INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Iran on Wednesday for discussions on Tehran’s nuclear program, a week after Donald Trump’s election as the new US president. During his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021, Trump was the architect of a policy called “maximum pressure” levying against Tehran biting sanctions that had been lifted through a landmark nuclear agreement in 2015. Grossi, who is the director general of the UN agency, was greeted on Wednesday evening at the airport by Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran or AEOI. Grossi…
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SOCIAL media platform Bluesky has gained more than one million new users since the US presidential election, benefitting from an exodus of people unhappy with the direction of X under billionaire owner Elon Musk. The micro-blogging site said on Wednesday that it had topped 15 million users, up from about nine million in September. Started by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in 2019, Bluesky has gained a reputation as a refuge for left-leaning users disaffected by X’s rightward turn under Musk’s stewardship. Some Bluesky users have cited Musk’s alliance with US President-elect Donald Trump and a rise in hateful content on…
RUSSIA has reportedly sent up to 200 troops to Equatorial Guinea to protect the presidency, as it continues to expand its presence in Africa. Media reports say that the Russians are training elite guards in the country’s two main cities – the capital Malabo and Bata. Reports of Russian troops deployed in the country first surfaced in August. Russia, which has been seeking to gain more influence in Africa, has in recent years sent thousands of mercenaries to West and Central Africa to protect military regimes and help them fight insurgents. The Reuters news agency quoted sources saying that between…
NIGER Republic wants Russian firms to invest in uranium and other natural resource production, its mining minister said on Wednesday, amid an ongoing dispute with former colonial master France. French nuclear group Orano halted uranium output in Niger last month as relations soured with the military junta that seized power in July 2023. “We have already met with Russian companies that are interested in coming to explore and exploit Niger’s natural resources… not only uranium,” mining minister Ousmane Abarchi told Russia’s Ria Novosti press agency in an interview. Abarchi’s comments come with several West African countries recently having downgraded historical…
FORMER France international footballer Wissam Ben Yedder received a suspended two-year jail sentence on Tuesday for sexually assaulting a woman in September. Ben Yedder, 34, is the former captain of French Ligue 1 side Monaco and is second on the club’s list of all-time leading goalscorers. He left Monaco at the end of last season and has been without a club since. On the evening of September 6, Ben Yedder met a woman during an inebriated outing and invited her into his car, according to the investigation. There, the woman told police, he performed a sex act in front of…
THE United Nations’s humanitarian aid chief told a meeting of the Security Council (UNSC) that “acts reminiscent of the gravest international crimes” are being committed in Gaza where Israel’s military continues to bombard, besiege and prevent aid from reaching the civilian population. Addressing the UNSC on Tuesday, Joyce Msuya, the interim chief of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), described Israel’s monthlong ground offensive and ongoing siege of northern Gaza as an “intensified, extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year” in the Palestinian territory. Palestinian civilians have been driven from their homes…
JACK Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, has been jailed for 15 years for leaking classified documents about the war in Ukraine and other military secrets. A federal judge in Boston, United States, on Tuesday sentenced the 22-year-old after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of wilful retention and transmission of national defence information under the Espionage Act. Prosecutors had argued for a 17-year sentence for Teixeira, saying he “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”. “The defendant took an oath to defend the United States…
TWO popular Ugandans have been detained for allegedly insulting President Yoweri Museveni, the first lady Janet Museveni and the president’s son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba on the video-sharing platform, TikTok. Magistrate Stella Maris Amabilis remanded 21-year-old David Ssengozi, alias Lucky Choice, and Isaiah Ssekagiri , 28, to Kigo prison until Wednesday when they will make an initial court appearance. They are accused of hate speech and spreading malicious information against the first family and musicians linked to the governing National Resistance Movement (NRM). Appearing in court on Monday, the two denied the charges. They are jointly charged with Julius Tayebwa, 19,…
A JOURNALIST detained in Eritrean prison without trial for 23 years has won a Swedish human rights prize for his commitment to freedom of expression. Dawit Isaak, who holds dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, was given the Edelstam Prize “for his… exceptional courage”, the foundation behind the award said in a statement. Dawit, who holds dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, was one of the founders of Setit, Eritrea’s first independent newspaper. He was detained in 2001 after his paper published letters demanding democratic reforms. Dawit was among a group of about two dozen individuals, including senior cabinet ministers, members of parliament and independent journalists,…
THE world’s best football clubs will discover their group stage opponents for the inaugural 32-club FIFA Club World Cup at the draw on December 5 in Miami. The date was highly anticipated as many questions still surround this competition, whose revenues and benefits for the clubs remain a mystery — its TV broadcasters are not yet known and only one sponsor has been announced: Chinese electronics manufacturer Hisense. The draw will kick off at 1800 GMT to determine the eight groups of four teams who will compete in the tournament in the United States from June 15 to July 13.…
SAUDI Arabia’s de facto ruler on Monday called on Israel to respect Iran’s sovereignty and refrain from attacking Iranian soil, highlighting warming ties between the Middle East rivals. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders that the international community should oblige Israel “to respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran and not to violate its lands”. Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-majority Iran have often found themselves on opposing sides of regional conflicts including Syria’s. In 2015, Saudi Arabia mobilised a military coalition to support Yemen’s internationally recognised government after Iran-backed…
THE Philipines government on Sunday ordered the evacuation of 2, 500 villages in the wake of the fourth major storm that hit the country. According to AFP, thousands of people sought shelter, ports were shut down and landslides blocked mountain roads in the Philippines on Monday, as the disaster-weary nation was struck by a fourth cyclone in less than a month. Typhoon Toraji hit near Dilasag town, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) northeast of the capital in the morning, the national weather agency said. “We’re getting hit with strong winds and heavy rain. Some trees are being toppled and power…
THE prime minister of Mauritius has accepted that his coalition, L’Alliance Lepep, has suffered a “huge defeat” following Sunday’s parliamentary election. “The population has decided to choose another team,” Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, 62, told journalists on Monday. Jugnauth was seeking a second five-year term, but his main rival, Navin Ramgoolam, 77, leader of the Alliance of Change coalition, looks set to become the next leader of the Indian Ocean archipelago. Mauritius is known as one of Africa’s most stable democracies, but this election was tainted by a phone-tapping scandal, with leaked recordings of public figures posted online. In response,…
BURKINA Faso’s armed forces say they are investigating a gruesome video that purports to show military volunteers hacking apart a dead body with machetes, while gloating to the camera. Work is under way to verify the video and the people shown in it “so that they can be held accountable for their actions, if the facts are proven,” the general staff said in a statement. The West African nation is ruled by the military, who seized power almost three years ago promising to end the chronic insecurity that has forced two million people from their homes. But efforts to defeat…
MANCHESTER United signed off Ruud van Nistelrooy’s temporary stint in charge with a 3-0 win over Leicester on Sunday as Ipswich stunned Tottenham 2-1 for their first Premier League victory in 22 years. Third-placed Nottingham Forest’s fine run came to an end in a 3-1 home defeat to Newcastle. Arsenal are aiming to kickstart their faltering title challenge later away at London rivals Chelsea. Ruben Amorim will be in charge for the first time when United returns from the international break. But Van Nistelrooy was able to hand over the reins with a four-game unbeaten run since stepping up to…
ISRAELI attacks have killed at least 38 people across Lebanon on Sunday, including 23 in an air attack on the Lebanese village of Almat, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. The Shia Muslim majority village of Almat in the Jbeil district is about 30km (19 miles) north of the capital Beirut and is located in a mostly Christian area. The village is outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds of south Beirut and south and east Lebanon, which Israel has heavily bombed since late September in its war against the Iran-backed group. “The Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed…
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has signed off on a landmark defence pact with North Korea, a deal that comes amid reports that Pyongyang has despatched thousands of troops to fight against Ukraine. Putin struck the deal during a visit to North Korea in June, but it had to pass through Russia’s parliament and signed by the Kremlin leader to come into force. The Kremlin published the signed law ratifying the treaty on its website on Saturday evening. The agreement formalises months of deepening security cooperation between the two nations, which were Communist allies throughout the Cold War. North Korea has…
POLICE in Ivory Coast’s largest city Abidjan have opened an investigation after two dead babies were found in a landfill alongside human remains, according to officials. The bodies of two stillborn infants were found Sunday morning at a landfill site in Akouedo, east Abidjan, along with “medical equipment and fibroids that had apparently been dumped by a clinic or by a hospital”, said the city’s chief of police Kollo Roger Yeo. Deputy Director-General for Public Safety Siaka Dosso also confirmed the presence of “human waste, including fibroids and umbilical cords”. He said police had launched an investigation. “Mothers sometimes abandon…
NUMEROUS Chad troops have been killed in a clash with Boko Haram Insurgents in the Lake Chad region, the latest such incident in the central African nation, officials said on Sunday. “I present my sincere condolences to the families of the martyrs who fell defending the homeland during this clash and I wish a speedy recovery to the wounded”, President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said in a post on Facebook, without providing any other details. The clash was the latest since late October, when an attack by Boko Haram Insurgents on a Chadian military base killed at least 40 people.…
PEP Guardiola suffered four consecutive defeats for the first time in his managerial career as Manchester City’s dismal spell hit a new low with a late collapse in their 2-1 loss at Brighton on Saturday. With just 12 minutes left, Guardiola’s troubled side were clinging onto the lead given to them by Erling Haaland in the first half. But they collapsed in the closing stages as Joao Pedro equalised before Matt O’Riley bagged Brighton’s winner seven minutes from full-time. For the first time in his glittering career as a manager with City, Bayern Munich, and Barcelona, Guardiola has been beaten…