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Two Killed in Kenya Protest Against US Ebola Quarantine Facility, Protest Organizer Says

A protester raises a Kenyan flag near a burning barricade during a demonstration against a proposed Ebola quarantine center to be established by the United States at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, Kenya, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP)
A protester raises a Kenyan flag near a burning barricade during a demonstration against a proposed Ebola quarantine center to be established by the United States at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, Kenya, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP)
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Two Killed in Kenya Protest Against US Ebola Quarantine Facility, Protest Organizer Says

A protester raises a Kenyan flag near a burning barricade during a demonstration against a proposed Ebola quarantine center to be established by the United States at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, Kenya, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP)
A protester raises a Kenyan flag near a burning barricade during a demonstration against a proposed Ebola quarantine center to be established by the United States at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, Kenya, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP)

Two people died in central Kenya during a protest against a planned US Ebola quarantine facility, a protest organizer and security source told Reuters on Tuesday, as President William Ruto rebuffed criticism it will endanger Kenyans. 

Protest organizer Patrick Wahome said both had died of gunshot wounds after police opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators on Monday in the town of Nanyuki, where the air force base intended to accommodate the facility is located. 

The security source did not specify how the two died. 

Police spokesperson Michael Muchiri said he was not aware of the deaths. 

The plan to set up a 50-bed unit to house Americans who have been exposed to the virus in Democratic Republic of ‌Congo or Uganda has ‌angered many Kenyans who accuse the US of offloading the public health ‌risk ⁠of caring for ⁠patients. 

A Kenyan court last week temporarily suspended the plan in response to a lawsuit from a legal advocacy group. Another hearing was due on Tuesday. 

Despite the order, US military aircraft have continued to fly in staff and equipment in recent days, according to a US official and diplomatic sources. 

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Addressing the issue for the first time late on Monday, Ruto said the facility was part of a wider national preparedness plan and a long-running health partnership with Washington. 

"The ⁠facility that is at Laikipia Air Base is not a facility different ‌from all the other facilities that we have across Kenya," ‌he told reporters in northern Kenya. 

He did not mention the court order. 

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WILL NOT ALLOW EBOLA CASES ‌INTO US 

The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is centered in eastern Congo ‌and several cases have spilled over into neighboring Uganda. 

There have been more than 900 suspected cases, including over 220 suspected deaths from the disease. 

Experts say the outbreak, declared on May 15, is likely significantly larger and more advanced than official figures suggest after circulating undetected for many weeks. 

President Donald Trump's administration has said it "cannot and will not ‌allow" any cases to enter the US, unlike during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa when several infected US nationals were treated on US ⁠soil. 

A US citizen ⁠who contracted Ebola while treating patients in the DRC as a medical missionary was moved to Germany last month for treatment along with five others who were exposed. 

A seventh person was taken to the Czech Republic. 

The facility in Nanyuki would be staffed by members of the US Public Health Service, a uniformed branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

It is meant to receive Americans who have been exposed to the virus but are still asymptomatic. Patients who develop symptoms would be sent for care in other countries, US officials have said. 

Ruto said on Monday that he approved the facility after Trump asked Kenya to support it, citing decades of health cooperation with Washington. 

Kenya's government has pushed for the facility to take in patients of all nationalities, not just US citizens. Ruto said it would serve Kenyans and foreign nationals too, though US officials have not confirmed this. 

"We are a responsible government. We know what we are doing," Ruto said. 

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World

Iran Says to Announce New Restricted Zone in the Gulf in the Coming Days

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, September 6, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, September 6, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
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Iran Says to Announce New Restricted Zone in the Gulf in the Coming Days

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, September 6, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, September 6, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer

Iran said it will announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days, along with maps of a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, as a weekend exchange of strikes on shipping sent oil prices higher on Monday.

The new restricted zone will begin from where the US blockade of Iran begins and extend into areas of the Gulf, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday in an interview with state TV.

Few details were provided on the plan, but Rezaei said any ship entering the new zone would be added to a sanctions list, reported Reuters.

In addition, maps detailing passage routes for the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy conduit largely closed to tanker traffic, would also be approved soon, Rezaei said.

"The maps of a new international corridor which lies in Iranian and Omani waters and in which Iran will have management have been agreed and should be signed in the coming days," he said.

"We will only commit to the Strait of Hormuz being ‌open when they (the Americans) ‌stop the sabotage, threats and attacks on Iran," Rezaei added.

Six months after US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked ‌the war, the ⁠conflict appears to ⁠be at a stalemate. A preliminary ceasefire accord reached in June has unraveled, and little progress has been made in diplomatic efforts to get the peace process back on track.

After a pause in military action for much of August, tit-for-tat strikes have resumed. US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, US Central Command said, including one off Kharg Island, Iran's key oil export hub, following attacks by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps on US warships in the region.

Tehran has shown it retains the capability to attack US interests in neighboring countries and to shut down oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil supplies flowed prior to the conflict.

An average of 10 commodity ships transited the Strait per day in the past 10 days, the lowest since May, according to shipping ⁠data on Monday. That helped oil prices extend last week's big gains, with Brent crude up 0.8% ‌above $97 a barrel.

SANCTIONS, OIL BLOCKADE SQUEEZE ECONOMY 

Iran has said it will step up efforts to ‌tackle problems created by US sanctions that are crippling its economy. 

However, the US campaign to throttle Iran's economy by blockading its oil exports and stopping sanctions evasion is growing ‌increasingly difficult to withstand, three senior Iranian sources have said. 

Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Sunday that the US should understand that the ‌rules of the game have changed "before it is too late". 

"From now on, any attack against Iran’s interests and security will receive a faster, heavier and more painful response,” he said in a speech published on his Telegram channel. 

Qalibaf said that alongside the military front, Iran’s main battle was now over production and people’s livelihoods. 

He cited sharp currency fluctuations, inflation, unemployment and market management as major challenges, adding Iranians could tolerate hardship but not mismanagement or inaction and expected the government to act quickly. 

Iran's Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh said ‌Tehran planned to respond to US economic pressure with reforms and rejected the notion that sanctions would cause it to change course, according to state media on Sunday. 

“They speak of economic pressure and isolation, of ⁠breaking off financial ties and they think ⁠that by pressuring the economy of a country they can change the decisions of its people,” Madanizadeh said. 

“I have to clarify one point: The responsibility of reforming Iran’s economy is with its government and people, not with the US Treasury." 

KHARG ISLAND HIT 550 TIMES IN PRIOR MONTHS, IRAN SAYS 

Iran is the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and exported 90% of its crude via its Kharg Island export hub before the war. Flows have been disrupted since a US blockade of Iranian oil exports began in mid-April. 

US Central Command said on X that as of Sunday it had redirected 92 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two to ensure strict compliance with its blockade. 

On August 31, US President Donald Trump issued a one-line social media post accompanied by an AI-generated video depicting Kharg Island being "blown to smithereens." Iranian authorities have vowed a strong response if Kharg is attacked. 

In an interview aired on state TV on Sunday, Iran's Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said the island had been hit around 550 times in previous months but continued to operate. 

Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed up fuel prices, weighing on Trump's popularity as his Republican Party heads into elections in November when control of Congress is at stake. 

However, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil was getting through the waterway. 

"Our transits through the Strait are averaging over 9 million barrels a day now, and with the access pipelines that go around the strait, we're probably two-thirds or more of pre-conflict flows. So Iranians are still causing trouble, but the United States Navy is winning that battle," he told CNN. 

World

Belgium Arrests Suspected Spy Who Sold Chip Secrets to China

The flags of Germany and China are seen in Berlin, Germany, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
The flags of Germany and China are seen in Berlin, Germany, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
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Belgium Arrests Suspected Spy Who Sold Chip Secrets to China

The flags of Germany and China are seen in Berlin, Germany, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)
The flags of Germany and China are seen in Berlin, Germany, June 19, 2023. (Reuters)

Authorities in Belgium said on Monday they had arrested a suspected spy who allegedly sold a local chip-maker's trade secrets to a Chinese rival.

Prosecutors said the Chinese-Belgian national, who worked at Belgan, a now bankrupt Belgian producer of gallium nitride semiconductors, was arrested at Brussels airport in May as he was about to board a flight to Beijing.

"There are indications that the person concerned, who held a senior research position within the Belgian company, was simultaneously acting as a director of a Chinese company engaged in a similar manufacturing activity," the federal prosecutor's office said.

The Chinese firm was set up just a few months after the 52-year-old suspect had joined Belgan and was financed by a Chinese investment fund.

"The investigation may point to the unlawful transfer abroad of specialized intellectual property and trade secrets relating to the production of gallium nitride chips -- technology which has applications in sectors including electric vehicles, aerospace and the military," the prosecutor's office said.

This is the second espionage case related to China to emerge in Belgium in the space of a few months.

In July, authorities said they had arrested a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin suspected of carrying out "espionage on behalf of a third country" while on an internship at NATO.

The Belgan case stems from the company's bankruptcy in 2024, which affected more than 400 workers.

The suspect is being held in pre-trial detention on accusations of espionage, participation in a criminal organization, misuse of company assets and the unlawful disclosure of company secrets.

Prosecutors said they were still looking for a second suspect, also a Chinese national, who local media reported to be the firm's last CEO.

In its latest annual report, Belgium's state security agency highlighted several methods allegedly employed by China to acquire strategic Western know-how, including creating so-called "copy-to-China" companies.

It described how "Chinese firms invest in Belgian companies, research centers or spin-offs -- preferably small entities developing promising technologies but facing funding challenges -- to gain access to specific technologies".

They then established a firm in China to produce the same technology on a larger scale, before the original parent company is sold off, the report said.

World

Avalanche Kills 11 Climbers in Southern Russia

Rescuers received reports of the avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi, around 5,000 meters tall, at around on Sunday. (Getty Images)
Rescuers received reports of the avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi, around 5,000 meters tall, at around on Sunday. (Getty Images)
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Avalanche Kills 11 Climbers in Southern Russia

Rescuers received reports of the avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi, around 5,000 meters tall, at around on Sunday. (Getty Images)
Rescuers received reports of the avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi, around 5,000 meters tall, at around on Sunday. (Getty Images)

An avalanche on one of Russia's highest mountains has killed 11 climbers and left six others missing, rescue services said Monday.

Rescuers received reports of the avalanche on Mount Mizhirgi, around 5,000 meters (16,400 ft) tall, at around 5 pm (1400 GMT) on Sunday.

Unverified video on social media showed what appeared to be a mound of snow and ice crashing down a mountainside in the area, as people in the background could be heard swearing.

"Tragically, 11 people were killed. The fate of six climbers remains unknown," the local branch of Russia's emergency ministry said in a statement.

"Search and rescue operations are being complicated by difficult terrain and the risk of avalanches," it added.

A group of 33 climbers were in the area at the time.

Ten managed to evacuate on their own, while six had to be transported out by rescue services, according to the local branch of Russia's emergency ministry.

Prosecutors have opened a case into criminal negligence.

Mount Mizhirgi, near the Georgian border, is Russia's eighth-tallest mountain.

Surrounded by pristine forest and glaciers, the area is popular with hikers.