THE face of a girl who died more than 1,300 years ago has been revealed through facial reconstruction. Her skeleton was found buried on a wooden bed, with a gold and garnet cross on her chest at Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, in 2012. The image will go on display as part of a Cambridge University exhibition. Anglo-Saxon specialist Dr Sam Lucy said “as an archaeologist I’m used to faceless people” so it was “really lovely” to see how she may have looked. Forensic artist Hew Morrison created the likeness using measurements of the young woman’s skull and tissue depth data for Caucasian…
Author: Editor
Read More
A GUNMAN opened fire Monday in a school he used to attend in southern Brazil, killing one pupil and wounding another before being arrested, authorities said. The ex-student arrived at the school in the Londrina metropolitan area saying he needed a transcript, but took out a gun once inside and began shooting, said authorities in the state of Parana. Brazilian media reports said the shooter was 21. A 16 year old female student was killed, and a male student taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, the state security ministry said in a statement, adding that the attacker had been…
THE Ugandan authorities say they have arrested three people in connection with an attack on a school on Friday in which about 40 people were killed. Most of the victims were students at the Lhubiria school in the western town of Mpondwe. Many were burnt to death in their dormitory. District Commissioner Joe Walusimbi said the arrests followed tip-offs from local residents. But he added that the Ugandan army was still hunting for the Islamist militants who have been blamed for the attack and reportedly fled into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
BRITISH actor Idris Elba, who also has Sierra Leonean citizenship and heritage, has called for a peaceful general election in Sierra Leone, which will take place on Saturday. “This election please let it be peaceful,” he said in a message in Pidgin English. He reminded young people that they have the “power” in this vote, and that if the country is destroyed due to violence, it will be down to Sierra Leoneans to have to patch it back up again. “Not only is the world watching,” he said, but the whole of Africa. Saturday’s vote will be the country’s sixth…
CROATIA missed out on their first international trophy after losing on penalties to Spain in the Nations League final. Dani Carvajal calmly chipped home the winning effort to seal a 5-4 victory on spot-kicks after Unai Simon had saved from Bruno Petkovic. The contest in Rotterdam had finished goalless after extra time. It is Spain’s first international trophy for 11 years, since their victory at Euro 2012. “We’re so happy, it was a really tough game and this is so difficult to do,” said Spain midfielder Rodri, who was named man of the match and for whom this trophy follows…
LUKE Shaw has been selling Manchester United to his England team-mates and would welcome Harry Kane and Declan Rice to the club “in a heartbeat”. Monday’s Euro 2024 qualifier against North Macedonia is being played at United’s home ground Old Trafford. Tottenham striker Kane and West Ham midfielder Rice are said to be summer transfer targets for the Red Devils. “I would love a few of them to join – I am not going to lie,” said United defender Shaw, 27. “I am speaking to them, telling them how good Manchester is, because I know their qualities. “I know they…
AN Ecuadorean woman has died days after mourners at her funeral were shocked to find her alive in her coffin. Bella Montoya, 76, was first declared dead by a doctor at a hospital in the city of Babahoyo last week. But when mourners attending her wake heard her knocking on her coffin, she was immediately rushed back to the same hospital for treatment. After seven days in intensive care, Ecuador’s health ministry confirmed she died on Friday from an ischemic stroke. The ministry’s statement added that she had remained under “permanent surveillance” while at the hospital. Speaking to a local…
MORE than a quarter of patients on antidepressants in England – about two million people – have been taking them for five years, the BBC has found. This is despite there being limited evidence of the benefits of taking the drugs for that length of time. A doctor who runs an NHS clinic helping people off the pills says withdrawal symptoms can make it hard for some to stop taking their medication. Withdrawal guidance was updated in 2019, but he says little has changed. More than eight million people in England are on antidepressants – which are prescribed for depression,…
THE latest temporary ceasefire between Sudan’s rival military factions appears to have brought a lull in the fighting, following battles and air strikes overnight. A resident in the capital, Khartoum, said the situation was calm and expressed hope that the truce might be the beginning of the end of the war. He said people were tired of conflict, death and looting. The 72-hour ceasefire was announced on Saturday by US and Saudi mediators. The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces agreed to halt attacks and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid. Previous truces have been poorly observed.
THE peace of a normally tranquil suburban road near South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, is being shattered by the sound of drilling. These are not prospectors looking for a new source of the country’s mineral wealth, but workers digging for an arguably more precious resource: water. Private boreholes – like this one being excavated in Garsfontein – are springing up across the wealthier neighbourhoods in the country’s economic heartland, where taps have been running dry. “I am tired of not knowing when we will have water and when we won’t,” the frustrated homeowner says. “Having a borehole means we won’t have…
ONE week after the 10th National Assembly was inaugurated, lawmakers have begun jostling for the chairmanship and membership of key standing committees of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, this newspaper reports. Lawmakers consider committees that oversee ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government with enormous influence and huge budgets as ‘juicy’. The juicy committees are often reserved for key members of the leading party, in this case, the All Progressives Congress, and those loyal to the presiding officers. They include committees on Appropriations, Finance, Public Accounts, Defence (Army, Navy and Air Force), Police Affairs, National Security…
A BLUNDER by Morocco goalkeeper Munir el Kajoui led to a 2-1 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying defeat in South Africa on Saturday — their first loss since reaching the 2022 World Cup semi-finals. Zambia completed a joyful day for southern Africa by hammering the Ivory Coast 3-0 in Ndola to secure a place in the finals for the first time since 2015. South Africa and World Cup history-makers Morocco had qualified ahead of a lively Group K clash in Johannesburg that drew a 50,000 crowd despite near-freezing conditions. El Kajoui, standing in for rested Yassine Bounou, allowed a Percy…
CRISTIANO Ronaldo is the all-time international record scorer with 122 goals in 199 caps for Portugal Cristiano Ronaldo won his 199th Portugal cap as his side cruised past Bosnia-Herzegovina to maintain their winning streak in their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign. Bruno Fernandes set up Bernardo Silva who opened the scoring with a chipped effort in the 44th minute. Fernandes added a second through a 77th minute header and a third in the closing stages with a sweet strike. Ronaldo had a first-half header ruled out for offside at Estadio da Luz. Portugal stay top of Group J having won all…
AROUND 170 people been relocated from the western French town of La Laigne after an earthquake on Friday evening. The quake, believed to have been between magnitude 5.2 and 5.8 was felt from Rennes in the north-west to Bordeaux in the south-west. Homes, schools and churches were damaged, with hundreds of buildings declared uninhabitable. Earthquakes above magnitude five are unusual in France, with the last affecting the country in November 2019. Two people were injured in the town of Deux-Sevres following Friday’s tremor. The Charente-Maritime region just north of Bordeaux was particularly affected. In La Laigne, the local fire service…
CRIME has taken a sadistic turn in Ecuador, where kidnappers now regularly amputate the fingers of their victims and send images to pressure relatives to pay higher ransoms. For decades, Ecuador was a refuge of peace wedged in a dangerous region. But these days, it increasingly resembles nearby Peru and Colombia, two huge producers of cocaine with violent criminal histories. In March, the wife of a businessman in the port city of Guayaquil received images of someone snipping two fingers off her husband’s left hand, threatening to mutilate him further unless they were paid $100,000. At the end of 2022,…
SUSPECTED militants have killed about a dozen villagers and wounded several more in western Burkina Faso, security and local sources told AFP on Saturday. “Overnight (Friday-Saturday) armed people attacked the village of Sara,” 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Burkina’s second city Bobo-Dioulasso, the security source said. “Unfortunately we have a dozen dead and several wounded.” A villager, asking not to be named, said, “Nine bodies were buried this Saturday. But two people also died of their wounds, making a total of 11 dead.” A second resident said the “terrorists” attacked at 8:00 pm (2000 GMT). “They opened fire on a…
THIRTY-TWO people – EIGHT children – have been killed in an air strike in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, officials say. Twenty-five homes were destroyed in Saturday’s strike in the densely populated Yarmouk district. It came a day after a top army general threatened to step up attacks against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF broke out mid-April as a result of a vicious power struggle within the country’s military leadership. In early June, the RSF claimed full control of Yarmouk, an area of the capital which houses an arms manufacturing facility. Later on Saturday…
RUSSIA has already stationed a first batch of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Vladimir Putin says. Russia’s president told a forum they would only be used if Russia’s territory or state was threatened. The US government says there is no indication the Kremlin plans to use nuclear weapons to attack Ukraine. “We don’t see any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after Mr Putin’s comments. Belarus is a key Russian ally and served as a launchpad for Mr Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Mr Putin…
A MAN confessed to the killing of his wife who has been missing for two and a half months in western France and has led investigators to her body, police said on Friday. Karine Esquivillon, 54, a mother-of-five, disappeared on March 27 without a trace from her home in the Pays de la Loire region of western France. Her cell phone, missing a SIM card but enclosed with a photo of one of her daughters, was discovered two weeks later in a ditch by a car park by the commune’s mayor. While police appealed for witnesses to come forward, her…
AT least 25 people have been killed at a school in western Uganda by rebels linked to the Islamic State group. A further eight people remain in a critical condition after the attack on Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe. Police say the attack on Friday was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – an Ugandan group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Soldiers are pursuing the group who fled towards Virunga National park in the DRC, police added. “So far 25 bodies have been recovered from the school and transferred to Bwera Hospital”, national police spokesperson…