Author: Editor

SOUTH Sudan’s government has denied earlier reports that Uganda had deployed special forces to its capital, Juba. Uganda’s military chief Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba said the soldiers had gone to the neighbouring country to help South Sudanese President Salva Kiir “secure” the city. The statement came amid escalating tensions between Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar, raising fears that their fragile peace deal could collapse and a conflict could resume. “We shall protect the entire territory of South Sudan like it was our own,” Gen Kainerugaba had written on the social media platform X. Uganda’s army spokesperson Felix Felix Kulayigye also…

ARMED Militants have stormed a hotel in the city of Beledweyne in central Somalia, and a siege is ongoing, police and witnesses have said. The attack by al-Shabab began with a car bomb exploding, followed by gunmen entering the hotel, leading to intense clashes with security forces. Police said at least four people had been killed, but witnesses told the BBC the death toll had risen to 10, with the security forces still battling the gunmen at the Qahira Hotel. Al-Shabab, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda, has been waging a brutal insurgency in Somalia for more than two decades. The…

Q – What is the food that is permissible to give for Zakatul-Fitr? Nura Jamilu, Hadejia A – It is reported in the hadith that it is to be given from five things. They are wheat, barley, dried dates , raisins and cottage cheese. However, some of the research scholars have mentioned that specifying these five things was done because they were used at that time. Therefore, they permit giving it from whatever is the common food of the land like rice for example, and corn in the land where it is used as food and so forth. = Q…

SOME Manchester United players are “not good enough” and some are “overpaid”, the club’s co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says. Midfielder Casemiro, striker Rasmus Hojlund, goalkeeper Andre Onana, and wingers Antony and Jadon Sancho – who are on loan at other clubs – were namechecked by the billionaire in an interview with BBC Sport as players his regime had “inherited”. Ratcliffe, a lifelong Manchester United fan, is the chairman of petrochemicals company Ineos, which has a strong sport investment arm. The 72-year-old last year spent £1.3bn for a 28.94% stake in the club in a deal which saw Ineos take control…

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says Israel is not allowing anything to enter Gaza, including humanitarian aid and fuel, and calls for the restoration of electricity to the territory. Also, Israeli negotiators are due in Doha today as mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the US try to revive the Gaza ceasefire. As Hamas condemns Israel’s cut-off of electricity to a key desalination plant that provides drinking water to residents in central and southern Gaza, accusing the Israeli government of “cheap and unacceptable blackmail”. Gaza’s Health Ministry has confirmed 48,467 Palestinian deaths in Israel’s war on Gaza with 111,913 people wounded. Gaza’s…

FIVE years ago on Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced Covid-19 had become a pandemic — a moment when the world finally woke up to the unfolding disaster. The WHO had already sounded its own highest alarm five weeks earlier. But that warning — which does not mention the “p” word — had gone unheeded. At a press conference on March 11, 2020, the head of the United Nations’ health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, finally said the worsening outbreak could be “characterised as a pandemic”. Only then did many countries grasp the severity of the situation and — way too…

PETROL station attendant Amadou Sani gesticulated to approaching motorists in Niamey to keep going because the garage had no more fuel. Niger has been grappling since the start of the month with an unprecedented shortage of the most widely used petrol in the west African country. “Our tanks have been dry for three days. No-one can say when we’ll be resupplied,” grumbled Mohamed, manager of another petrol station on the capital’s outskirts. “You see that taxi over there? The driver went around town and finally ran out of fuel here,” the manager, who did not want to give his full…

THREE journalists have been remanded in custody pending trial in Chad after being accused of colluding with a Russian paramilitary group, the public prosecutor and one of their lawyers said Monday. “They are suspected of working with the Russian paramilitary group Wagner,” public prosecutor Omar Mahamat Kedelaye told AFP. One of their lawyers, Allahtaroum Amos, said the journalists had been “charged with espionage for the enemy, attacking institutions and conspiracy”. The public prosecutor said the journalists were Olivier Mbaindinguim Monodji, director of the weekly newspaper “Le Pays” and Chadian correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI), and another editor from “Le…

Q – If a man did the marriage contract at a time when he was not praying, and the husband and wife, the wife’s father, and the two witnesses also were not praying, and the one who did the marriage contract did not do it in the correct manner, rather he did it in a language other than Arabic and he did not recite the Shahaadatayn (twin declaration of faith) or say the words of the marriage contract, what is the ruling on this marriage? Is this marriage regarded as legitimate or not? If they have repented from not praying…

MANCHESTER United head coach Ruben Amorim feels the club would not be in their current mess if they had more players like Bruno Fernandes. The United captain led from the front in the 1-1 draw with Arsenal at Old Trafford. Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitted the Portuguese was “too clever for us and the referee” for the way he manipulated the positioning of his first-half free-kick to give him a better chance to put United in front. Former United skipper Roy Keane might not be a fan given the manner in which the Irishman spoke of Fernandes on The Overlap…

ISRAEL’s Energy Minister Eli Cohen has ordered an immediate halt to electricity supply to Gaza, threatening the functioning of the enclave’s desalination plants amid an ongoing aid shortage in the holy month of Ramadan. In a post on X, Cohen said he has signed an order to “cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip immediately”. “Enough with the talk, it’s time for action!” he added. Sunday’s announcement comes more than a week after Israel cut off all supplies of goods to the territory to over two million people after reneging on the ceasefire deal that ended the 15-month-long Gaza war.…

US Secret Service agents shot an armed man near the White House during the night, an agency spokesman said early Sunday, while President Donald Trump was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. The man had been hospitalized and his condition was “unknown,” the spokesman said in a statement that did not specify whether the White House or Trump may have been the intended target. No injuries to Secret Service agents were reported, according to the statement posted by spokesman Anthony Guglielmi on social media platform X. The agents had been warned by local police of a “suicidal”…

THE Democratic Republic of Congo government has offered a reward of $5m (£4m) for help arresting three leaders of a rebel group which has seized much of the east of the country this year. Corneille Nangaa, a former head of DR Congo’s electoral commission, now leads the Congo River Alliance, which includes the M23 rebel group. He has addressed large rallies in the cities under the group’s control. The bounty is also on offer for M23 leaders Sultani Makenga and Bertrand Bisimwa. Last year the three men were prosecuted in absentia by a military court and given death sentences for…

POLICE in Kenya have fired tear gas to disperse protesters who tried to occupy a church that was recently given a substantial donation by President William Ruto. The gift to the Jesus Winner Ministry in the Roysambu suburb of Nairobi of 20m shillings ($155,000; £120,000) drew criticism from some young Kenyans struggling with the high cost of living. Ruto has defended his donation and has offered a similar gift to another church in Eldoret. Last year, both Kenya’s Catholic and Anglican leaders rejected donations, arguing that there was a need to protect the church from being used for political purposes.…

Q – Salaamu Alaikum Ya Sheikh. With regard to fasting, I started fasting in London and broke my fast in Riyadh. What is the ruling on the time difference? Aaliyah Kabir, Bauchi A – Your fast is valid, because with regard to breaking the fast, what matters is the place where the fasting person is when the sun sets; the time difference does not matter, whether the day is long or short. In Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah (10/296) it says: The scholars are unanimously agreed that the fast lasts from dawn until sunset, and each person who fasts is subject to…

A 1-0 loss at Nottingham Forest condemned the Premier League champions to their ninth league defeat of the campaign – equalling their record for most league defeats in a season during the Spaniard’s reign. And for the first time under Guardiola, qualification for the Champions League is under serious threat. It is a scenario that was unthinkable as City lifted their fourth consecutive league title last May. Though a fifth-placed finish could yet provide a Champions League lifeline, there are just five points between fourth-placed City and Fulham in 10th as we enter the final stage of the season. Manchester…

ISRAELI attacks on Gaza have killed three Palestinians and wounded several others in the southern governorate of Rafah, as Hamas officials visited Cairo to discuss the future of ceasefire agreement and Israel confirmed it would send a delegation to Qatar. On Saturday morning, an Israeli drone targeted a group of people east of Rafah city, killing two Palestinians. Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground reported that one person was also killed by Israeli fire in at-Tannour, also east of Rafah. Since Friday night, Rafah has been the target of intense Israeli attacks from tanks and drones with shelling impacting residential…

A PAKISTANI man has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting the administrator of a community WhatsApp group who removed him from the chat, police said Saturday. Mushtaq Ahmed was shot dead on Thursday evening in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province that borders Afghanistan, which has a history of bloody sectarian violence. A man named only as Ashfaq has been charged with his murder, according to police documents seen by AFP and a local police official. Mushtaq allegedly kicked Ashfaq out of the WhatsApp group following an argument, according to a statement by Mushtaq’s brother seen by…

THE South African government has said it will not take part in “counterproductive megaphone diplomacy” following a fresh social media post by US President Donald Trump repeating his claim that Pretoria was confiscating land. Trump extended his invitation to relocate those seeking “to flee [South Africa] for reasons of safety” to all farmers and offered them citizenship. South Africa has previously said that Trump has misunderstood the country’s new land expropriation act. But it has already led to the US president freezing financial aid to the country. Responding to the latest statement, the government said that South Africa was still…

THE Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, expresses deep concern over the escalating tensions and clashes in Nasir County in Upper Nile State that included a lethal attack on a UN helicopter, and violence in Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el-Ghazal, all threatening the peace process. The Chairperson strongly condemns this violent escalation and calls for utmost restraint by all parties. He calls on the authorities to hold the perpetrators of the violence fully accountable and to take prompt measures to protect citizens. The Chairperson calls for an immediate end to the hostilities, adherence to the…