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Yemeni government troops, backed by Saudi-led Arab coalition fighter jets, gained control over the Maran region and other villages in Saada after driving out the Iran-backed al-Houthi militias.
Al Arabiya online site said Orouba Brigade’s Commander Major General Abdul Karim Al Sadi told that his forces advanced successfully toward positions in Maran and neighbouring villages, taking control over the region.
The South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia voted against independence from France on Sunday in a long-awaited referendum that capped a 30-year long decolonisation process.
A “yes” vote would have seen Paris without a strong position in the Indo-Pacific region where China is expanding its presence and hit the pride of a former colonial power whose reach once spanned the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific Ocean.
The French Pacific islands of New Caledonia began voting Sunday on whether to become an independent nation, in a closely-watched test of support for France in one of its many territories scattered around the globe.
Some 18,000 kilometres (11,000 miles) from the French mainland, New Caledonia is home to a quarter of the world’s known supplies of nickel — a vital electronics component — and is a strategic foothold for France in the Pacific.
The self-declared state of Somaliland is stepping up its push for international recognition, warning that the world’s continued refusal to formally accept its independence threatens to plunge the breakaway region back into armed conflict with Somalia.
“We have made a lot of progress in the past 27 years and now we are recognised as a de facto state” Saad Ali Shire, foreign minister, said in an interview in the capital, Hargeisa. “[But] the next 27 years is not going to be like the first,” he said. “War is bound to happen unless the problem is settled peacefully one way or another.”
A total of 10 militants have been killed and six others injured as clashes erupted in a northern province on Thursday, provincial police spokesman Sanahullah Ruhani said.
The clashes, according to the official, broke out in Shiwa area of Arghanchkhaw district of Badakhshan province at 02:00 a.m. local time and lasted for several hours and the militants fled away after leaving 10 bodies behind and six more injured.