Author: Editor

IN Ivory Coast, the opposition PDCI-RDA is accusing supporters of the ruling RHDP of carrying out a fraudulent collection of voters’ personal data ahead of legislative elections. According to the party, individuals claiming to belong to the RHDP have been gathering names, phone numbers, voter card details, and polling station information. The PDCI-RDA says these actions are allegedly accompanied by promises of cash payments of up to 300,000 CFA francs and the distribution of motorcycles, with the aim of influencing the vote. The ruling party has declined to comment on the accusations. The Independent Electoral Commission, or CEI, says it…

ISRAEL has become the first country to formally recognise Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent nation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel intended to immediately expand cooperation in agriculture, health, and technology. Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, called the development “a historic moment”. Recognition by Israel could encourage other nations to follow suit, increasing the region’s diplomatic credentials and access to international markets. Somalia’s prime minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, said his country categorically and unequivocally rejected what he called a deliberate attack by Israel on its sovereignty. Abdullahi said in a statement that Somaliland would join the Abraham…

ORGANISERS at the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco are allowing local supporters in for free after kick-off in matches where stadiums are not full, a Confederation of African Football source told AFP. The Group F game between Cameroon and Gabon on Wednesday in Agadir kicked off in front of almost empty stands, but the ground filled up significantly over the course of the first half despite incessant rain. The official attendance was later announced as 35,200 inside a venue that can hold over 45,000. There have been similar scenes at numerous matches across the opening days of the competition,…

MANCHESTER United head coach Ruben Amorim is not willing to let any players leave in the January transfer window unless replacements come in. Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirkzee are both keen for chances to play more regularly over the second half of the season. Mainoo still wants to go out on loan, while Zirkzee has been linked with a return to Italy. However, even when his squad is bolstered in the middle of next month by the return to fitness of skipper Bruno Fernandes and Bryan Mbeumo, Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, Amorim…

FIVE Israeli settlers have been arrested over their alleged involvement in an attack on a Palestinian home that wounded an eight-month-old baby in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the infant suffered “moderate injuries to the face and head” in the attack that took place late on Wednesday involving “a group of armed settlers” who were throwing stones at homes and property in the town of Sair, north of Hebron. Israeli police on Thursday said five settlers were arrested after they received reports of “stones being thrown by Israeli civilians toward a Palestinian home”. Israeli…

RUSSIA is doubling down on its claims on Ukraine, in an apparent effort to demonstrate some military achievement in 2025 at home and to influence peace talks with the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters last Friday in a year-end news conference that Moscow’s forces had seized Siversk in the eastern region of Donetsk and Vovchansk in the northern Kharkiv region. Putin also claimed Russian forces held at least half of Lyman and Kostiantynivka in Donetsk, and Hulyaipole in the southern Zaporizhia region – all front-line towns. Ukraine observers begged to differ. The Institute for the Study of…

FIVE people were killed, including two Czech tourists, after a helicopter crashed on Mount Kilimanjaro, the authorities in Tanzania announced on Thursday. All five people on board the aircraft died in Wednesday’s crash, which happened 4,700 metres (15,400 feet) up by Camp Barafu, the country’s aviation authority said. They did not yet know what caused the crash, they added. In June, the European Union put all Tanzanian air transport companies on its at-risk list following a series of accidents. In their statement, they cited “a shortage of qualified personnel, ineffective oversight processes in flight operations and airworthiness, and non-compliance with…

RESIDENTS of Somalia’s capital voted Thursday in a controversial local election that marks the country’s first one-person, one-vote poll since 1969. Analysts say it is a major departure from clan-based power-sharing negotiations. The voting of local council members, to be conducted across Mogadishu’s 16 districts, has been organized by the country’s federal government but rejected by the opposition parties, which have called the election flawed and one-sided. Somalia has for decades selected its local council members and parliamentarians through clan-based negotiations, and it is the leaders who later elect a president. Since 2016, different administrations have promised to reintroduce one-person,…

AT least one Palestinian has been killed and six, including a child, wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza amid a threat by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Palestinian man, Ayoub Abdel Ayesh Nasr, was killed and two people were wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on civilians in Jabalia in northern Gaza on Wednesday. Three people were wounded after being shot east of Khan Younis, medical sources told the Palestinian Wafa news agency. Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and wounded a child in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israeli forces have killed more than ‌400…

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hit out at a new nuclear submarine deal between the United States and South Korea, describing it as a threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula as he toured his country’s submarine production facility, according to North Korean state media. Kim said the deal between Seoul and Washington was an “offensive act severely violating [Pyongyang’s] security and maritime sovereignty and a threat to security that must be countered”, according to state news outlet KCNA. It was now urgent to “further accelerate the radical development of the modernisation and nuclear weaponisation of the…

ALGERIA’s parliament has unanimously passed a law declaring France’s colonisation of the North African state a crime, and demanding an apology and reparations. The law also criminalises the glorification of colonialism, state-run TV reports. The vote is the latest sign of increasingly strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, with some observers saying they are at their lowest since Algeria gained independence 63 years ago. France’s colonisation of Algeria between 1830 and 1962 was marked by mass killings, large-scale deportations and ended in a bloody war of independence. Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put…

TURKISH authorities found the cockpit voice recorder and black box from a private jet that crashed Wednesday, killing the head of Libya’s armed forces and his four aides. The Falcon 50 aircraft requested an emergency landing because of an electrical failure minutes after it took off from the Turkish capital Ankara, but contact was lost, Turkish officials said. The plane was returning to Tripoli. The wreckage was located by Turkish security personnel in the Haymana district near Ankara. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters at the crash site that the plane’s voice recorder and the flight data recorder (black box)…

KEPA Arrizabalaga was the hero as he saved the decisive penalty from Maxence Lacroix to help Arsenal beat Crystal Palace in a shootout and progress to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup in a game packed with late drama. The Gunners thought they had won the match when the unfortunate Lacroix scored an own goal in the 80th minute, bundling the ball into his own net when trying to clear after an Arsenal corner. However, Palace got a dramatic leveller in the fifth minute of stoppage time when Adam Wharton floated in a free-kick and Marc Guehi was the quickest…

GAZA’s health system is on the brink of an unprecedented collapse, with thousands of patients facing death or disability amid a harsh Israeli siege on the enclave, a top health official has warned. Munir al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the situation inside the territory’s hospitals was “tragic and horrific”, as Israeli authorities continued to block the flow of much-needed medical supplies, directly impacting the ability of doctors to respond to critical cases. Al-Barsh said the health system was suffering from widespread shortages of medicines and medical supplies, particularly surgical consumables needed to…

POPE Leo XIV on Tuesday called for a global truce on Christmas Day, expressing “great sadness” that “apparently Russia rejected a request” for one. “I am renewing my request to all people of good will to respect a day of peace — at least on the feast of the birth of our Saviour,” Leo told reporters at his residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has repeatedly rejected calls for a ceasefire saying it would only give a military advantage to Ukraine. “Among the things that cause me great sadness is the fact that…

THE Libyan army chief has been killed in an air crash in Turkey, Libya’s prime minister has said. Gen Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad and four others were on board a Falcon 50 aircraft flying out of the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Tuesday evening. In a post on X, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said signal with the business jet was lost at 20:52 local time (17:52 GMT) – about 42 minutes after it took off from Ankara’s airport. The Tripoli-bound jet had issued an emergency landing request before contact was lost. The aircraft’s wreckage was later found south-west of Ankara,…

UGANDA has imposed restrictions on the importation of Starlink equipment and similar devices barely a month before national elections on January 15, raising fears of an internet shutdown. President Yoweri Museveni is seeking to extend his 40-year rule but is opposed by Bobi Wine, a singer turned politician whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi. Museveni has been accused of growing authoritarianism despite rising to power after overthrowing a dictatorship in the 1980s. The opposition has been facing repression, including repeated attacks on Wine’s campaign during the current election period. In a letter dated Tuesday, the country’s communications commission warned against…

A CAR bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow on Monday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war. Kyiv has not commented on the incident, but Russian investigators said they were probing whether the blast was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces”. The attack was similar to other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed, or are widely believed to have been orchestrated, by Ukraine. Lieutenant General Fanil…

ISRAELI forces have killed at least two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Israel continues to violate a ceasefire agreement and block desperately needed humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged coastal enclave. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Monday that two people were killed after Israeli troops opened fire in the Shujayea neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City. Their deaths bring the total number of Palestinians reported killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours to at least 12, including eight whose bodies were recovered from the rubble in the territory. The Gaza City attack is the latest in hundreds of…

DETTY December, a popular term for Ghana and Nigeria’s end-of-year party season, can have “negative connotations”, Ghana’s official for diaspora affairs has said, adding that he does not want the label linked with his country. “On a personal level I don’t want the word ‘detty’ to be associated with anything Ghana… that’s something I’m not very comfortable with,” Kofi Okyere-Darko said. “Detty”, West African Pidgin for “dirty”, is used to express unrestricted fun when it comes to seeing the year out. The celebrations are thought to be a huge boost to Ghana’s economy. Last December more than 125,000 international visitors,…