20 DEAD IN STAMPEDE AT CHURCH SERVICE
DODOMA, TANZANIA» Twenty people have died and a dozen others were injured in a stampede during a church meeting in the northern Tanzanian city of Moshi, the government said Sunday.
The stampede was caused by church faithful being ushered to pass through one exit at the meeting venue so they could walk on “anointed oil,” according to a statement by a government spokesman.
Hundreds of worshippers attended the prayer meeting Saturday led by Boniface Mwamposa, a popular preacher who heads the Arise and Shine Ministry Tanzania.
Tanzania’s Interior Minister George Simbachawene said Mwamposa had been arrested.
Pompeo warns of China’s growing reach. TASHKEN T, » U.S. Secretary UZBEKISTA N of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday pressed Kazakhstan to be wary of Chinese investment and influence, urging the Central Asian nation and others to join calls demanding an end to China’s repression of minorities.
Bringing a message similar to the one he has delivered repeatedly to other countries, Pompeo told Kazakh officials that the attractiveness of Chinese investment comes with a cost to sovereignty and may hurt, instead of help, the country’s long-term development.
“We fully support Kazakhstan’s freedom to choose to do business with whichever country it wants, but I am confident that countries get the best outcomes when they partner with American companies,” he said. “You get fair deals. You get job creation. You get transparency in contracts. You get companies that care about the environment and you get an unsurpassed commitment to quality work.”
Turkish military convoy crosses into rebel-held Syria. BEIRUT» A large Turkish military convoy rumbled into rebel-held areas of northwest Syria on Sunday, witnesses on the ground and activists said.
Separately, airstrikes on a rebel-held village in Syria’s northwest killed at least seven people, opposition activists said. Elsewhere, rebel shelling killed a woman and wounded at least three journalists, Syrian state TV reported.
The violence and troop movements came amid a Syrian government offensive into the country’s last rebel stronghold, located in Idlib province and parts of the nearby Aleppo region. Turkish troops are deployed in some of those rebel-held areas to monitor a cease-fire that has since collapsed.
Pregnant woman killed, baby survives shooting. MILWAUKEE» A gunman in a passing car fired five or six shots outside of a Milwaukee supper club, killing a pregnant mother of five who was on board a party bus that was parked in front of the venue, authorities said.
The bus rushed Annie Sandifer to to Ascension St. Joseph hospital after the roughly 2:30 a.m. shooting on Milwaukee’s northwest side, but she didn’t survive. Doctors were able to deliver her baby via an emergency cesarean section, police said. The baby was in stable condition, but delivered just 26 weeks into the pregnancy, it was born very premature.
Police said Sunday that they hadn’t arrested anyone yet.