Wanderlust

Tag: americas

  • Ecuador tightens access rules for Venezuelan migrants

    Venezuelan migrants stand in line to register their exit from Colombia before entering Ecuador, at the Rumichaca International Bridge in Colombia August 17, 2018 Image copyright Reuters Symbol caption Many Venezuelans have made a long overland adventure to the Ecuador border, but at the moment are caught

    Ecuador has introduced in new regulations to prevent Venezuelan migrants getting into the country with no passport, leaving many stranded in neighbouring Colombia.

    Thousands of Venezuelans fleeing their us of a’s financial and political drawback were crossing into Ecuador from Colombia using simplest identity cards.

    Most are heading south to join members of the family in Peru and Chile.

    Colombia has protested against the transfer, saying vulnerable folks will probably be trapped on its aspect of the border.

    In a separate incident, residents of a Brazilian town attacked a Venezuelan migrant camp on Saturday and drove the occupants back across the border.

    Early on Saturday, about 300 Venezuelans have been coated up on the Rumichaca border crossing out of doors the Colombian city of Ipiales, and lots of mentioned they had no passports to gain entry to Ecuador.

    Gabriel Malavolta, a 50-12 months-antique mechanic, left Venezuela 3 days in the past aiming to make the overland route to Lima, Peru, through Ecuador.

    He has a passport however his fiancee, Yenny, had only an ID card.

    “i do not understand what we are going to do, but we won’t go back. i am not sending my fiancee to go back and go hungry,” he advised Reuters news company at a Crimson Go tent.

    “You’ve Gotten no thought what it’s like in Venezuela. Complete families devour from the trash.”

    Another migrant, Regulo Guaita, said: “That was once actually a wonder. We found out today. it is very unhappy because there are many, many Venezuelans leaving and (with this degree) they won’t allow them to go away. i don’t recognise what they are going to do now.”

    Image copyright Reuters Symbol caption There are lengthy queues of Venezuelans migrants at the border crossing close to Ipiales

    With the drift of Venezuelan migrants inflicting tensions around the area, Peru’s govt announced immigration measures similar to Ecuador’s on Friday. Passport necessities for Venezuelans will begin on 25 August.

    In February, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos introduced a tightening of border controls, resulting in hundreds of Venezuelans speeding to crossing points.

    Brazil, which neighbours Venezuela, has additionally expressed considerations and briefly closed the border earlier this month. Violence has flared in the border state of Roraima the place heaps of Venezuelans reside in precarious accommodation.

    Symbol copyright EPA Image caption Brazilian police attempted to revive keep an eye on after citizens near Pacaraima attacked Venezuelan migrant camps

    in the border the city of Pacaraima on Saturday, a couple of migrant encampments had been attacked by way of offended residents.

    The attacks followed a protest within the the town after a local restaurant proprietor was allegedly robbed and crushed up via Venezuelans.

    consistent with studies, masses of Venezuelans fled back across the border and residents set hearth to the assets they’d left behind.

    On the Venezuelan aspect of the border, meanwhile, there were stories that Brazilian cars have been attacked.

    Media playback is unsupported to your device

    Media captionThe seek for food in Venezuela

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  • Uruguay’s Jose Mujica gets $1m be offering for his VW Beetle

    Video The ‘poorest’ president’s $1m VW

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  • Venezuela challenge: Maduro to curb fuel subsidies

    Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro during a televised speech in Caracas, Venezuela Image copyright EPA

    Venezuela’s president has said its subsidised gasoline costs must upward thrust, to forestall smugglers dishonest the country out of thousands and thousands of greenbacks.

    “Gas must be sold at an international worth to prevent smuggling to Colombia and the Caribbean,” Nicolás Maduro mentioned in a televised address.

    Like many oil generating international locations, Venezuela offers its citizens heavily subsidised petrol.

    Smugglers can then line their pockets reselling the oil in local countries.

    Venezuela’s economy is in freefall, with inflation rates anticipated to achieve a million % this yr – but the value of oil has barely changed.

    Venezuela crisis: How did we get here? Venezuela deploys soldiers to markets Profile: Venezuela’s debatable chief Nicolás Maduro

    Native media record that a cup of coffee prices round 2.2 million bolivars (round $0.50 £0.39 at black marketplace charges). For the similar price, you’ll fill a small SUV with petrol almost NINE,000 times.

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    Media captionVenezuelan cash trouble: How a coffee costs wads of banknotes

    The transfer to diminish gas subsidies is a part of a wider plan to extend govt revenues, BBC correspondents say.

    Mr Maduro mentioned “direct subsidies” would nonetheless be given to voters with state ID playing cards, if they registered their automobiles in a government census – but he didn’t shed light on how the scheme would work.

    Many Venezuelans opposed to Mr Maduro’s govt refuse to make use of the ID playing cards, however.

    What’s on the root of Venezuela’s economic concern?

    Venezuela is wealthy in oil. It has the biggest proven oil reserves in the world. but it is arguably precisely this wealth that may be additionally at the root of a lot of its financial problems.

    Venezuela’s oil revenues account for roughly 95% of its export profits. this implies that once oil prices have been prime, a lot of cash was once flowing into the coffers of the Venezuelan govt.

    When socialist President Hugo Chávez was in power, from February 1999 till his death in March 2013, he used a few of that cash to finance generous social programmes to reduce inequality and poverty.

    But when oil costs dropped sharply in 2014, the government used to be all at once faced with a gaping hole in its finances and needed to cut back on some of its most well liked programmes.

    How did inflation spiral out of control?

    Hyperinflation has been driven up via the government’s willingness to print extra money and its readiness to incessantly building up the minimal salary in an effort to regain some of its reputation with Venezuela’s poor.

    The govt could also be increasingly more struggling to get credit score after it defaulted on a few of its executive bonds.

    With collectors less likely to take the danger of making an investment in Venezuela, the federal government has again taken to printing more cash, further undermining its worth and stoking inflation.

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  • Inter-American Human Rights Court backs same-sex marriage

    People celebrate after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights called on Costa Rica and Latin America to recognize equal marriage, in San Jose, Costa Rica, January 9, 2018. The sign reads: Symbol copyright Reuters Symbol caption Activists celebrated the court docket’s ruling holding up indicators reading: “The courtroom stated yes!”

    The Inter-American Court Docket of Human Rights has dominated that very same-intercourse marriages should be recognised.

    The court’s rulings practice to international locations that have signed the american Conference on Human Rights.

    Some of the signatories already recognise comparable-intercourse marriages even as others recognise same-sex civil unions.

    But others, reminiscent of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay and Peru don’t know either and can be expected to modify their regulations.

    The court was once based by way of the nearby body, the Organization of yank States (OAS), and signatories to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights are bound by means of its rulings.

    Image copyright Reuters Argentina Brazil Canada Colombia Mexico (sure states most effective) US Uruguay

    The ruling comes as a bunch of Latin American nations have modified or are debating changing their rules to allow related-intercourse couples to marry.

    Most recently, outgoing Chilean President Michelle Bachelet sent a homosexual marriage bill to Congress for debate.

    Other western hemisphere countries, such as Ecuador, have introduced comparable-intercourse civil unions.

    ‘Without discrimination’

    The judges said that governments “should recognise and guarantee all the rights which might be derived from a circle of relatives bond between people of the similar sex”.

    They additionally mentioned that it was once inadmissible and discriminatory for a separate criminal provision to be dependent just for comparable-sex marriages.

    The judges demanded that governments “ensure get right of entry to to all existing types of household legal techniques, together with the right to marriage, so as to verify the protection of all of the rights of families shaped by way of comparable-intercourse couples with out discrimination”.

    Recognising the difficulty in passing such rules in international locations where there may be robust competition to comparable-sex marriage, they beneficial that governments go transient decrees until new law was once brought in.

    The judges issued the ruling in response to a motion introduced through Costa Rica.

    The Vital American govt asked the court to present its opinion on whether it had an obligation to increase property rights to comparable-sex couples. The court dominated that it did.

    The Costa Rican executive additionally wanted to understand whether it is going to allow transgender people to switch their name on their identity documents. Once More, the courtroom dominated that it is going to.

    Costa Rica’s Vice-President Ana Helena Chacón welcomed the courtroom’s ruling, pronouncing it might be adopted “in its totality”.

  • Hurricane Maria: Puerto Rico acknowledges masses died

    A Puerto Rican flag is seen on a pair of shoes among hundreds displayed at the Capitol Image copyright Reuters Symbol caption Authorities were criticised for not acknowledging the numbers of those killed by means of Typhoon Maria

    Puerto Rico has acknowledged that Hurricane Maria killed 1,427 other folks within the US territory, now not 64 as it has up to now reported.

    Maria hit the island in September 2017 and it has struggled to repair its infrastructure and tool grid.

    The recent determine was in a draft record for US Congress, asking for $139bn (£108bn) in restoration funds.

    The professional figure of SIXTY FOUR has remained unchanged considering ultimate 12 months in spite of some mavens estimating 4,SIX HUNDRED deaths.

    The New York Times used to be first to file that the island’s authorities had quietly familiar the revised estimate.

    Puerto Rico profile General blackout hits 3.4m Puerto Ricans Six pictures that sum up Puerto Rico crisis

    a central authority spokesperson stated the most recent quantity as a “practical estimate” but stated that the death toll had no longer been officially modified, as the government were watching for the effects of a have a look at via George Washington School.

    “We Do Not need to say it out loud or publicise it as an reputable number… till we see the take a look at and feature the accuracy,” Pedro Cerame from the island’s Federal Affairs Administration advised the Occasions.

    The executive has confronted criticism for underreporting the number of these killed within the wake of 2017 typhoon.

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    Media captionSix months after hurricanes, many in this US island suffered within the darkish

    Researchers from Harvard University said interviews conducted in Puerto Rico recommended a 60% build up in mortality in the three months after the hurricane.

    Many died from interrupted hospital treatment and lack of get admission to to hospitals. the ability outage additionally resulted in an increased collection of deaths from diabetes and sepsis.

    Hurricane Maria brought about the biggest blackout in US history, consistent with analysis consultancy the Rhodium Group.

    There have additionally been repeated power cuts due to the fact that then, including an island-wide one in April, nearly seven months after the hurricane.

    Overall, Typhoon Maria led to losses of $90bn, the u.s. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) mentioned.

    The Caribbean island is house to 3.4 million US electorate.

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  • Argentina abortion: Senate defeats invoice legalising it at as much as 14 weeks

    Anti-abortion activists outside parliament in Buenos Aires Image copyright Reuters Symbol caption Anti-abortion activists were celebrating out of doors parliament

    Argentina’s senate has rejected a invoice which might have legalised abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

    After a marathon debate, 38 senators voted in opposition to it and 31 in favour. Its defeat approach lawmakers will have to wait a yr to resubmit legislation.

    Currently abortion is authorized in Argentina best in circumstances of rape, or if the mother’s well being is in danger.

    Demonstrators on both sides of the talk collected out of doors parliament as balloting came about.

    No going again in Argentina’s abortion debate

    Pro-abortion campaigners have for years tried to get bills passed, but their efforts won new impetus while President Mauricio Macri – who himself opposes abortion – called on Congress to think about it.

    In June, the lower area narrowly passed after a consultation lasting nearly 24 hours even as loads of hundreds of ladies held a vigil outdoor.

  • Venezuela cracks down on opposition in wake of ‘attack’

    handout picture released by the Venezuelan presidency showing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro talking during a television programme at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on August 7, 2018. Symbol copyright AFP Image caption President Maduro mentioned competition politicians Julio Borges and Juan Requesens had been at the back of an assault on his life

    Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Juan Requesens has been arrested after President Nicolás Maduro accused him of involvement in Saturday’s alleged drone attack in opposition to him.

    His arrest came as an impressive executive reputable found out plans to strip two lawmakers of their immunity.

    The executive has blamed key opposition politicians for what they are saying used to be a bid to kill Mr Maduro.

    But some government critics denounced the alleged assault as a “farce”.

    Who is Juan Requesens?

    Image copyright Reuters Image caption Juan Requesens was overwhelmed up all through an anti-govt protest in April

    Juan Requesens is a member of the opposition-controlled Nationwide Meeting for the Primero Justicia (Justice First) party. The 29-year-antique from the border state of Táchira is one among essentially the most outspoken critics of President Maduro and has taken part in many anti-govt demonstrations.

    Rafaela Requesens used to be later released but Juan Requesens has now not been heard of when you consider that he used to be taken away.

    Their father Juan Guillermo defined what had happened to the 2 as a “kidnapping”. “They were taken by means of drive with none roughly warrant,” he said.

    what is he accused of?

    Following Mr Requesens’s arrest, President Maduro took to the airwaves to accuse him and every other Primer Justicia lawmaker, Julio Borges, of getting plotted Saturday’s alleged drone assault on him.

    He mentioned that in their statements the ones already detained in reference to the incident had implicated the two competition politicians.

    Six held over Venezuela ‘drone attack’

    “All of the statements element at Julio Borges, who lives in a mansion in the Colombian capital Bogotá secure through the outgoing executive of Colombia,” the president mentioned with out providing proof of the statements.

    Symbol copyright Getty Images Symbol caption Julio Borges won the Sakharov prize on behalf of the Venezuelan competition ultimate 12 months

    “we know he has the cowardice needed to perform an assault of this kind. i know that perfectly neatly. He has established that in the road protests of the final 15 years. it’s all the time him, all the time Julio Borges. And now he has had the finger pointed at him immediately.”

    President Maduro then turned on Mr Requesens, pronouncing: “Every Other competition chief is mentioned. one of the craziest and psychopathic ones, somebody referred to as Requesens… who a 12 months in the past known as for the united states army to invade and occupy Venezuela. they have got been discussed by way of the perpetrators.”

    it is no longer transparent whether or not legit fees have to this point been introduced in opposition to Mr Requesens.

    What has the reaction been?

    Writing on Twitter from outdoor Venezuela, Julio Borges rejected the accusations made in opposition to him and Juan Requesens.

    “Neither the rustic nor the arena imagine you while it comes to this farce of an attack, all of us realize that it was staged to persecute and repress the ones people who oppose your dictatorship,” he wrote in Spanish.

    Was the assault staged?

    Some in the competition, like Mr Borges, suppose it used to be staged by the government to justify an extra crackdown on the competition.

    They Say the fact that the president of the powerful Nationwide Constituent Meeting, Diosdado Cabello, has known as for a consultation later on Wednesday to strip the two lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity proves their element.

    National Constituent Meeting

    Convened by President Maduro in 2016 ostensibly to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution Solely made up of presidency supporters Most decisions are licensed unanimously via a trifling show of arms Executive critics say it was created to circumvent the National Meeting

    They Are Saying that the government itself introduced two drones, one of which exploded close to the rostrum the place President Maduro was once giving a speech on Saturday, to back its conception that the competition are coup-plotters conspiring to convey the chief down with the help of Colombia and the united states.

    What evidence is there?

    TELEVISION pictures of the development displays President Maduro’s spouse taking a look up startled. Then an explosion is heard and the president’s bodyguard is noticed speeding to defend him.

    An analysis performed by way of site Bellingcat, which uses open-source knowledge to research the incident, suggests that the video was once taken on Bolívar Road, where President Maduro used to be speaking.

    the second video reportedly taken via a cameraman for Telemundo and tweeted through journalist Adriana Núñez Rabascall seems to show a drone crashing towards the wall of a building.

    Skip Twitter publish by way of @Adriananunezr

    El camarógrafo de Telemundo @csaavedrareport captó el momento en que el segundo dron cae en Residencias Don Eduardo. Por razones de exclusividad, no puedo compartirlo en su totalidad pic.twitter.com/SLi1LaMzw2

    — Adriana Núñez Rabascall (@Adriananunezr) August 5, 2018

    File

    Finish of Twitter publish via @Adriananunezr

    The construction turns out to be the similar one where firefighters pronounced a fire shortly after President Maduro had left the level.

    On The Other Hand, 3 firefighters advised the Associated Press information company on Saturday that it have been caused by an exploding fuel tank, casting doubt on the government’s model of events.

    Bellingcat concludes that there have been drones which “most likely carried a few form of explosive device” and which “tried to attack a parade at which President Maduro was once talking”.

    Why might the attack be staged?

    people who imagine it was staged say it allows the federal government to further tighten the screws on the competition. On The Other Hand, govt critic Blas Jesús Imbroda has brushed aside that conception.

    Mr Imbroda, who’s the adviser to Venezuela’s sacked former leader prosecutor, Luisa Ortega, argues that the “repression in Venezuela is continuous and continuing and Maduro does not need to do anything to extend it”.

    Venezuela analyst David Smilde of the Washington Workplace on Latin The Usa informed the BBC he was once sure it was once now not an adventure staged by way of the government because it seemed “bad”.

    “Maduro being interrupted in mid-set and one among his military officials fainting at the back of him and then the National Guard breaking rank and scattering, running for protection, i think the optics have been completely poor for him.”

    “This made him glance extremely inclined and it could spark the imagination of more folks” Mr Smilde mentioned.

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  • Brazil closes border to Venezuela migrants

    Venezuelan walks over border into Brazil, file picture 16 November 2017 Image copyright Reuters

    Brazil has closed its border with Venezuela to other people fleeing economic and political turmoil in its northern neighbour.

    Pass Judgement On Helder Barreto ordered the frontier to be shut until Brazil can installed place the precise prerequisites to obtain the large influx of people.

    The authorities within the state of Roraima in Brazil’s Amazon region say a few 800 Venezuelans move the border every day.

    However, the border remains open to Brazilians and other non-Venezuelans.

    It may be open for Venezuelans who’re returning north out of Brazil. Sea and air borders are unaffected by means of the ruling.

    Image copyright EPA Symbol caption Many Venezuelans who’ve crossed into Brazil struggle to search out accommodation

    Roraima, within the center of Brazil’s Amazon region, is one among the country’s poorest states.

    Such A Lot of the Venezuelans who’ve crossed the border in contemporary months are living in appalling conditions within the streets of the state capital, Boa Vista, and different towns.

    For months, the authorities in Roraima have been calling for the border to be close. they are saying that public services and products have collapsed and that migration has brought about a sharp upward push in crime.

    Last week, a rule was introduced requiring Venezuelans searching for medical or social help in Roraima to offer a valid passport, which a lot of the migrants don’t have.

    Pass Judgement On Barreto ruled this move to be “discriminatory” and ordered the transient border closure to permit state bodies to come back up with a plan to take care of the difficulty.

    Brazil’s vital executive had adversarial any border closure, saying that standard Venezuelans had been struggling the results of a humanitarian concern and that Brazil should continue to assist.

  • America’s gun tradition in 10 charts

    The worst mass capturing in the U.s.a. has once again raised questions about gun possession and whether there must be more difficult controls.

    How does the us examine with different international locations?

    Approximately FORTY% of american citizens say they own a gun or reside in a family with one, according to a 2017 survey, and the velocity of murder or manslaughter through firearm is the top in the evolved global. there were greater than ELEVEN,000 deaths as a result of homicide or manslaughter involving a firearm in 2016.

    Homicides are taken here to include murder and manslaughter. The FBI separates records for what it calls justifiable homicide, which includes the killing of a criminal through a peace officer or private citizen in positive circumstances, which can be now not included.

    Who owns the arena’s guns?

    Even As it’s tricky to grasp precisely what number of guns civilians personal around the international, by each estimate the us with round 270 million is far out in front.

    Switzerland and Finland are the european countries with probably the most guns consistent with person – they both have compulsory army carrier for all males over the age of 18. Cyprus, Austria and Yemen also have army carrier.

    How do US gun deaths break down?

    There had been greater than 90 mass shootings within the US seeing that 1982, in step with investigative magazine Mother Jones.

    Up until 2012, a mass shooting used to be outlined as whilst an attacker had killed four or more sufferers in an indiscriminate rampage – and because 2013 the figures come with assaults with 3 or more victims. The shootings don’t come with killings related to different crimes equivalent to armed robbery or gang violence.

    the entire choice of other folks killed in mass shootings every year represents only a tiny percentage of the full quantity.

    there were just about two times as many suicides related to firearms in 2015 as there were murders regarding guns, and the rate has been increasing in contemporary years. Suicide by way of firearm bills for just about half of all suicides in the US, in line with the Facilities for Disease Control and Prevention.

    A 2016 observe revealed within the American Magazine of Public Well Being discovered there was a strong relationship among upper levels of gun possession in a state and better firearm suicide charges for each men and girls.

    How old are the killers?

    the typical age of attackers in NINETY ONE recorded US mass shootings is 34.

    Paddock is one in every of three killers aged over 60. The others are: William D Baker, 66, who killed five other people in Illinois in 2001; and Kurt Myers, 64, who killed five people in Big Apple state in 2013.

    The youngest killer is Andrew Douglas Golden, 11, who ambushed students and teachers as they left Westside Center College in Arkansas, 1998. He was jointly accountable with Mitchell Scott Johnson, 13, for 5 deaths and 10 injured.

    Attacks in US develop into deadlier

    The Las Vegas assault used to be the worst in contemporary US historical past – and the three shootings with the top number of casualties have all happened inside the earlier 10 years.

    What varieties of guns kill American Citizens?

    Army-taste assault weapons had been blamed for a few of the key mass shootings reminiscent of the assault in an Orlando nightclub and at the Sandy Hook College in Connecticut. The police said dozens of rifles were recovered from the scene of the Las Vegas taking pictures.

    a couple of US states have banned assault weapons, which have been completely restricted for a decade until 2004. On The Other Hand so much murders as a result of weapons contain handguns, in line with FBI data.

    How much do guns price to shop for?

    For the ones from nations the place weapons are not extensively owned, it may well be a marvel to find that they are moderately affordable to buy within the US.

    Handguns, that have been reportedly among Paddock’s arsenal came upon in his lodge room, can price from as little $TWO HUNDRED (£151) – as a lot as a Chromebook laptop as an example – and may also be bought from gun shops.

    Assault rifles just like the ones also reportedly present in Paddock’s room can price from around $1500 (£1,132).

    Given that 23 weapons were discovered at the hotel and further 19 at his home, Paddock may have spent more than $70,000 (£FIFTY TWO,800) on guns and equipment, corresponding to tripods, scopes, ammunition and cartridges.

    Who supports gun keep an eye on?

    US public opinion on the banning of handguns has modified dramatically over the last 60 years. This dataset is incomplete but it shows that support has shifted through the years and now a significant majority opposes a ban on handguns, according to polling by way of Gallup.

    A Few controls are extensively supported via people across the political divide – comparable to proscribing the sale of weapons to individuals who are mentally in poor health, or on “watch” lists.

    However Republicans and Democrats are a lot more divided over other coverage proposals, such as whether or not to allow ordinary electorate increased rights to carry hid guns – consistent with a survey from Pew Analysis Center.

    In his latest comment at the shootings, President Donald Trump stated he could be “speaking about gun laws as times is going by means of”. The White Space stated now could be not the time to be debating gun regulate.

    His predecessor, Barack Obama, struggled to get any new gun regulate regulations onto the statute books, on account of Republican opposition.

    Who opposes gun regulate?

    The Nationwide Rifle Affiliation (NRA) campaigns in opposition to all sorts of gun keep an eye on within the US and argues that extra guns make the rustic safer.

    it’s amongst essentially the most tough special interest foyer groups within the US, with a considerable price range to persuade members of Congress on gun coverage.

    In total approximately one in 5 US gun house owners say they’re contributors of the NRA – and it has particularly popular support from Republican-leaning gun homeowners, in step with Pew Analysis.

    In terms of lobbying, the NRA formally spends about $3m according to year to persuade gun policy.

    The chart shows best the recorded contributions to lawmakers published through the Senate Place Of Business of Public Records. The NRA spends tens of millions extra in different places, such as on aiding the election campaigns of political applicants who oppose gun controls.

  • Venezuela ‘drone attack’: Squaddies seen running

    Video Infantrymen run amid ‘drone attack’

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