MANCHESTER City have signed Lens centre-back Abdukodir Khusanov on a four-and-a-half-year contract until 2029. Club sources say the fee for the 20-year-old is £33.6m plus add-ons. French side Lens only paid £84,000 for Khusanov from Belarusian club Energetik-BGU 18 months ago. However, he has developed rapidly and made 16 appearances for the Ligue 1 side this season, scoring his first goal for the club in a French Cup tie with Paris St-Germain in December. Khusanov has 18 caps for Uzbekistan and will become the first player from the country to play in the Premier League. “This squad is full of…
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PALESTINIAN farmer Abd al-Sattari owned two houses in Gaza’s Rafah. For the nine months since Israeli forces invaded the southern city, he has been forced into displacement. The 53-year-old had lived with the hope that if one house got hit in one of the Israeli attacks, which have flattened more than 70 percent of the territory, the other one would stay standing to take his family back in when the war finally ended. On Sunday, even before the ceasefire came into effect, Abd took his eldest son Mohammed and left the rest of their family in their displacement tent in…
TECH billionaire Elon Musk has come under fire after making back-to-back hand gestures resembling the Nazi salute during a speech celebrating the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. Addressing Trump supporters hours after the Republican was inaugurated as the 47th US president on Monday, Musk hailed the outcome of the US presidential election on November 4 as “no ordinary victory”. “This was a fork in the road of human civilization,” Musk said at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC. “This one really mattered. Thank you for making it happen! Thank you.” Musk then thumped his right hand into his chest…
TANZANIA’s president has announced an outbreak of Marburg virus, an Ebola-like virus, just a week after her health minister denied that there were any cases in the country. President Samia Suluhu Hassan said at a press conference on Monday that health authorities had confirmed one case of Marburg in the north-western region of Kagera. “We are confident that we will overcome this challenge once again,” Samia said, referring to a previous outbreak in Tanzania two years ago. On 14 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported a suspected Marburg outbreak in the country, having recorded nine suspected cases and eight…
AT least seven people have been killed in a clash with soldiers on duty at a mine in the central Ashanti region, according to the army. The Ghana Armed Forces said about 60 illegal miners, armed with among others things “pump action guns”, had forced their way into the mine run by global giant AngloGold Ashanti and fired at the soldiers when they were intercepted. This prompted the soldiers “to retaliate in self-defence”, leading to the deaths and injuries, it said in a statement. A representative of the miners denied that they had been armed. Following news of the deaths,…
DONALD Trump was sworn in for a historic second term as president on Monday, pledging a blitz of immediate orders on immigration and the US culture wars as he caps his extraordinary comeback. With one hand raised in the air and the other on a Bible given to him by his mother, the 47th US president solemnly took the oath of office beneath the huge Rotunda of the US Capitol. Republican Trump and outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden had earlier traveled by motorcade together to the Capitol, where the ceremony was being held indoors — and with a much smaller…
RUBEN Amorim made the astonishing admission that his Manchester United flops are the worst team in the club’s history after Sunday’s dismal 3-1 defeat against Brighton. United crumbled to a sixth loss in 11 Premier League games since Amorim arrived from Sporting Lisbon to replace the sacked Erik ten Hag. “We are the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United,” Amorim said after his side’s wretched display at Old Trafford. “I know you want headlines but I am saying that because we have to acknowledge that and to change that. Here you go: your headlines. “Imagine what this…
ISRAELI authorities have confirmed that Hamas handed over the first three female captives as a ceasefire deal for the war-ravaged Gaza Strip took effect. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Sunday evening that 24-year-old Romi Gonen, 28-year-old Emily Damari, and 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher were handed over to the Red Cross and are “in safe hands” in Israel. The Red Cross vehicles took off from Gaza City in the heavily besieged northern part of the enclave after Hamas brought the captives to as-Saraya Square as a crowd gathered. A Red Cross delegation was verifying the identities of 90 Palestinian prisoners…
TIK TOK restored service in the United States Sunday after briefly going dark, as a law banning the wildly popular app on national security grounds came into effect. TikTok credited President-elect Donald Trump, who retakes power on Monday, for making the reversal possible — though the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden had earlier said that it would not enforce any ban. The video-sharing app had shut down in the United States late Saturday as a deadline for its Chinese owners ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary to non-Chinese buyers loomed. Earlier Sunday, as millions of dismayed users found themselves…
THE Nigerians in Diaspora Commission has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a 50-year-old Nigerian man, Jeremiah Okoye, while in police custody in Limpopo, South Africa. The commission’s spokesperson, Abdulrahman Balogun, revealed this newspaper on Saturday, following reports of Okoye’s death on Friday. Okoye, who lived at 71 Magazyn Street, Polokwane, Limpopo Province, had been residing in South Africa for 22 years before his death. The victim, a native of Eziniffite Nnewi in Anambra, reportedly died while in police custody in Limpopo Province on January 13. The President of the Nigerian Citizens Association in South Africa,…
KENYA has deployed 217 more police officers to Haiti as part of a multinational force to curb gang violence plaguing the Caribbean nation, Kenya’s interior minister said on Saturday. According to the minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, the police officers departed from Kenya on Friday. “The Kenya-led mission has made tremendous progress in reducing gang violence, earning praise across the globe,” Mukomen said as he shared a photo of himself with some of the officers aboard a plane. Kenya’s “commitment to this historic mission is unwavering,” he said. Kenya first sent troops to Haiti in June and the total deployment now exceeds…
DARWIN Nunez struck twice in stoppage time to earn Liverpool a 2-0 win at Brentford and a six-point Premier League lead over Arsenal, who blew a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Aston Villa on Saturday. Liverpool looked set to drop points for the third consecutive league game until the much-maligned Uruguayan doubled his tally of Premier League goals for the season in the dying seconds in west London. Nunez swept home Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross before smashing in a second for a vital twist in the title race. Liverpool had been wasteful in front of goal in a 1-1 draw…
MEDIATOR Egypt said Saturday that Israel is to release more than 1,890 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages in the first phase of a Gaza truce. The foreign ministry said the prisoners would be freed during the first, 42-day phase of the ceasefire which is set to begin at 0630 GMT on Sunday. Qatar, which mediated the deal along with Egypt and the United States, had announced 33 hostages would be released by militants in Gaza during the first phase. Israel’s justice ministry had earlier said 737 Palestinian prisoners and detainees would be freed — none before 4:00…
DONALD Trump’s family will likely be less formally involved in White House business in his second term as they were in the first, but some will remain key to his political operation as unofficial advisors. Here is a look at how Trump’s wife, five children and other relatives will play a role in the new administration after Monday’s US presidential inauguration. Melania Trump: Melania — who met Trump at a party in 1998 and wed him in 2005 — returns as first lady to the White House, which she plans to make her primary residence. This would differ from Trump’s…
SEVEN years after their baby daughter was killed during a brutal midnight operation by police in Kenya at a time of post-election tension, Joseph Oloo Abanja and Lensa Achieng are still raw with emotion as the case against the alleged officers involved has once again been delayed. “It is a scar that will never fade away,” Ms Achieng, a hotel worker, tells the BBC about the death of six-month-old Samantha Pendo who died with a broken skull and of internal bleeding. After each postponement or small development, the couple are swamped with calls. Each moment of expectation leads to disappointment…
Mozambique’s new President Daniel Chapo has been sworn in at a low-key ceremony in the capital, Maputo, that was marred by an opposition boycott following heavily disputed elections. In his first presidential address, Chapo, 48, pledged to “devote all my energies” to promoting unity and human rights in a nation scarred by post-election violence. A local civil society group says that more than 300 people have been killed in clashes with security forces since elections in October. Eight people were killed by police on Wednesday as they protested against the inauguration, Dr Wilker Dias, head of election observer group Plataforma…
REPLACING Old Trafford with a new 100,000-seater Manchester United stadium and regenerating the surrounding area could bring £7bn to the UK economy, it has been claimed. A task force chaired by Lord Sebastian Coe looking into options for either a new or redeveloped stadium has released the figures as part of a feasibility study. It found the option to renovate Old Trafford could see its capacity increase to 87,000, with the club set to decide on its preferred approach by the summer. Lord Coe said the plans would act as a catalyst for “one of the biggest regeneration projects ever…
ISRAEL’s devastating offensive in Gaza — and the United States’ support for it — will “haunt” outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the rest of his life, says a former diplomat, who quit in protest over the war last year. Hala Rharrit told Al Jazeera in a phone interview that the administration of President Joe Biden is skirting the US’s own regulations by continuing to arm Israel despite well-documented abuses in Gaza. “They are willfully — and I don’t say that word lightly, willfully — violating and evading US law,” said Rharrit, who resigned from the US State Department…
IRANIAN President Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir Putin have signed a cooperation pact, deepening the partnership between two of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations. Iranian and Russian officials said the “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty” covers areas from trade and military cooperation to science, culture and education. At a joint news conference with Pezeshkian in Moscow on Friday, Putin praised the deal as a “real breakthrough creating conditions for the stable and sustainable development of Russia, Iran and the entire region.” The Kremlin earlier said that the treaty will enhance the “military-political and trade-economic” relations between Tehran and Moscow,…
SIERRA Leone has recalled its ambassador from neighbouring Guinea after seven suitcases containing suspected cocaine were found in an embassy vehicle. On Monday, Guinean authorities impounded a vehicle belonging to Sierra Leone’s embassy and detained its occupants on suspicion of possessing “substances suspected to be cocaine”, Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Alhaji Musa Timothy Kabba said. “In light of this serious development, the government has urgently recalled Sierra Leone’s ambassador to Guinea, Ambassador Mr Alimamy Bangura, to Freetown to provide a full account of the incident,” he added. The recalled envoy was not in the car and is not under arrest,…