Beijing (AFP) – A gas explosion at a coal mine in northern China has killed at least 90 people, state media reported on Saturday, the country's biggest mining disaster in 17 years.

A total of 247 workers were underground at the time of the blast, which occurred at 7:29 pm (1129 GMT) on Friday at the Liushenyu coal mine in Shanxi province, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Most of them were brought to the surface by Saturday morning, Xinhua said, confirming that at least 90 people had died.

A total of 345 emergency personnel were dispatched to the site, with rescuers earlier searching "intensively" for nine people who remained unaccounted for, the news agency added.

Friday's explosion was the worst mining disaster in China since 2009, when 108 people were killed in a mine blast in northeast Heilongjiang province.

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New York (AFP) – A US jury found Friday that aerospace giant Boeing was not liable for lost revenue in a lawsuit involving its 737 MAX jets, which were grounded for 20 months following two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Polish airline LOT had accused Boeing of fraud and sued for $250 million in lost income after the company's alleged "purposeful and negligent false representations and omissions concerning the 737 MAX aircraft," the initial complaint said.

The jury for the trial in a Seattle federal courthouse decided this was not the case, however, according to court documents reviewed by AFP.

"We are gratified by the jury's verdict in our favor," a Boeing spokesperson said in a statement to AFP.

The case stemmed from claims by LOT that Boeing had to compensate it for lost business due to the lengthy MAX grounding in the aftermath of Lion Air's 2018 crash and Ethiopian Airlines' 2019 crash that claimed a joint total 346 lives.

After the crashes, Boeing acknowledged that a flawed flight-stabilizing program known as the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) contributed to the disasters.

The 737 MAX jets were grounded from March 2019 until November 2020, when the US Federal Aviation Administration cleared the aircraft to resume service after Boeing upgraded the MCAS.

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La Paz (AFP) – Bolivian riot police clashed with anti-government protesters in La Paz on Friday for the second time in a week as unions and Indigenous groups pressed their calls for President Rodrigo Paz to step down.

Demands for the business-friendly conservative to resign have persisted despite his promise to respond to the grievances of labor unions and Indigenous communities.

Many businesses in central La Paz had closed their doors, anticipating a repeat of the clashes that marked a similar demonstration on Monday.

"He should resign, damn it!" shouted the crowd of farmers, laborers, miners, transport workers and teachers who brought traffic to a halt on the streets of the Andean city.

Paz came to power six months ago, in the midst of the country's worst economic crisis since the 1980s, marked by acute shortages of fuel and foreign currency and runaway inflation.

"Six months in office and he hasn't been able to solve the basics...We have to choose between buying meat or buying milk," Melina Apaza, a 50-year-old demonstrator from the southern mining heartland of Oruro, told AFP.

Wearing helmets and ponchos, the protesters, many of whom waved rainbow-colored Indigenous flags, marched toward the city center to the din of firecrackers.

Demonstrators hurled stones and sticks at riot police, who responded with successive tear gas rounds and blocked them from reaching the square in front of government buildings.

In El Alto, a predominantly Indigenous suburb of La Paz and a hotbed of dissent, demonstrators briefly blocked access to the city's main international airport.

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Rwampara (DR Congo) (AFP) – Rioters have burnt down hospital tents in a hotspot of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola epidemic, as many Congolese wrestle with fear, anger and confusion over the latest deadly outbreak.

The hastily arranged burials of the victims suspected to have been killed by the viral haemorrhagic fever have been met with suspicion in a conflict-ridden part of the country already distrustful of the state.

With tensions running high, the military has been deployed to provide security for funerals.

Tents used to isolate Ebola patients at Rwampara hospital, in the northeastern Ituri province at the outbreak's epicentre, were torched in the riot on Thursday, which ended swiftly after the army stepped in. Only the tents' charred husks remain.

"It all kicked off when a 24-year-old man, the son of a soldier, died at the hospital," an official at the medical institution said.

"The family wanted us to hand over his body so that they can bury him, but given the circumstances, that's impossible," the official added.

Besides being extremely deadly, Ebola is transmitted through prolonged physical contact and bodily fluids.

There is no vaccine or treatment for the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the 17th Ebola outbreak to hit the vast central African country, which the World Health Organization believes has already killed more than 177 people.

So attempts to tackle the latest spread have been forced to rely mainly on precautions and rapid contact tracing.

But in rural parts of the DRC, "loved ones are throwing themselves at the bodies, touching the corpses and the clothes of the deceased, while organising mourning rituals bringing together loads of people," said Jean Marie Ezadri, a civil society leader in Ituri.

"Unfortunately, this is going on even during this epidemic, which explains the many instances of contamination."

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Gibraltar (AFP) – A colony of macaques that gorge on snacks offered by tourists in the British territory of Gibraltar swallow soil to recover from their junk food binges, a study has found.

Believed to originate from North Africa, the roughly 230 primates are the main attraction in the British exclave of 30,000 people that borders southern Spain, according to the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society.

"We are here for the monkeys, to take a look at them, because it's the only place in Europe where the monkeys are," Danish visitor Elish, 29, told AFP.

But feeding the Barbary macaques is "not a great idea, because you can hurt them, because you give them anything", added the constructor designer.

Signs dotted around Gibraltar remind visitors of a ban on feeding the macaques, with infringements punishable by fines of up to £4,000 ($5,350).

But the rules are hard to enforce given the large numbers of daily visitors to "The Rock" and the independence of the animals, which can weigh up to 15 kilograms (33 pounds).

The marauding monkeys brazenly snatch ice cream, cakes and crisps from unwitting tourists in addition to gobbling abandoned leftovers from bins or food directly offered to them.

These unhealthy treats have contributed to modifying a diet usually made up of fruit, vegetables and seeds.

To soothe the resulting stomach aches, the macaques have developed a habit of "geophagy, the deliberate consumption of earth", a recent study has found.

Experts from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Paris-Sorbonne as well as Gibraltar's environment department say their research, carried out between August 2022 and April 2024, reported this behaviour "for the first time" among the monkeys.

"Geophagy occurred at exceptionally high rates compared to other macaque species and locations, and it was more common in summer when tourist numbers peak," the study said.

In contrast, the behaviour was not observed in a group of Gibraltar monkeys that have no contact with visitors, "a strong argument for this association between soil-eating and human food", said Sylvain Lemoine, assistant professor in biological anthropology at Cambridge who co-authored the study.

Crisps, chocolate bars and ice cream are identified as the culprits of this tendency, which the study viewed as "representing an early form of self-medication".

The monkeys with the most frequent soil consumption munch on tourist junk food that is "high in sugar, high in salt, high in dairy, which the macaques can't digest," said Lemoine.

"We make the hypothesis that the soil can bring micro-fungi and micro-organisms that could rebalance the micro-biome that has been disrupted by the ingestion of junk food," he told AFP.

Bethany Maxwell, technical officer at Gibraltar Botanic Gardens, added: "We know that primates eat soil especially to detoxify or for nutrient supplementation."

"But this study has shown that not only are they doing it for those reasons, but also as a result of eating too much junk food, which is something that is quite novel."

Taipei (AFP) – Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said Wednesday that "foreign forces" cannot decide the future of the democratic island, which relies heavily on US security backing to deter a potential Chinese attack.

Lai's remarks came days after US President Donald Trump suggested arms sales to Taiwan could be used as a bargaining chip with China, which claims the island is part of its territory and has threatened to seize it by force.

"Taiwan's future cannot be decided by foreign forces, nor can it be held hostage by fear, division, or short-term interests," Lai said in a speech to mark the second year of his presidency.

Trump's comments in an interview with Fox News and on board Air Force One followed a state visit to Beijing last week where Chinese President Xi Jinping pressed the US leader not to support Taiwan.

Since then, Lai's government has been on the offensive, insisting that US policy on Taiwan has not changed and that Trump made no commitments to China on arms sales to the island.

Taipei says China is the "root cause" of regional instability and US arms sales are a legal commitment to the defence of the island democracy.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Lai said his government was increasing defence spending to "prevent a war", not to start one, and noted that "threats are greater than ever before".

"Taiwan must have the capability to protect itself and to uphold peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Lai said.

Lai said Taiwan is willing to "engage in healthy and orderly exchanges with China" on an equal footing, but insisted "we will not sacrifice our sovereignty and democratic way of life."

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Khartoum (AFP) – A drone strike on a crowded market in southern Sudan killed 28 people and injured 23 more on Tuesday, a medical source and witnesses told AFP, in one of the deadliest recent attacks on civilians in the country's three-year war.

The strike hit the town of Ghubaysh in West Kordofan, an area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) whose conflict with the Sudanese military has devastated much of the country since April 2023.

The wounded and the dead were taken to the town's hospital, the medical source said.

Witnesses described a scene of sudden destruction at the town's main market.

Two said a drone struck a crowded restaurant, attributing the attack to the military.

Another described what appeared to be a two-stage attack: an initial strike on an RSF vehicle that killed three people, followed moments later by a second blast that hit the restaurant.

Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese legal advocacy group, said the strike targeted a key market relied on by thousands of civilians for food and basic supplies.

A spokesman for the Sudanese military denied responsibility, saying the armed forces carry out strikes only against "military objectives", including vehicles and weapons depots.

An RSF-aligned alliance condemned the strike, accusing the military of a "systematic" campaign of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.

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Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump's Justice Department announced on Monday the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate political allies prosecuted under the Biden administration.

Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups immediately attacked the plan as a brazenly corrupt "slush fund" that would reward the Republican president's loyalists with taxpayer money.

In exchange for the creation of the "Anti-Weaponization Fund," the Justice Department said Trump was dropping a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a leak of his tax returns.

Trump, his two eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr. and the Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the tax-collecting agency in a federal district court in Florida in January seeking $10 billion in damages over the tax returns leak.

A former IRS contractor pleaded guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy Americans to the media and received a five-year prison sentence.

The Justice Department, which is currently headed by Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, said the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" was being created as part of a settlement in the IRS case.

"The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department's intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again," Blanche said in a statement.

"As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress," the acting attorney general said.

The Justice Department said Blanche will appoint five people to oversee the fund and the Trumps "will receive a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages of any kind."

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San Diego (AFP) – A shooting at a mosque complex in California killed three people Monday, with two suspected teenage gunmen later found dead in a car from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said.

Police said emergency response teams found the victims outside the sprawling Islamic Center of San Diego, before later finding the shooters, aged 19 and 17, also dead.

TV footage from a helicopter showed armed response teams gathered outside a building, with one unidentified person lying in a pool of blood.

Dozens of patrol cars were lined up around the Islamic Center, described on its website as the largest mosque in San Diego county, which lies in southern California.

After a short period of lockdown when authorities advised residents to stay inside, San Diego police announced that the threat at the center had been "neutralized."

"We received a call of an active shooter at the Islamic center. Within four minutes, officers arrived on scene and observed immediately three deceased victims out in front," San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters.

"We immediately began to deploy with an active shooter response into the mosque and adjacent school," he said, adding that police had received calls about more gunfire nearby, where landscaper at work there had been shot at but not hit.

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Havana (AFP) – Cuba's leader warned Monday of a "bloodbath" in the event of an American attack, while the US Treasury sanctioned Cuba's main intelligence agency and top leaders as tensions spiked between the arch-foes.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel stressed Cuba's right to defend itself a day after US news site Axios reported that Havana had obtained over 300 military drones from Russia and Iran and is mulling using them against US targets.

The report, which quoted US intelligence officials, came amid growing speculation that the United States is weighing military action to topple Cuba's communist government.

Axios quoted unnamed US officials as saying that Havana was considering drone strikes on the US base at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba, on US military vessels and possibly even Florida.

Writing on X, Diaz-Canel repeated that Cuba "poses no threat" to the United States or any other country and warned that a US attack would "trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences."

He did not directly address Cuba's alleged stockpiling of attack drones but said the island had "the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught."

Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations struck a similarly defiant note.

"If someone tried to invade Cuba, Cuba will fight back, no doubt about it," Ernesto Soberon Guzman told AFP in New York.

"In the 60s, they (the US) tried to invade Cuba, and they were defeated. Of course, everybody can say this is a different situation. Yes, it is. But the will of the people of Cuba has not changed," he added.

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Washington (United States) (AFP) – One of Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani's companies will pay the United States $275 million to settle a probe into whether it violated Washington's sanctions against Iran, the US Treasury said Monday.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the agreement had been reached with Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), part of the magnate's sprawling multinational conglomerate of companies.

"AEL agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 32 apparent violations of OFAC's Iran sanctions," the Treasury said, pointing to AEL's purchases of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) between November 2023 and June 2025.

The announcement came days after Adani agreed to pay a separate $18 million settlement in a US civil court case linked to corruption, without admitting guilt, according to one of his other companies.

In that case, Adani was accused of participating in an estimated $250 million scheme to bribe Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts.

Monday's settlement announcement said AEL had cooperated with OFAC's probe and agreed to additional nonmonetary remedial measures to strengthen compliance with US sanctions.

The probe focused on LPG imports arranged through a Dubai-based supplier that claimed to be exporting Omani and Iraqi gas, OFAC said.

"Red flags should have put AEL on notice that the LPG actually originated from Iran," the statement said.

Adani Enterprises confirmed the settlement in a stock exchange filing made on Monday, saying the agreement was executed on May 14.

Also on Monday, US prosecutors asked a federal judge to drop bribery-related criminal charges against Adani.

The New York Times has reported that Adani's lawyer told Justice Department officials in April that if charges were dropped, the magnate would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy.

Prosecutors did not mention that apparent offer in their brief court filing, which simply said they had decided "not to devote further resources" to the case.

The Adani Group is one of India's largest business empires, operating businesses ranging from ports and power plants to cement factories and media houses.

Adani, one of India's richest men, has been rocked in recent years by corporate fraud allegations and a stock crash.

Adani is a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hails from the leader's home state of Gujarat.

India is the world's second-largest buyer of LPG, and the fourth-largest buyer of liquefied natural gas, much of which is sourced through the Middle East.

Washington (United States) (AFP) – President Donald Trump and top cabinet officials addressed thousands of Americans at a mass prayer rally in Washington on Sunday -- an event critics saw as an overt display of Christian nationalism undermining the separation of church and state.

The gathering was organized by the White House as part of a program of celebrations for America's 250th anniversary and billed as an opportunity to revive the idea of a country founded on Christian principles.

During the daylong outdoor event on the National Mall, attendees sang and swayed to Christian music and listened to addresses by pastors and government officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who both spoke via video.

In a brief video appearance, Trump read a passage from the Bible in which God says he will "heal their land" if people "seek my face and turn from their wicked ways."

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson offered a prayer over what he described as "sinister ideologies" in the United States.

"We've witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this great nation," Johnson said. "We turn to you once again to save us from these afflictions."

Muscular Christian nationalism, which fuses American and Christian identities, has enjoyed a prominent platform since Trump's return to power, and evangelicals are among the president's staunchest backers.

Hegseth is a member of an ultra-conservative evangelical church, and his briefings on the Iran war have been notable for their use of bellicose, religious rhetoric.

"Today, friends, we are in a spiritual war," Pastor Gary Hamrick of Virginia told the crowd. "This is a battle for the very soul of America."

The US Constitution explicitly bars the establishment of any official religion, but the expression of any faith is also explicitly protected.

Earlier, Johnson countered criticism of the event on Fox News Sunday, calling Christian nationalism a "new" and "pejorative" term used by people "trying to silence the influence and the voices of Christians."

Jeana Dobbins, a 67-year-old retiree who traveled from North Carolina with her friend, said they had come to "rededicate our country back to God. Our country has fallen away in so many areas," she told AFP.

Sarah Tyson, holding a "Jesus Saves" sign, said she believes Trump was chosen by God to lead the nation through a new spiritual revival.

"God ordained him for a time like this, because these United States needs to wake up," said Tyson, a middle-aged woman who came from New York with fellow church members.

While previous administrations and presidents have regularly held and attended faith-based gatherings, Sunday's event is still unusual for its scale and the presence of top cabinet officials.

And apart from a rabbi and a retired Catholic archbishop, almost all the 20 listed "faith leaders" who spoke were evangelical Protestants.

"It's not unprecedented to have a group of evangelical pastors or conservative clergy come together for something like this and blend a certain kind of nationalism with a certain kind of conservative Christianity," said Sam Perry, a professor at Baylor University, a Christian school in Texas.

But "the Trump administration taking the lead on this celebration at this scale is different than previous events," Perry added.

The organizers' website says the prayer gathering is for "Americans of every background" but Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, says the list of speakers suggested "an idea of American identity that is rooted in whiteness and Christianity."

The event "sends a specific message... that they are the mainstream Americans, and the rest of us are sidelined," Ingersoll said.

The National Mall, which stretches from the US Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, is a common site for mass rallies and protests -- most famously the 1963 March on Washington, when an estimated 250,000 people heard Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech.