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BREAKINGBREAKING,

A referendum in Ecuador on the return of foreign military bases to the Latin American appears to be failing, with a partial vote count of more than a third of ballots showing 60 percent rejection of the proposal.

A separate proposal to convene an assembly to rewrite the constitution had 61 percent rejection with 36 percent of votes counted.

Ecuador banned foreign military bases on its soil in 2008.

A “Yes” vote would have likely see the United States military return to the Manta airbase on the Pacific coast – once a hub for Washington’s anti-drug operations

Losses would be a blow to President Daniel Noboa, who had backed both measures, saying foreign cooperation, including shared or foreign bases within the country, is central to fighting organised crime in the country.

He has also said that the current constitution, drafted under former leftist President Rafael Correa, must be revised to reflect the country’s new reality.

At least 32 people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to officials, after a bridge at a copper and cobalt mine collapsed due to overcrowding.

The incident occurred at the Kalando mine in southeastern Lualaba province on Saturday, the province’s interior minister, Roy Kaumbe Mayonde, said on Sunday.

“Despite a formal ban on access to the site because of the heavy rain and the risk of a landslide, wildcat miners forced their way into the quarry,” said Mayonde.

The miners rushing across the makeshift bridge, built to get across a flooded trench, made it collapse, he added.

A report by the DRC’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Support and Guidance Service, or SAEMAPE, said the gunfire from soldiers at the site had sparked panic among the miners.

The miners then rushed to the bridge, resulting in the fall that left them “piled on top of each other, causing the deaths and injuries”, it said.

While Mayonde put the death toll at least 32, the report said at least 40 people had lost their lives.

The report said the mine had been at the heart of a longstanding dispute between the wildcat miners, a cooperative that was meant to organise digging there, and the site’s legal operators, who were said to have Chinese involvement.

Arthur Kabulo, the provincial coordinator for the National Human Rights Commission, told the AFP news agency that more than 10,000 wildcat miners operated at Kalando.

Provincial authorities suspended operations at the site on Sunday.

The Initiative for the Protection of Human Rights, meanwhile, called for an independent investigation into the military’s role in the deaths, citing reports of clashes between miners and soldiers.

There was no immediate comment from the military.

The DRC is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and other products, with Chinese companies controlling 80 percent of the production in the central African country.

Accusations of child labour, unsafe conditions, and corruption have long plagued the country’s cobalt mining industry.

Italy’s Jannik Sinner retained his ATP Finals title on Sunday, sending the Turin crowd wild as he battled past Spanish world number one and rival Carlos Alcaraz 7-6(4) 7-5 in the decider to the season-ending championships.

Sinner, backed by a raucous Italian crowd, fell to the floor after breaking his rival’s serve in the final game before racing to celebrate with his team as chants of “Ole, Ole, Ole, Sinner, Sinner” rang around the Inalpi Arena.

“Finishing in front of the Italian public was a fantastic thing, maybe even better than last year. Thank you very much for the support, it was incredible,” Sinner said.

“Thanks to all of you, it felt like being on a football pitch.”

In a season defined and dominated by the rivalry between the two players, it seemed inevitable that they would meet in the title clash, and both obliged by easing through the tournament unbeaten to set up one last dance in Turin.

Sinner under pressure

Alcaraz forced the only break point in the first set, but Sinner held firm and brought the crowd to its feet with a tiebreak win and sealed the match when the Spaniard was unable to hold while serving to stay in the contest.

Sinner missed out on ending the year as world number one to Alcaraz after the Spaniard won his three round-robin matches this week, but the Italian won the last act of 2025 to crown the best season of his career.

The 24-year-old reached the final of all four Grand Slams, winning the Australian Open and Wimbledon, while Alcaraz has also had a stellar year, winning Roland Garros and the US Open, beating Sinner in both finals.

“Hopefully you’re going to be ready for next year,” Alcaraz said with a smile.

“Because I will be ready.”

Alcaraz put Sinner to the test in Turin, but despite not being at his best and struggling with his service game – which had powered him past opponents all week – the Italian held his nerve.

Sinner won his opening service game to love with Alcaraz responding in kind, and at 2-2 the Spaniard forced deuce before a medical emergency in the stands led to a 10-minute break, the duo chatting over the net, belying the tension in the arena and on court.

When play resumed, Sinner advanced to the net to slam down a winning volley and fired an ace to hold. Alcaraz required a medical time-out during the break at 5-4 up before forcing the first break point of the match at 6-5.

Sinner survived and after letting slip a mini-break in the tiebreak, the champion brought the crowd to its feet, smashing down a lob after Alcaraz had chased back to return a drop shot and then catching out the Spaniard with a lob of his own to take the first set.

The Spaniard had chances to take the final the distance, breaking the Italian in the opening game of the second set, where Sinner hit two double faults. Yet Sinner came back to level the set at 3-3 and came through when it counted.

Sinner arrived in the final on a remarkable indoor hardcourt winning run of 30 matches since losing to Novak Djokovic in the 2023 decider in Turin, also the last time the Italian dropped a set in the competition.

Appearing in his third successive final in the season-ender, Sinner had lost four of his previous five meetings with Alcaraz this year, which all came in finals, but he was not to be denied in Turin, where his win earned him a record $5.07m in prize money.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Partial results from Chile’s presidential election indicate that leftist former Labour Minister Jeannette Jara and far-right politician Jose Antonio Kast are headed for a run-off vote in December.

With 52.39 percent of ballots tallied on Sunday evening, Jara – a 51-year-old communist candidate representing an eight-party coalition – led with 26.58 percent, followed by Kast on 24.32 percent, according to electoral authority Servel.

The next-closest contender, ultra-right legislator Johannes Kaiser, conceded defeat.

Campaigning was overshadowed by growing public anxiety over surging murders, kidnappings and extortion in what has long been one of Latin America’s safest countries.

Rising crime has been widely attributed to foreign criminal groups, coinciding with a doubling of Chile’s migrant population since 2017. Migrants now make up 8.8 percent of the country’s residents.

Jara has promised to expand the police force, lift banking secrecy rules to combat organised crime, and address cost-of-living pressures.

Kast, frequently compared to United States President Donald Trump, has pledged to erect walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to block migrants arriving from poorer northern neighbours such as Venezuela.

Despite leading in the first round, Jara faces a difficult path to a December 14 run-off victory, as the combined vote share of right-wing candidates is far higher than that of the left.

Polls have consistently projected that Kast would defeat her in a head-to-head matchup. Jara’s tally fell short of pre-election forecasts, while Kast outperformed them. Pollsters had expected her to secure between 27 and 29 percent, compared with 20 to 22 percent for Kast.