A TURKISH crypto founder who fled to Albania and his two brothers have been sentenced to 11,196 years in jail each, the Anadolu state news agency reported Friday. Prosecutors had asked for Thodex boss Faruk Fatih Ozer, 29, to be sentenced to 40,562 years in prison for money laundering, fraud and establishing a criminal organisation. “If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly,” Anadolu quoted Ozer as telling the court. His two brothers, Serap and Guven, received the same sentence, which was issued late Thursday after a brief trial, Turkish media reports said.…
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AN Ecuadoran municipal councillor was kidnapped and killed in the latest political violence to rock the South American country just weeks before a presidential vote, officials said Friday. Bolivar Vera, from Duran in the drug violence-hobbled Guayas province in Ecuador’s west, was found dead Friday in a wooded area, bloodied and with his hands tied, the prosecutor’s office said on social media. He had been shot. Vera had been reported missing by his municipal colleagues on Thursday. According to police official Paul Villavicencio, Vera’s body had “several gunshots apparently in the head and… chest.” His killing comes after the assassination…
SENEGAL’s F24, a platform that unites various political groups and civil society organisations, has called on their supporters to bang pots in protest against President Macky Sall this Sunday. Speaking at a press conference, they say they are advocating for the release of individuals termed “political detainees” and the organisation of an inclusive presidential election. They had previously called for a peaceful demonstration this Friday in the centre of the Senegalese capital but the governor of Dakar banned the movement’s rally. Several of the F24 demonstrations have also recently been banned by the authorities for “risks of disturbance to public…
GABON’s new prime minister has told the BBC that the country should hold fresh elections within the next two years, following a military coup last week. The junta which overthrew President Ali Bongo has promised a free and fair election, but not set out a timetable. However, Raymond Ndong Sima told the BBC’s Newshour programme: “I have said in a document that I published that that should be done within two years.” He said a timetable would be decided in the coming days. Mr Sima was installed as interim prime minister on Thursday, after Gen Brice Oligui Nguema, who led…
OVER 296 people have been killed following a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Morocco, officials have said. Many of the fatalities are said to be in hard-to-reach areas south of Marrakech. The earthquake struck early Saturday – damaging buildings in major cities and sending panicked people pouring into the streets. At least 153 people were injured and are being treated in hospital. Witnesses in Marrakech told the Reuters news agency that some buildings have collapsed, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Big cracks were seen in a section of the medieval city’s walls. Local television stations broadcast pictures of a…
THE Saudi Pro League transfer deadline shut at 22:00 BST to end a record-breaking summer of spending – but Al-Ittihad were unable to prise Mohamed Salah away from Liverpool. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side had a £150m bid rejected by the Reds for the 31-year-old Egypt international and reports of a world-record £215m bid were never confirmed. Several Premier League managers have criticised the fact the Saudi deadline closed almost a week after Europe’s major leagues. It was an unprecedented summer of spending by a non-European league, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund ploughing huge resources into four of their clubs…
SHARES in Apple have fallen for a second day in a row after reports that Chinese government workers have been banned from using iPhones. The firm’s stock market valuation has fallen by more than 6%, or almost $200bn (£160bn), in the last two days. China is the technology giant’s third-largest market, accounting for 18% of its total revenue last year. It is also where most of Apple’s products are manufactured by its biggest supplier Foxconn. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Beijing had ordered central government agency officials to not bring iPhones into the office or use them…
KING Charles III has recorded a message and released a favourite photograph of Elizabeth II to mark the first anniversary of his mother’s death. In the message, the King said he recalled the late Queen’s “devoted service and all she meant to so many of us”. The photograph chosen by the King shows a young Queen, then 42, at an official portrait sitting in 1968. Elizabeth II died aged 96 at Balmoral Castle on 8 September last year. It came just months after her Platinum Jubilee marking 70 years on the throne. In his short tribute, which will be released…
MILITANTS have attacked a river boat in north-eastern Mali, killing at least 49 civilians, the interim government says. They also reportedly attacked an army camp, killing 15 soldiers, while around 50 militants are said to have died. The government has declared three days of national mourning. The militant threat has been growing despite claims by the military that Russian Wagner Group mercenaries are turning the tide of their campaign. The northern city of Timbuktu has been under blockade since the end of last month and there have been several other recent attacks on transport. The BBC could not independently verify…
RWANDAN police have arrested a 34-year-old suspected serial killer who is alleged to have murdered more than 10 people and buried them in his kitchen. Police discovered the crime after the man was evicted from his rented accommodation in Kicukiro, a suburb of the capital, Kigali. They were called after the suspect had defaulted on rent payments for months. A police officer told local media the victims appeared to have been sex workers. They included men and women. Murder is relatively uncommon in Rwanda and this case has shocked the country. An unnamed police official told Rwanda’s private newspaper The…
FORMER President, Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, expressed his satisfaction with the ruling of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, which confirmed the victory of the All Progressives Congress candidate, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 25 election. Buhari in a statement by his media aide, Garba Shehu, on Wednesday, said the Tribunal has “written history” by withstanding intimidation and all manner of prejudice to deliver justice according to law and to a majority of Nigerians whose wish has been for the choices they made to be respected. “If anybody has won today it is the democracy and the people,” adding…
NIGERIAN forward Victor Osimhen has been nominated for the 2023 Ballon d’Or award, becoming one of the few players from the country to have achieved the feat. The Napoli striker was in impeccable form last season, helping the Italian side win their first Scudetto in 33 years. He is the first Nigerian to be nominated for the prize in 24 years. Kanu Nwankwo was the last to earn that feat. The organisers of the award, French Football, confirmed his nomination Wednesday night. Osimhen scored 25 league goals last term, beating off Lautaro Martinez of Inter Milan and AC Milan’s Rafael…
A RUSSIAN strike killed more than a dozen people, including a child, in a market in the frontline in east Ukraine, in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “heinous evil”. The projectiles ripped into the centre of Kostiantynivka, a town of nearly 70,000 people in the Donetsk region hours after America’s top diplomat arrived in Kyiv to announce new aid. Ukraine’s newly appointed defence minister meanwhile vowed to liberate “every centimetre” of territory occupied by Russia in his first comments in the post Wednesday. Rescue workers picked through the debris and carried some of the nearly 30 wounded…
A CASH boost of hundreds of millions of dollars and more control of land in the occupied West Bank are among Palestinian demands in the event of a three-way deal involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the BBC has learned. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held talks in Riyadh with Saudi counterparts on Wednesday. They were also due to see US officials. The Americans are long thought to have been pushing for a landmark pact to normalise Israel-Saudi ties. It would be underwritten by Washington and would include a major security deal the Saudis want to achieve with…
SIX soldiers have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo in connection with the killing of more than 40 anti-UN protesters last week. Amongst them are two senior officers alleged to have instructed soldiers to open fire on the banned demonstration. The protest took place in the eastern city of Goma to demand the withdrawal of UN and regional peacekeepers. Protesters accuse them of failing to protect civilians against decades of attacks by rebels in the east. The case is being held at a military tribunal in Goma, the capital of mineral-rich North Kivu province where many rebel…
THE United States has targeted a top Sudanese paramilitary official in the highest-profile use of sanctions since the current conflict began in Sudan. Washington has sanctioned Abdelrahim Dagalo, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) deputy leader, over human rights abuses during the group’s clash with Sudan’s army. The move, announced on Wednesday, is an apparent response to the deadly violence seen recently in West Darfur, which the RSF is accused of perpetrating along with allied militias. Mr Dagalo has been accused by the US of being connected to abuses such as “conflict-related sexual violence and killings based on ethnicity”. The RSF has…
GABON’s former president Ali Bongo, who was ousted in a putsch, is free to leave the country and travel abroad the leader of the coup that toppled him said on Wednesday. “He has freedom of movement and can travel abroad if he wishes,” general Brice Oligui Nguema said in a statement read on state television. Bongo, in power for 14 years, had been under house arrest since the military coup of August 30, carried out without bloodshed less than an hour after his party proclaimed his re-election in a vote described as fraudulent by the putschists. “Given his state of…
THE Presidential Election Petitions Court has dismissed the ground of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, alleging dual citizenship and drug conviction against President Bola Tinubu. In a judgment on the objections of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Tinubu grounds that the issues bordering on his non-qualification to contest the February 25 presidential election, Justice Moses Ugo held that the grounds were new issues. He upheld the objections of the APC and Tinubu that the Atiku and PDP could not smuggle new issues not pleaded in their petition on the grounds of non-qualification. Atiku…
BUKAYO Saka has been named England men’s player of the year for the second season running. The Arsenal winger, who turned 22 on Tuesday, came top of the supporter vote to retain the award he won in 2021-22. Midfielder Jude Bellingham was second in the ballot with England captain and all-time top scorer Harry Kane third. Saka has scored seven England goals in 10 caps over the past year, including a first career hat-trick in a 7-0 win over North Macedonia at Old Trafford. He netted three times for the Three Lions at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, scoring twice…
THE number of migrants lodging asylum applications in the EU has jumped 28 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, official figures released Tuesday showed. Between January and the end of June this year, there were 519,000 such requests made in the 27-nation bloc and associated countries Switzerland and Norway, the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) said. That puts the EU on track to receive more than one million asylum-seekers this year — the biggest number since 2015-2016 when it saw a huge influx, mainly Syrians fleeing the war in their…