THE death toll from heavy monsoon rains that have triggered flash floods across northern Pakistan has risen to at least 321 people in the last 48 hours, disaster agencies said Saturday. The majority of deaths, 307, were reported in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority said. People gather near a damaged vehicle and scattered debris after the road washed out following a flash flood in Mingora, the main city of Swat Valley, in monsoon-hit northern Pakistan’s mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 16, 2025. The meteorological department has issued a heavy rain alert for Pakistan’s northwest…
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AT least 35 migrants have died attempting the dangerous crossing of the Niger desert to Libya or Algeria on their way to Europe, a campaigning group said on Saturday. “Based on our information, 35 to 40 migrants have died between January and August while crossing the desert,” Aziz Chehou of the Niger NGO Alarme Phone Sahara told AFP. Among the tens of thousands of people hoping to reach the North Africa coast for smuggling boats to Europe, many die after being abandoned by smugglers or after their vehicles break down en route. “After their vehicles break down, passengers who are…
FRANCE’s foreign ministry said Saturday that it was in talks with Mali over the arrest of a Frenchman accused of working with intelligence services to “destabilise” the country, calling the claims “unjustified”. “Discussions are underway to clear up any misunderstanding” and obtain the “immediate release” of the French embassy employee in Bamako, the ministry said. Mali authorities said Thursday that the French national had been arrested on suspicion of working for the French intelligence services, and accused “foreign states” of trying to destabilise the country. The West African country’s junta, which came to power after back-to-back coups in 2020 and…
NIGERIA’s D’Tigers recorded an emphatic win over Tunisia in the 2025 men’s Afrobasket, beating the North Africans 87-66 in a one-sided encounter on Friday. D’Tigers began the game on the front foot and raced to a 10-0 lead with Houston Rockets star Josh Okogie dictating the pace in the one-sided match at the Pavilhao Multiusos de Luanda in the Angolan capital. At the end of the 1st quarter, the D’Tigers had 29 points against their opponents’ 16. When the first half ended, Nigeria outscored the Tunisians, having 48 points while the latter were on 33. It stretched to 68- 47…
LIVERPOOL struck twice in the final minutes through Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah to overcome a battling Bournemouth 4-2 in a thrilling start to the Premier League season on Friday. Antoine Semenyo looked to have rescued a point for the Cherries by scoring twice, after he had reported an incident of racial abuse from a fan, to cancel out Hugo Ekitike and Cody Gakpo’s strikes for the defending champions. But on an emotive night as Anfield remembered Diogo Jota, Chiesa was the unlikely hero as the injury-hit Italian fired the home side back in front before Salah rounded off the…
PALESTINIAN residents of Gaza City have come under relentless Israeli bombardment as the military prepares for a major offensive to seize and ethnically cleanse the area, barring emergency workers from reaching people trapped in the residential Zeitoun neighbourhood. Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army had been firing at emergency vehicles trying to reach the wounded in Zeitoun on Friday, as Israeli quadcopters dropped leaflets threatening a forced displacement. Residents were told to leave sections of the eastern neighbourhood, where hundreds of homes have recently been destroyed. Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq…
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have left Alaska without reaching an agreement for a ceasefire in Ukraine. After an almost three-hour meeting, the leaders delivered a joint statement to the media before leaving without taking questions. “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Donald Trump said early in his post-summit remarks here in Anchorage. It was a roundabout way of conceding that after several hours of talks, there’s no deal. No ceasefire. Nothing tangible to report. The president said that he and Vladimir Putin made “some great progress”, but with little details about what that…
MALI’s military rulers say they have arrested a French national on suspicion of spying for his country in an attempt to destabilise the African nation. In a statement read on national television late on Thursday, the junta alleged that Yann Vezilier was working “on behalf of the French intelligence service”. Mr Vezilier is yet to comment on the accusation. His picture was also broadcast, alongside those of a number of army generals arrested recently for allegedly planning to overthrow the military government. “The conspiracy has been foiled with the arrests of those involved,” Mali’s Security Minister Gen Daoud Aly Mohammedine…
SOUTH Africa’s army chief has been criticised after he reportedly pledged military and political support to Iran during a recent visit to the country. Members of South Africa’s governing coalition have accused General Rudzani Maphwanya of “reckless grandstanding”, while President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed he would meet the general to discuss his “ill-advised” trip. The row comes as South Africa navigates tense relations with the US, which has taken exception to the country’s ties with Iran, among other issues. The Democratic Alliance, part of South Africa government, called for Gen Maphwanya to be “court-martialled”. It said his comments had gone “beyond…
THE UN’s World Food Programme says food insecurity in Gaza is “catastrophic”, with at least 40,000 children under age one suffering from malnutrition. Gaza’s Health Ministry has recorded four more hunger-related deaths over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of Palestinians who starved to death during Israel’s war on Gaza to 239, including 106 children. At least 32 Palestinians, including 13 aid seekers, have been killed since dawn in Israeli attacks on Gaza today. Also, at least 35 people, including 13 seeking aid, have been killed on Thursday in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities,…
PRESSURE mounted ahead of a landmark summit in Alaska between the United States and Russia, as Donald Trump warned that Vladimir Putin had only one chance but Moscow pressed ahead with major battlefield gains in Ukraine. Putin and Trump will meet Friday at an air base in the far-northern US state, the first time the Russian leader has been permitted on Western soil since his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine which has killed tens of thousands of people. With such high stakes, all sides were pushing hard in the hours before the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has refused…
CHOLERA has claimed at least 40 lives in Sudan’s Darfur region over the last week as the country weathers its worst outbreak in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday. At a cholera isolation tent at a Sudanese displacement camp, an AFP journalist saw women and a young girl receiving intravenous fluids, while exhausted and weak patients sprawled on camp beds. Citing rising cases of cholera, which “exacerbate the worst effects of malnutrition,” the European Union (EU) called on all parties to “urgently” allow in international aid. Medical charity MSF said the vast western region, which has been a…
A KENYAN court has brought an end to an 11-year legal battle over the mysterious death of British businessman Harry Roy Veevers, ruling that his cause of death cannot be determined due to the severe decomposition of his remains. Magistrate David Odhiambo delivered the ruling on Tuesday, stating that the condition of Mr Veevers’ body exhumed months after his February 14, 2013 burial made it impossible to establish how he died. The body had been stored in a Mombasa morgue ever since. “Due to the level of decomposition at the time of exhumation and the conflicting reports by the pathologists,…
EUROPEAN champions Paris Saint-Germain beat Tottenham Hotspur 4-3 on penalties to win the UEFA Super Cup on Wednesday after producing a late comeback to draw the match 2-2. The European champions began the new season by lifting more silverware on Wednesday Goncalo Ramos headed in the equaliser in the fourth minute of stoppage time before Nuno Mendes converted the decisive kick in the shoot-out to allow PSG to win the Super Cup for the first time in their history. Spurs looked set to get their hands on the trophy in their first competitive match under new coach Thomas Frank as…
AT least 98 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza since dawn, according to medical sources, with Al Jazeera’s team on the ground reporting the intensification of strikes on the northern parts of the besieged enclave, where 61 people were killed in Gaza City alone. Israeli air strikes on groups trying to secure the distribution of aid north of Gaza City killed at least 14 people on Wednesday. At least 37 people desperately seeking any food for their families were killed by Israeli fire, including 16 killed by Israel near an aid point north of Rafah, according to…
AT least 20 migrants died after a boat overturned in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, with many more still missing, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. “Deep anguish for the umpteenth shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa, where UNHCR is now assisting the survivors. It looks to be 20 bodies found and as many missing,” wrote the agency’s spokesman, Filippo Ungaro, on social media. Italian news agency Radio Radicale said the boat had been carrying 97 people when it shipwrecked 14 miles southwest of Lampedusa. Details remained sketchy but Save the Children Italy said that a baby girl,…
NIGER’s lawyers have announced a two-day strike on Thursday and Friday to protest against the military government’s dissolution of the West African country’s justice unions. The lawyers accuse the junta, which seized power in the insurgents-hit Sahel nation in a July 2023 coup, of threatening the independence of the justice system. Last week, the junta’s Interior Minister, General Mohamed Toumba, dissolved five judicial unions, a move that Justice Minister Alio Daouda justified by arguing the syndicates were “dragging everyone down” by “promoting personal interests”. Niger’s bar association on Tuesday denounced the breakup of the unions, urging their “immediate and unconditional…
CAPE Verde has declared a state of emergency on the islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão, after deadly floods which killed at least nine people and forced 1,500 from their homes. The state of emergency activates crisis funds and urgent infrastructure repairs in the Atlantic Ocean islands off the west coast of Africa. Monday’s flash floods were triggered by Tropical Storm Erin, leading to 193mm (7.6in) of rain in just five hours, far above São Vicente’s annual average. Deputy Prime Minister Olavo Correia told the BBC the floods were “catastrophic”. Rescue teams are desperately searching for missing people, while…
PARIS Saint-Germain goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma has been sensationally left out of the squad for the club’s UEFA Super Cup clash, casting serious doubt over his future at the Parc des Princes and opening the door for a potential move to Manchester United. PSG manager Luis Enrique confirmed on Tuesday that he had dropped the 26-year-old Italy international in favour of Lucas Chevalier and Renato Marin for the trip to Udine, citing a desire for “a different profile” in goal. The decision comes despite Donnarumma being a central figure in PSG’s Champions League triumph last season. “I am supported by my…
A SIX-YEAR-OLD Palestinian boy and a 30-year-old man have died from malnutrition resulting from Israeli-induced starvation of the besieged enclave, the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza has said, as hunger-related deaths climb and deadly Israeli bombardment continues across the territory. The deaths of Wissam Abu Mohsen and young Jamal Fadi al-Najjar on Tuesday came shortly after Gaza’s Health Ministry said five more people had died of famine within 24 hours, bringing the total number of starvation-related fatalities since the start of Israel’s war to 227, including more than 100 children. In the relentless and punishing daily desperation to find food…