Mozambique is on edge ahead of a ruling expected on Monday to determine the final results of October’s disputed elections, after allegations of rigging triggered weeks of protests in which security forces have killed dozens of people.
The opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has threatened “chaos” if the constitutional council confirms the initial election results, which gave the ruling party candidate, Daniel Chapo, 70.7% of the vote and Mondlane 20.3%.
The Podemos party, which is allied with Mondlane, said it should have 138 out of 250 seats in parliament, instead of the 31 that the election commission said it had won.
Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleged that ballot-stuffing had taken place, while EU election observers noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results”.
Mondlane has repeatedly said he won and has urged his supporters to take to the streets. This has brought the economy to a near standstill, including shutting the border and disrupting trade with South Africa.
Security forces have cracked down in response, killing at least 130 people and injuring hundreds more, according to Human Rights Watch. Local media reported that security forces shot dead two mourners on 14 December at a funeral for a blogger known as Mano Shottas, who had been killed while livestreaming a protest two days earlier.
Recently, some protesters have become violent, with offices of the ruling party, Frelimo, set on fire and a statue of the former defence minister Alberto Chipande, who is credited with firing the first shot in Mozambique’s war of independence, pulled down.
“On Monday the whole country must stop,” Mondlane said on Friday in one of his regular broadcasts, which he has been streaming on Facebook from an undisclosed location abroad, where he claims he fled to avoid being assassinated.
Mondlane called for prayers in the south-east African country on Sunday. “We are giving the opportunity to pray for the judges of the constitutional council, to pray for [its chair] Dr Lúcia Ribeiro, so that on Monday, from her, justice comes out, the electoral truth does not come out as a lie,” he said.
Mozambique’s outgoing president, Filipe Nyusi, rebutted Mondlane’s claim that he was planning to cling to power, saying in a Thursday evening broadcast that he would leave office in January as planned.
He also implicitly criticised Mondlane, saying: “It worries us that the process of choosing our leaders was transformed into a pretext to induce and exacerbate social tensions and violent acts.”
Zenaida Machado, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the ruling administration had “decided to brand the entire protest movement as violent to justify their own use of excessive force”.
“The fact that some people within a protest have become violent does not label the entire protests violent,” she said.
While most analysts believe there was some level of rigging, some said it was unclear whether Mondlane had won.
“A 70% majority for Frelimo was a massive surprise to everybody,” said Alex Vines, who was part of a group of election observers from the Commonwealth. “But neither … can [you] say that Venâncio Mondlane won. We just don’t know.
“The [opposition party] Renamo vote collapsed in Renamo heartlands,” said Vines, the head of the Africa programme at the thinktank Chatham House. “Frelimo benefited from that. It was in the urban areas that Podemos and particularly Venâncio prospered, which is not enough, necessarily, to get a majority.”
Four of the constitutional council’s seven judges were appointed by Frelimo parliamentarians, while the chair was appointed by Nyusi.
Adriano Nuvunga, the director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, a Mozambican non-profit organisation, said: “Everything will depend on what they say at the announcement – whether they will confirm the current results with minor changes or whether there will be a change, which is unrealistic. We are bracing for impact.”
I wonder whether we’ll look back at 2024 as the year that Apple Intelligence came to our Macs and devices?
While there are plenty of nay-sayers, and those who still accuse Apple of falling behind, there can be few who aren’t aware of what’s available to those who have bought a recent Mac or one of the higher-end iPhones or iPads. Since Apple’s attempt to hijack the established abbreviation AI at WWDC last summer, we have heard little else. There can have been few minor updates that were sold as heavily as the autumn’s x.1 and x.2 releases for their lavishly preannounced new features.
We’ve been beta-testing some of those features for as long as we’re normally allowed for a whole major release of macOS. Over that period, the number of users who have switched to English (US) as their primary language must have been substantial. It’s the first time I have kept one of my Macs running beta-releases long after the annual macOS upgrade, and I only reverted when 15.2 was released with AI support for English (UK).
Raphael (1483–1520), The School of Athens (c 1509-10), fresco, 500 x 770 cm, Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzo Vaticano, The Vatican City. Wikimedia Commons.
Although these AI features have their uses, and for many should prove quietly revolutionary, I’m not convinced that they transform our Macs or devices into anything even remotely intelligent, and a far cry from the great thinkers in Raphael’s masterpiece The School of Athens. The central figures here are Plato (left), who carries in his left hand a book titled TIMEO (I am afraid), and Aristotle (right), whose book bears the word ETICA (ethics). Seen further to the left in profile is Socrates, and below him is Pythagoras writing in a book while a boy holds in front of him a small blackboard showing the theory of harmony.
Contrast that hullabaloo about AI with Apple’s complete silence on security, specifically the changes brought in its front-line malware detection feature XProtect in macOS Sequoia, since its release on 16 September. Prior to that, XProtect’s data bundle, including its Yara file of detection signatures for malicious software, had been maintained by the general macOS update service through softwareupdated. The diagram below outlines this long-established process.
When Sequoia 15.0 was released, that changed to what has turned out to be an intermediate invoking both the old mechanism and the new.
For the first couple of weeks of that, XProtect updates were chaotic:
13 Sep (approx) XProtect version 5273 available from Software Update Service for Sequoia only
16 Sep macOS 15.0 released, with version 5273 available from Software Update Service for Sequoia only; upgraded Macs updated to 5273 by copying from secondary to primary locations; 5273 not provided from iCloud, where 5272 remained the current version
18 Sep Software Update Service resumed delivery of 5272 to Sonoma and earlier
18 Sep Software Update Service started delivery of 5274 to Sonoma and earlier; 5273 no longer available for Sequoia, with 5272 still available from iCloud
24 Sep Software Update Service delivered 5275 for Sequoia; no change to Sonoma and earlier, and 5272 still available from iCloud.
Then, just as we were getting the hang of it, Sequoia 15.2 excised the old mechanism, as we discovered last week when Apple released the first update to XProtect since 15.2.
Throughout all of this, Apple has remained completely silent. What’s even more surprising is that in the last few days, Apple has updated its definitive guide to security for Macs and all its devices. Although not all localised English translations have yet been synced with its US or Canadian English versions, the account of XProtect now has a published date of 19 December 2024, but doesn’t mention September’s changes.
There are those who insist that none of this is our concern, we should just let Apple do whatever it deems appropriate, and we shouldn’t even know what version of XProtect’s data is installed, as macOS takes care of all that for us. However, the security of my Mac is very much my business. If I were to unwittingly install malware that stole sensitive information, those are my banking details at risk, not Apple’s. Should I suffer financial loss as a result, would Apple provide unlimited compensation?
Hardly. Read sections 8 and 9 of Apple’s licence for macOS Sequoia, and the onus is clearly placed on the user. Just to emphasise this, further down that licence, in the Apple Pay & Wallet Terms and Conditions, is the express statement: “You are solely responsible for maintaining the security of your Mac Computer, Supported Devices, your Apple Account, your Touch ID information, the passcode(s) to your device(s), and any other authentication credentials used in connection with the Services (collectively, your “Credentials”).” The next time someone says that you should leave the security of your Mac to Apple, remind them of that.
Apple also encourages us to take an active part in our Mac’s security protection, and provides us with tools for doing so. The description given in man xprotect is a good example: “xprotect is used to interact with XProtect. It is useful for administrators or users who want to manually invoke XProtect functionality.”
Information about XProtect updates is exposed in the GUI, in System Information, where each update including those delivered by both old and new mechanisms is listed, together with its version number. That in itself is puzzling, as recent entries incomprehensibly duplicate older XProtectPlistConfigData entries with newer XProtectCloudKitUpdates.
So if AI doesn’t bring us the School of Athens, what has macOS Sequoia achieved so far? For this second image I turn to Lovis Corinth’s first major painting after his near-fatal stroke just before Christmas in 1911, an autobiographical portrait expressing his frustrations, in The Blinded Samson from 1912.
Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), The Blinded Samson (1912), oil on canvas, 105 x 130 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Wikimedia Commons.
Please don’t breathe a word of this over on Apple Support Communities, though, where it seems your Mac’s security should be like mediaeval religion, a matter of blind faith and the suppression of knowledge. It’s high time for a Renaissance, much more Enlightenment, and a modicum of Intelligence.
A woman who was with her boyfriend at the Christmas market in Magdeburg has told local media she had her boyfriend in her arms when the car used in the attack came speeding towards them.
"He was hit and pulled away from my side. It was terrible," 32-year-old Nadine told the Bild newspaper.
Footage published on German media showed a black car striking a crowd of people at high speed and continuing to drive forward for hundreds of metres.
Nadine's boyfriend is said to have sustained injuries to his leg and head.
Another eyewitness, Gianni Warzecha, told the BBC he was listening to Christmas music at the market with his girlfriend's family when "suddenly there was a rumbling and the sound of shattered glass".
"People began to panic," he said. "I saw the car and people on the floor, people bleeding. There were also kids.
"I was concentrating on getting first aid to people. It took a few minutes for the first paramedics to arrive but it wasn't enough because there were already 200 people hurt.
"Most of the first aid was done by people there."
Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for the public broadcaster MDR who arrived at the Christmas market in Magdeburg shortly after the attack, told the BBC about what he saw.
"Everywhere were ambulances, there were police, there were a lot of fire workers.
"This was a real chaotic situation. We saw blood on the floor, we saw people sitting beside each other and having golden and silver foils around them. And we saw many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries.
"It's a big shock. It's a big shock for every people here in Magdeburg and for every person in Saxony-Anhalt."
Tobias Rausch, who was at the Christmas market and serves as general secretary of Germany's far-right AfD party in Saxony-Anhalt, told Reuters it was scary.
Rausch said he had not reached the market when "all of a sudden, we heard a muffled noise, an engine roaring".
"People were screaming. It all happened in a fraction of a second."
Once away from danger, Rausch said he was able to film the moment police detained the suspect.
Local officials told a news conference that fellow citizens had given vital first aid to those hurt in the moments before emergency services arrived on the scene.
Reuters
Heike Janke was at the Christmas market on Friday hours before the attack
One Magdeburg resident, Heike Janke, was at the Christmas market on Friday and left at around 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT), roughly an hour before the attack took place.
"We could have been hit," Ms Janke told Reuters, as she lit a candle for those involved in the tragedy. She said she felt appalled by what happened, "somehow you just can't believe it".
She was joined by many other locals who brought flowers and candles to a church near where the attack happened.
Corinna Pagels, a local and employee with a counselling organisation, said she was at the market herself early on Friday. She said the healing for the community starts now.
"Of course, it gets to you and we also need to process things and thankfully we have a good network and are also there to provide aftercare for rescue workers and firefighters and support them in the aftermath. So the real work starts now."
(W) 2024-12-22T09:41:48 - UPnP/NAT-PMP port mapping failed. Message: "could not map port using UPnP: unknown UPnP error (-1)"
(I) 2024-12-22T09:41:48 - UPnP/NAT-PMP port mapping succeeded. Message: "successfully mapped port using UPnP. external port: TCP/7493"
(W) 2024-12-22T09:41:48 - UPnP/NAT-PMP port mapping failed. Message: "could not map port using UPnP: unknown UPnP error (-1)"
(I) 2024-12-22T09:41:48 - UPnP/NAT-PMP port mapping succeeded. Message: "successfully mapped port using UPnP. external port: UDP/7493"
但是用本地机器 A 和 vps 下同一个种子，从 vps bt 客户端的 peers 里能看到 peer A ，但是 A 的 port 并不是上面的 7493.这是否说明 UPnP 失败了？
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, was the Bishop of Essex when David Tudor was twice reappointed to a senior position
A Church of England priest at the centre of a sexual abuse case was twice reappointed to a senior role during the Archbishop of York's time as Bishop of Chelmsford, the BBC can reveal.
New information shows Tudor's contract as area dean in Essex was renewed in 2013 and 2018, at which times Mr Cottrell knew he had paid compensation to a woman who says she was abused by him as a child.
The Archbishop of York said he regrets his handling of the case, with a spokesperson saying "he acknowledges this could have been handled differently".
They added that "all the risks around David Tudor were regularly reviewed" and that was the "main focus".
Rachel Ford, who told the investigation she was groomed by Tudor as a child, said the renewal of his contract as area dean was "an insult to all of his victims".
Ms Ford added that if responsibility for that lay with Mr Cottrell, it strengthened her feeling that he should resign.
The pressure on Mr Cottrell comes at a time of turmoil in the Church of England following a damning report into how it covered up prolific abuse by the barrister John Smyth.
The report led to the resignation of the Church's most senior figure, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Mr Cottrell will take over his role temporarily for a few months in the New Year.
The BBC investigation showed Mr Cottrell was briefed in his first week as Bishop of Chelmsford about serious safeguarding issues surrounding Tudor.
These included that Tudor was convicted of indecently assaulting three underage girls and was jailed for six months in 1988, although the conviction was quashed on technical grounds. Mr Cottrell would also have known Tudor served a five-year ban from ministry.
By 2012, Mr Cottrell also knew Tudor had paid a £10,000 settlement to a woman who says she was sexually abused by him from the age of 11. In 2018, the Church of England issued an apology and a six-figure pay-out to another alleged victim.
Yet the priest was suspended only in 2019 when a police investigation was launched after another woman came forward alleging Tudor had abused her in the 1980s.
Facebook/Canvey CofE
David Tudor after being presented with a certificate signed by Bishop Stephen Cottrell making him an honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral in 2015
When first responding to the BBC's investigation, the Archbishop of York said he was "deeply sorry that we were not able to take action earlier", insisting he had acted at the first opportunity that was legally available to him.
Mr Cottrell also said he had been faced with a "horrible and intolerable" situation and that it was "awful to live with and to manage".
When Mr Cottrell became bishop in 2010, Tudor was into the second year of a five-year term as an area dean, a role overseeing 12 parishes in Essex.
His appointment to that post, under a different bishop, happened despite him working under a safeguarding agreement that barred him from being alone with children and entering schools.
The title was renewed twice under Mr Cottrell - in 2013 and 2018 - and he lost the title only when the term of office expired in 2020. It was not taken from him.
A spokesperson for the Archbishop said he "accepts responsibility for David Tudor remaining as Area Dean".
"No-one advised him that David Tudor should not continue as an Area Dean," said the Archbishop's office.
Another of Tudor's victims, who does not want to be identified, said she was "shocked and disappointed" to hear his tenure as area dean was twice renewed during Mr Cottrell's time as Bishop of Chelmsford.
"These are not the actions of a bishop dealing with a situation that was intolerable to him, in fact, quite the opposite. I call on him to do the honourable thing for the sake of the Church and resign," she says.
In 2015, under Mr Cottrell, Tudor was also made honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral.
The Archbishop's office insisted it happened because of a change in Church policy during Mr Cottrell's time as Bishop of Chelmsford, meaning area deans were automatically made honorary canons.
It was "not a promotion and not a personal reward".
However, a social media post from Tudor's Canvey Island parish in July 2015 suggests it was seen there as a reward.
Tudor's "hard work, determination and commitment to this place have been recognised by the diocese and this new position in the Church is very well-deserved," it said.
The BBC has also seen evidence - in leaked minutes from internal Church meetings in 2018 and 2019 - that Tudor's titles of area dean and honorary canon were discussed and there had been a suggestion Mr Cottrell could immediately have taken them away.
In October 2018, a meeting at Church House - the London headquarters of the Church of England - heard that Chelmsford diocese took the view that if Tudor "can be a parish priest, he can undertake the other roles".
A bishop from another diocese said "the Bishop of Chelmsford could remove DT's [David Tudor's] Canon and Area Dean titles straight away".
But in a follow-up discussion in November 2018, Chelmsford diocese advised it would not be appropriate because of "the difficulty of removing those titles without explaining why."
We asked Mr Cottrell's office why he had not followed the suggestion to remove Tudor's titles. We were told "it would not be appropriate to comment on any notes or decisions from a core group process which are confidential".
The investigation also highlighted the significant role played by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey in the case.
We revealed Lord Carey had agreed to Tudor's return to priesthood after being suspended in 1989, and had also agreed to have Tudor's name removed from the list of clergy that had faced disciplinary action. He had also advocated for the priest.
After the BBC put this information to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote to give up his "permission to officiate", ending more than 65 years of ministry in the Church of England. Lord Carey made the announcement on Tuesday.
In October 2024, Tudor admitted sexual misconduct and was sacked by the Church. At no point has he responded to the BBC's attempts to speak with him.
US F/A-18 fighter jets were used in the attack (file picture)
The US military says it has carried out a series of air strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa targeting a missile storage site and command facilities operated by Iran-backed Houthi militants.
US Central Command added it also hit multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea.
It comes hours after the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel which injured more than a dozen people in a Tel Aviv park.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israel and international shipping shortly after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
In a statement, the US military's Central Command said the strikes aimed to "disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden".
The US military also said it struck "multiple Houthi one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles, or drones, and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea".
American F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets were used in the operation, the US Central Command added.
Since November 2023, Houthi missile attacks have sunk two vessels in the Red Sea and damaged others. They have claimed, often falsely, that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.
Last December, the US, UK and 12 other nations launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes against the attacks.
Reuters
A Houthi missile hit Tel Aviv on Saturday with 16 people being treated for minor injuries
On Saturday, Israel's military said its attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen were unsuccessful and the missile struck a park in Tel Aviv.
Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's emergency medical service, said it treated 16 people who were "mildly injured" by glass shards from shattered windows in nearby buildings.
Another 14 people suffered minor injuries on their way to protected areas were also treated, it said.
A Houthi spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that nine people were killed in the port of Salif and the Ras Issa oil terminal.
The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks until the war in Gaza ends. The US says its latest strike is part of a commitment to protect itself and its allies.
Amanda Walker felt trapped in a flat she couldn't sell because of its flammable cladding.
When it turned out that no government scheme would cover the costs of removing the dangerous material from her newly built flat in south London, she started campaigning.
She spent four years trying to get justice for herself, and for millions caught up in the scandal exposed by the Grenfell Tower fire.
Then, at the age of 51, she was found dead in her one-bedroom apartment by her mother and sister. An inquest recently recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
"She would often phone me late at night when she just couldn't deal with it any more," her mother Glenda recalls.
"I wish she could phone me now."
Amanda's one-bedroom flat, which she bought for £500,000 in 2018, soon became a nightmare
Half a year earlier, in July 2023, Amanda had addressed peers in the House of Lords investigating the impact of the cladding problem on flat owners.
"It's devastating. It's just a quagmire. It's just chaos," she told them. "It's so unjust. I had done nothing wrong and it's destroyed my life already."
The video of Amanda's address to the Lords is now treasured by her mother, who's speaking for the first time since the inquest's verdict.
Glenda thinks Amanda, an office manager at a hedge fund in the City of London, started drinking to deal with the anxiety of having to face unaffordable bills to fix the cladding, running into the tens of thousands.
"I'm not ashamed for her for that because it was her way of coping. She used the term 'seeking oblivion'."
Amanda wrote countless letters to MPs, local authorities and other responsible bodies - but "always got the statutory response", her mother continues.
"There are still over a million people in this situation and [MPs and civil servants] would write these platitudinous letters saying 'oh we're doing this, we're doing that'."
She doesn't just see those as unhelpful - but as evidence that nobody really understood the scale of the problem and how seriously it was affecting people.
It felt like there was a black chasm ahead, Amanda Walker told a House of Lords briefing
The government did eventually launch a scheme - the Building Safety Fund - to pay to remove the type of dangerous cladding that is on the outside of Amanda's flat.
She was hoping that changes enshrined in a separate landmark law called the Building Safety Act - brought in after the Grenfell tragedy - would help her correct internal fire safety defects, like insufficient fire stopping between flats.
But they didn't. There were significant exceptions to who qualified.
Since some of the other flat owners in her development had bought a share of the building's freehold, she became what's known as a "non-qualifying" leaseholder - meaning she still faced huge uncapped bills to contribute towards the repair costs.
Several proposed amendments to the Building Safety Act that would've protected people in Amanda's position were voted down in the last parliament.
What always scared Amanda was the threat of having to pay unpayable sums. She described it as a "sword of Damocles over my head for three long years". For a brief moment there was hope. "And then they vote against us, on everything," she told peers.
Walker family
Amanda, pictured here with her brother and parents, became consumed by anxiety about her situation
Amanda's drinking increased and her family sought medical help. She agreed to be hospitalised. GPs and psychiatrists were clear in their reports: Amanda's drinking, stress and anxiety were down to the impact of the cladding crisis on her mental state. She was prescribed anti-depressants.
She continued campaigning with her mother, but things began to spiral downhill.
Glenda believes the anti-depressants she was given were not benefiting her. "I think she was over-medicated and her head was all over the place. She wasn't depressed, she kept saying: 'I am not depressed, I'm angry.'"
Amanda's partner split up with her as cladding campaigning consumed more and more of her life. Her mother and sister would make trips to see her to try to offer support.
If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line
Glenda says Amanda had entirely lost faith in the government and believes medication was not helping her
Things came to a head one day this January.
Glenda was growing ever-more nervous about her daughter, and knew she needed urgent medical attention.
She says she'd written a "fairly assertive" letter to a hospital where her daughter had been previously treated, warning her condition was getting serious.
Travelling to London through the rain, she found herself "phoning and phoning and phoning" the hospital to try to get doctors to intervene again.
The following day Amanda was found dead.
Asked if she'd ever thought that her daughter might kill herself, Glenda says: "Manda had talked about it. She'd talked about it."
She says she can understand her daughter's state of mind that weekend.
"Yeah, I've seen it so often. I'm different from her and she felt despair… She wanted justice and she felt it was just awful. I think she lost faith in the government completely."
Amanda's parents, who still haven't been able to sell the flat, hope their daughter's campaigning will make life easier for people stuck in buildings with defective cladding
The government says that work is already underway through the Remediation Acceleration Plan "to make sure those responsible for the cladding crisis pay their fair share".
It says it is "continuing to look at all options to ensure residents no longer have to deal with the nightmare of living in unsafe buildings".
Amanda's flat has now passed to her parents to deal with.
Its exterior cladding has now been replaced and they are trying to sell - but they still haven't been able to, due to structural fire issues inside the property.
Unless the Building Safety Act is amended by fresh legislation, Amanda's parents or any future purchaser will be liable for paying to fix those problems.
Amanda's mother hopes that speaking about her daughter's death has not been in vain, and that her story can be a catalyst.
"You go through grief… and perhaps the anger's getting in there a little bit now.
"For her sake, we'd love to think that she had caused some small change."
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