S. Africans protest illegal immigration
S. Africans protest illegal immigration
JOHANNESBURG — Hundreds of South Africans took to the streets of Johannesburg on Wednesday to protest high levels of illegal immigration, which has fueled tensions between locals and foreign nationals.
The demonstration is part of a broader wave of protests, including in the capital Pretoria on Tuesday. Anti-immigration groups are calling for the strict enforcement of immigration laws and mass deportations.
The protests in Johannesburg resulted in the closure of many shops, owned by both locals and migrants, due to fears of potential looting or opportunistic crimes.
Organized by the anti-immigration group March and March, it also attracted similar organizations, including Operation Dudula and political parties ActionSA and Patriotic Alliance.
“We are not xenophobic, we just want the right thing to be done in South Africa, to put the South African first. We do want to live with foreigners in our country, but those foreigners must be legally in the country,” said Themba Mabunda of ActionSA, who participated in the march.
Brazil’s Senate rejects justice nominee
SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Senate dealt a political blow to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Wednesday by rejecting his nomination to the Supreme Court, the first in more than 130 years and a sign that the veteran leader is growing unpopular among many important lawmakers as he seeks reelection.
Only 34 senators voted in favor of appointing Jorge Messias, who has been Brazil’s solicitor-general since 2023 and a close legal adviser to Lula, while another 42 rejected his appointment. Many of the latter, including presidential hopeful Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, celebrated in the chambers after the result was announced.
Messias, who also worked for former president and Lula ally Dilma Rousseff, needed 41 votes to be approved.
“I am thankful to each vote I received. I think each of us fulfills a purpose and I fulfilled mine,” Messias told journalists in capital Brasilia after being rejected by the Senate. “That’s life. There’s days of victory, days of defeat. We have to accept it.”
Europol nets 280 arrests in crackdown
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — An international task force formed to crack down on violence as a criminal service has led to 280 arrests in its first year, the European Union’s police agency Europol reported Wednesday.
The arrests underscore a trend across the continent of criminals hiring people, many of them young, via social media and messaging apps to carry out acts of violence ranging from assaults to murders.
“Violence is no longer confined to isolated acts or local dynamics. It is increasingly offered as a service: accessible, scalable and driven by online ecosystems that enable recruitment, coordination and execution across borders,” Europol said in a statement.
The agency set up the task force last year made up of police from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. In its first 12 months, it identified more than 1,400 people linked to violence as a service.
Among suspects arrested were a Dutch national accused of being a getaway driver for two minors reportedly responsible for a string of explosions in Germany in July and August 2025. In January, a minor was arrested in Sweden for suspected involvement in a shooting outside a prison in the Dutch city of Alphen aan den Rijn.
Pakistan destroys Afghan Taliban posts
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s military targeted and destroyed several Afghan Taliban posts in a remote southwestern region on Wednesday in what officials described as a response to “unprovoked aggression,” signaling rising tensions between the neighbors.
Two security officials said Pakistan also struck hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban near the town of Chaman, in southwestern Balochistan province. A day earlier, a mortar shell fired by the Afghan Taliban hit a house there, killing one civilian and wounding two others. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said Pakistani forces had thwarted “malicious intentions” of militants through timely action, adding that they were giving a “befitting response” to aggression.
The developments came two days after Afghan officials said mortars and missiles fired from Pakistan struck a university and homes in northeastern Afghanistan, killing seven people and wounding at least 85.
Pakistan has denied targeting a university or carrying out any such strikes.
According to the U.N. humanitarian agency, hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan have continued in recent weeks at a lower intensity following talks between the two countries held in China.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said periodic shelling this month, including mortar rounds fired into Afghan territory from April 19-21, damaged a school and a health facility in Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
