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KINSHASA: Exchanges of heavy weapons fire erupted in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday between the army and militia fighters, and several students sitting exams were wounded in an explosion at a school, residents said.
The fighting in and around the city of Beni between Congo’s army and what is believed to be a new coalition of armed groups, the National Movement of Revolutionaries (MNR), erupted early in the morning and kept residents trapped in their homes, local activist Teddy Kataliko said.
Gilbert Kambale, another local activist, said that the bodies of three militia fighters were lying on the street, not far from the mayor’s office. An army spokesman in the zone said: “The situation is not good,” but declined to comment further.
The fighting followed a breakout by more than 900 inmates, many suspected militiamen, from Beni’s main prison this month — one of a series of mass jailbreaks that has underlined the security situation further since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate in December.
Kataliko and Kambale also said unidentified assailants set off an explosive device at a local secondary school, wounding several students sitting for exams. A hospital source said at least three student were injured in the blast.
Eastern Congo contains dozens of armed groups that prey on locals and exploit mineral reserves. Millions died there between 1996 and 2003 in a regional conflict from violence, hunger and disease.

PARIS: France no longer sees the departure of President Bashar Assad as a priority in the Syrian conflict, President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday, making the policy official for the first time.
The new French leader said instead that fighting jihadists such as the Daesh group had to be the international community’s number one goal in a conflict that grew out of protests against the Syrian president in 2011 but has since become increasingly complex and multifaceted.
“The real change I’ve made on this question, is that I haven’t said the deposing of Bashar Assad is a prerequisite for everything,” Macron said in an interview with several European newspapers, including Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“Because no one has introduced me to his legitimate successor,” said the French president, who took office last month.
“My line is clear: one, a total fight against terrorist groups. They are our enemies… We need the cooperation of everyone to eradicate them, particularly Russia. Two: stability in Syria, because I don’t want a failed state.”
Macron said the international community had made a “collective error” in thinking the conflict could be solved “only with military force,” adding: “My deep conviction is that we need a political and diplomatic roadmap.”
But he repeated his warning that the use of chemical weapons and the violation of humanitarian corridors set up to deliver aid to desperate Syrian civilians were “red lines” and that France would be willing to act alone in response.
France was among Western nations pushing most vocally for Assad to go at the start of the conflict, which has since left more than 320,000 people dead and forced millions from their homes.

BEIJING: China must show patience in its “long war” against widespread soil pollution, the environment ministry said this week, with the country facing a clean-up bill that could reach as high as 1 trillion yuan ($146.39 billion).
Beijing has promised to draw up new policies and set up a dedicated fund to deal with large stretches of polluted soil caused by overmining, industrial wastewater runoffs or excessive pesticide and fertilizer use.
But it said in an action plan published last year that it would aim to “stabilize” worsening soil pollution by the end of this decade and only start to make improvements by 2030.
Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Qiu Qiwen, head of the soil environment department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), said the cost of cleaning up one mu (0.066 hectares) of polluted farmland in China could reach as much as 20,000 yuan ($2,928.86).
According to the last nationwide survey published in 2013, about 50 million mu (3.33 million hectares) of China’s farmland — an area the size of Belgium — was too polluted to grow crops. That would put total clean-up costs at 1 trillion yuan.
“Soil pollution does not form overnight and the problem cannot be solved overnight,” said Qiu, adding that China “must have patience to fight the long war ahead.”
Analysts say China’s soil clean-up will provide lucrative business opportunities for a growing number of specialist environmental firms, but it is still unclear who will foot the bill, especially in the countryside.
Qiu said Beijing has already allocated a budget of 14.6 billion yuan to cover nationwide soil remediation projects from last year until the end of the first half of 2017.
One firm already benefiting from that fund is Beijing Geoenviron Engineering & Technology, which said last month that a 121.9 million yuan project in southwest China to remediate soil contaminated by heavy metals would be financed by the government.
“Treating and recovering polluted soil is very difficult and costly, and requires a long cycle,” Qiu said.
He said China would publish the results of its latest survey on soil pollution after 2020. It will also identify polluted farmland and assess its impact on the quality of agricultural products by the end of next year.
Some of the measures being considered to clean up China’s soil include rotating crops and turning farmland into forest, Qiu said. ($1 = 6.8310 yuan)