Count begins in first election since coup

Fiji: Voters went to the polls yesterday in an election likely to rubber-stamp victory for coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama who has ruled since seizing control in a 2006 coup.

Early counting gave his Fiji First party 59.6 per cent of the vote with 1,000 of the 2,025 polling stations processed. Its closest rival had 27.6 per cent.

Asked whether he would accept the outcome if he lost, Mr Bainimarama said: “Of course. That is what the democratic process is all about.”

Sobibor camp gas chamber located

Poland: Researchers announced yesterday that they have discovered the exact location of the building that housed gas chambers at the Sobibor death camp.

German troops dismantled the camp, where 250,000 Jews were exterminated, following a prisoner revolt in October 1943, leaving little evidence behind. However, photos released by Yad Vashem and Majdanek State Museum show the remains of a brick building which they say housed the gas chambers.

Militants arrested in police swoop

Kosovo: Police announced the arrest of 15 unnamed people suspected of links with radical Islamists yesterday, including Muslim clerics and a politician.

They said that the detainees pose a threat to Kosovo’s “national security” in light of material seized at their homes.

Forty people were arrested last month in a major operation targeting radicals suspected of fighting in Iraq and Syria alongside the Islamic State (Isis) group.

Soldier kidnapped by Syria militants  

Lebanon: Suspected Islamist militants crossed the border from Syria yesterday to kidnap soldier Kamal al-Hujairi who was visiting his parents’ farm on the outskirts of the town of Arsal.

Beirut’s National News Agency said that the militants had also stolen several cows from the farm.

Both the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra groups have seized and held Lebanese citizens, but this is the first since August 2.

Military kill 40 Taliban fighters

Pakistan: Military sources yesterday claimed to have killed 40 Taliban fighters in Northern Waziristan as the result of “precise” air strikes.

The strikes targeted five militant hideouts in the Taliban stronghold of Datta Khel, destroying ammunition depots.

The military estimates that it has killed more than 1,000 local and foreign jihadis since it launched its current offensive in North Waziristan on June 15.

New minister wants abduction answers

Japan: Newly appointed Abductions Minister Eriko Yamatani appealed to North Korea yesterday to release the results of a new investigation into Japanese people abducted by Pyongyang in the 1970s and ’80s.

She said that North Korea hadn’t informed Japan of the timing or other details of its expected announcement.

North Korea agreed in May to conduct a new probe into the abductions, which it admitted in 2002.

Taliban ambush kills six officers

Afghanistan: Herat provincial police spokesman Raouf Ahmadi admitted the loss of six police officers yesterday following a Taliban ambush.

He said that six other police officers had been wounded in the assault, in which eight Taliban fighters were also killed.

The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 1,500 police have lost their lives in Taliban attacks over the last six months.

France arrests five to stop Isis recruits

France: Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve yesterday said that five people have been arrested on suspicion of belonging to a ring that recruits young women to join Islamic State (Isis) militants in Syria.

The arrests were made in the Lyon area.

Young French people make up the largest contingent of the estimated 2,000 European jihadis fighting in Iraq and Syria.