Author: Editor

SINGAPORE has carried out its third hanging of a convicted drug trafficker in a week despite appeals for clemency from the United Nations. Rosman Abdullah, 55, was executed for trafficking 57.43 grams of heroin into the Southeast Asian city-state, Singapore’s drug enforcement agency said on Friday. Rosman, a Singaporean, was “accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process,” the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement. “Capital punishment is imposed only for the most serious crimes, such as the trafficking of significant quantities of drugs which cause very serious harm, not just…

ISRAELI forces have bombarded southern Lebanon and the suburbs of Beirut, killing at least five medics and crumpling a multistorey building, as ground troops have clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south. Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli warplanes launched strikes on Friday on two buildings just inside Beirut’s southern suburbs. A missile struck the middle of an 11-storey building housing shops, a gym and apartments located on a usually busy street in the heavily populated area. The impact sparked a fireball and caused the structure to collapse on top of itself, littering the road with debris. The NNA…

THE mourners at a cemetery in crisis-hit Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, were strikingly young – children shedding tears as they bade farewell to a 16-year-old friend, who was shot dead while banging pots and pans in an opposition-organised protest against the outcome of last month’s presidential election. “Antonio was shot in the mouth, and the bullet went through the back of his head,” his uncle, Manuel Samuel, told the BBC. “We saw CCTV footage from nearby shops of police shooting at protesters,” he added. Antonio Juaqim’s killing is a tragic reminder of the volatile political climate in the southern African state…

A FAMINE-STRICKEN camp housing about 500,000 displaced people in Sudan has received its first convoy of aid in months. The United Nations’ trucks arrived in Zamzam – which houses masses forced to flee during Sudan’s 18-month civil war – on Friday. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said food deliveries had been held up for months by fierce fighting in the nearby Darfur city of el-Fasher, as well as the “impassable” roads brought on by the rainy season. The war – a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – has created the world’s largest…

MANCHESTER City manager Pep Guardiola says he could not leave the club after suffering four consecutive defeats for the first time in his coaching career. Guardiola has signed a two-year contract with City which will keep him at the club until 2027. The 53-year-old Spaniard joined City in 2016 and has won 18 trophies, including six Premier League titles. His contract had been due to expire at the end of the current season, and he signs a new deal on the back of defeats to Tottenham, Brighton, Sporting and Bournemouth. “I felt I could not leave now. Maybe the four…

ISRAELI air raids have killed dozens of people in the Baalbek region in eastern Lebanon, a local official said, as a United States mediator sought to advance ceasefire talks in Israel. At least 47 people were killed and 22 others wounded in the attacks, Bachir Khodr, governor of Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel province, said in a post on X on Thursday. Rescue operations were under way, he added. Elsewhere in Lebanon, Beirut shook as Israeli air strikes hit the southern suburbs about a dozen times, sending up clouds of debris in some of the most intense air strikes yet. The Israeli army…

MOSCOW on Thursday launched an intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine for the first time, Kyiv said, marking the latest escalation of the conflict since Ukraine fired Western-supplied long-range missiles on Russia. The Ukrainian air force said in a statement that Russian forces in the morning had launched several types of missiles at the central city of Dnipro, targeting critical infrastructure. “In particular, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation,” the statement said. A source in the Ukrainian air force confirmed to AFP that it was the first time since the Kremlin launched its…

THIS year’s winner of France’s biggest book prize is being sued in Algeria over claims he stole the story from a patient of his psychiatrist wife. Kamel Daoud was awarded the Goncourt prize earlier this month for his novel Houris, a searing account of Algeria’s 1990s civil war in which up to 200,000 people were killed. But a woman who survived one of the massacres has appeared on Algerian television, alleging that the book’s heroine – named Fajr – is based on her own personal story. As a girl, Saada Arbane had her throat cut in an Islamist militant attack…

SOUTH Africa’s central bank on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 7.75 percent, adopting caution amid mixed data and global uncertainty. It follows a fall in inflation in October to 2.8 percent, its lowest level since June 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Inflation appears well contained in the near term, South Africa’s Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago told reporters. However it was “highly uncertain” in the medium term given the possibility of higher costs of food, electricity and water, as well as insurance premiums and wage settlements. While recent manufacturing data was subdued, mining was…

FOOTBALL fans in Sudan, a country torn apart by war, are savouring a rare moment of pride after the national team qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations finals. The feat, achieved at the expense of Ghana, one of the continent’s traditional powerhouses, comes despite the team having to play all their matches abroad and the domestic league being suspended. Streets of Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced endure agonising waits for water and healthcare, came alive after the match, with car horns blaring and ecstatic fans waving Sudanese flags from the windows. The match marked Sudan’s 10th…

THE United States Senate has rejected a bill that aimed to block a US weapons sale to Israel amid the country’s war on Gaza, an outcome that rights advocates say does not take away from a growing push to condition aid to Washington’s top ally. A resolution to halt the sale of tank rounds failed to advance in a 79 to 18 vote on Wednesday, with prominent progressives and mainstream Democratic senators backing the effort. Two more resolutions to halt the sale of other weapons also failed after winning fewer than 20 votes. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the so-called Joint…

THE eldest son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit is suspected of a second rape, police said on Wednesday, two days after his arrest over another allegation of sexual assault. Born of a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s marriage to heir Prince Haakon, Marius Borg Hoiby was arrested on Monday evening on suspicion of one case of rape. Since the investigation unearthed a second allegation, a lawyer for the force said, police were requesting the 27-year-old be remanded in custody. “It involves sexual intercourse without consent with a woman incapable of resisting the act,” police lawyer Andreas Kruszewski said on the sidelines…

VETERAN Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye appeared in a military court in Kampala on Wednesday accused of seeking to compromise national security, after his reported abduction in neighbouring Kenya at the weekend. The manner of Besigye’s detention has caused an uproar, with concerns over Kenya’s role and the heightened government crackdown on Uganda’s opposition. Besigye, 68, a medical doctor and longtime critic of President Yoweri Museveni, was brought to the General Court Martial in the Ugandan capital under a heavily armed military escort. He appeared in the dock with another opposition figure, Hajji Lutale Kamulegeya, who was also snatched in…

MALI’s junta chief on Wednesday sacked civilian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga and the government, days after Maiga issued a rare criticism of the military rulers. “The duties of the prime minister and the members of the government are terminated,” said a decree issued by Colonel Assimi Goita and read out by the secretary general of the presidency on state television station ORTM. The West African country, plagued by jihadist and separatist violence, has been led by the military since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021. In June 2022, the junta promised to organise elections and hand over power to…

RETIRING tennis superstar Rafael Nadal lost 6-4, 6-4 to Botic van de Zandschulp in a Davis Cup quarter-final singles rubber on Tuesday as the Netherlands took a 1-0 lead against Spain. The 22-time Grand Slam winner will call time on his career in professional tennis at the end of Spain’s participation in the tournament in Malaga, after two injury-ravaged years. Doubts hung over Nadal’s involvement until the official announcement from team captain David Ferrer confirmed he would play in the first singles rubber of the opening finals clash. The 38-year-old appeared emotional during the Spanish national anthem, and fans filled…

MORE than 200 children have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched a military campaign focused on its northern neighbour two months ago, the United Nations agency for children (UNICEF) has said. An average of three children have been killed every day in Lebanon, UNICEF told reporters on Tuesday, as Israel has intensified its bombing campaign across the country. It warned that as in Gaza, despite the horrific toll on Lebanon’s children “those with influence” were failing to mount a meaningful response. “Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged:…

BRAZILIAN police on Tuesday arrested four soldiers guarding the G20 summit over an alleged plot to assassinate then President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a 2022 “coup,” a federal police source told AFP. The four “were arrested in Rio, where they were participating in the security operation for the G20 leaders’ meeting,” said the source, who added that a police officer was also taken into custody. A statement by Brazil’s federal police said the suspects were “mostly soldiers with special forces training,” but made no mention of them being part of the G20 summit security deployment. They were arrested…

THE opposition leader of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, has won the territory’s presidential election. More popularly known as Irro, he won with 64% of the vote to become Somaliland’s sixth president since it broke away from Somalia in 1991. The 69-year-old, a former speaker of Somaliland’s parliament, beat incumbent Musa Abdi Bihi, who took 35% of the vote. During campaigning, Irro said his party would review a controversial deal to lease landlocked Ethiopia a 20km (12-mile) section of its coastline for 50 years to set up a naval base – an agreement that has caused a…

KENYA’s Catholic Church has rejected a donation of about $40,000 (£32,000) made by President William Ruto. He offered the money towards the building of a priest’s house and as a gift to the choir during Mass on Sunday at the Soweto Catholic Church in the capital, Nairobi. The donation followed a recent statement by Catholic bishops, who had hit out at the government for failing to fulfil their electoral promises. Churches have been under pressure this year from young anti-tax protesters who have accused them of being too close to politicians. Following Ruto’s much-publicised donation on Sunday, many Kenyans urged…

RODRIGO Bentancur has been handed a seven-game ban and a £100,000 fine by an independent regulatory commission following his racist comments about Son Heung-min during pre-season. The FA statement on Monday said: “An independent regulatory commission has imposed a seven-match suspension and £100,000 fine on Rodrigo Bentancur for a breach of FA Rule E3 in relation to a media interview. “It was alleged that the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder breached FA Rule E3.1 as he acted in an improper manner and/or used abusive and/or insulting words and/or brought the game into disrepute. “It was further alleged that this constitutes an “aggravated…