ZIMBABWEAN riot police have clashed with hundreds of anti-government protesters in the capital Harare.
Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd at Africa Unity Square, but many protesters moved into nearby streets.
Zimbabwe’s High Court earlier upheld a police ban on the opposition demonstration. The court rejected the application from the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, to declare the planned protest action to be legal.
Police and government officials warned that the demonstration would be illegal and protesters would “rot in jail”.
To avoid any possible trouble, many residents avoided going out. Many shops were closed, and Harare’s streets were unusually quiet on Friday morning. The protests are expected to spread to other cities.
MEANWHILE, July was the hottest month measured on Earth since records began in 1880, meteorologists have said.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Thursday that July was 0.95C warmer than the 20th century average for the month.
Scientists say the upward trend is likely to continue because of man-made climate change. Last month narrowly topped the previous July record, set in 2016, by 0.03C.
The results had been expected after several European countries, including Britain, France, Belgium and Germany reported that July smashed previous national temperature records.
ELSEWHERE, members of China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police have been seen marching and practising crowd-control tactics at a sports complex across from Hong Kong, in what some have interpreted as a threat against pro-democracy protesters.
Hong Kong’s government has refused to talk with demonstrators who have protested since early June to demand expanded political rights and the scrapping of legislation that could have seen criminal suspects sent to China.
Vehicles belonging to the paramilitary People’s Armed Police were arrayed on Friday in Shenzhen, a city just across from Hong Kong.
FINALLY, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s year-long Ebola outbreak has spread to a new province with a woman dying and her baby falling ill in South Kivu, the government’s health ministry said.
Two new patients have tested positive in the Mwenga area of South Kivu, adding to North Kivu and Ituri provinces where there are confirmed cases of the disease.
The Ebola outbreak in the east of the DRC has killed 1808 people out of 2765 confirmed cases, according to the new report.
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