World Tour: Wildfires in Chile

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere

AUDIO: [Singing]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Namibia’s new leader — We start today in Namibia, where the vice president has stepped in as interim leader after the country’s president died Sunday.

Hage Geingob was an anti-apartheid activist who first served as Namibia’s founding prime minister and the third president after independence in 1990. Geingob helped to build what is now one of Africa’s more stable democracies.

The 82-year-old was receiving treatment for cancer when he died.

Geingob was wrapping up his second and final term ahead of elections slated for November.

AUDIO: [Applause]

Vice President Nangolo Mbumba will complete Geingob’s presidential term.

MBUMBA: During this difficult period of mourning, I urge all Namibians to remain united and to keep the bereaved family, the bereaved Geingob family and clan in our prayers.

Mbumba will remain in office until a new administration is sworn in in March next year.

AUDIO: [Fire response]

Chile wildfires — Over in Chile, firefighters are battling against high winds to quell forest fires that have razed communities in the central and southern parts of the country.

Authorities tracked more than 160 active flames on Sunday. The blazes had burned through more than 19,000 acres of forest and urban areas.

The fires have killed about 123 people. Hundreds of others remain missing.

AUDIO: [Clearing]

Some residents have started clearing out debris from what’s left of their homes.

In the coastal resort city of Viña del Mar, this resident says the fire killed his neighbors and destroyed his parents’ and sister’s houses.

RESIDENT: [Speaking Spanish]

Chilean President Gabriel Boric says here that a curfew will remain in place as part of a larger state of emergency to cope with the crisis.

Chileans observed two days of mourning that ended yesterday.

AUDIO: [Cheering crowd]

El Salvador election — We leave southern America to head toward central America, where Salvadorans have overwhelmingly voted for their president to stay in office for another term.

El Salvador’s incumbent President Nayib Bukele won 83 percent of the vote with a majority of ballots counted.

His New Ideas party is also expected to score a sweeping majority of seats in the country’s legislative body.

Bukele’s victory was widely expected with polls showing voters planned to reward him for his hard-handed crackdown on criminal gangs.

His administration suspended civil liberties to arrest more than 76,000 people without charges—a move that drew international criticism.

He admitted the police arrested some innocent citizens during the crackdown, but defended the move as necessary. Bukele also faced accusations of detaining union organizers and political opponents without reasonable cause.

BUKELE: [Speaking Spanish]

Bukele describes the victory as historic with a single party decimating all opposition.

AUDIO: [Press conference]

China death sentence — We close today in China where authorities dished out a suspended death sentence to a Chinese-Australian writer.

A court in Beijing on Monday found Yang Jun guilty of espionage.

WANG: [Speaking Mandarin]

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin says here that Yang received a suspended two-year sentence. Authorities also seized all of his personal property.

China usually commutes such suspended sentences to life imprisonment.

Yang had worked as a diplomat and state security agent in China before becoming an Australian citizen in 2002. Chinese authorities detained him in 2019.

Yang has denied the charges.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the verdict appalling.

WONG: Australia will not relent in our advocacy for justice for Dr Yang's interests and wellbeing, including appropriate medical treatment and we will continue to provide consular assistance to him and his family.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

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