Author: Editor

HUNDREDS of South Koreans were detained during a major US immigration raid on a Hyundai-LG battery plant being built in the state of Georgia, prompting Seoul to urge Washington Friday to respect its citizens’ rights. South Korea, Asia’s fourth biggest economy, is a key automaker and electronics producer with multiple plants in the United States. Its largest companies, including carmaker Hyundai and tech giant LG, have poured billions of dollars into developing new US factories. On Thursday local time, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the “site of a (South Korean) company’s battery plant in Georgia”, South Korean foreign…

ZAMBIA’s former Foreign Minister Joseph Malanji has been sentenced to four years in prison with hard labour after being convicted of corruption. Malanji was found guilty on seven counts of acquiring properties and helicopters suspected to be the proceeds of crime, the state broadcaster reports. His co-accused, former treasury secretary Fredson Yamba, received a three-year jail term for approving the transfer of more than $8m (£6m) to Zambia’s diplomatic mission in Turkey without justifying the expense. Several ministers in former President Edgar Lungu’s government have been convicted of various offences, but Malanji is the most high-profile of them. President Hakainde…

SUDAN’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have allegedly committed numerous crimes against humanity during their siege of the city of el-Fasher in Darfur, UN investigators say. The report by the UN Fact-Finding Mission accuses the group of “murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, sexual violence, forced displacement and persecution on ethnic, gender and political grounds”. It also cited broader evidence of alleged war crimes by both the RSF and the regular army, however both sides have previously denied any wrongdoing in the country’s ongoing civil war. The UN report said the two groups targeted civilians in numerous ways and as…

GERMANY went down to a shock 2-0 defeat in Slovakia in their opening World Cup qualifier on Thursday, while Spain kicked off their bid to reach next year’s finals with a comfortable 3-0 victory in Bulgaria. Atletico Madrid’s David Hancko burst untracked into the penalty box to fire Slovakia into the lead just before half-time against Germany in Bratislava. David Strelec, who has just signed for Middlesbrough in the English Championship, then made it two with a brilliant strike high into the top corner 10 minutes into the second half. The result gives Slovakia a dream start in Group A…

THE UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says “the unthinkable” has arrived in Gaza City, as Israel expands its assault on residential homes and displacement camps. The director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 30 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza have been children, amounting to 28 children killed each day since October 2023. Meanwhile, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has written a letter to executives at major US media outlets ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Fox, urging them to consistently broadcast footage of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, including the killing of children. “While images of…

RESCUERS have recovered hundreds of bodies from mountainous areas of southeastern Afghanistan, which was hit by a major earthquake at the weekend, taking the death toll to more than 2,200, according to a Taliban government spokesperson. Previous estimates said some 1,400 people were killed. Taliban spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said on Thursday that the updated death toll was 2,205. “Tents have been set up for people, and the delivery of first aid and emergency supplies is ongoing,” Fitrat said. A third earthquake struck the region on Thursday, as search and rescue efforts were continuing. No new deaths have yet been reported…

COMMUNAL clashes in northern Ghana that started late last month have killed at least 31 people and displaced nearly 50,000, officials said Thursday, with more than 13,000 fleeing across the border into the Ivory Coast. The violence in Ghana’s Savannah Region broke out on August 24 in the village of Gbiniyiri, near the Ivorian border, the result of an escalating land dispute that has engulfed a dozen communities. The conflict began when the local chief sold a parcel of land to a private developer, without broader community consent. When the developer attempted to access the land to begin work, residents…

AT least 15 people have died in a new outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country’s health ministry has said. The presence of the virus had been confirmed in a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to hospital last month after showing symptoms that included a high fever and repeated vomiting, the ministry added. She died a few hours later from multiple organ failure. This will be the 16th outbreak of the deadly virus in the vast central African state that has poor health services, and is hit by conflict in the east The…

LIVERPOOL forward Mohamed Salah has publicly criticised a popular fan page for what he described as a “disrespectful” post targeting two of his former teammates, Darwin Núñez and Luis Díaz, who both left Anfield this summer. The Egyptian winger, who is regarded as one of the club’s greatest ever players, took to X (formerly Twitter) to slam the independent account @AnfieldEdition after it shared a side-by-side collage comparing the Reds’ record-breaking new signings to the outgoing forwards. The post, which depicted black-and-white photos of Núñez and Díaz alongside coloured images of Liverpool’s high-profile additions Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, appeared…

IN the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Fouad Abu Youssef, 34, wears a tattered, worn-out shirt as he sifts through a heap of salvaged clothes, remnants of what had been his home, hoping to find a change of clothes for his five-year-old daughter, Layla. In the past two years of Israel’s war on Gaza, Fouad, a member of Gaza’s small Christian minority, has buried his sister after an air strike and seen his own home and his family’s house in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood collapse. Conditions grew so dire that Fouad, his elderly parents and five siblings with…

AT least 18 people have been killed and dozens injured when Lisbon’s Elevador da Gloria funicular derailed and crashed, emergency services in Portugal say. Officials have not released the victims’ identities or nationalities but said some of those killed were foreign nationals. “It’s a tragic day for our city. … Lisbon is in mourning. It is a tragic, tragic incident,” Mayor Carlos Moedas told reporters at the scene on Wednesday evening. Footage from the crash site showed the yellow tram-like carriage lying mangled against a building as firefighters pulled passengers from the wreckage. Emergency crews worked into the night to…

BURKINA Faso’s transitional parliament has unanimously passed a bill criminalising homosexual acts, reversing more than six decades of legal tolerance and placing the West African nation among dozens of African states that outlaw same-sex relations. The measure, which was approved on Monday, imposes prison sentences of between two and five years, as well as financial penalties for those convicted. Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala confirmed the move on state-run television, noting that the law also provides for deportation of foreign nationals found guilty of violating the ban. “The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years…

SOUTH African authorities say “extreme poverty and a severe lack of affordable housing” were major factors in a deadly Johannesburg building fire two years ago. In August 2023, 77 people died and many more were injured after a fire gutted the Usindiso building in Marshalltown, where many poor people were living. The tragedy shocked the nation and highlighted the deep housing inequalities in Africa’s wealthiest city – inequalities the authorities promised to address. The report, the final one to be released, has not been made public but the Gauteng provincial government, which commissioned it, shared some key findings. One person…

Super Falcons forward, Asisat Oshoala, has completed a move from National Women’s Soccer League side, Bay FC, to Saudi Women’s League side, Al Hilal, on a two-year deal. The 30-year-old, who had joined the NWSL outfit in February 2024 after a trophy-laden spell at Spanish giants FC Barcelona Femeni, underwent her medicals on Monday night and has now joined her new team, in what is a new chapter in her Illustrious career. The striker missed Bay FC’s 2-1 defeat to Angel City on Monday night, with a report from The Athletic revealing that, “Bay FC and Al Hilal have reached…

THE Israeli military onslaught on Gaza City continues nonstop, resulting in the killing of more than 50 Palestinians, including aid seekers, as it seeks to seize control of the enclave’s biggest urban centre, home to some 1 million people. At least 105 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli strikes levelled densely populated areas, particularly al-Sabra neighbourhood, which has been under attack for days. At least 32 of those were killed while seeking aid. The attacks are intensified as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is facing a “decisive stage” of the war as it prepares to seize…

Rescuers are trying to reach remote areas in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar region after a devastating earthquake killed at least 1,411 people and wounded 3,124 others, according to Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. On Tuesday, Mujahid wrote in a post on X that 5,412 houses were destroyed due to the earthquake’s intensity. Kunar’s head of disaster management, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said earlier on Tuesday that efforts would be extended to more of the region’s mountainous areas. “We cannot accurately predict how many bodies might still be trapped under the rubble,” Ehsan said. “Our effort is to complete these operations as soon as…

A MASSIVE landslide in Sudan’s western Darfur region has killed more than 1,000 people, a UN official has told the BBC. Antoine Gérard, the UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, said that it was hard to assess the scale of the incident or the exact death toll as the area was very hard to reach. Days of heavy rain triggered the landslide on Sunday, which left just one survivor and “levelled” much of the village of Tarseen, the group said in a statement. Getting aid quickly to the area would be difficult, Mr Gérard said. “We do not have helicopters,…

GHANA’s President John Mahama has fired the country’s Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo following a recommendation by an inquiry. She had been on suspension since April after complaints were lodged against her in petitions by three individuals. A president-appointed commission then found that “grounds of stated misbehaviour… had been established and recommended her removal from office”, Mahama’s office said on Monday. Ms Torkornoo has dismissed the allegations as unfounded and politically motivated. The presidency said Mahama was required to act in accordance with the committee’s recommendations. But critics fear it sets a worrying precedent and undermines judicial independence. In its investigation,…

LIVERPOOL have signed striker Alexander Isak from Newcastle United for a British transfer record fee of £125m. Newcastle sources claim the deal could be worth as much as £130m with add-ons. Isak is undergone medical on Monday before signing a six-year contract. They had an original £110m offer for Isak rejected in August but are now set to land their first-choice target of the summer. The protracted saga involving the 25-year-old appears set to come to an end on the final day of the transfer window, and it follows Newcastle having signed striker Nick Woltemade from Stuttgart last week. However,…

ISRAEL has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food. On Sunday, in Gaza City, the Palestinian Civil Defence reported a fire in tents near al-Quds Hospital after Israeli shelling. At least five people were killed and three wounded when a residential apartment was hit near the Remal neighbourhood. Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, said the Israeli army…