Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara has won a controversial third term in office in an election boycotted by the opposition. He took 94% of the vote, even winning 99% in some of his strongholds. Turnout was put at almost 54%. The result has to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council.  On Monday, the Ivorian opposition said it was creating a transitional government which would organise a new election.  Main opposition candidates Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Henri Konan Bédié had urged their supporters not to vote. They got 1% and 2% respectively, while a fourth candidate, Kouadio Konan Bertin, also got 2%, according to the official results.

A young white man has been jailed for 25 years for burning down three historic black churches in the US state of Louisiana last year. Heavy metal musician Holden Matthews, 23, was also ordered to pay $2.7m (£2.1m) in restitution. He said he had burnt the churches to boost his reputation within his favoured music scene.

A judge found the attacks had not been racially motivated but said they evoked memories of a “dark time in history.”

White supremacists attacked black churches during America’s civil rights era. The three churches Matthews burnt were St Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas, between 26 March and 4 April. Matthews, the son of a local sheriff’s deputy, admitted to posting photographs and video on Facebook of the first two churches burning. All three buildings were razed to the ground by the fires, but no-one was injured because they were torched at night. A judge cleared him of hate crime charges, which Matthews admitted to earlier this year. But he was found guilty of three counts of arson on religious buildings, and one count of using fire to commit a federal felony.(BBC)…[+]

Austrian police have urged people to stay indoors as they hunt for suspects after a multiple gun attack in the capital Vienna that killed four people. A gunman shot dead by police has been identified as a 20-year-old “Islamist terrorist”. He was released early from jail in December. Seven of the 17 people wounded have life-threatening injuries. Gunmen opened fire at six locations in the city centre on Monday evening.

Two men and two women were shot dead. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the four victims were an elderly woman, an elderly man, a young male passer-by and a waitress. Witnesses described how the gunmen had opened fire on people outside bars and chased them as they fled inside. It was clearly an attack driven by “hatred of our way of life, our democracy”, the chancellor said. He earlier spoke of a “repulsive terror attack”. The nation was engaged not in a battle between Christians and Muslims, he stressed, but “between civilisation and barbarism“.(BBC)…[+]

A train driver in the Netherlands has had a lucky escape thanks to a fortuitously placed art installation. A metro train in Spijkenisse, near the city of Rotterdam, crashed through a barrier at the end of the tracks shortly before midnight on Sunday. But rather than plummeting 10m (32ft) into the water below, the train was left suspended dramatically in the air. It ended up being delicately balanced on the large sculpture of a whale’s tail at the De Akkers metro station. “We are trying to decide how we can bring the train down in a careful and controlled manner,” one official told the Dutch national broadcaster NOS on Monday.(BBC)…[+]

A man has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after a sword attack in Canada’s Quebec City on Halloween night. Carl Girouard, 24, was also charged with five counts of attempted murder.

Police said an initial probe found that Mr Girouard, who wore medieval clothes during the attack, was not affiliated with any extremist groups. The two victims were named as François Duchesne, 56, and Suzanne Clermont, 61. Five people were injured. The attack took place in the historic Old Quebec neighbourhood of the French-speaking capital of the Quebec province. Police chief Robert Pigeon said the attack was thought to have been premeditated, adding that the suspect, from the Montreal suburbs, came to the city with “the intention of doing the most damage possible”.

“Dressed in medieval costume and armed with a Japanese sword, everything leads us to believe he chose his victims at random,” Mr Pigeon said.(BBC)…[+]

The number of fires blazing in Brazil’s Amazon region in October 2020 was more than double those in the same month last year, satellite data suggests. The Institute of Space Research said there were 17,326 fires in the Amazon, compared to 7,855 in October 2019. Satellite data also suggests that there was a record number of fires in the Pantanal wetlands last month.

Campaigners say the government is failing to stop the rise in fires, but the government denies it is to blame. In July, the government imposed a 120-day ban on setting fires and deployed the army to badly hit areas, but the latest figures from Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (Inpe) suggest the measures have not curbed the blazes. Data released by Inpe on Sunday suggests there were 2,856 fires in the Pantanal region in October, the biggest monthly figure since records began over 30 years ago.(BBC)…[+]

The main suspect in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in France has tested positive for Covid-19 and his trial has been suspended, lawyers say. Ali Reza Polat is accused of helping the militant Islamist attackers who killed 12 people at the satirical magazine four years ago. The presiding judge says 10 accused accomplices must be tested for the virus before the trial can resume. The suspension is likely to delay the trial’s conclusion later this month. Ali Reza Polat, 35, was sick and seen by a doctor, prompting the judge to suspend court for several days.

Judge Regis de Jorna said 10 other suspects must be tested, and “the resumption of the trial will depend on the results of these tests and the development of the health of the people concerned”. The defence lawyers were due to give their final submissions in the coming days, and verdicts were expected in two weeks’ time.(BBC)…[+]

Michael Gove says it is his “fervent hope” that England’s new lockdown will end on 2 December – but that ministers will be “guided by the facts”. “We do need to get the R rate below 1,” the Cabinet Office minister told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. The strict measures are due to come into force from Thursday. Pubs, restaurants, gyms, non-essential shops and places of worship will close, but schools, colleges and universities can stay open.

The prime minister is expected to deliver a statement in the Commons on Monday before a vote on the latest restrictions on Wednesday. Labour has said it will back the lockdown.  Boris Johnson said he expects the lockdown to last until 2 December, after which England’s regional tiered system will be reintroduced. But Mr Gove told the BBC decisions would “obviously be guided by the facts”.(BBC)…[+]

Australia has recorded its first day of no local cases of Covid-19 in almost five months. Zero cases were reported in the 24 hours between 20:00 on Friday and 20:00 on Saturday – the first time this has happened since 9 June. The state of Victoria – epicentre of Australia’s second wave – recorded zero cases for the second day in a row after a 112-day lockdown. Health officials say more restrictions may be eased in the coming days. “Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said on his Twitter account. Australia has recorded some 27,500 infections and 900 deaths to Covid-19 since the pandemic started – far fewer than many nations.(BBC)…[+]

A Kenyan judge has sentenced two men to 18 and 33 years in jail after they were convicted of helping Islamist militants attack a shopping mall in 2013. At least 67 people died in the assault by al-Shabab on the Westgate shopping complex in the capital, Nairobi.  The state said the four militants who carried out the attack were found dead in the shopping centre’s rubble. The militants occupied the mall for four days, in one of the deadliest jihadi attacks in Kenya. These are the only convictions relating to the Westgate attack. A third man who was found not guilty on all counts of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act has been missing since the day after the verdict was announced three weeks ago.(BBC)…[+]/abonnement/