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SIERRA Leoneans are awaiting general election results following a tense campaign marred by violence. There was a high turnout, with voters telling the BBC the process was smooth despite ballots opening hours late in many areas. There had been concern about potential clashes in the run up to the vote. On Wednesday, the main opposition party alleged that one of its supporters was shot dead by police, which the police have denied. Supporters of both main parties have been accused of attacking opponents. Accusations of election irregularities were also being thrown on Saturday, after the leader of the opposition alleged…

THREE of 14 medical students from different medical schools in Nigeria have drowned in waterways in Calabar, Cross River State, while having a boat cruise. It was learnt that divers from the Nigerian Navy were able to rescue 11 of them after the boat capsized Saturday afternoon. The students were said to have converged on Medical School Calabar for the 2023 Nigeria Medical Association Health Week. An official of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Cross River State chapter who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the incident to our correspondent. He said the three drowned students were from Ahmadu Bello University…

INTER Miami have announced the signing of Barcelona captain Sergio Busquets, reuniting him with former team-mate Lionel Messi. Busquets, 34, announced in May he would be leaving the La Liga champions after 18 years at the club. The midfielder will link up with Argentina forward Messi, 35, who confirmed this month he was moving to Inter Miami from Paris St-Germain. Busquets and Messi spent 13 seasons together at Barca from 2008 to 2021. They were part of a successful team which won three Champions Leagues, eight La Liga titles and six Copa del Reys. It has been reported that, like…

MANCHESTER City attacking midfielder Bernardo Silva is a target for Saudi Pro-League side Al Hilal. Silva’s contract with City runs to 2025 and, while the club are keen for him to sign an extension, he has a number of offers on the table. Paris St-Germain are also interested in the 28-year-old, as are Barcelona, who have been linked with the Portuguese for the past two summers. Barcelona have already agreed to sign his club captain Ilkay Gundogan. However, both clubs could be eclipsed by the salaries on offer in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh-based Al Hilal, who are in the process of…

US intelligence agencies have found no direct evidence that Covid-19 broke out from a Chinese laboratory, a declassified report has said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said both a natural and laboratory origin remain plausible scenarios. It noted most US intelligence agencies agree the virus was not genetically engineered or “laboratory-adapted”. The origins of the pandemic have been a matter of bitter debate in the US. The lab-leak theory has been strongly rejected by China. The ODNI report was released on Friday night after Congress passed a bill in March giving US intelligence 90 days to…

TITANIC submersible pilot Stockton Rush was “extremely” serious about safety, his former business partner said Friday after mounting criticism following a deadly implosion. “Titanic” movie director James Cameron has accused OceanGate Expeditions of ignoring safety warnings, after Rush and four other people were lost in the disaster while descending to the North Atlantic shipwreck. William Kohnen, chairman of the Manned Underwater Vehicles Committee, a voluntary industry body, said OceanGate was “not willing” to undergo a standard certification process for the Titan submersible. But Guillermo Soehnlein, who started OceanGate with Rush in 2009 before leaving the company in 2013, denied his…

THE Sudanese army’s infantry battalions have hardly been present on the streets of Khartoum during the two months-long conflict that has raged in the country, leaving much of the capital under the control of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). This is despite the fact that the army is made up of about 200,000 soldiers, roughly twice the size of the RSF. Yet the army is heavily outnumbered on the streets of Khartoum, as well as the two cities across the River Nile – Bahri and Omdurman. RSF fighters were initially moving the three cities in their armed pick-up…

SIERRA Leoneans are voting in a general election following a tense campaign marred by violence. On Wednesday, the main opposition party alleged that one of its supporters was shot dead by police, which the police have denied. Supporters of both main parties have been accused of attacking opponents. This election is taking place against the background of a troubled economy, the rising cost of living, as well as concerns about national unity. The voters are choosing a president, MPs and councillors in the West African country’s fifth election since the civil war ended in 2002. The 11-year conflict cost an…

PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has set up an inter-agency committee to resolve the lingering row between the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), TheCable understands. According to sources, the committee was set up to resolve NNPC’s failure to remit funds into the FAAC account. “I can comfortably tell you that Mr. President has approved the memo from NNPC Limited to set up a committee to reconcile the crisis between NNPC Limited and FAAC over the failure to remit money into the federation account,” a source said. “So many things have been told to Mr.…

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has accepted “not everything was perfect” for fans after criticism about the Champions League final in Istanbul. There were reports of fans having to walk extended distances along busy roads, queue for hours for transport to and from the stadium and being left without water as Manchester City beat Inter Milan on 10 June. Uefa previously apologised after Liverpool fans were penned in and teargassed before last year’s final in Paris. European football’s governing body had not previously addressed the issues experienced by supporters in Istanbul. However, at the opening of the four-day European Football Fans…

CHELSEA’s owners have agreed a deal to buy a majority stake in French Ligue 1 club Strasbourg. Chairman Todd Boehly has previously said a multi-club model is a good pathway for young players to gain experience. The size of the stake is unknown – however it has been reported the Blues will pay 75m euros (£65m) for close to 100% ownership. Club president Marc Keller said it was an “important day” for Strasbourg. The former West Ham midfielder added that while there was “no financial urgency” to the agreement, the shareholders were aware the club had “reached the ceiling of…

TURKEY has hiked its main interest rate from 8.5% to 15%, reversing one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies. The 6.5-point rise was far lower than economists were expecting, but it marked a major shift in policy by his new economic team brought in to tackle rampant inflation. Turkey’s leader has until now insisted on keeping interest rates down. Inflation is almost 40% and Turks are in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis. The head of Turkey’s central bank, Hafize Gaye Erkan, 44, was only recruited from the US this month in the wake of Mr Erdogan’s re-election…

‘TITANIC’ movie director and renowned deep-sea explorer James Cameron said many warnings were ignored about the safety of the tourist submersible that imploded near the famous shipwreck, killing five people. Cameron said the sub had been the source of widespread concern in the close-knit ocean exploration community, and drew parallels to the 1912 ocean liner sinking in which around 1,500 people died. “I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night, and…

PEOPLE are rushing to markets in Sierra Leone’s capital to stock up on food ahead of elections on Saturday, residents in Freetown have told the BBC. It follows a stand-off on Wednesday between the security forces and supporters of the main opposition party that reportedly left at least one person dead. Businesses shut down briefly amid the chaos and there is now a palpable fear that there could be further violence after Saturday’s poll. Sidi Yahya Tunis, spokesperson for the opposition All People’s Congress (APC), told the Reuters news agency that one of the party’s supporters had been killed by…

ABOUT two dozen students in northern Mozambique fainted en masse during classes. Pemba Secondary School, in province of Cabo Delgado, confirmed that the fainting spells had mainly affected girls during lessons on Wednesday. Officials say those affected by what seemed to be a contagious phenomenon showed signs similar to those of an epileptic attack. The students all recovered and are reported to be well. Provincial chief physician, Edson Fernando, said it may be related some kind of hysteria causing a ripple effect of emotion. This was not the first time there have been spells of mass fainting at schools in…

BRAZILIAN defender Dani Alves, who is awaiting trial in Spain for an alleged rape, defended his innocence in an interview published Wednesday, saying he has a “clear conscience”. The 40-year-old was detained in January in Barcelona after being accused of raping a young woman in the bathroom of a nightclub in the city in late December. The former Barcelona and Paris Saint-German star has been held in custody without bail because the court investigating him felt there was a risk he would try to flee. “I have a really clear conscience regarding what happened that night in the bathroom of…

GHANA’s record goalscorer Asamoah Gyan has announced his retirement from football. The 37-year-old fought back tears as he revealed his decision while on stage with former Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. “It’s time to tell everybody. It’s a very, very difficult moment,” said the former striker who scored 51 goals in 109 games for his country. Gyan later took to social media to explain why he was calling time on his 20-year career. “It is time,” he wrote, “to hang the jersey and boots in glory as I retire officially from active football. “A stage…

A GERMAN woman who joined the Islamic State (IS) group has been jailed for nine years for crimes including keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave. The defendant was also found guilty of crimes against humanity and membership of a foreign terrorist organisation. A court in the western city of Koblenz said the 37-year-old had abused the young Yazidi woman for three years while they lived in Syria and Iraq. It also found she had encouraged her husband to rape and beat the woman. “All of this served the declared purpose of IS, to wipe out the Yazidi faith,” said…

A CROSS that former pope Benedict XVI used to wear on his chest has been stolen from a church in southern Germany where it was on display, police said Tuesday. The pectoral cross was in a case in the wall of St. Oswald’s church in Traunstein, in the state of Bavaria, where the late Benedict spent his adolescent years. Thieves broke into the case and took the item, which the former pope had bequeathed to the parish, between 11:45 am (0945 GMT) and 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Monday. “For the Catholic Church, the value of this sacred object cannot…

SOUTH African police are investigating the death of Tina Joemat-Pettersson, an MP for the governing African National Congress (ANC) who was recently involved in a bribery scandal. There are suspicions that her death two weeks ago at the age of 59 might not have been due to natural causes. Before she died, Ms Joemat-Pettersson was one of three MPs accused of trying to extort a bribe of around $33,000 (£26,000) from the husband of suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to make her impeachment inquiry “go away”. All three denied the allegations. Last week, Ms Mkhwebane released some recordings of conversations…