🌟 Good morning! This is 4minit, delivering today's top stories from Mauritius and around the world.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes ⏱️

New here? Subscribe to our FREE daily newsletter!

Three charges, no bail: Mufti Peerbocus faces court

Three provisional charges of child ill-treatment. That is what Mufti Azhar Peerbocus, the former director of Twaha Academy boarding school in Bel-Air/Rivière-Sèche, came home to face.

He was arrested Saturday evening at Plaisance Airport on arrival from South Africa, where police had already issued an "arrest upon arrival" notice. On Sunday he appeared before the Weekend Court under police escort, his lawyer Me Yatin Varma arguing for bail. Police objected. The court sided with police and Peerbocus remained in custody, due back in court Monday.

Multiple children at the school filed complaints alleging assault. His uncle told reporters he hopes the inquiry will be conducted properly. His mother, speaking outside the court, put it simply: "My son came back with his head held high." The charges are provisional; the full inquiry is ongoing.

The speed of the remand suggests investigators aren't done yet.

Ten dead women, no official count: Mauritius announces domestic violence overhaul

Since January 2025, ten women have been killed in domestic violence incidents in Mauritius. Seven had already reported threats or violence to authorities. Not one was saved by the protections they were told would keep them safe.

The National Human Rights Commission's 2025 report is damning, Mauritius has no national femicide registry, deaths classified as generic homicides without gender or relationship context. There is no legal definition of "femicide" in Mauritian law, making systematic counting impossible. The result: the state cannot count its dead women.

On April 14, Social Security Minister Arianne Navarre-Marie announced a new Domestic Abuse Bill to replace the decades-old Protection from Domestic Violence Act within one month. Key changes include mandatory reporting for doctors, teachers, and social workers; police powers to issue protection notices without waiting for court orders; and penal code amendments naming femicide as a specific offence. The government's own statement: "Domestic violence is not a private matter. It is a crime."

Seven of ten victims had already asked for help. The system is not broken. It was never built.

MMM purges 14 elected officials in overnight shock

The Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) expelled 14 municipal elected officials at a central committee meeting over the weekend. Among those expelled: Gabriella Batour, mayor of Beau-Bassin/Rose-Hill.

Batour learned of her removal through press reports, not from the party. She called it a "manque d'éthique" — a lack of ethics — saying the decision violated commitments made to voters during the municipal elections and jeopardised ongoing municipal projects. No official reason for the mass expulsion was given by MMM leadership.

Expelling elected officials overnight, without explanation, is a calculation. Not a mistake.

Rs 3.5 billion in drugs intercepted on route from Afghanistan

An international anti-narcotics operation code-named BALDOR has intercepted drugs worth Rs 3.5 billion on a trafficking route running from Afghanistan to Mauritius. Two Mauritians are now in custody.

The operation, coordinated on April 9 by the French international liaison officer alongside the Regional Coordination Operations Centre based in the Seychelles, targeted a network moving product across the Indian Ocean. Rs 3.5 billion destined for local market is not a street-level operation.

A new safety net for the middle: government targets the Rs 17k-20k gap

Social Security Minister Ashok Subron announced plans to create a new direct-aid category for households earning between Rs 17,000 and Rs 20,000 a month. The tier sits above the existing poverty assistance floor, a band that has been invisible to government support programmes until now.

The planned package would cover school materials, housing renovations, and assistance through the National Empowerment Foundation. The Social Register programme may also extend to bread, water bills, wastewater fees, and household gas. Income thresholds are not yet finalised; a ministerial meeting was set for Monday to advance the details.

Too rich for existing help and too poor to absorb the shocks: the middle has been invisible to policy for a long time.

🗞️ SHORTS

Fuel stations: margins under strain – Petrol retailers called for a profit-margin review after fuel rose to Rs 64.25 and Rs 71.25 a litre, saying the price hike has squeezed station margins further.

Chikungunya tops 1,400 cases – 1,415 recorded since January, 148 currently active, with recent spread southward toward Tyack from original clusters in Plaisance and Vacoas.

Shirin gets France's top honour – Speaker Shirin Aumeeruddy-Cziffra was elevated to Commander of the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest decoration, for five decades of work in justice, equality and human rights.

Shakeel, five days in, serene – Acting PM Shakeel Mohamed completed five days at the Primature without incident since April 14, signalling continuity while PM Ramgoolam is abroad.

Tuesday parliament: Chagos, prisons and Silver Bank – This week's parliamentary session looks dense, with Chagos sovereignty, the Silver Bank deal, and prison conditions all listed for debate.

42 – the new maximum enlistment age for the US Army, raised from 35 as of today. The Army missed its recruitment targets by 23-25% in 2022 and 2023, and a RAND Corporation report called older Americans a "largely untapped, high-quality pool." Every other major US military branch already accepts recruits in their early 40s. The Marines remain the exception, capped at 28.

Thousands evacuated in Paris this weekend after workers discovered a World War 2 bomb and disposal teams safely detonated it. Residents within a 450-metre radius were ordered to leave while the device was neutralised. Paris regularly uncovers unexploded wartime ordnance from the Nazi occupation: this one was bigger than most.

20% of his salary for six months – that is what MP Eshan Juman, representing Port Louis Est/Port Louis Maritime, offered to donate in solidarity with the Middle East crisis. He announced the pledge on Facebook on Sunday. Whatever you think of the gesture, it lands differently when your constituents are paying Rs 64.25 per litre at the pump.

❤️ Enjoying this 4minit? If you found your way here but are not yet subscribed, let us help you with that:

New here? Subscribe to our FREE daily newsletter!

DRC and M23 agree to protect civilians, free prisoners within 10 days

Talks in Switzerland between the Democratic Republic of Congo's government and the M23 rebels, an armed coalition backed by Rwanda that has seized eastern DRC territory since 2021, produced concrete commitments over the weekend. Both sides agreed to stop targeting civilians, guarantee humanitarian aid deliveries, and release prisoners within 10 days as a confidence-building measure.

Both sides also signed a memorandum of understanding on ceasefire monitoring mechanisms. Human Rights Watch has documented repeated violations of previous agreements, so implementation — not signatures — is what counts now.

The DRC peace process has produced agreements before. What's different today is the prisoner timeline attached to it.

Pope Leo tells Angola's leaders: stop letting the world take from you

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Luanda to a country accustomed to polite diplomatic phrases from foreign visitors. He delivered something else. At the Presidential Palace, he challenged Angola's leaders to break centuries of "extractivism", the pattern of plundering African resources for foreign benefit: "How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are brought about by this logic of extractivism."

He later celebrated an outdoor mass for an estimated 100,000 people, calling on Angolans to fight corruption and build hope for the future. An opposition leader called his words a "powerful message."

Three Senegalese fans walk free in Morocco after AFCON arrest

Three Senegalese football fans who spent time in Moroccan custody during the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2025 walked free on Saturday. Moroccan authorities provided no details on the charges or the length of detention. They are free.

US seizes Iranian ship in Hormuz, Tehran calls it piracy and vows to respond

The US Navy seized the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel Touska in the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, with President Trump announcing on social media that US forces had "blown a hole in the engine room" and put Marines aboard to inspect the cargo. Iran's military command called it "armed piracy" and warned: "We will soon respond and retaliate."

The action came just hours after Trump said he was sending negotiators to Islamabad for potential peace talks, an extraordinary pairing of diplomatic outreach and military escalation running on the same day. Brent crude oil jumped more than 7%, crossing $95 a barrel. The Hormuz blockade has restricted roughly one-fifth of global oil transit since April 13.

The gap between "sending negotiators" and "blowing a hole in your ship" is not usually this small.

Can the man who wants to talk to Moscow govern Bulgaria?

Can a left-leaning eurosceptic who favours renewed ties with Russia and opposes arming Ukraine actually govern an EU member state? Bulgaria is about to find out. Former President Rumen Radev's Progressive Bulgaria party won Sunday's election with roughly 44% of the vote, more than triple the score of second-place GERB, the party of long-running former PM Boyko Borissov.

This was Bulgaria's eighth election in five years, following mass anticorruption protests that brought down the previous government in December. Radev stepped down from the presidency specifically to lead this campaign. Borissov acknowledged the result with trademark realism: "Elections decide who comes first, but negotiations decide who governs." Whether Radev can form a stable coalition is another matter entirely.

7 of his own children: Louisiana father kills 8 in domestic shooting

On Sunday morning in Shreveport, Louisiana, a man named Shamar Elkins shot and killed eight children, seven of them his own, ranging in age from one to 12. He also shot and injured two adults, including the children's mother. Elkins fled in a carjacked vehicle. Police pursued him and opened fire. He died.

Authorities had no prior domestic violence record for Elkins, though he had a 2019 firearms arrest. Police spokesperson Chris Bordelon described the scene as "unlike anything most of us have ever seen."

The robot that ran 21 km in Beijing

Twenty humanoid robots entered the Beijing half-marathon last weekend, not as a stunt but as a proper engineering trials on an open course with crowds, uneven terrain, and 21.1 kilometres of road. The winner, a model called Tiangong Ultra, crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 42 seconds.

Engineers trained the robots using professional runner data to improve stride, balance, and energy efficiency. China views humanoid robotics as a strategic sector; real-race endurance is now the benchmark. Not elite pace. But it finished.

At some point in the next decade, a robot will qualify for a human marathon. It's already running.