DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal ‘s president formally launched his own political party Saturday, cementing his rupture with former ally Ousmane Sonko, the head of the ruling Pastef party, and setting up a power struggle during a major debt crisis.

The creation of Bassirou Diomaye Faye ‘s Republican Patriots party makes official a split that had been building for months between the two men. They rose to power together in 2024 under the Pastef banner, an acronym for its French name, Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’Éthique et la Fraternité.

In the weeks leading up to the launch, a growing number of Pastef officials resigned from the party to join Faye’s camp, including several regional leaders and members of its youth wing. Several members of the opposition party Alliance for The Republic have also joined Faye’s movement.

Faye and Sonko’s alliance, forged ahead of the 2024 presidential election, unraveled amid disputes over key policy decisions, including how to approach negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over a loan program amid a severe debt crisis.

Faye dismissed Sonko as prime minister earlier this year, but Sonko’s party retained its large majority in parliament, and he was elected president of the National Assembly soon after.

A new prime minister, Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, was appointed in May, and a new Cabinet was formed the following month without any ministers from Pastef, after Sonko announced his party would not take part in the government.

Faye and Sonko had campaigned together in 2024 on pledges to create jobs for young people, crack down on corruption and win Senegal a bigger share of revenue from its oil, gas and mineral wealth.

But those promises have grown harder to deliver, as Senegal’s debt burden has worsened since they took office, after officials discovered the previous administration had underreported billions of dollars in borrowing.

The formation of Faye’s new party sets up a political showdown between the former allies that is likely to play out in local elections in 2027 and could shape the campaign for the 2029 presidential race.

BERLIN, July 25 (Reuters) – Berlin’s Christopher Street Day Pride parade was called off by the organizer on Saturday after a car crashed into a crowd at the city’s Tiergarten park, leaving several people injured, police said on X.

(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle in Berlin)

July 25 (Reuters) – A spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that Britain would become a “definite and legitimate target” if it supported the U.S. in any war with Tehran, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

The spokesperson said any country, including Britain and Gulf states, that backed the U.S. in a conflict would be considered a legitimate target, adding that U.S. bombers had recently used British airfields.

(Reporting by Enas Alashray; Editing by Paul Simao)

By Luciana Magalhaes

SAO PAULO, July 25 (Reuters) – Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, on Saturday formally launched his bid to challenge President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October’s election, showcasing support from Argentine President Javier Milei, an AI-generated message from his jailed father and a video address from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolsonaro pledged tax cuts and a tougher stance on crime, and stressed his commitment to carrying forward his father’s political legacy.

“Here is Bolsonaro’s blood,” he said in an emotional tone to supporters who waved green and yellow flags. The arena in Sao Paulo where he spoke was nearly full, but not quite.  

Former President Jair Bolsonaro is currently under house arrest for his role in an attempt to overturn the election where Lula defeated him. 

Milei delivered a fiery speech criticizing Lula and declaring that Bolsonaro can “save” Brazil from socialism. The Argentine president flew to Brazil the night before the event and met on Saturday with Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas. 

“We will continue offering our testimony everywhere against the lies of socialism,” Milei said.

Brazil’s presidency did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, Flavio’s stepmother, also appeared via video message to offer her endorsement, in a speech addressed to women voters. The two recently reconciled following a public dispute that played out in videos exchanged on social media.

“Flavio, may God bless and protect your candidacy,” she said in the video message.

In December, the senator secured his father’s endorsement to run in this year’s election. But his campaign lost its early momentum in May, after leaked messages linked him to jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, whom he later acknowledged had financed a film about his father’s political career.

Bolsonaro’s popularity was also dented by the dispute with Michelle Bolsonaro and by his close ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has imposed tariffs on Brazilian goods. 

A Datafolha poll released on Friday showed Lula leading Bolsonaro 48% to 43% in a runoff, up from 47% to 43% in June.

Flavio Bolsonaro has struggled to forge political alliances. Center-right parties have so far decided to stay neutral rather than endorse his candidacy. 

Supporters at the launch event remained optimistic about his prospects.

“Brazil has to change. There were no scandals linked to Flavio Bolsonaro. This is coming from the left,” said Leandro Aguilar, 44, a São Paulo resident who attended the event with his family.

Janete Rubio, 68, appeared highly emotional throughout the gathering, at times crying or else dancing to music while draped in Brazilian and U.S. flags.

“Brazil is very rich, but it is being underestimated. Together, with the strength of the United States and the strength of Trump, we will succeed,” she said.

(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes; Editing by David Gregorio)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Tanzania’s main opposition party on Saturday said 51 of its officials were arrested and charged with terrorism, accusing the government of using law enforcement to intimidate critics.

Chadema deputy chairperson John Heche said the officials were arrested over planned protests this month that failed to materialize because of a heavy police presence.

Tanzanians had planned to take to the streets on July 7, a date that commemorates the formation of the ruling party and is also associated with pro-democracy protests in neighboring Kenya. Protest organizers were calling for democratic reforms following the disputed October general election, in which President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner with 98% of the vote.

Heche said Chadema chairman Tundu Lissu had been denied his basic rights and was facing the same terrorism charges, which are not eligible for bail.

Terrorism charges in Tanzania carry severe penalties, with those convicted facing prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment.

On Thursday, a university lecturer had charges against him upgraded from incitement to terrorism ahead of a scheduled bail hearing on the earlier charges.

“I urge all Tanzanians to unite and speak out against blackmail and intimidation,” Heche said.

Heche said the party’s lawyers would defend all the arrested officials and urged opposition supporters to visit and support their families.

The Tanzanian government has not commented on the latest terrorism charges but has previously denied allegations of political repression.

In June, the government banned all political rallies, citing security concerns, but did not specify how long the ban would remain in force.

During the October election, thousands of people took to the streets on polling day. Reports on the number of deaths vary significantly. The government said 500 people were killed but the opposition said the death toll was in the thousands.

July 25 (Reuters) – Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned on Saturday a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying it resulted in an explosion that killed one sailor and injured another.   

Throughout the war in Ukraine, Kyiv has had to counter Iranian-designed drones deployed by Moscow. Kyiv has offered its drone interception expertise to countries in the Middle East that have suffered strikes from Iran.

Tehran described the attack on its vessel as an act of aggression and said it would defend its national interests and security, while accusing Kyiv of seeking to expand the war in Ukraine. 

The Iranian denunciation coincided with comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kyiv had noted Russia was passing on its satellite observations in the Middle East to Iran to enable it to direct strikes in the region.

Zelenskiy had earlier said that Ukraine’s forces struck a Russian warship and vessels used for transporting Iran-linked military cargo in the Caspian Sea.

The Ukrainian president, in subsequent remarks posted on X, said Kyiv had recorded since the beginning of July “active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and U.S. military facilities located there. These images subsequently appear in Iran.”

“At the same time, there is a clear correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes — both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterward, to assess the damage inflicted,” Zelenskiy said.

He said that on July 19 and 20 alone, Russian satellite observation had included four air bases: two in Bahrain, one in Jordan and one in Kuwait.

(Reporting by Enas Alashray in Cairo; Editing by Ron Popeski, Rod Nickel and Matthew Lewis)

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Canadian woman was arrested and accused of espionage while working as an intern in the operational headquarters of the NATO military alliance, Belgian authorities said Saturday.

Belgium’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office said it launched an espionage investigation after NATO’s security services tipped off Belgium’s military intelligence. Authorities then detained “a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin” on Friday, a day after raiding the suspect’s home and workplace inside NATO’s vast command center.

“She is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization,” the prosecutors said in a statement.

The strategic headquarters of the Allied Powers, known as SHAPE, is located in the southern Belgian city of Mons near the French border. Military officials at SHAPE plan and command joint strategy, tactics and operations. The alliance’s political headquarters is in Brussels, where ambassadors from member nations meet to discuss defense spending, drone incursions and cyber threats. NATO’s Cyber Security Centre is based at SHAPE.

“At this time, there is no indication that NATO or SHAPE operational readiness, command and control arrangements, or ongoing tasks have been adversely affected. SHAPE continues to fulfil its responsibilities without interruption,” said Col. Martin L. O’Donnell, a spokesperson for SHAPE.

Both Canada and Belgium are members of the 32-nation military alliance that in 2021 labeled China a “ security challenge ” alongside active threats in Russia and the Middle East.

NATO leaders have said China is working to undermine global order, develop its military opaquely, and run destabilizing disinformation campaigns. They said that Beijing’s goals and “assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security.”

The Chinese government denounced the statement and said its military buildup was defensive.

The arrest in Belgium comes at a crucial time for the alliance as it weathers deep criticism from President Donald Trump who has drawn down the U.S. security role in Europe. Trump has been pressing allies to spend more on defense and join the conflict in Iran while at the same time threatening to seize by force Greenland from NATO-member Denmark, a move that rattled Europeans and the alliance.

Last year, following pressure from Trump, 32 NATO nations agreed to invest 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — 3.5% on defense items such as jets and missiles and 1.5% on infrastructure, including roads, bridges and ports, as well as cybersecurity.

July 25 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russia wanted to bring in 30,000 North Korean troops to take part in its more than four-year-old conflict and was already preparing to receive them.

Under a mutual defense pact, North Korea sent an estimated 14,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk Region in 2024 to help Moscow beat back a major incursion into the region by Ukrainian forces.

“We also see Russia’s cooperation with North Korea. Russia wants to bring in another 30,000 North Korean troops,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Preparations have been under way in Russia’s Voronezh region since June to receive them.”

Zelenskiy said North Korea was preparing to supply Russia with new launchers for ballistic missiles.

“This is a threat not only to Ukraine. Russia is helping North Korea learn how to wage war, improve its weapons and gain real combat experience in using them,” he said.

“All of this poses a threat to every country in Asia that lies within range of North Korean missiles.”

Zelenskiy vowed that Ukraine would respond to that threat.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr KozhukharEditing by Matthew Lewis)

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Israel’s military said it detained over 70 suspects across the occupied West Bank overnight and on Saturday, a day after troops deployed across the territory following violence that left two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian villagers dead.

Soldiers remained in the village of Tell, in the northern West Bank, where Friday’s clashes were centered. Palestinians described searches that included raids of a hospital in the city of Nablus, one of the territory’s most violent areas.

Palestinians in the West Bank have faced violence as Israel’s hard-line government, dominated by settler leaders and supporters, has overseen a surge in settlement construction over the past four years. The international community overwhelmingly considers the Israeli settlement construction illegal and an obstacle to peace.

“More than 50 armed soldiers and officers stormed the hospital, terrifying the patients,” Ghassan Barkat, director of Nablus Specialty Hospital, told journalists. He said soldiers on Friday detained, bound and insulted staff and patients, raided hospital departments and arrested a seriously injured man, Ali Hussein Ali Ramadan.

“This should not happen in a healthcare institution,” said Barkat, adding that women and children were present.

An Israeli military statement did not mention the hospital, but it said over 300 locations were searched and what it described as affiliates of the Hamas militant group, arms traffickers, “terrorists” and others were detained.

The circumstances of Friday’s events remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell and were confronted by residents fearful of an attack. The village is off-limits to Israelis as part of Area B under the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli soldiers shot and killed four Palestinians in Tell, while the military reported the deaths of two soldiers, one of them a settler in a local defense squad. Two other Israelis and four more Palestinians were wounded, health officials said.

The Israeli military on Saturday said it detained 11 suspects in Tell.

Over 80 Palestinians were arrested across the territory, said Amin Shuman, president of the Palestinian higher commission for the affairs of prisoners, calling them “an attempt to impose collective punitive measures and retaliatory policies” against Palestinian citizens after Friday’s events.

On Saturday, Israel’s military said Israeli civilians and Palestinians threw rocks in a confrontation in the West Bank village of Susya, and the weapon of a soldier on leave was stolen but retrieved.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least four Palestinians and wounded at least 15 others across Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, an airstrike killed a man and a woman, whose bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, the hospital said.

In northern Gaza, a strike on a vehicle in the Jabaliya area killed one person and wounded two others, according to officials at Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

A strike on a motorbike in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood killed the director of the area’s police force, according to the Interior Ministry and Shifa Hospital.

A strike in the central Gaza refugee camp of Nuseirat wounded three people, according to the Belgian field hospital, which received the casualties.

And Israeli drones struck the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, wounding 10 people, the hospital said. Chaotic scenes unfolded as severely wounded men covered in blood were rushed into the hospital by bystanders.

Israel’s military said it struck a member of Hamas’ military wing near Al-Aqsa hospital, and that it struck members of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad military wings in the strikes on Nuseirat and Jabaliya. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other strikes. Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations.

While the heaviest fighting has subsided since a fragile ceasefire took hold in October following two years of war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes, killing at least 1,191 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children make up most of the dead.

Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.

The Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas-led militants on Israel killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, sparking the war. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,317 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, was confirmed as the presidential candidate of his father’s Liberal Party on Saturday in a bid against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, even as his campaign faces many challenges.

The younger Bolsonaro still seeks a running mate and does not enjoy the support of centrist parties as his father did. Few Brazilian political heavyweights were in attendance, in another sign of his troubles forming an alliance against Lula ahead of the October election .

The 45-year-old senator’s popular stepmother, Michelle Bolsonaro, a leader for many evangelical voters, was one of the notable absences among about 500 people cheering him on in Sao Paulo. Recently, the two exchanged criticism in public. She spoke Saturday in a recorded video in which she mentioned the anointed candidate just once.

Still, Flávio Bolsonaro managed to bring in Argentina’s President Javier Milei, displayed a short video of support from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and now eyes more international endorsements from several members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

Milei said Brazil needs to get rid of what he called “the Lula risk” of keeping progressive politics for another four years in Latin America’s most powerful economy.

But absences were notable. The former president cannot make public addresses as he serves his 27-year sentence over a coup attempt, so a video featured an artificial intelligence-created version of Jair Bolsonaro.

Flávio Bolsonaro did not disclose much about his plans for the presidency if he wins. He tearfully paid tribute to his father, now under house arrest, and raised his voice against Lula.

“You are going to put this presidential sash on me next year,” said Bolsonaro, who also accused Brazil’s Supreme Court of persecuting his family. “This is more than a party convention. This is the beginning of the toughest battles of our life. A fight between good and evil.”

Bolsonaro has failed to recruit a high-profile female running mate after attempts to lure former Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina.

Her Popular Party, which has a stronghold in Congress and was key for Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, was not expected to field a presidential candidate. Its distancing from the younger Bolsonaro has been surprising.

“That’s not necessarily bad for us,” lawmaker Zé Trovao told journalists before the convention began. “We can have a more ideological campaign and when time comes it will be them coming to us, having to agree to our agenda if they want to get rid of Lula and the Workers Party.”

Flávio Bolsonaro “has faced a problem each week, sometimes two problems,” said political consultant Thomas Traumann, based in Rio de Janeiro. “So far he has been on the defensive, saying the campaign only starts in August.”

Lula’s Workers’ Party will confirm the 80-year-old’s reelection bid in a convention on Aug. 2, also in Sao Paulo, a key battleground in the election.

Many of the troubles Bolsonaro has faced are self-inflicted. Support to his bid started to wane in May after he admitted he had requested millions of dollars from jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro to pay for a film about his father’s life. The revelation shocked many allies.

Bolsonaro then visited the White House and the U.S. State Department days later expecting to get a Trump boost, but now many voters, business leaders and politicians blame him for the U.S. government imposing new tariffs on Brazilian exports of up to 37.5% as of Friday.

Even as most of Brazil was watching the World Cup on TV, Bolsonaro faced another blow: His stepmother recorded a video to say he was being disrespectful to her in a phone conversation.

Then last week, Bolsonaro drew criticism after repeating debunked claims on the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting system, echoing those that led the country’s top court to rule his father ineligible.

As the convention was being prepared, the senator and his stepmother made amends. Bolsonaro made the first move in a live broadcast in which he apologized and added he is being “disproportionally persecuted” by others, as his father was.

Michelle Bolsonaro accepted Sen. Bolsonaro’s apology on Friday, in what could be a first move of reconciliation within the family as the campaign begins.

“Let’s sit down, let’s talk, let’s adjust details and together we will get a big army of people who do good to rescue our Brazil,” she said in a video published on Friday.

Traumann, the political analyst, said Bolsonaro at the convention will have a much tougher time appealing to moderates than he did when he started his bid in December.

“He was showing himself as the moderate Bolsonaro, the one who took COVID vaccines, who is kind to his two daughters,” Traumann said. “He has lost voters who are against the Workers’ Party, but are also more moderate. Now he has the radical core of his campaign, and his attempt now is to stop that group from leaving him too.”

___ Associated Press journalist Lucas Dumphreys in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.