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Zimbabwean women inspect what remains of their stalls at a market in Harare on Tuesday. Residents damaged  the market during protests over fuel-price increases.
Zimbabwean women inspect what remains of their stalls at a market in Harare on Tuesday. Residents damaged the market during protests over fuel-price increases.

Fuel-price protests deadly in Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwe's police and military patrolled the streets of the capital, Harare, as a helicopter fired tear gas at demonstrators blocking a road and burning tires Tuesday on the second day of deadly protests after the government more than doubled the price of fuel in the economically shattered country.

Eight people were killed Monday when the police and military fired on crowds, according to Amnesty International. But Zimbabwe's government said that three people were killed, including a policeman who was stoned by an angry crowd, according to Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa.

The anti-government demonstrations amounted to "terrorism," said Mutsvangwa on state television Tuesday night. The protests were "well coordinated" by Zimbabwe's opposition, she said. She urged people to return to work and said the government forces would guarantee their security. She also said the government intends to pay an allowance to government workers to cushion them from the effects of the fuel price rise.

Police and soldiers went door to door and barged into homes in Mabvuku and other Harare suburbs and assaulted people, according to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and witnesses. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change party said its headquarters was attacked.

The government over the weekend announced a price of $3.11 per liter, about a quarter of a gallon, for diesel, and $3.33 per liter for gasoline.

Pakistanis say 2 wanted militants killed

MULTAN, Pakistan -- Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in the country's east before dawn Tuesday, killing two members of the Islamic State group linked to the 2011 al-Qaida abduction of American development worker Warren Weinstein, a senior counterterrorism official said.

Weinstein, who was taken from the city of Lahore, was accidentally killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2015 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In a statement, Rai Tahir of the Punjab counterterrorism department identified the two militants as Adeel Hafeez and Usman Haroon. He said both were killed in an intense shootout in the raid in Faisalabad in Punjab province.

Tahir claimed that both militants also played a role in the 2013 abduction of former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's son, Ali Haider, who was rescued in Afghanistan by U.S. forces in 2016.

Many former al-Qaida militants are thought to have joined the regional Islamic State affiliate, which emerged a few years ago, around the time the group was at the height of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State has since lost nearly all the territory it once controlled in the two Mideast countries.

As envoy arrives, Taliban threaten talks

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban issued a statement Tuesday threatening to end contact with the U.S. even as Washington's peace envoy makes another round of talks in the region in pursuit of a negotiated end to Afghanistan's conflict before President Donald Trump makes good on his 2016 campaign promise to end America's involvement.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Zalmay Khalilzad had arrived in Kabul after visits to India, the United Arab Emirates and China. Khalilzad was to meet President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and other political leaders to discuss the next steps in U.S. efforts to get an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process started.

The Taliban have refused repeatedly to meet directly with representatives of the Kabul government. According to the insurgent statement, the U.S. agreed in meetings in November on a two-point agenda: Withdrawal of foreign troops and guarantees that Afghanistan would not again be used as it was by al-Qaida to plot attacks on other countries.

The statement accused Washington of seeking to expand the agenda, presumably a reference to a U.S. demand that the Taliban hold direct talks with the Afghan government.

Russia puts longer hold on 8 Ukrainians

MOSCOW -- A Moscow court has extended the detention of eight Ukrainian seamen who were among 24 captured by Russian coast guard vessels in the Black Sea.

Three Ukrainian vessels and their crews were fired at and seized by the Russians in November. Russia insists the men should be put on trial for violating its border. Ukraine calls them prisoners of war who were illegally captured.

A Moscow district court on Tuesday ruled that eight of the 24 Ukrainian sailors, including the captain of one of the vessels, should be kept in custody until late April.

The confrontation on the Black Sea triggered a showdown between Russia and Ukraine in the simmering conflict over Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Russia seized Crimea in a move that Ukraine and most of the world views as illegal.

In the Ukrainian city of Odessa, about 50 demonstrators protesting the sailors' detention gathered outside the Russian Consulate. Police detained two demonstrators.

photo

AP/PAVEL GOLOVKIN

Russian intelligence agency officers escort Ukrainian sailors to a courtroom in Moscow on Tuesday.

A Section on 01/16/2019

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