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North Korea

US Helicopter Crashes Near North Korea Border Amid Rising Tensions

BBC NEWS (UK), UNITED STATES FORCES KOREA, YONHAP (South Korea), REUTERS

Worldcrunch

SEOUL - As tensions mount on the Korean peninsula, a U.S. helicopter crashed Tuesday near South Korea's border with the North while conducting routine flight operations. All 21 people aboard the helicopter survived.

The exact cause of the crash is not yet known, but the incident occurred during ongoing South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises.

A statement released by the United States Forces Korea described the crash of the Marine CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter as a "hard landing" in Cheorwon county, which touches on the border with North Korea.

Sixteen of the passengers were American soldiers from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Okanawa, Japan – the five others were crew members; 15 were released from hospital and six were hospitalized in stable condition.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that North Korea issued new threats against South Korea on Tuesday, vowing "sledge-hammer blows" of retaliation if South Korea did not apologize for anti-North Korean protests the previous day when the North was celebrating the 101st anniversary of the birth of its founding leader, Kim Il-Sung.

Tensions have been high on the Korean Peninsula since North Korea conducted a third nuclear test on February 12, which resulted in sanctions from the UN.

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye in Washington on 7 May to discuss economic and security issues, BBC News reports. On Monday, speaking in Tokyo, Secretary of State John Kerry said that under certain conditions the United States would be "open to negotiations" with North Korea.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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