Prime minister condemns coup

Mauritania’s ousted prime minister defiantly refused to recognize the African country’s ruling military junta Monday, after he was freed from house arrest under international pressure.

Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef told a rally of several thousand people that the country would not accept last week’s bloodless coup that forced President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi from power. Abdallahi remains under arrest.

Speaking just hours after his release, Waqef said the president was in good health and encouraged them to keep pushing to restore the government to power.

The rally was a significant show of support for the president, who rose to power last year as Mauritania’s first freely elected president in more than two decades.

Montreal

Immigrant death sparks protests

Montreal’s mayor on Monday promised a swift inquiry into the shooting death of a Honduran teenager by police after the incident prompted violent clashes between angry youth and authorities in a heavily Haitian neighborhood.

A police officer was shot in the leg late Sunday, cars were set ablaze, stores were looted and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles in Montreal North, a multiethnic area referred to by local police as the Bronx of Montreal for its poverty and crime.

The violence erupted after a peaceful protest against the Saturday shooting by police of three unarmed people, including an 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, an immigrant from Honduras who died of his wounds.