Author: Editor

SOUTHAMPTON beat Leeds in the Championship play-off final to secure an immediate return to the Premier League and the £140m to go with it. Saints’ 11-year spell in the top flight came to an end after a wretched campaign last time out but, despite finishing one place and three points behind Leeds in fourth, it is they who join Leicester and Ipswich in going up. Adam Armstrong scored the decisive goal with a clinical finish after being put clear by Will Smallbone. Leeds substitute Dan James clattered a bouncing ball against the crossbar late on as they pushed for an…

HAMAS says it has launched rockets at Tel Aviv, prompting sirens to sound in the Israeli city for the first time in several months. The Israeli military said on Sunday that eight rockets were launched from the Rafah area in southern Gaza, where its forces have continued a ground assault despite an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt operations there. Israel’s air defence system intercepted several of them, the military said. Rafah is located around 100km (62 miles) south of Tel Aviv. According to local media reports, sirens sounded in about 30 areas across central Israel…

THE International Organization for Migration has increased its estimate of the death toll from a massive landslide in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to more than 670. Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the United Nations agency’s mission in the South Pacific island nation, said on Sunday the revised death toll was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by Friday’s landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes. “They are estimating that more than 670 people [are] under the soil at the moment,” Aktoprak said. “The situation is terrible with…

OVER 130 people have died at a single hospital in Sudan’s besieged city of El Fasher, in the Darfur region, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Fighting between rival groups in Sudan’s civil war in the battle for control of the city has recently intensified. The situation was “terrible,” one resident told the BBC, with hospitals and markets experiencing “violent artillery shelling”. El Fasher is the last major urban centre in Darfur that remains in the hands of Sudan’s army. The army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year, in a…

SUSPECTED insurgents killed at least 18 civilians in central Mali, numerous sources told AFP on Sunday, the latest attack in a region roiled by violence for years. “The insurgents fired at villagers three kilometres (less than two miles) from Diallassagou. The provisional toll is 18 dead and 21 wounded”, three residents of the village told AFP. A police source and a regional official confirmed the attack, but gave the death toll of 19 and blamed “terrorists” and “armed men”. “We confirm. The terrorists killed civilians in Diallassagou in cold blood,” the police source said, adding “there are 19 dead and…

ERIK ten Hag warned Manchester United’s owners that he will carry on winning trophies elsewhere if they decide to sack him in the aftermath of Saturday’s 2-1 victory against Manchester City in the FA Cup final. Ten Hag went into the final rocked by reports that he would be dismissed regardless of the result at Wembley. But United’s beleaguered manager made a convincing case to remain in charge as he out-witted City boss Pep Guardiola to deliver the second trophy of his turbulent two-year reign. Now Ten Hag must wait to discover his fate after insisting he had not been…

ISRAEL has continued its relentless attacks on Rafah despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering it to put an end to the military operation there, and multiple deaths were reported from central and northern Gaza, which have been subjected to renewed attacks. The Shaboura camp and areas close to the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah on Saturday were targeted, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said. Several people who have been injured in the bombardment have been transferred to the hospital, he said. The hospital renewed its appeal for fuel deliveries “to ensure its continued operation”, saying it…

ESCALATING violence in conflict-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine State has forced another 45,000 minority Rohingya to flee, the United Nations warned, amid allegations of beheadings, killings and burnings of property. Clashes have rocked Rakhine State since the Arakan Army (AA) rebels attacked forces of the ruling military government in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021. The fighting has caught in the middle the Muslim minority group, long considered outsiders by the majority Buddhist residents, either from the government or the rebel side. The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic…

DOZENS of civilians and soldiers were killed in the latest bout of violence in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher on Friday, the local governor has said, as fighting in the country shows no sign of abating more than one year after the start of the conflict. At least 30 civilians and 17 soldiers were killed in attacks in the city, Minni Minnawi said on Saturday. “This shows that the goal of those attacking el-Fasher is to exterminate the city.” War in Sudan erupted in mid-April last year when a simmering feud between the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)…

ELEVEN workers of a sugar factory have been killed following an explosion at the factory which is located in Tanzania. The victims included three foreign nationals, police said. The explosion which occurred on Thursday, May 23 was a result of an electrical fault that caused a steam pipe to burst as a technical team was readying machines to start production for the day at the privately owned Mtibwa Sugar Factory in the Morogoro region in eastern Tanzania, regional police chief Alex Mkama told the media. All the deceased were electrical and machine staff who were working in the control room…

MANCHESTER United manager Erik ten Hag hopes to bolster his chances of avoiding the sack by ruining Manchester City’s history bid in the FA Cup final on Saturday. For the second successive season, Wembley will stage a Manchester derby in the showpiece fixture. Last year, City beat United 2-1 in the final on route to an incredible treble-winning campaign that included Premier League and Champions League glory. City remain England’s pre-eminent force, as they showed by clinching an unprecedented fourth successive Premier League title last weekend. United left Wembley still optimistic about the future despite that defeat 12 months ago…

JUDGES at the top United Nations court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the enclave, in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide, citing “immense risk” to the Palestinian population. Friday’s decision marked the third time this year the 15-judge panel has issued preliminary orders seeking to rein in the death toll and alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. While orders are legally binding, the court has no police to enforce them. Reading out a ruling by the International Court of Justice or World Court, the body’s president,…

AT least seven people have been killed and more than a dozen injured in a Russian missile attack on Kharkiv, north-eastern Ukraine, according to the regional head. A further two people remain missing after the attack, which saw Russian forces strike Ukraine’s second-largest city at least 15 times, Oleg Sinegubov said. He advised people in the city to remain in shelters. Ukraine’s state railway company said several of its facilities had been damaged in the attack and a number of its employees had been injured. Earlier this month, Russian forces began a renewed offensive in the region in an attempt…

SUDAN’s Darfur region is facing a growing risk of genocide as the world’s attention is focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a UN expert warns. “We do have circumstances in which a genocide could be occurring or has occurred,” the UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, told BBC’s Newsday programme. She said many civilians were targeted based on their ethnicity in Sudan’s besieged city of El Fasher, where fierce fighting has intensified in recent days. More than 700 deaths have been reported in 10 days by a medical charity in the…

KENYA’s President William Ruto says his peacekeeping police force is expected to arrive in Haiti to help quell growing gang violence in about three weeks. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Mr Ruto confirmed a planning team was already in Haiti and had met local police to secure arrangements before the Kenyan troops are deployed. Mr Ruto’s comments came as he concluded a three-day trip to Washington DC, the first official state visit of any African leader to the US in over 15 years. During his trip, the White House called for the swift deployment of the Kenyan-led multinational…

CHELSEA have drawn up an early shortlist of managerial options, which includes Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna, Leicester City’s Enzo Maresca and Brentford’s Thomas Frank. The Blues are in search of a replacement for Mauricio Pochettino after he left the club by mutual consent on Tuesday. Contact has been made with McKenna, 38 – who won promotion from the Championship with Ipswich Town this season – but there is competition from Brighton, who are looking to replace Roberto de Zerbi. Manchester United are also reportedly interested in McKenna, who would cost more than £4m in compensation. He is believed to be…

THE UN’s top court said it will rule (today) Friday on a request by South Africa to order Israel to implement a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. South Africa has petitioned the International Court of Justice for emergency measures to order Israel to “cease its military operations in the Gaza Strip” including in Rafah city, where it is pressing an offensive. The rulings of the ICJ, which judges on disputes between states, are binding, but it has no power to enforce them – it has ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine to no avail, for example. But a…

THE Council of Sandwell, a metropolitan district of the West Midlands county in the United Kingdom has appointed its first female Muslim mayor. Councillor Syeda Khatun will serve as the mayor of Sandwell for the 2024/25 year following a ceremony in Oldbury on Tuesday. The long-standing Sandwell councillor was first elected in 1999 becoming the first Bangladeshi woman to be elected in the Midlands region and the first Muslim woman to win a seat on Sandwell Council. At the full council meeting on Tuesday evening, Cllr Khatun said she was “very humbled and honoured” to become the borough’s first citizen.…

KENYAN President William Ruto vowed Thursday that his country’s upcoming deployment to Haiti will seek to crush gangs that have ravaged the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Ruto was speaking on a state visit to Washington alongside President Joe Biden, who saluted Kenya’s willingness to assist and promised that the United States would provide intelligence and equipment in hopes of stabilising its troubled southern neighbour. “Gangs and criminals do not have status. They have no religion,” Ruto told a White House news conference. He vowed that the international mission would “deal with them firmly, decisively, within the perimeters of the law.”…

TENS of thousands of genetically modified (GMO) mosquitoes have been released in Djibouti in an effort to stop the spread of an invasive species that transmits malaria. The friendly non-biting male Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes, developed by Oxitec, a UK-based biotechnology company, carry a gene that kills female offspring before they reach maturity. Only female mosquitoes bite and transmit malaria and other viral diseases. It is the first time such mosquitoes have been released in East Africa and the second time in the continent. Similar technology has been successfully used in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama, and India, according to the…