Author: Editor

ISRAELI attacks across Lebanon have killed at least 3,103 people and injured 13,856 others since October last year, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. Since the genocide in Gaza began, Israel has also been at war with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, and expresses solidarity with the people in Gaza. In September this year, Israel expanded its war from Gaza into southern Lebanon. On Thursday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Health also said that Israeli strikes killed at least 53 people and wounded 161 others over the past 24 hours. Five Malaysian peacekeepers…

AUTHORITIES in the United States are investigating reports of Black people across the country receiving text messages invoking slavery following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. The racist text messages have been reported by people in more than a dozen US states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia and Alabama. The wording of the messages varies but follows the same basic script of telling the recipient they have been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation”, according to local news reports and social media posts. Some of the texts were labelled as coming from a…

GHANA’s outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo is facing a backlash on social media after he unveiled a statue of himself during a tour of the country’s Western Region. The monument is intended to honour the development initiatives the president has overseen whilst in office, the region’s minister Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah says. But many Ghanaians have been mocking its installation – outside a hospital in the city of Sekondi – seeing it as “self glorification”. “The people of the Western Region deserve better than these self-serving displays,” opposition MP Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah posted on X. Akufo-Addo, who will be standing down in…

CHAD’s military inflicted “many dead and wounded” in air strikes against Boko Haram Insurgents, President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said on Thursday. “We carried out several air strikes on enemy positions that resulted in many dead and wounded,” Deby told reporters in the Lake Chad region, without giving specific numbers. Deby, who gave an interview in full military fatigues, said he had “personally” launched the counter-attack against Boko Haram, which targeted the Chadian army in an attack last month in the western region, close to the border with Nigeria. The Chad government had vowed to “obliterate” Boko Haram when launching…

ATALANTA continued their fine start to the season with a deserved Champions League victory at Stuttgart. The Italian side enjoyed more possession in the first half but it was the hosts who spurned the two best chances. First Anthony Rouault headed over from close range before former Brighton striker Deniz Undav fired into the side netting after slipping in behind the defence. However, the Serie A side, fresh from a dominant 3-0 win over Napoli on Sunday, started the second half on the front foot and took the lead through Ademola Lookman. Gian Piero Gasperini’s decision to bring on Charles…

A HEZBOLLAH rocket landed in Israel’s main airport today as the group launched waves of projectiles across the Lebanese border. Ben Gurion airport was struck during a blistering assault this morning as the IDF battled to intercept the initial salvo of projectiles. the military reported. Flights were delayed and disrupted as a result of the attack, as Hezbollah claimed it was targeting the IDF’s Tzrifin base, south of the airport. Debris from an intercepted rocket also hit an empty car parked in Ra’anana, some 13 miles from the airport in Tel Aviv. Sirens rang out again east of the city…

WHEN Fox News called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump in the early hours of Wednesday, all but confirming that he will be the next president of the United States, there were a handful of Arab activists left at a watch party in Dearborn, Michigan. “Genocide is bad politics,” said one attendee at the event, which had Palestinian and Lebanese flags hanging outside its doors. And as the reality of another Trump presidency set off anger and sorrow from many Democratic commentators, at the Arab American gathering, there was a sense of indifference, if not vindication. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris had ignored…

SOUTH Africa has closed one of its busiest border crossings with Mozambique following violent post-electoral protests in the neighbouring country. The protests have led to deadly clashes in several cities following last month’s disputed presidential election, won by Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party. The authorities say there are reports of vehicles being torched on the Mozambican side of the Lebombo port of entry. “Due to these security incidents and in the interest of public safety, the port has been temporarily closed until further notice,” the South African border agency said. South African police also fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at…

A COURT in Rwanda has slapped a beauty queen with a three-month suspended sentence for drink-driving and driving without a licence. Divine Muheto, who won the most recent Miss Rwanda pageant, was also fined 190,000 Rwandan francs ($140; £109). Ms Muheto last month crashed her car into an electricity pylon and a palm tree while driving home from a bar in the capital Kigali, according to local site the New Times. At the time, a statement said she had fled the scene, but the court acquitted her of this charge. She wasn’t present at the court hearing, and neither was…

THE wealth of billionaire Tesla and X owner, Elon Musk, has soared by about $13 billion hours after his ally, Donald Trump, won the United States presidential election. Early Wednesday, investors were already betting that Trump’s win will also be a win for Musk’s major public holding, Tesla (TSLA), sending shares of his electric vehicle maker up 13% at the market open, CNN reports. The development lifted the value of the 411 million shares of Tesla that Musk owns outright by more than $13 billion, which works out to a better than a 11,000% return on the $119 million he…

INCOMING Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim saved one of his greatest Sporting victories for his last home game to condemn Manchester City to a third successive defeat for the first time since April 2018. It was City’s heaviest defeat since September 2020 and only the second time in his trophy-ladened spell at City that Pep Guardiola has been beaten in three consecutive games in a single season. To cap a thoroughly depressing night for City, star striker Erling Haaland blasted a second-half penalty against the crossbar. Sporting’s own Scandanavian superstar Viktor Gyokeres – formerly of Coventry City – did much…

ISRAEL’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over a breakdown in trust during the Gaza war against Hamas, his office said. The two have frequently clashed over Israel’s retaliatory military offensive against Hamas following the Palestinian militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7 last year. “In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust between the prime minister and the defence minister is required,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office. “Although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and very productive work, over the…

US Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said he would be prepared to concede defeat after Tuesday’s vote “if it’s a fair election”, while again raising concerns about the use of electronic voting machines. “If I lose an election, if it’s a fair election, I would be the first one to acknowledge it… So far I think it’s been fair,” Trump, repeating a caveat that he has used many times on the campaign trail, told reporters after voting in Florida. Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap, he reiterated his previous criticism of electronic voting machines, suggesting they were less…

A COURT in Kenyan has sentenced two men to 35 years each for the murder of Ugandan athlete Benjamin Kiplagat at the end of last year. The Olympic steeplechaser was stabbed to death on New Year’s Eve in the town of Eldoret, known as a top training centre for athletes. “Your actions were cruel to a defenceless person whose life you cut short,” Justice Reuben Nyakundi told Peter Ushuru Khalumi and David Ekai Lokere during the sentencing hearing in the High Court in Eldoret. Kiplagat’s murder shocked people in Kenya, which has seen the killing of a number of other…

ZIMBABWE’s government has banned “with immediate effect” police officers from using mobile phones while working. The ban is contained in a memo, ordering police officers to abandon their private communication gadgets while on duty. All officers are required to surrender their mobile phones to their supervisors once they get to their stations and only use them during their break time. No reasons were cited for the ban in the memo but it is widely believed this could be part of efforts to curb police corruption. It comes a few days after two traffic enforcement officers were arrested in the capital,…

JOSE Mourinho condemned refereeing standards in Turkey after his Fenerbahce side scored a 102nd-minute winner to cap a dramatic game against Trabzonspor. The former Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham manager sprinted on to the pitch and attempted a knee slide as Sofyan Amrabat’s late goal in stoppage time earned a 3-2 victory on Sunday. However, Mourinho was unhappy with home team Trabzonspor being awarded two penalties – both after video assistant referee (VAR) consultations – and thought his side should have had a spot-kick before Amrabat’s late winner. The 61-year-old even questioned why he had come to Turkey. Speaking at…

AT least 12 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, medics said, as Israeli forces continue to press their siege and ground assault on the northern part of the Palestinian territory. Medics in Gaza told the Reuters news agency on Monday at least seven people were killed in an attack on the north Gaza city of Beit Lahiya. Five others were killed in attacks in central and southern Gaza. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last partially functioning hospital in the north of the enclave, was being attacked by…

WHEN Yang Seung-ji heard that thousands of North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine, she began searching online for the nearest emergency shelter. Yang is concerned that tensions between North and South Korea, which have been aggravated by Pyongyang’s reported involvement in the war in Ukraine, could spill over into an armed confrontation. “I worried that public transportation would be down and make me unable to go back home,” the 25-year-old job seeker, who recently moved from the regional city of Chungju to Seoul, about 50 km (30 miles) from the inter-Korean border, told…

RWANDA said Monday it will no longer register petrol-driven motorbike taxis from the new year as it seeks to transition towards electric vehicles. “The goal is to promote the use of cleaner, more efficient energy and reduce gas emissions,” Minister of Infrastructure Jimmy Gasore told AFP. The new rule will only apply in the capital Kigali and to motorbikes used as taxis — the dominant form of public transport. Rwanda has several subsidies in place to promote electrification, including cheaper electricity for charging and tax breaks for companies producing batteries. The ministry estimates there are some 110,000 motorbikes in Rwanda,…

SUDAN’s army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at war with paramilitaries, has announced a cabinet reshuffle that replaces four ministers including those for foreign affairs and the media. The late Sunday announcement comes with the northeast African country gripped by the world’s worst displacement crisis, threatened by famine and desperate for aid, according to the UN. In a post on its official Facebook page, Sudan’s ruling sovereignty council said Burhan had approved replacement of the ministers of foreign affairs, the media, religious affairs and trade. The civil war that began in April 2023 pits Burhan’s military against the Rapid Support Forces…