The prosecutor said the death toll was preliminary and that an investigation has been opened

International News via Reuters:

At least 22 people were killed and 16 others injured overnight when two adjacent buildings collapsed in Fez, one of Morocco’s oldest cities, the prosecutor said on Wednesday.One building was unoccupied, while the second was hosting an Aqiqah, a traditional Muslim celebration marking the birth of a child, the Fez prosecutor said in a statement.

The prosecutor said the death toll was preliminary and that an investigation has been opened.

Eight families lived in the building where the celebration was taking place, they said.

BUILDINGS HAD SHOWN CRACKS 

A survivor, who lost his wife and three children, told local Medi1 TV early that rescuers had been able to retrieve one body, but he was still waiting for the others.

State-owned broadcaster SNRT News footage showed rescue workers and residents digging through the rubble.

“My son who lives upstairs told me the building is coming down. When we went out, we saw the building collapsing,” an old woman wrapped in a blanket told SNRT News, without giving her name.

SNRT News reported witnesses at the scene as saying the buildings in the Al-Mustaqbal neighborhood, a densely populated area in the west of the city, had shown signs of cracking for some time.

Besides the judicial probe, a technical and administrative investigation has also been launched to determine what caused the four-storey buildings to collapse, local authorities said in a statement.

The buildings were erected in 2006 as part of a government scheme under which residents of shantytowns in the city build their own homes on allocated plots.

WORST BUILDING COLLAPSE IN 15 YEARS

Fez, a former capital dating back to the eighth century and the country’s third-most-populous city, was among cities caught up in a wave of anti-government protests two months ago over deteriorating living conditions and poor public services.

Adib Ben Ibrahim, housing secretary of state, said in January that approximately 38,800 buildings across the country had been classified as being at risk of collapse.

Wednesday’s collapse is one of the worst in Morocco since the fall of a minaret in the historic northern city of Meknes, which killed 41 people in 2010.

YOUTHS ANGRY AT LACK OF SERVICES, POVERTY

Most of Morocco’s population, financial and industrial hubs and vital infrastructure are concentrated in the northwest, with the rest of the country reliant on farming, fisheries and tourism.

   In October, youth-led unrest revealed deep-seated anger over poverty and public services as the government pushes on with ambitious infrastructure projects and the opening of modern stadiums ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

Fez, one of the cities to host the World Cup and this month’s African Cup of Nations soccer tournament, has some of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Reporting by Ahmed Elimam and Nayera Abdallah in Dubai, and Ahmed El Jechtimi in Rabat, Writing by Michael Georgy and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Alison Williams

The Venezuelan opposition leader said that the prize held profound significance, not only for her country but for the world

International News via Reuters:

Democracies must be prepared to fight for freedom in order to survive, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said on Wednesday, in a speech delivered by her daughter during a ceremony Machado could not attend.

The Venezuelan opposition leader said that the prize held profound significance, not only for her country but for the world.

“It reminds the world that democracy is essential to peace,” she said via her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, whose voice cracked when she spoke of her mother. “And more than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have a democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom.”

MACHADO COULD NOT REACH OSLO IN TIME

A large portrait of a smiling Machado hung in the Oslo City Hall to represent her. The audience cheered and clapped when Norwegian Nobel Committee head Joergen Watne Frydnes said during his speech that Machado would be coming to Oslo.

Evoking previous laureates Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, he said fighters for democracy were expected “to pursue their aims with a moral purity their opponents never display”.

“This is unrealistic. It is unfair,” he said.

“No democracy operates in ideal circumstances. Activist leaders must confront and resolve dilemmas that we onlookers are free to ignore. People living under the dictatorship often have to choose between the difficult and the impossible.”

The 58-year-old engineer was due to receive the award in Oslo, in the presence of King Harald, in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country and after spending more than a year in hiding.

But she was unable to reach the Norwegian capital in time for the ceremony.

“I will be in Oslo, I am on my way to Oslo right now,” Machado told Frydnes, in an audio recording released by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.

It was unclear where she was calling from.

“We don’t know exactly when she will land, but sometime in the course of the night,” the institute’s director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told Reuters.

Machado left Venezuela by boat on Tuesday and travelled to the Caribbean nation of Curacao, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials. In the audio recording of her call with Frydnes, she said she was boarding a plane. It was unclear from where.

‘A CHOICE THAT MUST BE RENEWED EACH DAY’

“Freedom is a choice that must be renewed each day, measured by our willingness and our courage to defend it. For this reason, the cause of Venezuela transcends our borders,” she said in her prepared speech.

“A people who choose freedom contribute not only to themselves, but to humanity.”

In 2024, Machado was barred from running in the presidential election, despite having won the opposition’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared President Nicolas Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

‘FRAGILE’ DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

In her speech, Machado said Venezuelans did not realise in time that their country was sliding into what she described as a dictatorship.

Referring to the late president Hugo Chavez, who was elected in 1999 and held power until his death in 2013, Machado said: “By the time we recognised how fragile our institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow democracy, was elected president. Many thought that charisma could substitute the rule of law.”

“From 1999 onward, the regime dismantled our democracy.”

President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, says U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to overthrow him to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and that Venezuelan citizens and armed forces will resist any such attempt.

Venezuela’s armed forces are planning to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a U.S. air or ground attack, according to sources with knowledge of the efforts and planning documents seen by Reuters.

DEDICATED TO TRUMP

When Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, she dedicated it in part to Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

She has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, despite doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence community.

The Trump administration has ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off Latin America’s Pacific coast.

Human rights groups, some Democrats and several Latin American countries have condemned the attacks as unlawful extrajudicial killings of civilians.

Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Terje Solsvik, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little

Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest have long trained men and women to identify a variety of threats to their mineral-rich and verdant lands and to keep outsiders from invading their communities

International News via Reuters:

About 200 members of Indigenous groups from Ecuador, Colombia and Peru gathered early this month in Ecuador’s Amazonian community of Sinangoe, wedged along the border with neighboring Colombia, to collectively strategize how to defend their ancestral lands. To mark the occasion, they drank sap from the ancestral yoco plant, and cleansed their energies with tobacco and nettle leaves. 

Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest have long trained men and women to identify a variety of threats to their mineral-rich and verdant lands and to keep outsiders from invading their communities.

In recent years, emerging threats to their ancestral Indigenous territories have fueled a greater need for the self-defense forces known as the Indigenous Guard, its members say, as they confront illegal mining and logging, drug trafficking, armed groups, forced gang recruitment and extortion.

In Sinangoe, the Indigenous Guard in the A’i Cofan community has been fighting large-scale mining since 2017 in an effort to preserve the Aguarico River, the primary source of food for the families living on its riverbanks.

The pacifist group focuses on monitoring and patrolling, avoiding conflict and occasionally requesting support from armed forces when they encounter situations they cannot manage themselves, said Holger Quenama, coordinator of the A’i Cofan community’s Indigenous Guard.

Their work has paid off but needs daily effort, Quenama said.

“The Sinangoe guard always carries our staff, which is our strength,” Quenama said. “We are working with the entire community, but there are Indigenous groups that are more vigilant and active in patrolling the entire territory.”

In Peru, the Regional Organization of Indigenous Guards of Shipibo-Konibo has been successful in tackling illegal fishing and territory invasions, said Kelly Valera Silva, president of the group.

“Indigenous peoples are not against concession agreements, but they must recognize that they are within our territory,” she said.

Peru alone is home to about 300 Indigenous Guards spread across 24 Amazonian communities of the Shipibo Konibo people.

Reporting by Karen Toro in Sinangoe; Writing by Alexandra Valencia; Editing by Lincoln Feast.

In the hours leading up to the ban’s midnight start (1300 GMT on Tuesday), a flurry of goodbye messages came from teenagers – as well as adults – on platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Reddit

International News via Reuters:

Australian teenagers have taken to social media for the last time to farewell their followers and mourn the loss of the platforms that shaped much of their lives before a world-first ban took effect on Wednesday.

In the hours leading up to the ban’s midnight start (1300 GMT on Tuesday), a flurry of goodbye messages came from teenagers – as well as adults – on platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Reddit.

“I’ll miss you guys,” posted 29-year-old Melbourne creator Josh Partington, who makes comedy sketches about Australian life for more than 75,000 TikTok followers.

Australia has ordered 10 major platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook to block around one million users under the age of 16 or face massive fines.

Some 200,000 accounts have already been deactivated on TikTok alone, the government said, with “hundreds of thousands” to be blocked in the coming days.

Young Australians, who have grown up using social media, faced the prospect of losing access to their favourite apps with a mix of sadness, humour and disbelief. 

“I’m going to miss you soo much and especially the funny content,” one TikTok user wrote to their followers. “See you in a few years, but I don’t know if my account will still be standing.”

“Goodbye, see you on the other side,” another said.

There were edits posted of users’ favourite memes, while many urged their followers to join alternative platforms such as Yope, Lemon8 and Coverstar, which are not yet covered by the law.

On Reddit, users posted their goodbye notes to subreddits such as r/teenagers.

“As an autistic 13-year-old I am devastated,” one popular post said.

“My playlist of 1,400+ songs on YouTube will be deleted and Reddit too, I have zero friends … I will be completely alone for the next three years until I am 16.”

Some stayed online until midnight on Tuesday, posting clips of clocks counting down set to Adele’s “Skyfall” and its lyrics, “this is the end.” 

Others took their frustration out on centre-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has lost 6,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram since Tuesday. 

“Just wait until we’re able to vote,” one person commented on Albanese’s TikTok account.

Not all teenagers were against the ban. “Ngl (not going to lie), social media ban is probably for the best of us,” a TikTok user said. “All we do is sit behind a screen for hours.”

Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Praveen Menon and Lincoln Feast.