread of coronavirus.
Arriving passengers have to isolate for 14 days.
“Over 3,000 people who arrived into the country via Juba International Airport provided wrong telephone contacts. I don’t know what their intention was," Thuou Loi, the ministry’s spokesperson, told reporters in the capital, Juba.
The warring parties in Libya have begun around of negotiations in Geneva, chaired by the United Nations.
The talks have brought together two delegations of military officials.
One represents the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli, and the other has been sent by the eastern-based commander, General Khalifa Haftar.
In fighting earlier this year the government managed to end a siege of Tripoli, and push the Gen Haftar's forces out of much of western Libya.
It's thought that the talks in Geneva will focus on issues like the release of detainees captured in the fighting, and the dismantling of irregular armed groups.
Video content
The German government is investing heavily in air purifiers to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
Police in Uganda have arrested 25 travellers suspected of presenting forged Covid-19 test certificates.
Some 23 travellers were arrested on Sunday while checking in at Entebbe International airport near the capital, Kampala, while two others were apprehended on arrival.
The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson, Vianney Luggya, said the suspects are being held by aviation police. They will face charges of forgery and uttering of false documents.
Uganda reopened its international borders on 1 October - six months after they were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus.
It now requires departing travellers to present negative test results taken 120 hours before leaving.
Arriving passengers have to present certificates of test results taken within 72 hours before their flight.
The East Africa country has so far confirmed 10,590 coronavirus cases and 97 deaths from about half a million tests carried out.
About eight facilities are accredited to run Covid-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests but they are costly. Some facilities charge as much as $126 (£97) for each test.
More students are resuming face to face learning in Mozambique after the government rolled out a plan for gradual reopening of schools.
University students were the first group to report back when restrictions were eased on 1 October.
Mozambican Ministry of Education and Human Development spokesperson, Feliciano Mahalambe, said 300,000 Grade 10 students in more than 800 schools across the country will return to schools on Monday.
Mr Mahalambe said since 1 October when Grade 12 students resumed classes, no cases of new Covid-19 had been recorded.
He said the authorities will give the go-ahead for learning to resume for all students once they are satisfied that school administrators have put in place measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Police in Nigeria say that its facilities in the southern city of Benin in Edo state have been attacked by "people posing as #EndSars protesters", referring to the demonstrations against police brutality that have been going on for almost two weeks.
The "protesters" took arms and ammunition from the armoury and freed suspects being held, police said in a statement posted on Twitter.
It added that some that some of the facilities had been set on fire:
The statement also said that everything was being done to bring the situation under control.
The authorities in the southern Edo state have imposed a 24-hour curfew saying that "hoodlums" had taken advantage of the #EndSars protests.
"We are close to a tsunami": that was the stark warning on the gravity of the situation in Belgium, from health minister Frank Vandenbroucke.
He told reporters that a “tsunami” would be a scenario where “we no longer control what is happening". The health pressures in Brussels and the southern French-speaking Wallonia region were “the most dangerous in all of Europe”, he said.
Belgium is now recording on average almost 8,000 cases a day. Most are in Brussels and Liège. That figure is four times higher than the daily average only two weeks ago.
In the past three days, more than 10,000 daily cases were recorded.
The death rate is also slowly rising again, at around 30 per day. But that is still 10 times less than at the peak of the first wave, when Belgium had the world’s highest coronavirus death rate per capita.
There is concern over medical staff and their ability to cope with an influx of cases. Several hospitals in Brussels and Liège have started sending patients elsewhere to avoid saturation. In some cases hospitals in Aalst and Charleroi refused to accept new Covid patients. The mayor of Aalst, Christophe D’Haese, said “the limits of medical solidarity" had been reached.
Doctors' surgeries are also feeling the strain. On Friday, I called my GP for a check-up and was told to avoid coming in because the chance of contracting coronavirus was too high. The doctor said the place was “an aquarium of Covid cases”. Authorities here blame the spread on “pandemic fatigue” - people becoming complacent and no longer observing social distancing rules.
Video content
The country’s biggest female pop star Aryana Sayeed is fighting taboos against women who want to sing.
The Sudanese authorities say they're ready to cooperate with the International Criminal Court over charges faced by the former President, Omar al-Bashir, and other ex-officials.
A delegation led by the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is currently in Sudan, investigating the conflict in Darfur in the early 2000s.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said his government was committed to achieving justice.
Bashir has been charged by the ICC with genocide and crimes against humanity.
He's currently in detention in Khartoum convicted of corruption and facing further charges related to the coup that brought him to power in 1989.
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