Author: Editor

THE new head of Turkey’s central bank said she has been priced out of Istanbul’s property market by rampant inflation, leaving no choice for the former finance executive but to move back in with her parents. “We haven’t found a home in Istanbul. It’s terribly expensive. We’ve moved in with my parents,” 44-year-old Hafize Gaye Erkan, who took up her post in June after two decades in the United States, told the Hurriyet newspaper. Erkan previously worked at firms including Goldman Sachs and First Republic Bank — and is now getting a crash course in the soaring prices that have…

MORE than 60 migrants are believed to have drowned in a shipwreck off the coast of Libya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Citing survivors, the UN agency said on Saturday the vessel left the city of Zuwara with around 86 people on board. It said high waves swamped the boat and that 61 migrants, including children, were missing and presumed dead. Libya is among the main departure points for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean and enter Europe. The IOM estimates that more than 2,200 people have drowned while attempting the crossing this year alone, making it one…

FORMER South African president Jacob Zuma, who was forced out of office over corruption allegations, said Saturday he would not vote for the ruling African National Congress in national elections in 2024. With the party that led the decades-old struggle against apartheid fast losing support, the 81-year-old Zuma launched a bitter new attack on current president and ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa. He said he would vote for a small radical left-wing party and would refuse to campaign for the ANC. “It would be a betrayal to campaign for the ANC of Ramaphosa,” Zuma said in a statement read at a…

TICKETS to see Lionel Messi in a Hong Kong friendly were snapped up in under an hour on Friday after nearly two million people queued online, organisers said. The Argentine great and his Inter Miami side will face a Hong Kong XI at the 40,000-capacity Hong Kong Stadium on February 4. Football fans in the finance hub of 7.5 million logging in to the ticketing app on Friday morning faced a mammoth queue for tickets, which cost from HK$880 to HK4,880 ($110-$625). “We are absolutely thrilled with the response from the fans,” said Michel Lamuniere, chairman and CEO of Tatler…

URAWA Red Diamonds edged past Leon in the Fifa Club World Cup to book a semi-final meeting with Manchester City. Dutch forward Alex Schalk scored the winner for the Asian champions, five minutes after being introduced as a second-half substitute. Leon captain William Tesillo was dismissed after picking up a second yellow card late on for the Mexican side, who faded after a bright start. Japan’s Urawa take on European champions City on Tuesday. In Friday’s other second-round match African champions Al Ahly won 3-1 against a star-studded Al-Ittihad side that included Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Fabinho. They will…

THE Israeli military says it has mistakenly killed three hostages during its campaign in Gaza after they were mis-identified as a “threat”. They were named as Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Talalka, 22, and Alon Shamriz, 26. The military shared its remorse and said the three were shot by troops operating in Shejaiya, in Gaza’s north. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday’s incident was under investigation, and that it “expresses deep remorse over the tragic incident and sends the families its heartfelt condolences”. “Our national mission is to locate the missing and return all the hostages home,” it added. Hundreds…

A UKRAINIAN village councillor set off hand grenades at a meeting, wounding 26 people, national police said Friday, triggering the launch of a terror investigation. The incident took place Friday morning at the headquarters of the village council of Keretsky in western Ukraine’s mountainous Zakarpattia region. A video posted by the police on Telegram showed a man dressed in black entering the door of a council meeting during a heated discussion. He then pulled three hand grenades from his pockets, released the safety pins and dropped them on the floor, triggering explosions as those at the meeting screamed. “As a…

FOUR Senegalese soldiers were killed when their vehicle ran over an anti-tank mine in the southern region of Casamance, where separatist rebels operate, the army said on Friday. Three others were wounded in the explosion, which occurred on Thursday in Nord Bignona, near the border with Gambia, the army’s public relations unit said on X, formerly Twitter. It gave no further details on the incident when asked by AFP. The army has for several months been carrying out security operations against separatist rebels of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), who want independence for the region that also…

NIGER’s deposed president Mohamed Bazoum must be freed immediately from detention, where he has been held since a July 26 coup, the court of the West African bloc, ECOWAS, ordered on Friday. The court called for his “immediate and unconditional release” and ordered that Bazoum be reinstated, according to the judge in the case heard in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. Niger is currently suspended from the Economic Community of West African States. Other member states have, in the past, ignored rulings from the ECOWAS court. “It is Mohamed Bazoum who represents the state of Niger… he remains president of the republic,”…

SIX football shirts worn by Argentine megastar Lionel Messi at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have sold for $7.8 million at auction, the auction house told AFP on Thursday. There were three bids in total on what auction house Sotheby’s described as “Lionel Messi’s match-worn iconic light blue and white, vertical striped Argentina shirts from his historic 2022 FIFA World Cup run”. The hammer price broke the record for a sale of an item linked to the Argentine star, and is the most valuable item of sporting memorabilia sold at auction this year so far, Sotheby’s said. Messi led…

REBECCA Welch will become the first female referee of a Premier League match after being appointed to oversee Fulham’s game against Burnley on December 23. Welch became a referee in 2010, combining the role with her job in Britain’s National Health Service. In 2021, she was the first woman to be appointed to referee a match in the Football League when taking charge of the fourth-tier fixture between Harrogate and Port Vale. Welch was also the first female official to referee matches in the Championship and third round of the FA Cup. Last month she became the first woman to…

THE US government wants the war between Israel and Hamas to end “as soon as possible”, a national security spokesman for the White House has said. John Kirby was speaking to reporters in Washington DC about today’s visit to Tel Aviv by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. He said Sullivan discussed Israel moving to “low-intensity operations” in Gaza “in the near future” in the talks. “But I don’t want to put a timestamp on it,” Kirby added. He also said the US was not “dictating terms to the Israelis of how long it has to take”. “[The war] has…

JAPANESE Prime Minister Fumio Kishida replaced four ministers Thursday as the unpopular leader reels from a major corruption scandal in the ruling party. The furore centres on alleged kickbacks of 500 million yen ($3.4 million) in the faction-riven Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed the world’s third-largest economy almost uninterrupted for decades. Media reports suggested that prosecutors would begin raiding offices and interviewing dozens of lawmakers later this week. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno was replaced by former foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, a high-ranking member of Kishida’s LDP faction. Ken Saito replaced Yasutoshi Nishimura as Economy and Industry Minister…

AN attack in central Mali this week, blamed on jihadists, left dozens of soldiers and civilians dead, local sources said Thursday. However, the Malian army reported only that it had repelled a “terrorist” attack on the Farabougou camp on Tuesday, without mentioning casualties. Central Mali is a hotbed of the violence that is plaguing the Sahel region. As elsewhere in the country, gathering and verifying information is complicated by the difficulty in accessing remote sites or independent sources. The Mali authorities, dominated by the colonels who took power by force in 2020, are reluctant to talk about losses suffered and…

LIBERIA’s outgoing Finance Minister Samuel Tweh has dismissed as false US allegations that he was involved in “significant” corruption. The US put him on a sanctions list on 11 December, barring him and his immediate family from entering the country. Two lawmakers and their families were also placed on the list. The three men were accused of “abusing their public positions through soliciting, accepting, and offering bribes to manipulate legislative processes and public funding”, the US Treasury said. Addressing a news conference in the capital Monrovia, Mr Tweh said they had been “summarily accused and rendered guilty without any due…

PROF Zacchaeus Adangor has resigned as the Attorney-General (AG) and Commissioner for Justice in Rivers State. Adangor’s resignation, dated December 14, 2023, was addressed to Governor Siminalayi Fubara. Adangor’s said his resignation was based “purely on personal decision”. Adangor was Rivers AG under the administration of Nyesom Wike, who was governor from May 2015 to May 2023. His resignation occurred amid the ongoing political crisis rocking the state with the state assembly as the “boxing ring”. The crisis in the 32-member Rivers State House of Assembly had begun as a result of a rift between Fubara and his predecessor, Wike,…

SARINA Wiegman, Emma Hayes and Pep Guardiola are among the nominees for the Best Fifa Coach awards 2023. England manager Wiegman claimed the women’s award last year after the Lionesses won Euro 2022. Chelsea manager Hayes and Barcelona’s Jonatan Giraldez are also on the women’s shortlist. Guardiola, who led Manchester City to the Treble, is alongside Inter Milan’s Simone Inzaghi and Napoli’s Luciano Spalletti on the men’s shortlist. The winners will be announced on Monday, 15 January at a ceremony in London. Wiegman was also named Uefa women’s coach of the year in August. England’s Mary Earps has been shortlisted…

ISRAEL declared its determination Wednesday to press on with its Gaza war “with or without international support” after it came under mounting pressure even from its key backer the United States. Israel’s attacks have left Gaza in ruins, killing more than 18,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and causing “unparallelled” damage to roads, schools and hospitals. The day after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed a non-binding resolution for a ceasefire, more strikes hit Gaza and battles raged, especially in Gaza City, the biggest urban centre, and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south,…

THE US House of Representatives has voted to formalise its impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Lawmakers voted along party lines to back a resolution that Republicans say will give them more power to gather evidence and enforce legal demands. Three Republican-led House committees allege bribery and corruption during Mr Biden’s tenure as vice-president. But they have yet to present evidence of wrongdoing, and Mr Biden says his opponents are “attacking me with lies”. The lower chamber of Congress, which Republicans control by a slim eight-seat margin, approved the inquiry on Wednesday afternoon by a vote of 221 to 212.…

A SIERRA Leone court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of Samura Kamara, opposition leader and runner-up in last June’s presidential election, on corruption charges. The Court of Appeal “has ordered the immediate arrest of former All People’s Congress Party (APC) presidential candidate Dr Samura M.W. Kamara” for his alleged involvement in a transaction that involved the sale of shares held by the Sierra Leone government in a mining company in 2012, the court said in a statement. At the time of the alleged offence, Kamara was finance minister under the then president Ernest Bai Koroma. Kamara’s lawyer could not immediately…