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Boko Haram Islamists killed five Cameroonian soldiers and a civilian in an attack in the far north of the country, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

The attack took place on Monday night near the border with Nigeria, where operations by the Islamist group have been on the rise.

Three soldiers and one civilian were also wounded in the attack, the statement read on state radio said.

A group “of heavily armed terrorists of the Boko Haram sect, aboard several light tactical vehicles, attacked the command post … near Zigue,” a few kilometers from the border with Nigeria, the statement said.

Some militants were also killed, the statement added, without elaborating.

“Troops remain on high alert throughout the far north and across the border to prevent further attacks,” it said. The group appears to have “regained strength following internal restructuring,” it added.

Members of Boko Haram and a splinter group, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), have been mounting increasingly deadly attacks against security forces and civilians in the far north of Cameroon, as well as in neighboring Nigeria, Niger and Chad.

They frequently abduct civilians, especially women and children.

Boko Haram fighters killed eight Cameroonian soldiers on Saturday in Sagme, a few dozen kilometers from the border with Nigeria.

Their insurgency began in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria before spreading through the region.

Since then, more than 36,000 people — mainly in Nigeria — have been killed, and three million forced to flee their homes, according to U.N. estimates.

In 2016, the group split into two branches: the faction led by its long-time leader, Abubakar Shekau, and ISWAP, affiliated with the Islamic State group.

Boko Haram confirmed in mid-June that Shekau had been killed in fighting with ISWAP.
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Tunisian troops blocked the head of parliament from entering the building early Monday, hours after President Kais Saied announced he had fired Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended parliament for 30 days.  

Saied, a political independent, said he was acting in response to the country’s economic woes and political deadlock and added that the country’s constitution gave him that authority.  

The move follows weeks of political turbulence in the country – fueled in part by public anger over the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Rached Ghannouchi, the parliament speaker and head of the dominant Ennahdha party, called the president’s actions a “coup” and said the legislature would continue its work.  

Two other main parties in parliament also called it a coup, which the president rejected.  

A U.S. State Department spokesman said that the United States is closely monitoring the developments and that any solution to Tunisia’s political and economic troubles should be based on the country’s constitution.  

“Tunisia must not squander its democratic gains,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Monday. 

U.S. Representatives Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Ted Deutch, chairman of the Subcommittee on Middle East, North Africa and Global Counterterrorism, said they were “seriously concerned” by the events in Tunisia.  

“We call on all parties to respect and adhere to the rule of law,” they said in a statement Monday. 

Saied’s announcement drew crowds of demonstrators into the streets of the capital, Tunis, and elsewhere to celebrate, reflecting people’s anger at parliament to address the country’s problems. 

There were also protesters outside the parliament building who were against the president’s actions, and clashes took place between the opposing groups.  

Tunisian authorities shut down a live broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV, alleging that its correspondent appeared to encourage the small crowd of protesters to chant against the government. The broadcaster reported that its office in the Tunisian capital was sealed shut and that journalists were not being allowed to enter.  

Tunisia has struggled economically for years, and along with political challenges, it has dealt with a spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths.  

Political analyst Amin Mustafa told VOA that “most Tunisians have been badly hurt by the ongoing economic crisis and high unemployment, so the issue of suspending parliament is not likely to arouse a strong negative reaction.”  

The influential Tunisian Federation of Labor declared Monday that it considers “all measures taken by the president to be legal.”  

Edward Yeranian in Cairo contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, AFP and Reuters. 
 
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According to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, their docking module Pirs was detached from the International Space Station on Monday, July 26. The module was used by Russian spacecraft and cosmonauts making spacewalks at the ISS since 2001. Pirs, attached to a Russian cargo spacecraft, pulled to a safe distance from the space station and with a controlled deorbit was sent burning up through the atmosphere. A new Multipurpose Laboratory Module will soon replace Pirs at the ISS.
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Pakistan said Monday dozens of Afghan border forces, including several officers, took refuge on the Pakistani side after being unable to hold their military posts apparently in the wake of advances by Taliban insurgents inside Afghanistan.
 
Stepped up Taliban attacks in recent weeks have forced hundreds of pro-Afghan government forces to escape to Tajikistan, Iran, China and Pakistan, enabling the insurgents to seize landlocked Afghanistan’s strategic border crossings with these neighbors.
 
The Pakistani military said in a statement Monday that a local Afghan army commander at the border crossing in the northwestern town of Chitral late Sunday “requested…for refuge and safe passage for 46 soldiers and police, including five officers…due to [the] evolving security situation in Afghanistan.”
 
The Afghan personnel “have been provided food, shelter and necessary medical care as per established military norms” and they will be repatriated to the Kabul government after due process, the statement added.
 
The Pakistani army noted that in early July it had also given “refuge/safe passage” to a group of 35 Afghan border forces under similar circumstances before they were handed over to Kabul.
 
There was no immediate response from Afghan officials.  
 
Reports said the soldiers were stationed in the eastern Afghan border province of Kunar, the scene of heavy fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
 
The insurgents have stepped up attacks against Afghan security forces and captured vast territory since early May, when the United States and NATO allies officially began pulling their last remaining troops from Afghanistan.
 
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, traditionally plagued by suspicion and deep mistrust, deteriorated after the Taliban captured the town of Spin Boldak earlier this month, which serves a major trade route between the two countries.
 
There are several border crossings between the two countries, which share a 2,600-kilometer historically open border.
 
Kabul has consistently accused Islamabad of allowing the Taliban to use sanctuaries on Pakistani soil to direct attacks inside Afghanistan.
 
Pakistan rejects the accusations and says it has over the past five years unilaterally constructed a robust fence and hundreds of new forts along most of the Afghan frontier, effectively preventing illegal movements in either direction.
 
Islamabad also accuses Kabul of providing shelter to anti-Pakistan militants to orchestrate cross-border terrorist attacks, charges Afghan authorities deny.
 
Bilateral relations between the two countries hit a new low earlier in the month when the Afghan government recalled all its diplomatic staff from Pakistan over the brief kidnapping of the daughter of the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad.
 
The Pakistani interior minister said last week, while addressing a news conference, that investigators have not found any evidence substantiating Kabul’s claims their ambassador’s daughter was kidnapped. The minister, however, called for the investigation to formally conclude in line with local laws and for close cooperation between the two countries to continue.
 
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With Europe’s rise in coronavirus infections accelerating, more governments are seeking ways to force the unvaccinated, mainly in their twenties and thirties, to get inoculated, and avoid a return to lockdowns.

Italy and Britain have followed France’s lead in planning or imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated.  The moves prompted street protests in both countries Sunday and Saturday. Several British Conservative lawmakers are threatening to boycott their party’s annual conference later this year because of vaccination requirements for attendees.

Initial evidence, however, suggests compulsion is working. Within 24 hours of Italy announcing that from next month entry to sports stadiums, museums, cinemas, swimming pools and gyms will only be permitted for people who’ve been inoculated, appointments for vaccinations soared in some regions by 200%, say authorities in Rome.

France saw a similar spike in vaccine bookings after it announced that certification — in other words a digital vaccine passport — would be needed to enter many venues.

The Italian government has prolonged its state of emergency to December 31 but is desperately trying to avoid lockdowns or reintroducing tighter restrictions for regions seeing spikes in confirmed cases, such as Lazio, Sicily, Veneto and Sardinia. Prime Minister Mario Draghi told reporters last week, “The health pass is an instrument to allow Italians to continue their activities with the guarantee of not being among contagious people.”

“No vaccines means new lockdowns,” he added.

Draghi had intended for the measure to go further and wanted to include vaccination requirements for counter service in bars and for traveling on long-distance trains, but had to weaken the measure in the face of resistance from Matteo Salvini and his Lega party, who threatened to block the restrictions in parliament.

Salvini was belatedly was inoculated Friday. The populist nationalist leader spoke out last week against compelling or seeking to coerce people to get the jab.

“I’m interested in not ruining the lives of millions of Italians who are not yet covered by the vaccine,” he said.  “Many cannot do it, for health reasons. Complicating the lives of these people with the obligation of the Green pass? Let’s not joke. We can’t stop in mid-July, a tourist season that is painstakingly restarting.”  By Green pass, he was referring to vaccine passports.

That earned a sharp rebuke from Draghi, who shot back at a press conference, “The appeal to the No Vax is an invitation to die.”

Thousands of Italians disagree with their prime minister and Saturday took to the streets in dozens of towns across the country to protest the new measure, which comes into effect August 6.

“Better to die free than live like slaves!” read a banner waved outside Milan’s cathedral, while another in Rome was captioned, “Vaccines set you free” over a picture of the gates to Auschwitz, according to AFP reports.

An estimated 160,000 people protested nationwide in France Saturday against making health passports a key tool in the bid to curb infections.  Dozens of people were arrested, according to French police. Twenty-nine policemen were injured.

The protests came hours before lawmakers hammered out a compromise deal between members of the National Assembly and Senate and approved a measure that requires proof of a double vaccination, recent recovery from the virus or a negative test for entry into entertainment venues. Proposed criminal sanctions for businesses that don’t check health passports were removed from the measure that passed.

Under the terms, employees of establishments that require a health pass cannot be dismissed if they refuse to be vaccinated or undergo regular testing, but will be required to take annual leave and thereafter unpaid leave.

“Nice evening for democracy, bad for the virus,” tweeted health minister Olivier Véran.

French President Emmanuel Macron, responding to accusations by vaccine opponents that he is trampling on individual liberty, said, “Everyone is free to express themselves calmly with respect for one another. But freedom where I owe nothing to someone else does not exist.”

French health authorities reported nearly 23,000 new confirmed cases Saturday, mainly of the high contagious delta variant.

Despite the raucous protests, the signs both in Italy and France are that tougher vaccination-related restrictions have public backing, with recent opinion polls in Italy and France suggesting support ranges from between 65% and 70%. 

Since Macron announced his plans for health pass rules two weeks ago, six million people in France have signed up for vaccinations.

In Britain, too, there is pushback to new proposed rules from an alliance of anti-vaxxers and libertarians on both the left and right of the political spectrum. After weeks of rejecting the idea of a regime of vaccine passports, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been urging young people to get vaccinated, turned to the stick, too. Come September, vaccine passports will be needed to enter nightclubs and sports stadiums.

The tougher line came as the government’s own private polling suggested young people were far less likely to take up the offer of vaccinations than their older counterparts, government officials told VOA. Public polling by YouGov, a British pollster, has shown the same thing. According to a recent YouGov survey, people aged 16 to 34 are twice as likely to refuse the jab as those between the ages of 55 and 75.

Part of the reason for the schism is that the young feel they are at a much-reduced risk from the virus, say the government’s scientific advisers, and they are more susceptible to vaccine-conspiracy theories via social media, they add.

In Britain and other European countries, governments are being unnerved by the sluggish take-up of the jabs as a delta-driven pandemic picks up steam. In Greece, around 44% of the population is fully vaccinated. Greece’s government has announced mandatory vaccinations for health workers and other staff at hospitals and clinics. 

But the government is encountering fierce resistance from some senior Greek Orthodox clerics, despite the support for the government from Archbishop Ieronymos, the church’s primate, who last year spent several days in intensive care after contracting the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.

Earlier this month, the Greek health minister, Vasilis Kikilias, met with the Synod, the church’s governing body, in an effort to persuade officials to back the vaccination campaign. The Synod, though, would only support the “free choice of vaccination as the exclusive and scientifically tested solution to stop the spread of the virus.” It added that prayer and “participation in worship” were also important and refrained from rebuking anti-vax clerics.

Germany, too, is now considering imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated, after weeks of German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying she disapproved of the idea. The change of heart coincides with warnings from disease modelers that cases are likely to increase by more than 60% per week.

“Vaccinated people will definitely have more freedoms than unvaccinated people,” Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, said in a broadcast interview Sunday. 

But there’s fierce debate within the ruling Christian Democratic Party about the tougher retractions on the unvaccinated with the party’s candidate to succeed Merkel in September elections, Armin Laschet, opposing efforts to compel people. “I do not believe in compulsory vaccination, and I do not believe in indirectly putting pressure on people to get vaccinated,” he told ZDF television Sunday.
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