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THE UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has deplored the Israeli strike on a Lebanese civil defence centre where “at least 12 paramedics were killed”, saying such attacks “are becoming the new normal”. It is reported that Israeli military attacked the town of Burj Rahha in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district, killing 12 paramedics and injuring seven other people, Lebanon 24 reports. The paramedics’ death comes following two separate attacks on civil defence centres in Lebanon on Friday. Foreign reports also confirm that at least 12 rescue workers were killed when Israeli forces bombed a civil defence centre…

THE leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan have held a joint news conference to denounce the growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. Held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, the conference also served as a swan song for outgoing US President Joe Biden, who will be leaving office in 2025. “We’ve now reached a moment of significant political change,” Biden told reporters on Friday. He touted the bonds between the US, South Korea and Japan as a major part of his legacy. “This is likely to be my…

MOZAMBIQUE’s government has banned protests following sustained post-election unrest that has left several people dead and dozens others injured. It follows last month’s disputed presidential election, won by Frelimo, the party which has governed Mozambique since 1975. The weeks-long protests have led to violent clashes with the police and at least 18 people have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch. Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda has urged Mozambicans to co-operate with the authorities to stop the protests, terming them “acts of terrorism”. Demonstrations started at the end last month in the capital, Maputo, after Daniel Chapo, the Frelimo candidate, was…

DOZENS of volunteers have entered an abandoned gold mine in South Africa to help what could be thousands of illegal miners who have been underground for a month. Because the miners entered the shaft in Stilfontein deliberately, desperate to retrieve gold or mineral residues, the authorities have taken a hard line, blocking food and water supplies. Earlier in the week, one government minister said: “We are going to smoke them out.” The miners have refused to co-operate with the authorities as some are undocumented migrants and fear being deported or arrested. There are reports that the miners have been eating…

NIGERIA’s Ademola Lookman joined the long list of prominent footballers nominated for the 2024 Globe Soccer Awards men’s best player prize. In a list released on Thursday by the organisers, the Atalanta man who finished 14th in this year’s Ballon d’Or, joined the likes of Argentine maestro Lionel Messi; and Portuguese talisman Cristiano Ronaldo among others in contention for the award. The former Leicester City man has enjoyed a rich vein of form for both the Super Eagles and Atalanta this year. He netted thrice in seven matches for Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) earlier in the…

AT least 15 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Damascus, Syrian state media reported. “The Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan [Heights], targeting residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of Damascus and the Qudssaya area in the Damascus countryside, killing 15 people and injuring 16 others,” the ministry said on Thursday, adding that the death toll could rise. The Israeli military said it carried out air strikes targeting several buildings and command centres belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group. The strikes are a “significant blow”…

AS United States President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, TikTok could be in line for a reprieve from the very leader who led the charge to ban the embattled video-sharing platform. Under a law signed by US President Joe Biden in April, ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the wildly popular app, was given nine months to divest its stake in the company or face a ban on national security grounds. The deadline for the sale – January 19 – is the day before Trump’s inauguration. On the campaign trail, Trump, who signed an executive order seeking…

AN international festival promoting peace that was due to take place in violence-racked eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been called off for security reasons, organisers said on Thursday. The Amani Festival — which attracts international and Congolese musicians and whose name means “peace” in Swahili — was due to hold its 10th annual event in the city of Goma from Thursday to Sunday. Security forces in the DRC have since 2021 been battling the M23, a largely Tutsi militia that has seized large swathes of territory in the country’s east. Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, is virtually…

AN estimated 4,000 illegal gold miners are hiding underground in South Africa after the government cut off food and water in an effort to “smoke them out” and arrest them. The miners have been in a mineshaft in Stilfontein, in the North West province, for about a month. They have refused to cooperate with authorities as some are undocumented – coming from neighbouring countries like Lesotho and Mozambique – and fear being deported. Illegal miners are called “zama zama” (“take a chance” in Zulu) and operate in abandoned mines in the mineral-rich country. Illegal mining costs the South African government…

SOUTH African Football Association (SAFA) president Danny Jordaan was arrested and charged Wednesday with using the group’s resources for his own purposes in a fraud and theft case amounting to 1.3 million rand ($72,000), police said. Jordaan, who led South Africa’s successful bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, denied the charges in a Johannesburg court. “The allegations are that between 2014 and 2018, the president of SAFA used the organisation’s resources for his personal gain,” a police statement said. He was accused of hiring a private security company for his own protection and a public relations company without…

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…

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.…