WASHINGTON: US and international news outlets, including The New York Times, AP, AFP, and Fox News, on Tuesday declined to sign new restrictive Pentagon media rules, meaning they will be stripped of their press access credentials.

The new rules come after the Defense Department restricted media access inside the Pentagon, forced some outlets to vacate offices in the building, and drastically reduced the number of briefings for journalists.

The media policy “gags Pentagon employees” by threatening retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release, the Pentagon Press Association (PPA) said.

AFP said in a statement Tuesday that it “cannot sign up to the terms of the Pentagon document that would require media to acknowledge insufficiently clear new policies that appear to fly in the face of US constitutional principles and of the basic tenets of journalism.”

“We shall continue to cover the Pentagon and the US military freely and fairly, as we have done for decades,” the agency added.

TV networks ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC issued a joint statement saying they will not sign the new rules, which would “restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.”

Alongside Fox, other conservative outlets, The Washington Times and Newsmax are also reportedly refusing to agree to the new policy, which could see a total of some 100 press passes revoked.

The new rules are the latest in a series of moves that restrict journalists’ access to information from the Pentagon, the nation’s single largest employer with a budget in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

The Defense Department announced earlier this year that eight media organizations, including The Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC and NPR had to vacate their dedicated office spaces in the Pentagon, alleging that there was a need to create room for other — predominantly conservative — outlets.

It has also required journalists to be accompanied by official escorts if they go outside a limited number of areas in the Pentagon — another new restriction on the press.

And it has drastically reduced the number of briefings for journalists — holding some half a dozen this year, compared to an average of two or more per week under president Joe Biden’s administration, which left office in January.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth — a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran — has campaigned against leaks from the Defense Department.

But he was inadvertently involved in the release of sensitive information earlier this year, sharing details about upcoming strikes against Yemen’s Huthi rebels in a chat on messaging app Signal to which a journalist had been mistakenly added.

Hegseth has also reportedly used Signal to discuss US strikes on Yemen with his wife and other people not usually involved in such discussions.

His use of Signal has prompted an investigation by the Pentagon inspector general’s office

An army commander who led a mutiny in Madagascar said on Tuesday the military had taken power after President Andry Rajoelina was impeached by lawmakers and forced to flee the country following weeks of youth-led protests.

Rajoelina had refused to step down despite escalating Gen Z demonstrations demanding his resignation and widespread defections in the army.

“We have taken the power,” Colonel Michael Randrianirina declared on national radio and said that the military was dissolving all institutions except the lower house of parliament or the National Assembly.

Randrianirina later told reporters a committee led by the military would rule the country for a period of up to two years alongside a transitional government before organising new elections.

“The following institutions are suspended: the Senate, the High Constitutional Court, the Independent National Electoral Commission, the High Court of Justice, and the High Council for the Defence of Human Rights and the Rule of Law,” a statement from the country’s military leaders said.

In a day of turmoil for the nation off southern Africa’s coast, the 51-year-old leader, whose whereabouts are unknown, earlier sought to dissolve the lower house by decree.

But lawmakers went ahead with a vote to impeach him, leaving the country in a constitutional deadlock which the military seized upon to declare they were taking charge.

Rajoelina, who himself came to power in a coup in 2009, condemned the power grab by the military in a statement.

Military suspends institutions

Randrianirina, a commander in the elite CAPSAT army unit that played a key role in Rajoelina’s 2009 coup, broke ranks with him last week.

In a defiant address to the nation on Monday night, Rajoelina said that he had been forced to move to a safe place because of threats to his life. An opposition official, a military source and a foreign diplomat told Reuters he had fled the country on Sunday aboard a French military plane.

His isolation increased further on Tuesday when even lawmakers from his ruling coalition, which holds a parliamentary majority, voted to impeach him on charges of engaging in activities deemed incompatible with presidential duties.

Rajoelina had repeatedly warned in recent days that an attempted coup was underway in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Escalating demonstrations 

Demonstrations first erupted in the country on September 25 over water and power shortages and quickly escalated into an uprising over broader grievances, including corruption, bad governance and a lack of basic services.

The anger mirrored recent protests against ruling elites elsewhere, including Nepal and Morocco.

Earlier on Tuesday, at Antananarivo’s 13 May Square, along the main drag lined with palm trees and French colonial buildings, thousands of protesters danced, marched, sang and waved banners denouncing Rajoelina as a French stooge because of his dual citizenship and support from Madagascar’s former coloniser.

Many were waving Malagasy flags and the signature Gen Z protest banner of a skull and crossbones from the Japanese “One Piece” anime series.

At one point, Randrianirina took the stage and asked: “Are you ready to accept a military takeover?”, drawing cheers of approval from the crowd.

Later, as news of the military takeover filtered through to protesters, many were jubilant.

“We’re so happy Andry Rajoelina is finally gone … We will start again,” high-school student Fih Nomensanahary said, with four of her friends cheering alongside her.

Others were more cautious. “They need to hand over to a civilian administration quickly and have an election,” said Rezafy Lova, a 68-year-old IT consultant.

Economy in tatters

CAPSAT had joined the protesters over the weekend, saying it would refuse to fire on them. It went on to take charge of the military and appointed a new army chief, prompting Rajoelina to warn on Sunday of an illegal attempt to seize power.

Since then, the paramilitary gendarmerie and the police have also broken ranks with Rajoelina.

Madagascar, where the average age is less than 20, has a population of about 30 million, three-quarters of whom live in poverty. Between its independence in 1960 and 2020, GDP per capita plunged 45%, according to the World Bank.

Torrential rains that lashed Mexico last week killed at least 64 people and 65 more are missing, the government said on Monday, after a tropical depression triggered landslides and flooding in parts of the Gulf Coast and central states.

The unnamed depression came toward the end of the rainy season, battering land and bursting rivers that had already been soaked by months of rains, while forecasters were focused on tropical storms and two hurricanes on the Pacific coast.

“This intense rain was not expected to be of such magnitude,” President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters.

Admiral Raymundo Morales, Mexico’s Navy secretary, said the flooding was the result of the coming together of warm and cold air fronts over rivers that were already filled to the brink and mountains weakened by months of rain.

Around 100,000 homes were affected, Sheinbaum said. She is set to meet with the finance ministry later in the day to discuss rebuilding efforts, and visit some hard-hit states.

Laura Velazquez, national coordinator of civil protection, said Hidalgo and Veracruz were the states worst affected, with 29 deaths and 18 missing reported in Veracruz, and 21 deaths and 43 missing in Hidalgo.

The rain also destroyed infrastructure such as bridges and left streets filled with mud. Videos and images from last week showed emergency responders wading through deep waters to find stranded residents and get supplies to affected communities.

Authorities have deployed thousands of personnel to help evacuate, clean up and monitor the places that were hardest hit.

Electricity, which had been knocked out in towns across five states, has largely been restored. Authorities said they will also focus on containing the spread of viruses such as dengue, carried by mosquitoes that breed in stagnant water.