A LAST-MINUTE budget bill has passed in the United States House of Representatives to keep the federal government funded and running through mid-March, averting an impending shutdown. The continuing resolution now progresses to the Senate with only hours to spare before the shutdown is slated to take effect on Saturday at 12:01am local time (05:01 GMT). On Friday evening, the temporary budget legislation sailed through the House with an overwhelming 366 votes in support. Only 34 representatives, all Republican, voted against the bill. One Democrat, Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas, abstained by voting “present”. “We are really grateful that tonight,…
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PRESIDENT Felix Tshisekedi has replaced the army chief as part of a reshuffle within the armed forces who are battling a rebel advance in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Lieutenant General Jules Banza Mwilambue takes over at the head of the general staff of the armed forces, according to a decree signed Monday but read out on state television on Friday. He replaces General Christian Tshiwewe, who became military adviser to the president. Among other moves, the head of the military intelligence service, Demiap, Major General Christian Ndaywel has been appointed chief of staff of the land…
FRANCE began withdrawing soldiers from Chad on Friday, the country’s defence ministry said, after N’Djamena last month abruptly ended military cooperation with the former colonial power. A contingent of 120 soldiers left for France from a military airport in the capital, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook, 10 days after French fighter aircraft left the Sahel country for good. Chad had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa and its last foothold in the wider Sahel region after the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the wake of a…
A PARIS court on Thursday sentenced a brother of France midfielder Paul Pogba to a three-year prison term, with two years suspended, after convicting him in a high-profile extortion case. Mathias Pogba will be able to serve his one-year sentence with an electronic bracelet rather than behind bars. The court also fined Paul Pogba’s brother 20,000 euros for participating in the attempted extortion of 13 million euros ($13.5 million) from Pogba in 2022, and for putting pressure on the player, his family and his business contacts to obtain the payment. The case involving six men linked to Paul Pogba has…
ISRAEL has carried out a series of attacks on northern and central Gaza that killed at least 40 people, including children, as a leading rights group accused it of committing “acts of genocide” by denying clean water to Palestinians. Separate Israeli attacks on Jabalia in northern Gaza, where Palestinians have remained under a tight siege for more than two months, killed at least 16 people, including 10 members of the same family, on Thursday. In Gaza City, an Israeli attack on a home in the Daraj neighbourhood killed at least four Palestinians, with another person killed in a strike on…
AS soon as Meda Ramana was elected the head of Garapadu village council in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, several residents complained to her of being wrongfully excluded from government welfare schemes. About 50 villagers – mostly women of the Dalit, Indigenous and religious-minority communities – told her in early 2021 that their annual welfare benefits, of 10,000 rupees ($119) to 120,000 rupees ($1,430), under various schemes, had been abruptly stopped by the state government. At first glance, it seemed to be an innocuous data entry error. But when Ramana enquired about the reasons, staff at the village…
MALARIA has been identified as the likeliest cause of an illness that has killed more than 80 people in south-western Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s main health agency said. Victims of the previously unknown disease had been suffering flu-like symptoms such as fever, headaches, breathing difficulties and anaemia. The majority of samples that have been tested indicated that they had caught malaria – which is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes and is endemic in the region – with widespread malnutrition exacerbating the situation. However health experts are not ruling out the possibility of other factors at play in…
MALAWI’s government is demanding the astonishing sum of $309bn (£245bn) in unpaid taxes and royalties from a US-based gemstone company for rubies exported from the southern African state over the last 10 years, its attorney-general has told the BBC. Columbia Gem House, a family-owned business which says that it upholds fair trade practices, dismissed the claim as “baseless and defamatory”. The government is also demanding $4bn from French gas giant TotalEnergies in unpaid revenue from an oil storage deal, and $9.5m from Turkish tobacco firm Star Agritech, said Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda. TotalEnergies declined to comment while Star Agritech…
KYLIAN Mbappe and Vinicius Junior both scored as Real Madrid cruised to a 3-0 victory over Mexican side Pachuca in the Intercontinental Cup final in Doha on Wednesday. Mbappe opened the scoring in the 37th minute before Rodrygo doubled Madrid’s lead early in the second half. Vinicius sealed a comfortable win for the Spanish and European champions with a late penalty. France striker Mbappe returned to the Madrid line-up in Doha after missing Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Rayo Vallecano due to a hamstring injury suffered in the Champions League win at Atalanta last week. Mbappe swept in from close range…
ISRAEL’s military said it has attacked “military targets” belonging to Houthi fighters in Yemen after intercepting a missile fired by the group towards Israel. “Following the approval of attack plans by Defence Minister Israel Katz, Air Force fighter jets, under the direction of the Intelligence and Navy branches, recently attacked military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the western coastal strip and deep inside Yemen,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Thursday morning. “The targets attacked are used by the Houthi forces for their military operations,” the military said. The Houthi-aligned Al Masirah TV channel said that…
NORTH Korea is capable of producing ballistic missiles and supplying them to Russia for use in Ukraine in a matter of months, researchers have told the UN Security Council (UNSC), following the discovery of North Korean missile remnants on the Ukrainian battlefield. Jonah Leff, head of the United Kingdom-based Conflict Armament Research, which traces weapons used in conflicts, including Russia’s war on Ukraine, told the UNSC on Wednesday that remnants of four missiles from North Korea recovered in Ukraine in July and August had included one that indicated it was produced in 2024. “This is the first public evidence of…
A LARGE blaze ravaged parts of Liberia’s parliament building on Wednesday, a day after tense protests erupted following months of political deadlock. Authorities said that the fire which broke out early in the morning had been brought under control and that an investigation had been launched to establish the cause. Regional bloc ECOWAS and the US embassy have condemned Tuesday’s “violence” between police and protesters and called for calm in the West African nation. Videos posted by local outlets on social media showed flames engulfing the building in the capital Monrovia, with thick black smoke rising high into the sky.…
MAURITIUS says it has submitted changes to a proposed deal over the future of the Chagos Islands, with the country’s new PM saying the original agreement did not benefit his country enough. Under the terms of the original agreement, which was announced in October, the UK would relinquish sovereignty to Mauritius over the archipelago but maintain a 99-year lease over Diego Garcia, home to a major UK-US military airbase. It was finalised shortly before an election which then-Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth lost in a landslide defeat. His successor Navin Ramgoolam has since said he had reservations about the deal, which…
REAL Madrid attacker Vinicius Junior won the FIFA Best men’s player of the year award at a ceremony in Doha on Tuesday, while Barcelona midfielder Aitana Bonmati picked up the women’s prize for the second time. The award comes two months after 24-year-old Vinicius was second in the Ballon d’Or, with Real electing to snub the ceremony when they found out beforehand that Manchester City midfielder Rodri was set to win the trophy. But the Brazilian was this time on hand to collect the prize in person as he is in Qatar with his club ahead of their Intercontinental Cup…
FIVE Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States are suing the US government to try to cut off American assistance to the Israeli military over its involvement in serious human rights abuses. The lawsuit, announced on Tuesday, accuses the Department of State of failing to implement a federal law that prohibits the transfer of funds to foreign military units engaged in gross violations such as extrajudicial killings and torture. “The State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is particularly shocking in the face of the unprecedented escalation of Israeli [gross violations of human rights]…
POPE Francis escaped two attempts on his life during his historic trip to Iraq in March 2021, according to excerpts from his forthcoming autobiography published Tuesday by Italian media. The pontiff’s Vatican security detail received an urgent warning from the British secret services, Francis wrote. “A woman packed with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was heading towards Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit,” he wrote in “Hope”, which goes on sale in over 80 countries in January. “And a van had also set off at great speed with the same intention,” he added, according to excerpts from…
DR CONGO on Tuesday filed a criminal case against European subsidiaries of tech giant Apple, accusing them of illegally using “blood minerals” in its supply chain. The Democratic Republic of the Congo alleges that Apple has bought contraband supplies from the country’s conflict-racked east and Rwanda, zones in which the materials are alleged to be mined illegally and then integrated into global supply chains before ending up in tech devices. Apple’s French and Belgian units also deployed deceptive commercial practices to persuade consumers that its supply chains were clean, according to a statement from lawyers representing the DRC. AFP has…
NAMIBIA’s state-owned telecoms company has fallen victim to what is known as a ransomware attack resulting in the leak of sensitive customer data, including reportedly information about top government officials. Telecom Namibia said the data had been released after it refused to engage with a group of hackers known as Hunters International. The company said that it is now investigating how such a massive breach of its system occurred. Outgoing President Nangolo Mbumba has condemned the cyberattack. He called for it be dealt with the “urgency it deserves”, adding that cybersecurity was a matter of national security, his spokesman Alfredo…
MARCUS Rashford has been marginalised and put up for sale by Manchester United as part of a cultural reboot deemed necessary to transform the club after standards were allowed to decline for more than a decade. Sir Jim Ratcliffe is intent there can be no passengers and is ready to cut his losses on Rashford if there are suitors in January. A willingness to take short-term pain in pursuit of long-term gain was also behind Dan Ashworth’s exit as sporting director after five months when United had paid £5m to bring him from Newcastle. Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho were dropped…
SEVERAL countries have condemned Israel’s plan to expand settlements in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights after the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad by opposition fighters. Multiple Middle Eastern nations and Israel’s ally Germany on Monday denounced Israel’s decision to double the Israeli settler population in the illegally occupied Syrian territory. The criticism comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in Syria after the ouster of al-Assad as the new caretaker government takes over. Israel approved the settlement expansion days after the Israeli military seized more Syrian territory after al-Assad’s fall. Syria has also been under intense Israeli bombardment with hundreds…