{"id":150643,"date":"2015-05-13T12:44:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T12:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.presstv.ir\/Detail\/2015\/05\/13\/410857\/Africa-Burundi-Pierre-Nkurunziza-Godefroid-Niyombare"},"modified":"2015-05-13T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:25:24","slug":"burundi-president-overthrown-top-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/burundi-president-overthrown-top-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Burundi president overthrown: Top general"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Amid escalating tensions in the African state of Burundi, a top general announces the overthrow of President Pierre Nkurunziza.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The announcement, which was made during a radio broadcast by Major General Godefroid Niyombare on Wednesday, followed weeks of violent protests against the head of state&#8217;s bid to stand for a third term.<\/p>\n<p>It also came hours after Nkurunziza arrived in neighboring Tanzania for talks to end the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Niyombare, who had been sacked from his position as the country&#8217;s powerful chief of intelligence in February, said top officers were &#8220;dismissing&#8221; Nkurunziza and that a national salvation committee had been set up to run the country.<\/p>\n<p>Also on Wednesday, demonstrations against the president&#8217;s bid for a third term heated up, with troops surrounding the national radio station and a police officer opening fire at protesters in the country\u2019s capital Bujumbura.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.ir\/Detail\/2015\/05\/13\/410857\/Africa-Burundi-Pierre-Nkurunziza-Godefroid-Niyombare\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Amid escalating tensions in the African state of Burundi, a top general announces the overthrow of President Pierre Nkurunziza.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The announcement, which was made during a radio broadcast by Major General Godefroid Niyombare on Wednesday, followed weeks of violent protests against the head of state&#8217;s bid to stand for a third term.<\/p>\n<p>It also came hours after Nkurunziza arrived in neighboring Tanzania for talks to end the crisis.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza (AFP photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Niyombare, who had been sacked from his position as the country&#8217;s powerful chief of intelligence in February, said top officers were &#8220;dismissing&#8221; Nkurunziza and that a national salvation committee had been set up to run the country.<\/p>\n<p>Also on Wednesday, demonstrations against the president&#8217;s bid for a third term heated up, with troops surrounding the national radio station and a police officer opening fire at protesters in the country&rsquo;s capital Bujumbura.<\/p>\n<p>The demonstrators, who numbered thousands, say Nkurunziza&#8217;s bid for a third term in June elections is illegal.<\/p>\n<p>Police also fired tear gas and water cannons to force back the protesters trying to enter the city&rsquo;s central business district. A group of female protesters, however, broke the police cordon and entered the district.<\/p>\n<p>At least 15 people have been killed and more than 220 injured in the protests against Nkurunziza.<\/p>\n<p>Nkurunziza has joined other East African Community leaders from Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam for a special meeting to discuss the turmoil.<\/p>\n<p>HN\/HMV\/HRB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-150643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}