Author: Editor

TEN people have been killed in a landslide in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region, according to state media, in the latest natural disaster to strike the country. The Amhara Media Corporation (AMC) quoted local administrator Tesfaye Workneh as saying on Saturday that “10 people have died in the disaster” and four bodies had been pulled from the mud. The report did not indicate what time the landslide occurred on Saturday in the North Gondar zone in Amhara or whether there was a search ongoing. Eight people were seriously hurt in the disaster and were receiving treatment, the AMC said, quoting the…

WHILE many of his club team-mates were playing international football during the summer, Erling Haaland spent it helping his dad chop wood. The Manchester City striker would no doubt have preferred to have been at the Euros with Norway but they failed to qualify so it was a summer of chores and relaxation instead. And it seems to have done him the world of good. Two games in and he has scored four goals, adding another hat-trick to his collection in Saturday’s 4-1 win against Ipswich. It means he already has double the tally of any other player – albeit…

HAMAS has called on Arab and Muslim countries and organisations to condemn and express outrage against Israeli forces for burning copies of the Quran at a mosque in Gaza. “The burning of copies of the Quran and desecration and destruction of mosques confirm the extremist nature of this entity and its hate-filled criminal soldiers and their fascist behaviour against anything related to the identity and sanctities of our nation,” the Palestinian group said in a statement on Saturday. Al Jazeera Arabic had aired footage, obtained from the cameras of Israeli soldiers, showing them ripping up pages from the Muslim holy…

NEARLY 300,000 Bangladeshis were taking refuge in emergency shelters Saturday from floods that inundated vast areas of the low-lying South Asian country, disaster officials said. The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and have killed at least 42 people in Bangladesh and India since the start of the week, many in landslides. “My house is completely inundated,” Lufton Nahar, 60, told AFP from a relief shelter in Feni, one of the worst-hit districts near the border with India’s Tripura state. “Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn’t, we would have…

FAMINE is ravaging Sudan. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) – which claims to be the government of Sudan – took a small step towards alleviating that famine earlier this week by allowing 15 UN aid lorries to cross the border from Chad to bring food to the starving. Aid agencies hope that it opens the door to a full-scale relief effort that can save millions of lives. But they fear it is just a symbolic concession – too little and too late. Four weeks ago, the UN-accredited Integrated food security Phase Classification (IPC) system said that famine conditions existed in…

A MAJOR player on South Africa’s political landscape for more than a decade, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has been shaken to the core following the defection of its deputy leader Floyd Shivambu to former President Jacob Zuma’s fledgling party – uMhkonto weSizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation. Mr Shivambu was seen as the EFF’s ideological guru, while party leader Julius Malema assumed the mantle of commander-in-chief – or “screamer-in-chief”, as his critics dubbed him – with his fiery rhetoric demanding the nationalisation of white-owned land and mines, and the “decolonisation” of education. The duo seemed to be a…

REAL Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham has sustained a calf injury in training just over two weeks before England begin their Nations League campaign. The 21-year-old was unable to finish a club session on Friday. BBC Sport has contacted Real to establish how long Bellingham is likely to be out for. Reports in Spain suggest he will be unavailable until late September, which would rule him out of Lee Carsley’s opening two fixtures as England interim manager. The Three Lions face the Republic of Ireland on 7 September and Finland on 10 September in the Nations League. In a statement, Real…

ISRAEL’s military issues fresh orders for residents to evacuate neighbourhoods in northern Gaza amid intense Israeli attacks in the north, centre and south of the Palestinian territory. At least 11 people, including two children, have been killed and 15 wounded in overnight Israeli shelling of two houses in southern Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reports. White House says talks in Cairo to reach Gaza ceasefire have been “constructive”, but all sides must come together to implement proposed deal as US delegation plans to meet with mediators again on Sunday to try and close negotiation gaps. A 10-month-old baby in…

THREE people have been killed and four others seriously injured in a stabbing attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen, authorities said. At about 10pm local time on Friday (20:00 GMT) a single, unidentified man attacked multiple people with a knife and the perpetrator remains at large, police said. Police said the attack occurred at a festival to honour Solingen’s 650th anniversary, which is located in North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous and bordering the Netherlands. Fatal stabbings and shootings in Germany are relatively uncommon. “It tears my heart apart that there was an attack on…

BERHANE Abrehe – a former Eritrean finance minister and fierce critic of the country’s president – has died in prison, his family say. The 79-year-old was Eritrea’s longest serving minister of finance, but he was removed from his role in 2012 following clashes with President Isaias Afwerki. Six years later, he was jailed after releasing a book where he described the president as a “dictator” who needed to resign. His family told the BBC that the authorities, who rarely confirm the deaths of senior officials in custody, had notified them of Mr Berhane’s death. The government also rarely shares where…

SUDAN’s warring parties have ended peace talks in Switzerland by agreeing to improve access for humanitarian aid, with two routes identified to ensure the flow of resources to civilians. But mediators at the peace talks noted that the Sudanese army’s absence from the discussions hindered progress in the discussions to end the country’s 16-month-long war. Friday marked the conclusion of the 10-day peace talks, led by the United States in the Swiss city of Geneva. During the talks, a group of mediators representing countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates tried to negotiate more aid and protection…

THE Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the election of Senator Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Imo State. Last November, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Uzodimma, the then candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Imo State. According to INEC, Uzodimma polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 71,503 votes; and Athan Achonu of Labour Party (LP) who secured 64,081 votes. But the LP and PDP…

BAYER Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso said Thursday that Bayern Munich are the Bundesliga title favourites this season, despite his side’s incredible league and cup double last campaign. “For me, the favourites are Bayern, that’s clear,” Alonso said at a press conference ahead of Friday’s Bundesliga season opener away at Borussia Moenchengladbach. “Our goal is to stay in the top four. That’s realistic — we have a good squad.” Leverkusen won the Bundesliga for the first time in club history, condemning Bayern to a first trophyless season since 2011-12 and ending their 11-year reign in Germany. In addition to new coach…

LAST week, Fitch Ratings downgraded Israel’s credit score from A+ to A. Fitch cited the continued war in Gaza and heightened geopolitical risks as key drivers. The agency also kept Israel’s outlook as “negative”, meaning a further downgrade is possible. After Hamas’s deadly attack on October 7, Israel’s stock market and currency nosedived. Both have since bounced back. But concerns about the country’s economy persist. Earlier this year, Moody’s and S&P also cut their credit ratings for Israel. So far, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians and decimated the economy in the besieged Palestinian enclave. There…

AN Indonesian court has ordered two companies that distributed a toxic cough syrup that killed more than 200 children to pay compensation to each family whose child died or was injured after taking the medication. The companies, Afi Farma and CV Samudera Chemical, will have to pay as much as much as 60 million rupiah ($3,850) to the families. About 120 children survived the poisoning that caused acute kidney disease, some with disabilities. Suspicions were first raised about the cough syrups in 2022 after children began to get seriously ill after taking what their parents thought were everyday cold medications.…

THE second-largest diamond ever found – a rough 2,492-carat stone – has been unearthed in Botswana at a mine owned by Canadian firm Lucara Diamond. It is the biggest find since the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, found in South Africa in 1905 and cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels. The diamond was found at Karowe mine, about 500km (300 miles) north of Botswana’s capital, Gaborone. Botswana’s government said it was the largest diamond ever discovered in the southern African state. The previous biggest discovery in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone found at the…

THE World Food Programme (WFP) says a convoy of humanitarian aid has entered the Sudanese region of Darfur, offering temporary respite after Sudan’s forces sealed sections of the border with Chad to aid deliveries in February. The United Nations agency on Wednesday said that more than a dozen trucks delivered food assistance for about 13,000 people threatened with famine in western Darfur’s Kereinik region. The agency added that it had food ready to move for 500,000 people. More than six million people face food insecurity across Darfur, as do more than 25 million, or about half the population, across the…

IN the shadowy corridors of Tehran’s power, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at the end of July – widely believed to have been carried out by Israel – shattered a fragile equilibrium. The timing of this escalation in the longstanding conflict between Iran and Israel could not have been worse, with newly sworn-in President Masoud Pezeshkian still getting used to his role when this geopolitical fireball was hurled into his lap. For Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the assassination of the Palestinian group’s leader was more than a provocation, it was an existential challenge. The explosion that…

UKRAINE has launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, as it presses on with a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Russian authorities said. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that air defence forces shot down 11 drones over Moscow and its surrounding region, with some reportedly downed over the city of Podolsk some 38km (24 miles) south of the Kremlin. “This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app. No damage or casualties were reported. Drone attacks on Moscow are rare. Ukraine’s…

THE last elephant in South Africa’s national zoo has been released back into the wild after 40 years of captivity. The elephant, named Charlie, was captured in 1984 from Zimbabwe’s Hwange national park when he was two years old. He was taken to Boswell Wilkie Circus in South Africa and trained to perform tricks. In the early 2000s he was transferred to the country’s national zoo. In recent years, animal welfare groups have pushed for the elephant to be freed due to concern for his health. On Tuesday, EMS Foundation, which advocates for the rights of wildlife, announced that after…