Burkina Faso: the junta says it has foiled a coup attempt. The transitional government said Wednesday evening that several suspects were arrested during a mutiny that took place on Tuesday. That day, thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Ouagadougou to call for support for the leader in power, Captain Traoré, to “defend” him in the face of rumors of a putsch that were stirring social networks. Officers and others planned to destabilize the country with “the dark intention of attacking the institutions of the Republic and plunging the country into chaos,” the junta said in a statement. This alleged putsch attempt comes “less than a week before the coup d’état of September 30, 2022 which brought IB to power”, notes the Burkinabe daily Today in Faso. In December, the military prosecutor’s office had already denounced an attempt to destabilize the regime and announced arrests of soldiers.
The United States recovers soldier Travis King, released by Pyongyang. The American soldier, expelled on Wednesday by North Korea after illegally entering the country from the South in July, is “on his way to the United States” after passing through the American air base in Osan, South Korea , said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. The United States had, at least publicly, not heard from him since the summer. Once in the United States, Travis King will join a US army medical center in Texas, according to another US official, but Washington has refused to discuss possible prosecutions against the soldier for the moment. “The release of King represents a rare diplomatic success in relations between the United States and North Korea,” notes CNN, while recent exchanges between the two countries have been particularly tense. Questioned on Wednesday by the press, an American official affirmed that Washington had made no concessions to Pyongyang to obtain this transfer, notes the American channel.
London authorizes controversial oil field. The United Kingdom on Wednesday gave the green light to one of its largest oil and gas projects in years, the Rosebank field of the energy group Equinor, in the North Sea, posing energy security as a priority despite opposition from the ecologists. The announcement comes as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week presented a review of the UK’s climate commitments. “This cynical disregard for British environmental responsibility will force future governments of the country to pick up the pieces,” the Guardian is outraged in an editorial, judging Rishi Sunak’s decision “profoundly irresponsible”.
Washington exempts Israelis from visas. The United States justified this decision on Wednesday by saying it was satisfied with the efforts of the Jewish state to facilitate the travel of Palestinian-Americans. By the end of November, Israeli citizens wishing to travel to the United States for short stays will be able to do so without a visa. Conversely, Israel is committed to ensuring that all United States nationals traveling with a valid American passport will be recognized as such and will receive equal treatment without distinction of race, religion or origin. “Palestinian Americans and Americans of Arab and Muslim origin have long faced discrimination from Israeli authorities when traveling to and from the Jewish state,” recalls the Times of Israel. “Palestinians are largely barred from using Ben Gurion Airport and are forced to fly in and out” through Jordan, which “makes the journey longer and more expensive.”
This article is originally published on courrierinternational.com
