TANZANIAN President Samia Suluhu Hassan is facing increasing international pressure as a coalition of regional and global civil society groups and legal bodies has petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged crimes against humanity committed during and after the disputed October 29 presidential election. The 82-page petition, submitted by organisations including the Madrid Bar Association and World Jurists Association, details accusations of state-sponsored murder, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and mass displacement of civilians. These alleged atrocities reportedly took place under Suluhu’s watch as commander-in-chief, with a lawyer representing victims stating she bears ultimate responsibility for authorising violence…
Author: Editor
MILITARY officers in Guinea-Bissau announced Wednesday they were taking “total control” of the country while suspending its electoral process and closing its borders, three days after the poverty-stricken West African nation’s legislative and presidential elections. Earlier in the day gunfire was heard near the coup-prone country’s presidential palace as men in military uniform took over the main road leading to the building. Military personnel made the announcement by reading a statement at army headquarters in the capital, Bissau, AFP journalists observed on the scene. In the early afternoon, General Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, told members of…
ESTEVAO scored a breathtaking solo Champions League goal to win the battle of the teenage prodigies against Lamine Yamal on Tuesday as Chelsea humbled 10-man Barcelona 3-0. The two 18-year-olds were the focus of attention in the build-up to the game at Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca urging his player to ignore the comparisons. Estevao’s moment of magic came 10 minutes after half time when he received the ball on the right before beating two defenders and lashing it into the roof of Joan Garcia’s net. It was the 10th goal of the season for club and country…
IN the occupied West Bank, much like in the Gaza Strip, Israeli policy is forcing thousands of Palestinians from their homes, in stark defiance of international law. A report published last week by Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlighted the expulsion of 32,000 Palestinians from their homes in just three refugee camps this year. HRW said that the Israeli operation in the Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarem refugee camps, which began in January, led to the biggest mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967. The displacements come as Israeli violence spirals in the West Bank, where more than…
A NEW United Nations report has found that Indonesia’s capital Jakarta is the world’s largest city with 41.9 million people living there, followed by Dhaka in Bangladesh, which is home to 36.6 million. A low-lying coastal city located in the west of the densely populated island of Java, Jakarta rose from second place to replace Tokyo, which had been named the world’s largest city in the UN’s most recent assessment published back in 2000. The Japanese capital’s relatively steady population of 33.4 million saw it fall to third place behind Bangladesh’s densely populated capital, Dhaka, which jumped to second place…
TANZANIA has cancelled next month’s independence day celebrations, with the funds to be instead spent on rebuilding infrastructure damaged in recent election unrest, Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba has said. His announcement comes as the opposition and others have been calling for people to gather on independence day – 9 December – to demonstrate about killings that took place following last month’s disputed poll. The opposition believes hundreds of people died in the crackdown. The government has yet to give a death toll and has set up commission of inquiry. President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the poll with 98% of the…
CAMEROONIAN opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who is contesting the outcome of the presidential election, has fled to The Gambia for his safety, The Gambian government has said. Tchiroma Bakary has insisted he is the legitimate winner of the 12 October election, alleging that the result was rigged to give President Paul Biya, 92, an eighth term. The Gambian information ministry said on Sunday that Tchiroma Bakary arrived on 7 November and was allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds. Cameroon’s government had threatened to put him on trial for allegedly inciting violent post-election demonstrations. He denied the allegation, and blamed…
EVERTON’s last visit to Old Trafford triggered Ruben Amorim’s infamous ‘the storm is coming statement’ even though his Manchester United side won 4-0. Twelve months on, their visit brought more words of caution from Amorim about his side’s evolution that proved equally perceptive. From a United perspective, the jaw-dropping clash between Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane can be forgotten beyond the knowledge it left them facing 10 men for 77 minutes. What followed backed up Amorim’s pre-game view his side is “far from perfection”. For 77 minutes the United head coach watched his players toil. He watched young defenders Patrick…
ISRAELI forces have killed at least four Palestinians and wounded several others across Gaza despite a six-week ceasefire, as a Palestinian armed group announced recovering the body of another captive in the war-torn territory. The victims on Monday included a Palestinian man who was killed in a drone attack in the southern town of Bani Suheila, in an area controlled by Israeli forces beyond the so-called “yellow line”. Separately, a Palestinian child was also killed in northern Gaza City when ordnances left behind by Israeli forces exploded, according to the territory’s civil defence. The group said several more children were…
AUTHORITIES in Afghanistan say Pakistani forces have bombed a house in the country’s southeastern Khost province, killing at least nine children and a woman. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban administration, said on Tuesday that the attack took place at midnight (19:30 GMT) in the Gurbuz district of Khost province. “The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident, Waliat Khan, son of Qazi Mir,” Mujahid wrote in a post on X. “As a result, nine children [five boys and four girls] and one woman were martyred, and his house was destroyed,” he added. Other air…
A LONG-DORMANT volcano in northern Ethiopia has erupted, sending plumes of ash across the Red Sea towards Yemen and Oman. The Hayli Gubbi volcano in the Afar region of Ethiopia, located about 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa, erupted for several hours on Sunday morning, leaving the nearby village of Afdera covered in ash. There were no casualties from the eruption, which sent thick plumes of smoke up to 14km (nine miles) into the sky, sending ash clouds to Yemen, Oman, India, and northern Pakistan, according to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in France. Ahmed Abdela,…
SUDAN’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters are committing war crimes in the Darfur town of el-Fasher, the rights group Amnesty International has alleged in a new report. The report was published on Tuesday, just hours after the RSF declared that it would immediately enter into a three-month humanitarian truce “in response to international efforts” led by United States President Donald Trump. Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country. In its latest report, Amnesty said it had…
BOLLYWOOD star Dharmendra has died in the Indian city of Mumbai at the age of 89. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the actor, saying his passing “marks the end of an era in Indian cinema”. Dharmendra, who often described himself as “a simple man”, commanded extraordinary affection and loyalty from his tens of millions of fans. Best known as Veeru, the lovable petty criminal in the 1975 blockbuster Sholay, he appeared in over 300 films, many hits, captivating audiences for decades. Songs featuring him topped the charts, and his romance and marriage with Hema Malini made headlines.…
EBERECHI Eze scored his first senior hat-trick as Arsenal thrashed north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur to move six points clear at the top of the Premier League. Spurs boss Thomas Frank picked a five-man defence as he looked to keep things tight at Emirates Stadium, but his side could not contain the league leaders. Leandro Trossard opened the scoring for an utterly dominant Arsenal in the 36th minute, finishing well after a lovely through ball from Mikel Merino. Then Eze, who almost joined Spurs in the summer from Crystal Palace before a late swoop by Arsenal, doubled the hosts’ advantage…
ISRAEL has violated the United States-brokered Gaza ceasefire at least 497 times in 44 days, killing hundreds of Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 October, according to the Gaza Government Media Office. Some 342 civilians have been killed in the attacks, with children, women and the elderly accounting for the majority of the victims. “We condemn in the strongest terms the continued serious and systematic violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Israeli occupation authorities,” the office said in a statement on Saturday. “These violations constitute a flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and the humanitarian protocol…
NEW York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani says he still believes United States President Donald Trump is a fascist, despite a surprisingly warm meeting between the two politically polarised men at the White House this week. “That’s something that I’ve said in the past; I say it today,” Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, said about the Republican president in an interview aired on NBC News on Sunday. Mamdani’s comments came two days after he met with Trump, setting aside months of mutual recriminations and promising to cooperate on the city’s future Trump, who grew up in New York, called Mamdani a…
THERE are growing concerns over the possibility of armed conflict between Horn of Africa neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as hostile rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent weeks. Landlocked Ethiopia’s calls for access to the Red Sea through Eritrea has triggered a fierce war of words. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed first openly declared in 2023 that his nation’s access to the sea was an existential matter, comments that Eritrea dismissed. Relations between the two countries have frequently been strained. After a decades-long battle for independence, Eritrea, which has a 1,350km (840-mile) Red Sea coastline, officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993,…
THE G20 summit in South Africa, a gathering of the world’s major economies, has ended with a joint declaration committing to “multilateral co-operation”. The declaration, which covered climate change mitigation and economic inequality, was adopted despite objections from the US, which boycotted the meeting in Johannesburg. Speaking at the closing ceremony on Sunday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the agreement showed “shared goals” outweighed the countries’ differences. American President Donald Trump chose to abstain from the G20 because of a widely discredited claim that South Africa’s white minority is the victim of large-scale killings and land grabs. It was…
NEWCASTLE dented Manchester City’s Premier League title challenge as Harvey Barnes’ brace sealed a controversial 2-1 victory on Saturday. Pep Guardiola’s side trailed to Barnes’ second-half opener at St James’ Park before Ruben Dias equalised for the visitors. Moments after Dias levelled, Barnes bagged Newcastle’s contentious second goal, which was allowed to stand after a lengthy VAR check for a potential offside against Bruno Guimaraes. Guardiola was also aggrieved over a first-half penalty claim by Phil Foden. City’s fourth league defeat this season left them in third place, four points behind leaders Arsenal, who host Tottenham on Sunday. Guardiola said…
ISRAEL’s military has launched a wave of air attacks across Gaza, killing at least 24 Palestinians, including children, in its latest violation of a six-week old ceasefire in the war-torn territory. The attacks on Saturday also wounded 87 others, according to authorities in Gaza. Witnesses said the first strike hit a car in northern Gaza City, and was followed by more attacks in central Deir el-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp. The drone attack in Gaza City killed at least 11 people and wounded 20 others, according to the managing director of al-Shifa Hospital, Rami Mhanna. It happened in the…