Author: Editor

A BOMB blast in northern Myanmar killed two people and wounded more than a dozen on Wednesday, a military source and a member of a local rescue organisation told AFP. “According to the initial report, two men were killed and 10 others injured by a blast” that happened around 6 pm (1130 GMT) near a petrol station outside the town of Lashio in Shan state, a military source who requested anonymity told AFP. The source said the blast, which hit a nearby passenger bus, was caused by a bomb planted on a motorbike. Local authorities were investigating, they said. The…

BURKINA Faso’s military government says the country’s security and intelligence services foiled a coup attempt on Tuesday. It’s almost a year since the military leader and now interim President, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, himself, seized power. In a statement read on television, the junta said unnamed military officers and others had planned to destabilise Burkina Faso. They had “the dark intention of attacking the institutions of the republic and plunging our country in chaos”, the Reuters news agency quotes the statement as saying. It said some arrests had been made, without giving specifics. There have been recent reports of discontent within…

GABON’s military-installed prime minister on Wednesday outlined plans for a “national dialogue” to be organised next year which would pave the way for drawing up a new constitution. Nearly a month after military leaders ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba after 14 years at the helm of the oil-rich country, Raymond Ndong Sima told a press conference that an appeal for contributions towards the dialogue would go out from next week. Last week, Ndong Sima defended the takeover before the United Nations as a “lesser evil”, saying the intervention prevented bloodshed. Coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema, who was swiftly sworn…

THE Editor-in-chief of Al-Mizan Newspaper, a weekly news magazine of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) better known as Shi’ites, Malam Ibrahim Musa, has been arrested by the Department of State Service (DSS). Musa was said to have been picked up at the Aminu Kano International Airport on while on his way to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj (Umrah), on Wednesday morning. In a press statement signed by Abdullahi Usman, Musa’s family called for his immediate release. According to the statement, “No reason has been provided by the authorities for his arrest even as he is known for his…

AN Indian great-grandmother aged 92 has learned to read and write after going to school for the first time and inspiring others to join her, media and officials said Wednesday. Salima Khan, born in around 1931 and who was married at the age of 14 — two years before the end of British colonial rule in India — had a lifelong dream of being able to read and write. Khan, from Bulandshahr in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, said there were no schools in her village when she was a girl. Six months ago, she began studying alongside pupils…

THE Climate Action Platform for Africa (CAP-A), a public benefit organisation working to unlock Africa’s potential as a global hub for climate action, has announced the immediate past Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, GCON, as the new Chair of the Board of Directors. The organisation made the announcement in a statement, Tuesday. CAP-A’s work is informed by the realisation that Africa’s demographics, growth trajectory and natural resource endowments, coupled with its extremely low levels of current carbon emissions, enable the continent to aspire to not just net-zero but a substantial net-negative carbon footprint sooner than any other part of…

ALGERIA has pulled out of the running to stage the Africa Cup of Nations in either 2025 or 2027, the Algerian Football Federation (FAF) said on Tuesday, a day before the announcement of the host nation for each of the two tournaments. While it is guaranteed that Morocco will host the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2025, Nigeria will today know if she will win the right to jointly host the biennial competition with Benin Republic in 2027, News Point Nigeria learnt. According to a statement by the Nigeria Football Federation, Nigeria and Benin are the…

MANCHESTER United kept the critics at bay as they cruised into the League Cup fourth round with a 3-0 win against Crystal Palace on Tuesday. United boss Erik ten Hag and his players have been under fire after a disappointing start to the season. But, following Saturday’s narrow Premier League victory at Burnley, they secured a second successive win to ease the pressure at least a little. Alejandro Garnacho put them ahead in the first half and Casemiro doubled the lead before the interval, with Anthony Martial sealing the victory after the break. When United lifted the League Cup in…

AT least 100 people have died and 150 others injured after a fire broke out at a wedding in northern Iraq. Hundreds of people were celebrating in Al-Hamdaniya in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province when fire tore through the venue late on Tuesday evening. It is not yet known what caused the blaze, but early reports say it broke out after fireworks were lit. Flammable panels in the venue may have fuelled the flames, causing parts of the ceiling to catch fire and fall. “The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use…

THE UN stressed on Tuesday it was opposed to most dress codes for women, after France barred its Olympic athletes from wearing the Muslim hijab during the 2024 Paris Games. “No-one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear or not wear,” United Nations rights office spokeswoman Marta Hurtado told reporters in Geneva. Hurtado’s comment came after the French sports minister said the country’s athletes would be barred from wearing headscarves during the Games, in line with the country’s strict rules on secularism. French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera repeated on Sunday that the government was opposed to any…

UGANDAN police say they have arrested a 17-year-old student on charges of trafficking 170 young people. The police said that they arrested the high school student on 18 September in central Uganda. Police say that the student kept 170 young people at the home of a 28-year-old woman while they awaited transportation to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where the student had promised them jobs. However, the Uganda Police Force said on Tuesday that the trafficking scheme was a scam. “Upon interrogation he [the student] admitted that he wanted to extort money from the victims using the name of Humble Company in…

KENYA says it’s confident the deployment of hundreds of its police to Haiti by January will end gang warfare there. Last year Haiti’s government appealed for help due to the spiralling gang violence. Gangs have largely overpowered the police and now have more than three-quarters of the capital under control. Initially Kenyan officials spoke of around 1,000 officers going to Haiti to train local police and help protect key installations there. But Kenya’s Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua says it will be an intervention force to disarm what he called the “thugs and the gangs”. In a BBC interview Alfred Mutua…

POLICE have arrested a man accused of helping to distribute drugs found in a New York nursery where a one-year-old died after being exposed to fentanyl. Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38, is the third person arrested following the death of Nicholas Dominici this month. Large quantities of narcotics were found in a search of the Bronx nursery. Officials on Monday said they found a stamp during a search of the suspect’s home that was used to mark drug packages. Mr Paredes is charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that Mr Paredes…

NORTH Korea will allow foreign nationals to enter the country from Monday, Chinese state media reported, after over three years of Covid-induced isolation. North Korea has been largely closed off from the outside world since early 2020, when it shut its borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with even its own nationals prevented from entering. But it is this month showing signs of re-opening, with leader Kim Jong Un travelling to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin and sending athletes to compete in the Asian Games in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou. Citing a reporter, Beijing’s state broadcaster…

LIBYA’s prosecutor general has ordered the arrest of eight officials as part of his inquiry into the recent flood disaster that killed thousands, his office said on Monday. The flash flood, which witnesses likened to a tsunami, broke through two ageing dams on September 10 after a hurricane-strength storm lashed the area around Derna, a port city in Libya’s east. The officials are suspected of “bad management” and negligence, among other offences, a statement from the prosecutor general’s office said, adding that seven of them served currently or previously in offices responsible for water resources and dam management. “The mistakes…

FIGHTING has continued to be reported in Ethiopia’s restive Amhara region between government troops and local militias with the historic city of Gondar seeing heavy urban combat on Sunday. Local militias known as the Fano entered the city, one of the largest in the region, prompting intense clashes with the army. A statement published on the official Facebook page of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) confirmed the clashes adding that government security forces thwarted militia attacks killing more than 50. Fighting is also reported in multiple other places throughout the region with activists and media outlets linked to the…

ETHIOPIA’s Tigist Assefa smashed the women’s marathon world record by more than two minutes in Berlin on Sunday as Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge won the men’s race for a record fifth time. Assefa clocked 2hr 11min 53sec, more than two minutes ahead of the previous world mark of 2:14:04 set by Kenyan Brigid Kosgei in Chicago in 2019. “I wanted to break the marathon world record, but I couldn’t imagine that it would result in a time under 2:12,” said the 29-year-old. “I am very happy.” She finished almost six minutes ahead of Kenyan Sheila Chepkirui, while Tanzanian Magdalena Shauri finished…

ALVARO Morata scored twice as Atletico Madrid ended Real Madrid’s 100% start to the La Liga season with a fine victory over their city rivals. They led inside four minutes when former Real forward Morata converted Samuel Lino’s dangerous cross. Antoine Griezmann then made it 2-0 with another header, before Toni Kroos’ fine low strike halved the deficit. But Morata sealed Atletico’s victory when he rose highest to meet Saul Niguez’s ball in after the break. Victory moved Atletico up to fifth in the table, while Real are third – behind leaders Barcelona and Girona – after dropping points for…

TENS of thousands of people marched in France Saturday to protest police violence in demonstrations organised by the left, with clashes breaking out on the margins of the Paris rally. The nationwide protest came just under three months after the point-blank killing by a policeman of a youth outside Paris at a traffic check sparked over a week of rioting in Paris and elsewhere. In Paris, demonstrators of all ages held up placards proclaiming “Stop state violence”, “Don’t forgive or forget” or “The law kills”, with a statue of justice with its eyes crossed out in red. The demonstrators took…

AT least 16 people were killed in a coal mine fire Sunday in southwest China’s Guizhou province, local officials said. The fire broke out at the Shanjiaoshu Coal Mine at around 8:10 am (0010 GMT), the Panzhou City government said in a notice posted to its website on Sunday night. “It was preliminarily determined that the conveyor belt caught fire, causing 16 people to be trapped,” it added, with no further details on what was damaged or how the fire began. Emergency personnel extinguished the blaze and temperatures at the site returned to normal, but “after preliminary verification, 16 people…