- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
- McIlroy eyes Wentworth glory after Irish Open collapse
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ |
Guinea-Bissau president says 'all well' after 'coup attempt'
Sustained gunfire was heard on Tuesday near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state of Guinea-Bissau, AFP reporters said, in what the African Union and a regional bloc called an "attempted coup".
Heavily-armed men surrounded the Palace of Government, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to have gone to attend a cabinet meeting.
People were seen fleeing the area on the edge of the capital Bissau, near the airport.
Local markets were closed and banks shut their doors, while military vehicles laden with troops drove through the streets.
But the president later told AFP in brief telephone call: "All is well" and added that the situation is "under control".
The cabinet announced Embalo would speak to the nation from the government palace on Tuesday evening and invited reporters to attend the speech there.
According to various accounts, in the early afternoon armed men were seen entering the government palace which houses different ministries.
Some witnesses described the gunmen as military, others as civilians.
Gunfire followed for a large part of the afternoon when the complex was surrounded.
An AFP reporter was warned to leave the area by a man carrying a gun who took aim at him.
The former Portuguese colony is an impoverished coastal state of around two million people lying south of Senegal.
It has seen four military putsches since gaining independence in 1974, most recently in 2012.
In 2014, the country vowed to return to constitutional government, but it has enjoyed little stability since then and the armed forces wield substantial clout.
A 36-year-old Frenchwoman living in Bissau, Kadeejah Diop, said she rushed to pick up her two children from school and witnessed armed troops entering the government complex.
"They made all the female workers leave. There was huge panic," she told AFP by phone from her home. "Right now, we are holed up indoors. We have no news."
Troops set up a security perimeter around the palace and kept people away.
A journalist, asking not to be named, reported that at the start of the afternoon the public television centre had been occupied by soldiers who refused to let staff leave. It was not clear if they were part of the coup bid or government loyalists.
African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed deep concern over the "attempted coup".
An AU statement said he was following "with deep concern the situation in Guinea Bissau, marked by the attempted coup d'etat against the government".
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)also issued a statement saying it "condemns this attempted coup" and urged soldiers to "return to their barracks".
The bloc warned that it "holds the military responsible for the well-being" of the president and governent members.
The United Nations said Secretary General Antonio Guterres was "deeply concerned with the news of heavy fighting in Bissau"
He called for "an immediate end to the fighting and for full respect of the country’s democratic institutions," the UN's statement said.
- Election turmoil -
Embalo, a 49-year-old reserve brigadier general and former prime minister, took office in February 2020 after winning a second-round runoff election that followed four years of political in-fighting under the country's semi-presidential system.
He was a candidate for a party called Madem, comprised of rebels from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) which had led Guinea-Bissau to independence.
His chief opponent, PAIGC candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira, bitterly contested the result but Embalo declared himself president without waiting for the outcome of his petition to the Supreme Court.
Late last year, the armed forces chief said members of the military had been preparing to launch a coup while the president was on a working trip to Brazil.
Troops had been offering bribes to other soldiers "in order to subvert the established constitutional order", armed forces head General Biague Na Ntam said on October 14.
The government spokesman denied his account the following day.
In addition to volatility, Guinea-Bissau struggles with a reputation for corruption and drug smuggling.
Its porous coastline and cultural ties have made it an important stop on the Africa trafficking route. In 2019, nearly two tonnes of cocaine were seized.
The region's mounting instability is due to discussed on Thursday at an ECOWAS summit in Accra, Ghana.
F.Müller--BTB