Beginning of the presidential transition in Brazil

Beginning of the presidential transition in Brazil

BRASILIA, Brazil — President Jair Bolsonaro briefly met with the envoy tasked with coordinating the transfer of power to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday, four days after Bolsonaro’s narrow election defeat sparked protests from his supporters over his refusal to give in publicly.

The meeting between Brazil’s far-right incumbent president and vice president-elect Geraldo Alckmin took place at the presidential palace, according to Alckmin, who leads da Silva’s transition team. The team had arrived in the capital of Brasilia earlier, kicking off the process that will culminate with da Silva’s inauguration on January 1.

While Bolsonaro refused to publicly concede defeat in his first public comments on Tuesday, his chief of staff Ciro Nogueira told reporters he had received permission from the incumbent for the transition process to continue.

“It was positive,” Alckmin told reporters after Thursday’s meeting with Bolsonaro. He declined to answer whether the incumbent had congratulated him on Sunday’s win.

Bolsonaro spoke of “the willingness of the federal government to provide all the information, the assistance, so that we have a transition guided by the public interest,” the vice president-elect said.

Tigray peace accord signed, sources say

NAIROBI, Kenya — Officials close to peace talks aimed at ending Ethiopia’s deadly two-year war on Thursday confirmed the full text of the signed agreement, but a key question remains: what happened? led regional leaders in Tigray to agree to terms that include rapid disarmament and full federal control?

A day after the warring parties signed a “permanent cessation of hostilities” in a war that is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands, none of the negotiators has explained how they got there.

The full agreement has not been made public, but officials confirmed that a copy obtained by The Associated Press was the final document. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

At Wednesday’s signing, Tigray’s chief negotiator described it as containing “painful concessions”.

One of the pact’s priorities is to quickly disarm Tigray forces with heavy weapons and withdraw their “light weapons” within 30 days. Senior commanders from both sides are to meet within five days.

Ethiopian security forces will take full control of “all federal facilities, installations and infrastructure…in the Tigray region”, and an interim regional administration will be established after dialogue between the parties, the agreement says.

If implemented, the agreement should mark the end of the devastating conflict in Africa’s second most populous country.

4 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in separate incidents on Thursday, including one who stabbed a policeman in East Jerusalem and three others during Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.

Early Friday, meanwhile, Israeli planes carried out several raids in the Gaza Strip in response to late Thursday rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. The Israeli rocket attacks and airstrikes were the first cross-border violence since a ceasefire ended a blitz between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group in August.

Israeli troops operating in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, a militant stronghold, have killed at least two Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Late Thursday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket into southern Israel, triggering air raid sirens in the area. The army said the rocket was intercepted and three other launch attempts failed and exploded inside Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but in the past Islamic Jihad has fired rockets in response to the killings of its members.

In response, the Israeli military said it was targeting an underground site used by Gaza’s Hamas leaders as a rocket manufacturing facility. The airstrikes will “significantly hamper” Hamas’ rocket capabilities, he said. He also blamed the militant group for the attacks emanating from Gaza. No casualties were reported.