Passenger bus crash in northeastern Brazil kills 17
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Georgia's public ombudsman accused police on Tuesday of inflicting torture on people arrested during six days of big street protests against the government's decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.
Levan Ioseliani, whose role is to defend citizens' rights, said he and his officials had met people subjected to "the harshest treatment" by police.
"In most cases, they have received serious injuries in the face, eye and head area, which practically excludes even the possibility that the police used the necessary, proportional force against them every time," he said in a statement.
"The location, character, and degree of the injuries create a credible impression that the police use violent methods against citizens in order to punish them. Intentional, severe violence for the purpose of punishment constitutes an act of torture."
Reuters requested comment from the government and the ruling Georgian Dream party but none was immediately available.
The United States has previously condemned the use of "excessive force" against protesters. But Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has repeatedly praised the police for their response, saying they have shown greater professionalism than their counterparts in Europe and the U.S.
The country of 3.7 million people has been gripped by crisis since last Thursday, when Georgian Dream announced it was halting the EU talks and renouncing any funding from the bloc until 2028.
Georgia has been one of the former Soviet Union's most pro-Western successor states, but critics accuse the government of abandoning that course and steering it closer towards Russia. The crisis is being closely watched in Moscow, Brussels and Washington.
Demonstrators gathered on Tuesday evening for a sixth successive night of protests, with no end in sight to the standoff.
In a setback for critics of the government, Georgia's constitutional court on Tuesday declined to hear a lawsuit seeking to annul the results of an Oct. 26 parliamentary election. It was officially won by Georgian Dream with almost 54% of the vote but the opposition says it was tainted by fraud.
Prime minister Kobakhidze accused the demonstrators of trying to organise a repeat of the 2014 "Maidan" revolution that ousted a pro-Russian president in Ukraine, but said it was "already over". He said the organisers had tried to grab power and would be brought to justice.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of the ruling party who backs the protests, told Reuters this week that there was no attempted revolution, and the protests' sole demand was to re-run the election.
The crisis follows months of tensions and a souring of Georgia's relations with the West as the ruling party has pushed through laws that critics say are draconian and Russian-inspired. The government says they are necessary to defend the country's sovereignty.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
A shooting in Nice, southeastern France, left two people dead and five injured on Friday, authorities said.
On Friday, a delegation from the Turkish National Defence Ministry paid an official visit to Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Africa’s trade corridors are opening up major opportunities for investors, serving as strategic routes that unite investment, human resources, expertise, and digital transformation across the continent.
A new multimodal transport corridor linking China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has officially opened, marking the completion of the long-planned China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway project, which began construction on 27 December 2024.
AnewZ has joined ENEX, an international alliance of television broadcasters and media companies that connects newsrooms across more than fifty countries.
Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has passed a sweeping legislative package that restricts political rights and sharply increases penalties for public protests, in a move drawing widespread concern from opposition parties, civil society, and international observers.
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