Anger over chronic water and electricity shortages has exploded into deadly unrest in Madagascar, prompting a night-time curfew in the capital. At least five people were killed in mass protests in Antananarivo on Thursday, hospital sources said.

Despite the curfew, demonstrators built barricades of burning tyres and rubbish and ransacked shops. Cable car stations were also attacked as unrest spread through the city.

RFI correspondent Guilhem Fabry reported that loud blasts were heard near the city centre until about 2am on Friday and that a strong smell of smoke hung in the air.

Authorities have imposed a curfew in Antananarivo from 7pm to 5am, saying it will stay in place “until public order is restored”.

Schools across the capital and nearby districts were closed on Friday, and the suspension was extended to the city of Antsirabé, where clashes also broke out.

Thursday’s protests in Antananarivo, which began as peaceful marches, were met with tear gas, rubber bullets and large numbers of police.

What started as demonstrations against the shortages quickly escalated into one of the biggest challenges faced by President Andry Rajoelina in years.

Hundreds of people tried to reach central Ambohijatovo Square despite a government ban on gatherings, but were blocked by heavy security.

Protesters split into smaller groups to get around the cordons, carrying banners denouncing the outages and accusing the government of failing to guarantee basic rights.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets as masked officers charged the crowds.

Two lawmakers have reportedly had their homes vandalised, including senator Lalatiana Rakotondrazafy – a former minister and vocal supporter of Rajoelina.

Addresses of pro-government figures had been widely shared on social media, amid massive online mobilisation.

While most of the posts called for peaceful protests, some included addresses of officials to "target" or even DIY guides for making explosives.

Security forces claim that bad actors are taking advantage of the protests to destroy property, while legislators have tried to frame the movement as a plot.

Ahead of Thursday's protests, 13 out of 18 senators denounced what they called an "attempted coup d'état" by the opposition.

Rajoelina has yet to address the situation. Having spoken at the UN General Assembly in New York earlier in the week, it remains unclear whether the president has returned to Madagascar.

He first came to power through a coup in 2009, before going on to win presidential elections in 2018 and 2023.

Only around a third of Madagascar’s 30 million people have access to electricity, according to the International Monetary Fund. Power cuts often last more than eight hours a day.

Poor governance of the state-owned utility, Jirama, is at the heart of the problem and for months there have been protests outside their headquarters in Antananarivo.

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 75 percent of people living below the poverty line.

Yet Jirama uses up 10 percent of the state's revenue. Critics point to mismanagement and corruption as key factors behind the company's failings.

James Comey has been charged with making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a criminal proceeding.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250925225524/https://apnews.com/article/james-comey-charged-lying-congress-a2c72e1a5bb73d588f3af7fdb56caa82

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Mark my words, they’re going to use this to “legally” eliminate any opposition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a heated response to the news that the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia had officially recognized the state of Palestine.

“I have a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian state after the terrible massacre on October 7: you are giving a huge reward to terrorism,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “And I have another message for you: it will not happen. A Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River.”

Paris (AFP) – Nicolas Sarkozy entered the Elysee Palace in 2007 boasting hyperactive energy and a vision to transform France, but lost office after just one term and the ex-president is now set to go to prison in a spectacular downfall.

Embroiled in legal problems since losing the 2012 election, Sarkozy, 70, had already been convicted in two separate cases but managed to avoid going to jail.

But after a judge sentenced him on Thursday to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to find funding from Libya's then-leader Moamer Kadhadi for his 2007 campaign, Sarkozy appeared to acknowledge that this time he will go behind bars.

Prosecutors have one month to inform Sarkozy when he must report to jail, a measure that will remain in force despite his promised appeal.

"I will assume my responsibilities, I will comply with court summonses, and if they absolutely want me to sleep in prison, I will sleep in prison but with my head held high," he told reporters after the verdict.

"I am innocent. This injustice is a scandal. I will not accuse myself of something I did not do," he added, declaring that hatred towards him "definitely has no limits".

The drama and defiance were typical of Sarkozy, who is still seen by some supporters on the right as a dynamic saviour of his country but by detractors as a vulgar populist mired in corruption.

Born on January 28, 1955, the football fanatic and cycling enthusiast is an atypical French politician.

The son of a Hungarian immigrant father, Sarkozy has a law degree but unlike most of his peers did not attend the exclusive Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the well-worn production line for future French leaders.

After winning the presidency at age 52, he was initially seen as injecting a much-needed dose of dynamism, making a splash on the international scene and wooing the corporate world. He took a hard line on immigration, security and national identity.

But Sarkozy's presidency was overshadowed by the 2008 financial crisis, and he left the Elysee with the lowest popularity ratings of any postwar French leader up to then.

Few in France have forgotten his visit to the 2008 agriculture show in Paris, when he said "get lost, dumbass" to a man who refused to shake his hand.

Sarkozy failed to win a second mandate in 2012 in a run-off against Socialist Francois Hollande, a bruising defeat over which he remains embittered more than a decade on.

The 2012 defeat made Sarkozy the first president since Valery Giscard d'Estaing (1974-1981) to be denied a second term, prompting him to famously promise: "You won't hear about me anymore."

That prediction turned out to be anything but true, given his marriage to superstar musician and model Carla Bruni and a return to frontline politics. But the latter ended when he failed to win his party's nomination for another crack at the presidency in 2017.

The series of legal woes left Sarkozy a behind-the-scenes political player, far from the limelight in which he once basked, although he has retained influence on the right and is known to meet President Emmanuel Macron.

But Sarkozy is tainted by a number of unwanted firsts: while his predecessor and mentor Jacques Chirac was also convicted of graft, Sarkozy was the first postwar French former head of state to be convicted twice and the first to be formally given jail terms.

Already stripped of the Legion of Honour, France's highest distinction, he will now be the first French head of state to go to jail since Philippe Petain, France's nominal leader during the Nazi occupation.

https://archive.is/4WtAc

There were more than two million robots working in Chinese factories last year, according to a report released Thursday by the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit trade group for makers of industrial robots. Factories in China installed nearly 300,000 new robots last year, more than the rest of the world combined, the report found.

Ecuador (AFP) – Clashes between drug gangs on Thursday claimed at least 17 lives in the second deadly riot in an Ecuadoran prison in days, with rampaging inmates beheading and maiming rivals, officials in the violence-wracked country said.

The fighting in the troubled coastal city of Esmeraldas, near the Colombian border, added to a toll of about 500 inmates massacred in Ecuador since 2021.

Images shared on social media and verified by AFP show dead men sprawled on the ground with bare, blood-stained torsos. At least two of them were decapitated, and many had stab wounds.

Dozens of worried family members gathered outside the prison for news of their loved ones Thursday as the SNAI prison authority raised the official toll from 10 in the morning to 17 by lunchtime.

"There are women here who have been asking after their relatives since 5:30am," an anguished woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

She herself rushed to the prison after receiving a call from people who live nearby and told her "they heard the shooting, they heard the screams."

When she arrived, she said, soldiers told her to go to the morgue to check if her loved one was dead or alive.

On Monday, 13 prisoners and a guard were killed in southwest Ecuador, whose overcrowded and violent prisons have become hubs for organized crime groups.

In that incident, prisoners used guns and explosives and an unknown number escaped. Some were recaptured.

Nestled between the globe's top two cocaine exporters -- Colombia and Peru -- Ecuador has seen violence spiral in recent years as rival gangs with ties to international cartels vie for control.

More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through the ports of Ecuador, a country of around 17 million people, according to government data.

Since February 2021, gang wars have largely played out inside the country's prisons, where inmates have often been killed in gruesome fashion -- their bodies dismembered and burnt.

Ecuador's biggest prison massacre happened in 2021, when more than 100 inmates were killed in the port city of Guayaquil in the southwest.

Inmates have on more than one occasion gone live on social media to broadcast their attacks, showing off the maiming of their enemies.

Last year, gang members took scores of prison guards hostage after the jailbreak of narco boss Jose Adolfo Macias, while allies on the outside detonated bombs and held a television presenter at gunpoint live on air.

President Daniel Noboa has declared a "state of internal armed conflict" and ordered that the military temporarily take control of the prisons.

Macias -- the boss of the Los Choneros gang -- was recaptured in June this year, more than a year after his escape.

He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking and murder, but he continued pulling the strings of the criminal underworld from behind bars.

Videos emerged of Macias holding wild parties before he escaped from prison, some with fireworks, illustrating the lawlessness of such facilities.