World
Gabon votes in referendum on new constitution after military coup last year
![Gabon votes in referendum on new constitution after military coup last year Gabon votes in referendum on new constitution after military coup last year](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/AFP__20241116__36MN37C__v2__HighRes__TopshotGabonReferendumVote-1731756666.jpg?resize=1920%2C1440)
Transitional leader urges voters to back draft charter, which proposes changes that include presidential term limits.
Gabon is voting in a referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution that would pave the way to democratic rule after the military deposed President Ali Bongo Ondimba last year, ending 55 years of rule by his family in the oil-rich nation.
An estimated 860,000 registered voters were expected to cast their ballots on Saturday on the draft charter, which proposes sweeping changes in the Central African nation that could prevent dynastic rule and sets presidential term limits.
The proposed constitution needs more than 50 percent of votes to be adopted.
“We have a date with history,” General Brice Oligui Nguema, the transitional president who led the coup last year, said in a post on social media platform X alongside a photo of him in civilian dress and baseball cap, with a voting card in his hand.
Nguema has been urging voters to support the new constitution, which he says embodies the military government’s commitment to charting a new course for Gabon.
He has promised to hand power back to civilians after a two-year transition but has made no secret of his desire to win the presidential election scheduled for August 2025.
The referendum is seen as a crucial first step as the country seeks to transition to democracy since Bongo’s ouster in August 2023. He had governed since 2009, taking over the presidency from his father, Omar, who died that year after ruling the country since 1967.
Bongo was overthrown moments after being proclaimed the winner in an election the army and opposition declared fraudulent.
A new constitution would introduce two-term limits on the presidency, remove the position of prime minister and recognise French as Gabon’s working language. It also says family members cannot succeed a president.
The presidential term would be set at seven years. The current charter allows for five-year terms renewable without limit.
Nathalie Badzoko, a 33-year-old civil servant, told the AFP news agency that she was voting “yes” and had faith in the military government, but admitted she had “not read the whole text” and its 173 articles.
Opponents dismissed the draft charter as tailor-made for a strongman to remain in power.
“We are creating a dictator who designs the constitution for himself,” lawyer Marlene Fabienne Essola Efountame said during a debate last Sunday, organised by state television.
Nguema, the interim leader, is a cousin of Bongo. He had served as a bodyguard to Bongo’s father and also headed the Gabonese Republican Guard, an elite military unit.
Voting began late at several polling stations in the capital, Libreville, including at the Lycee Leon M’Ba school where green – for yes – and red – for no – ballot papers were still being handed out when the polls opened at 7am (06:00 GMT), according to AFP.
The country’s 2,835 polling stations are due to remain open until 6pm (17:00 GMT).
The final results will be announced by the constitutional court, the Interior Ministry said.
The former French colony is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but its oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. Nearly 40 percent of Gabonese aged 15 to 24 were out of work in 2020, according to the World Bank.
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World
Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own.
![Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own. Czech Dam Project Was Stalled by Bureaucracy. Beavers Built Their Own.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/02/12/multimedia/00xp-beavers/00xp-beavers-facebookJumbo.jpg)
For years, officials in the Czech Republic had pushed a dam project to protect a river south of Prague, and the critically endangered species living in it. But the project, hamstrung by land negotiations, stalled.
In the meantime, a group of chisel-toothed mammals — renowned for their engineering skills and work ethic, and unencumbered by bureaucracy — decided to take on the task. The beavers of Prague simply built dams themselves.
The rodents’ fast work saved the local authorities some 1.2 million euros, according to a news release from the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, a government agency responsible for conservation across the country. “Nature took its course,” Bohumil Fišer, the head of the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, where the revitalization project was planned, said in the statement. The beavers, he added, had created the ideal environmental conditions “practically overnight.”
The project, on a former army site on the Klabava, a river about 40 miles southwest of Prague, the Czech capital, was drafted in 2018 and had a building permit, but had been delayed for years by negotiations over the land, which had been used as a military training grounds, Agence France-Presse reported on Tuesday. Officials had hoped to build a barrier to protect the river and its population of critically endangered crayfish from sediment and acidic water spilling over from two nearby ponds, A.F.P. reported.
The beavers began working before the excavators could even break ground. It was not immediately clear specifically when the dams were built and how long it took to build them.
The new wetland created by the dams covers nearly five acres, the conservation group said. It is twice as large as the area that the humans had planned, Agence France-Presse reported. “It’s full service,” Mr. Fišer told A.F.P. “Beavers are absolutely fantastic and when they are in an area where they can’t cause damage, they do a brilliant job.”
Despite their remarkable ability to construct dams, beavers often draw the ire of landowners and farmers for destroying trees, eating crops and flooding roads and fields. But in thinning a tree canopy, the rodents can often help to diversify an ecosystem by allowing in sunlight in so that other plant species can thrive, said Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Minnesota.
“They’re fundamentally changing the way water and life moves through that landscape,” she said.
To build a dam, the beavers, whose weight as adults can range from about 40 to 80 pounds, begin by piling small stones across a river or stream, packing those stones in with mud, and repeating the process to construct a pond, which they then expand to become a wetland, Dr. Fairfax said.
They are motivated by their fear of predators: Beavers are adept swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for 15 minutes. On land, their ungainly waddle makes them easy prey. “They’re basically a big chicken nugget for predators,” which include bears, mountain lions and wolves, she said.
The Czech dam is not the first time the rodents have assisted in building a wetland. Beavers in California have helped to restore a floodplain about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento. In that case, the beavers’ work also helped local officials save money. “All they had to do was let the beavers be there,” Dr. Fairfax said. In other cases, beavers often did work that went unacknowledged. “We sort of have a blindness for beavers,” she said, noting that they were often considered a nuisance because of their alarming size and capacity to rapidly change the landscape.
“They’re powerful, they’re big, and they’re elusive,” Dr. Fairfax said, noting that, despite the beavers’ engineering prowess, they presented a challenge for conservation groups when planning restoration projects.
“Oftentimes we don’t want to allow the beavers to make the choices, because it’s hard to plan around that uncertainty; it’s hard to turn over control to a giant water rodent,” she said. “But that’s when beavers are at their best.”
World
Mother of Israeli hostage begs Trump, Netanyahu to bring son home before ceasefire collapses: 'No more time'
![Mother of Israeli hostage begs Trump, Netanyahu to bring son home before ceasefire collapses: 'No more time' Mother of Israeli hostage begs Trump, Netanyahu to bring son home before ceasefire collapses: 'No more time'](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/02/gettyimages-2198436197.jpg)
Idit Ohel, the mother of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, urgently pleaded for President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure the release of the remaining Oct. 7 captives held by Hamas amid fears the current ceasefire deal is disintegrating.
“They have no more time. And please don’t go back to war. Please. Because if that happens, if we go back to war, the hostages could die. The hostages that are alive could die,” she told Fox News Digital. “That’s what happened last time. Last time we saw that after the hostages came out and war started, so many hostages died and were murdered by Hamas. So we cannot let this happen. Please do everything in your power and do something for my son. He’s in the tunnels. He’s crying for help.”
Idit Ohel said she received confirmation that her son is still alive from released hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, two of the three gaunt, frail-looking Israelis forced to speak Saturday during a Hamas hand-over ceremony in Gaza.
The mother said the released hostages, who were held with her son for part of their nearly 500 days in captivity, told her that Alon Ohel is unable to see out of an eye after being struck by shrapnel when Hamas was closing in on Oct. 7, 2023. Alon Ohel, a civilian, was attending the Nova music festival when terrorists attacked, and he took cover in a bomb shelter. Hamas pounded the shelter with grenades and gunfire, and he “was taken, wounded, with blood all over him,” Idit Ohel said.
ISRAEL SLAMS PALESTINIAN ‘DECEPTION SCHEME’ OVER CLAIM IT HALTED TERROR REWARDS PROGRAM
A placard of Alon Ohel seen during a rally marking his 24th birthday in Tel Aviv. (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Alon Ohel’s ancestors survived the Holocaust, including his great-grandfather who weighed just 30 kilos [about 66 pounds] when he was released from the Auschwitz concentration camp, Idit Ohel said. “So if he was alive today, he would probably die instantly just knowing that his great-grandson in the year of 2025 is starving,” she said. “Alon has these genes. So he’s fighting. He’s fighting for his life every day.”
Under the deal, another three hostages were due to be released by next Saturday, but Hamas said Monday that the group would not let them go, accusing Israel of violating terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Concerns that fighting will resume are rising. Trump has since said that Hamas must release all remaining 76 hostages by noon Saturday, or he would demand the ceasefire deal be canceled and “let all hell break out.” Netanyahu backed the demand.
Israeli media is reporting that Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is being dispatched to Israel and Qatar this week to prevent the ceasefire deal from unraveling. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected in Israel on Saturday.
To Trump and Netayanhu directly, Idit Ohel said, “Do something and bring them home. Please. Please.”
![Alon Ohel's mother speaks at Tel Aviv rally](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/02/1200/675/gettyimages-2198436197.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Idit Ohel speaks to the crowd during a Tel Aviv rally marking the 24th Birthday of her son Alon Ohel who is held hostage by Hamas. (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Give him a chance. It’s unbearable. Something has to change. You have to do everything in your power to bring him home to me, to his family,” she said. “There’s still hostages alive. There’s still hostages alive. Please. Please, do something.”
Idit Ohel said she learned her son is being held in tunnels without medical attention and little food and has been “tortured, chained and starved.”
“It’s not humane. There’s so much food getting into Gaza, and he’s not getting any of it,” she said.
HAMAS SAYS IT’S DELAYING NEXT HOSTAGE RELEASE, CLAIMING CEASEFIRE VIOLATIONS
“Alon, right now as we speak, is still being not fed, sleeping on the floor, being chained, constrained. So he cannot move for 494 days,” Idit Ohel said. “My son is important. My son is only an innocent civilian. He went to the Nova festival to have fun. He’s a pianist. He loves music. He did nothing wrong to nobody. We need to get him out now. He cannot continue. This is humanitarian.”
Days before Trump took office, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement. Former President Joe Biden said at the time that the first phase involved a “surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza” – something Idit Ohel stressed her son is not getting.
She said the International Committee of the Red Cross “have never seen Alon and have never seen any of the hostages – [he] didn’t get any treatment.”
![Tel Aviv demonstration in honor of Alon Ohel's 24th birthday](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/02/1200/675/gettyimages-2198436220.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Israelis stand under placards with photos of hostages during a rally in Tel Aviv marking the 24th Birthday of Alon Ohel, who is held by Hamas in Gaza. (Eyal Warshavsky/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Where is he? Why is he not coming?” Idit Ohel added. “I do not understand it. I will never understand it. This is wrong. This is not moral.”
Ohel rallied thousands in Tel Aviv over the weekend on her son’s 24th birthday – the second birthday he has spent in captivity since the Oct. 7 attacks.
“I wanted to say happy birthday to my son. I couldn’t even talk [to him] and see and hear his voice,” she said. “When I heard about his condition, I fainted … I haven’t been sleeping for days … I cannot control what Hamas is doing to my son.”
“Every mother in this world. Think just for a second. If there’s one night that your son or daughter doesn’t eat, you can’t even live with yourself,” Ohel added. “My son has not been getting food for 494 days.”
The mother also delivered a message directly to her son.
“If you’re listening to me, you know I love you and your father loves you. And we’re doing everything in our power to make sure that you’re home alive. You’re coming home. And there’s so many people all over the world and in Israel that are with you and are praying for you,” Ohel said, asking fellow musicians to play songs in her son’s honor in the coming days. “And you are not alone, Alon. You are not alone.”
World
Anti-Trump demonstration ahead of NATO meeting in Brussels
![Anti-Trump demonstration ahead of NATO meeting in Brussels Anti-Trump demonstration ahead of NATO meeting in Brussels](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/05/12/28/1200x675_cmsv2_00b85b2c-2a74-5bc0-93b4-706bd0211b5d-9051228.jpg)
The demonstration happened on the sidelines of US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s address at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels.
Dozens gathered for an anti-Trump demonstration in front of the Brussels-Central station on Wednesday, calling for the defence of democratic values in the United States.
Spokesperson for Democrats Abroad Belgium Robin de Wouters said “we really want to protest the Trump administration’s attack on our constitutional values and American values.”
De Wouters added that the American population has entrusted the US president after a democratically held vote, but stresses the importance of representing all of its citizens, “and that’s not by alienating a vast majority of Americans.”
“He has to respect the rule of law. He has to respect the decisions of the court. He has to respect due process in Congress. And he cannot assert himself as an autocrat,” he concluded.
The demonstration happened on the sidelines of newly appointed US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s visit to Belgium.
Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels, Hegseth said that Ukraine’s desired return to its pre-2014 borders as well as NATO membership are “unrealistic” goals that should be excluded from any future peace settlement. He also underlined that US troops would not be a part of any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine.
The meeting came a day before defence ministers are set to meet in the Belgian capital to prepare for the NATO Summit that will be held in The Hague in June.
“It is important that we send a strong message that we are a strong NATO member, that we will abide by the treaty, and that we are not going to undermine NATO,” former chair of Democrats Abroad Belgium Pauline Manos told Euronews at the rally.
“This cannot happen again,” she added, referring to Trump’s policy during his first term at the White House in 2016. “We will stand with Europe.”
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